Medical Retirement from the U.S. Postal Service and other Federal Agencies: The State of Solitude

Having a medical condition necessarily results in a state of solitude.  While others can empathize, no one else can fully comprehend the totality of the experiential turmoil and trauma, the emotional, physical and psychological toll upon the diminished personhood and the daily struggle endured.  It is a solitary state of existence, and all the more so when individuals, agencies, friends, family and acquaintances fail to take the time to understand.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must, on top of the medical condition itself and the residual impact and consequential symptomatologies which pervade and cling, like dust mites slowly feeding upon the progressive trail of human deterioration, continue to contend with the exacerbating and exasperating reaction of one’s own agency, supervisors, managers and coworkers who engage in daily pettifoggery of irritating acts of hostility and unpleasantness, the dual contention of dealing with the medical condition while concurrently responding to adverse actions by the agency or the Postal Service, only serves to exponentially increase the tension and turmoil.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset is not (and should not be) an issue of surrendering to the slings and arrows of the agency or the U.S. Postal Service; rather, it is a recognition and acknowledgement as to the greater priorities of one’s life:  to continue with an agency or organization that clearly no longer wants or needs you, and thereby complicate properly and adequately attending to the medical condition itself; or to affirmatively choose to forego the unnecessary stresses of an increasingly hostile work environment, and to take the required steps to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, eligibility for medical retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

There again, such a decision must be made within the contextual state of solitude; for, in the end, it is only the person experiencing the trauma of the medical condition who understands the need to lessen the solicitous state of existence, in order to escape the solitude of a soul’s anguish.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: It’s a Dog’s Life

Animals are entities we encounter as subjects in a world of objects, but with whom we can have relationships and interactions beyond mere utility; the affection of a dog or similar pet, their importance in one’s life — these are beyond measurable quantification of significance.  But there is a difference in the “other” species; of the immediacy of need, the lack of concern for tomorrow, and happiness determined by thoughts of future occurrences or predicted circumstances.

Looking for trouble (don’t try this at home … these puppies are trained professionals).

That difference is often what determines the linear intractability of human anxiety, as opposed to the fullness of joy seen in a dog or a cat.  Dogs are happy because they are; the present immediacy of their satisfied lives is contained within the existential presence of the here and now.  Worries about tomorrow, or next year; how will we get on with life? What is the meaning of…   These are not tangible concerns which dogs and cats, or other similar species, concern themselves with.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, those anxiety-filled question impacting future security come to the fore, and begin to haunt.  But that life could be like that of a dog; yet, on the other hand, one need only visit the many animal rescue facilities to conclude that a dog’s life is not always a metaphor for endless joy.

After a long day terrifying JWs, girl scouts and mail carriers, this puppy needs a nap. (This model is the nephew of a former Postal employee and client).

For the Federal or Postal worker, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, should have some weight of relief as an option for the future.

It is, after all, a benefit which is part of one’s employment and compensation package, but one which is often not emphasized at the initial stages of one’s career.  It provides for an annuity while allowing for employment outside of the Federal Sector, within certain guidelines and limitations.

During a time of medical need, the priority of concerns should always be:  attend to one’s medical conditions; get through each day to the best extent possible; secure one’s future, including filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits if one is a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker, as soon as the need becomes known.

For the Federal and Postal worker, such priority of circumstances is what determines the present and future happiness of one’s existence; for the dog, it is the second of the three which matters, but then, as long as the meal is served, and the after-dinner treat is offered, the wagging tail tells the tale of contentment at the end of a long day’s journey.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employees Disability Retirement Systems: The Quarantined Mind

From early childhood, the necessity of imposing constraints and conformity produces the positive effect of a well-ordered society.  But corollary and unforeseen consequences often occur, as in the quashing of creativity and mindsets which step outside of the proverbial “box”.

The problem with people talking about thinking “outside of the box” is that such a thought process itself constitutes nothing more than mundane conventional wisdom.  Those who have considered thoughts beyond the artifice of social concordance have already done that which is widely preached, but little known.  Then, along comes a calamity or crisis, necessitating a change of lifestyle and a different manner of approaching the linear and customary manner of encountering life.  The other adage comes to mind:  necessity is the mother of invention.

Medical conditions tend to do that to people.  Suddenly, things which were taken for granted are no longer offered:  health, daily existence without pain; the capacity to formulate clarity of thought without rumination and an impending sense of doom.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit offered to all Federal and Postal employees who require a second chance at life’s anomaly; it allows for a base annuity in order to secure one’s future, while at the same time allowing for accrual of retirement years so that, at age 62, when the disability retirement is recalculated as regular retirement, the number of years one has been on disability retirement counts towards the total number of years of Federal Service, for recalculation purposes.

It allows for the Federal or Postal employee to seek out a private-sector job, and earn income up to 80% of what one’s former Federal or Postal position currently pays, on top of the disability annuity itself.  It thus allows and encourages the Federal and Postal worker to start a new career, to engage another vocation, and consider options beyond the original mindset of one’s career in the federal sector.

In the end, it is often our early childhood lessons which quarantined the pliant mind that leads to fear of the unknown because of changed circumstances.  To break out of the quarantined mind, sometimes takes a blessing in disguise; but then, such a statement is nothing more than another conventional saying, originating from the far recesses of another quarantined mind.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

USPS & OPM Federal Employee Disability Retirement: One of Those Days

There are “those days”, so characterized because of the micro-calamities which, in their cumulative impact, disproportionately reveal a compendium of aggregated irritants amounting in totality to a forgetful epoch of one’s life.

By contrast, a medical condition of an insidious nature, progressively deteriorating, chronic in persistence and debilitating in severity, magnifies tenfold — nay, a hundred, a thousand, a ten-thousand-fold impact of exponential consequences — the remembrances of pain, psychiatric turmoil, and the bitter acknowledgment that life’s meaningful embrace has lost its luster.

The vibrancy of youth, of formidable tolerance for reckless antics and disregard of forbearance and calm rectitude of reasoned behavior, now replaced with caution and trepidation, lest the excruciating pain explodes unmanageably and coworkers can see that you are one of the ones who are now an “outsider”, like those of old, isolated, quarantined and banished to the leper colony, no longer extolled of the talents and virtues once possessed.

While microcosmic calamities can be shrugged off with an excuse of blaming some external circumstances, the problem with medical conditions is that it is tied singularly, inextricably, and undeniably, to the person “possessing” the medical condition; and like siamese twins who share a vital organ, one cannot extricate from the consequences of a medical condition as one can from a spilled cup of coffee.

For the Federal worker or Postal employee who suffers from a health condition, such that the medical condition constitutes a daily cup of spilled coffee, the choices are quite clear: remain in the same capacity and bear the brunt of the daily calamities; resign and walk away with little to nothing to show for one’s lifetime efforts; or the more viable option, to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS.

One can sit and sigh, and resign one’s self to accepting fate as characterized as “one of those days”; or fate can be controlled, maneuvered and manipulated, to where those days of calamitous casuistry can be relegated to forgettable events of days bygone, and where the Federal or Postal employee can begin to rebuild a future based upon an OPM Disability Retirement annuity which allows for a base annuity, along with the potential to earn up to 80% of what one’s former position currently pays.

Thus, just as a cup of coffee spilled can be cleaned up; so the hallmark of “one of those days” can be merely an isolated event in an otherwise greater spectrum of life’s potentialities.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire