Medical Retirement from Civil Service: Recognizing the best of times

Often, we mistake short-term travails with the chronic despair experienced by some.  In the midst of an experiential trauma, compounded by a lack of capacity to consider the limited perspective we find ourselves in, the enmeshment of the “now” without any insight for a better tomorrow, a future to behold nor a distance aglow with the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, inflames the inner Darwinian categories of instinctive responsiveness to merely survive.

In retrospect, one’s judgment on any particular day or time, or even of an event remembered, may be altered.  We may even point to that slice of life and state with aplomb, “It was actually the best of times.”  How often do we hear that when one harkens back to the starving days, when struggling was a daily commotion and worrying was but a common routine?

By contrast, such reverential references are rarely attributed to those periods where longevity of suffering cannot be measured, where the chronic nature of the pain cannot be determined, and where no promises can be made that tomorrow will be any better off, no matter what extent of effort is exerted, than the next day, or the day before, or the day after, or the time prior.  In such circumstances, change itself may be a necessary component in the search for a light of hope.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who daily struggle with fulfilling the positional requirements of one’s job, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the best option available.

The concept itself – the “best of times” – is a relative one; we compare it to other memories where distance of time has not faded too radically a moment of the negative:  no (or lesser) pain; controlled depression; inability to remain sedentary for long; unable to bend, lift or reach repetitively; unable to engage in the physical requirements of the job; inability to have the requisite focus, concentration or work for any sustained period of time without the high distractibility of pain; these, and many more, constitute the foundational loss which may qualify the Federal or Postal employee to become eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Perhaps, getting an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will not necessarily mean that the best of times still lay before one; but surely, whatever the future beholds, the chronic nature of one’s medical condition, the unbearable burden of the daily toil just to make it to work, cannot by any manner of the definition, even imply that the “best of times” resides in the present circumstances of choice.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a choice of sorts; it is to recognize that there is, indeed, life after Federal Service or the U.S. Postal Service, and further, that recognizing the best of times involves movement forward and beyond, where the present circumstances of negative returns will likely never allow for a regeneration of that which keeps us stuck in the quicksand of daily toil.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Bringing in the HazMat Team

The surreal scene makes for eerie production spots for Science Fiction movies and end-of-world stories of apocalyptic tales — of men in white suits and bubble masks with breathing apparatus combing the countryside.  But it is merely a spillage of hazardous material, and a team of men and women who specialize in cleaning the toxic chemicals was called in to manage, contain and clean.

But what of the daily spillage which occurs throughout, in offices, homes and populations unaware?  Of the psychological poison which slowly pervades, and the stresses and wreckage incurred by countless innocent victims?  Or of the toxicity from hostile work environments which slowly eat away, like those horrors one hears about in far-off countries of flesh-eating bacteria with no cure and no hope?

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, must often contend with a toxic environment tantamount to a chemical spill on the side of the interstate highway.  And like such a scene, the long and arduous wait for the HazMat team to arrive; the blare of ambulances traveling at dangerously high speeds along the shoulder of the road; the aromatic revulsion from the spillage pervading, slowing seeping, and one wonders:  is the smell itself harmful?

On a hot summer’s day, the toxicity seems to exponentially pervade, and the lungs which once expanded with the freshness of the air, deflates and constricts.   But who is the designated HazMat team for the Federal or Postal employee who is subjected to similar treatment, but caught within the web of hostility, aggressive denunciation and progressive ploys of adverse actions?  Federal Disability Retirement is often the best option to escape from the toxicity of the work environment.

Filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset must call in one’s own HazMat team; for, surely, there is no designated group who can clean up the mess of such spillage as occurs in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service.  Nay, it is worse than the nightmarish scene as portrayed by men in white suits; it is the ultimate horror show from which there can be only one escape: Filing for Federal Disability Retirement through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Leaving behind the Corybantic Dance Hall

Employment which fails to accommodate one’s disabling conditions is inherently and obviously detrimental to one’s health; when it exacerbates and further deteriorates, it is all the more time to consider parting ways.

Dancing is a medium of enjoyment and entertainment which is a passing cultural phenomena. The rhythm of two people in a constancy of coordinated steps and movements; the self-centered, egoistic age of the modern era denies the ability or capacity to engage in such in-tune embracing of efforts.

Ugliness, in contrast to the beauty of graceful dancing, is characterized by lack of coordination, stumbling, singularly separated movements lacking in attention to other motions; a self-centered continuum of disjointed gyrations. Agencies are like dance halls. Some are replete with coordinated rhythms of bodies moving, graceful in efficiency of stylistic constancy. Others reveal an ugliness and uncaring attitude, like two drunkards lost in worlds of self-pity and attending only to one’s selfish needs.

Federal employees, early in their careers, are invited to various dance halls, and the choices made may have changed over the years.  Perhaps the music has changed; there is a new DJ at the helm; or maybe the frenzied lack of gracefulness was less bothersome in one’s youth.  But at some point the dance hall itself, and the participants of such ugliness, have come to the fore, and it may just be time to leave it all behind.

Chronically ill Federal employees or injured 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, must sometimes leave behind the dance hall, the music, and the partners with whom one once danced.  Federal Disability Retirement is an option open at the exit door of the corybantic dance hall. It is an administrative process which is submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS or CSRS.

As time passes by, the frenzied antics of one’s youth may need to be left behind, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM may be a necessity in order to attain a level of calm and quietude, away from the dance hall which contributes, exacerbates, or exponentially quantifies one’s medical conditions which need attending to in order to consider any future at all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire