OPM Disability Retirement: The Crumbling Walls of Professional Conduct

The aged bemoan of modernity; youth view the present as merely fodder for change and future potential; and caught in between, somewhere in the netherworld of inertia, those inconsequential individuals relegated to the irrelevant category of “middle age”, who must stand by and witness the slow and progressive destruction of the past, the deterioration of cohesiveness of the future, and the present infirmity of impotence.

Medical conditions are funny animals; because they are personal in nature, the revelation of such private matters tends to scare people, because the emergence of such confidential conveyance violates the unspoken walls of professional distance; but for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact the performance of one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service, it is often necessary to provide some component of one’s medical condition in order to ascertain and establish the extent of needed accommodations — for purposes of filing for FMLA, to take needed SL or LWOP, or to counter allegations of misconduct or violation of “leave policy”, etc.

Within the greater context of life, there is a sense there the walls of professional conduct which once protected privacy concerns and acceptable behaviors, are crumbling in modernity.  Anything and everything goes; there is no normative constraint, anymore, because the demarcation between private and professional have disappeared.

The same is true when applied to the administrative process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The entire bureaucratic process engenders privacy concerns because of the sensitive nature of the information which must be submitted.  But those are merely “side issues” which should be placed in their proper perspective; for, in the end, when the final wave of goodbye is motioned, and one has obtained an approval from OPM in order to exit with a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, the crumbling walls of professional conduct as revealed by one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service will be but a far echo of past misdeeds, as one walks out into the future of a brighter tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Privacy Factor

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through one’s agency, en route to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under whichever various retirement systems (FERS, CSRS or CSRS-Offset), the inherent dangers of revelation, violation or dissemination, whether intended or otherwise, becomes a focused concern for every Federal or Postal employee engaging the administrative process.

The idea that a stranger may view one’s medical information is one thing — for, in that event, we have become used to the discomforting acceptance that strangers at a records copier service may inadvertently “view” such medical documents; or, that the necessity of the administrative specialist at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management must analyze and evaluate the medical information provided; and such instances are unavoidable and therefore marginally acceptable.

It is, rather, the viewing and dissemination of those whom we are familiar with, which tends to concern.  But to focus too obsessively upon such issues can distract and detract; the scent of vulnerability — a euphemism for people being nosey — is a natural result of bureaucracies, and Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service are rampant petri dishes for uncontrollable spread of viral prurient interests.  Fear of imaginative consequences can harmfully present an obstacle for progress.

Assume that the worst will happen, and when something less actually occurs, acceptance of such lesser results will be easier to embrace.  Medical conditions and information about one’s disability are indeed matters of privacy; but when a Federal or Postal employee voluntarily files for Disability with the Office of Personnel Management, the road from Point A to Destination B should be a straight line of focus, and not marred with distractions which ultimately have little consequential impact.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire