Disability Retirement for Federal Workers: The Loyal Mascot

Mascots are loyal by definition.  As they symbolize the team, organization, group or particular population as a representative spokesperson, any conduct of disloyalty would be considered anathema to the entity.  The converse concept, of course, is rarely investigated, but should also “by definition” be true: the organization or entity should remain loyal to the mascot through whom the representative reputation is upheld.  However, when the symbol of the mascot no longer serves the purposes of the entity, the appearance may be altered; a wholesale exchange for another symbol may be entertained; or perhaps the very need for the mascot may be scrapped.

For the Federal or Postal Worker who has sacrificed a good part of his or her life to the advancement of “the mission” of the agency, the feeling of being a mascot is often an effervescent quality.  Missions and causes are meant to be motivational focal points; a foundational rationale greater than one’s own lifetime of incrementally monotonous trivialities will provide a sense of purpose and destiny.

Such effervescence of feelings, however, can suddenly end, when an intersection of one’s destiny is interrupted by a medical condition.  For, it is precisely the harshness of a medical condition which suddenly awakens the soul, and contrasts those things once thought to be important, against the being-ness of mortality.  For Federal and Postal Workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition suddenly impedes the Federal or Postal Worker’s ability and capacity to further “the mission” of the agency, contemplation in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, should always remain a viable option.

It is unfortunately a time when being the mascot for the agency may need to end.  The failure of effectiveness may result in the agency taking steps to terminate “the mascot”; but before that occurs, it may be better to take hold of the reigns of destiny, and begin the process of securing one’s future without regard to what the agency may or may not do.  Loyalty is supposed to be a bilateral venue of concerns, but is almost always to the benefit of the larger organization at the expense of the individual.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits allows for the Federal or Postal Worker to consider the future and to leave the days of symbolism behind.  As medical conditions awaken the prioritization of life’s elements, so filing for Federal Disability Retirement is often the first step in recognizing that the days of the mascot may be over, and to come out from behind the symbolism to step into the fresh air of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM FERS/CSRS Disability Retirement: Decorative Bookends

Such a niche industry, whether by individual craftsmen or in factory output, must have recognized years ago that trouble lay ahead.  For, with the transfer of the reading public (which in itself is shrinking daily) from paper to electronic medium in the form of ebooks, the need for such anachronisms has diminished and is on its way to extinction.

Such objects were never at the forefront of civilization’s advancement or representative of its superior culture. Unlike the Model-T, military arsenals and the advent of tabletop computers, one cannot point to them and say, “Now that was the beginning of the industrial age, the technological age, the age of modern warfare“, etc.  Instead, bookends were purchased and displayed for a quiet, unassuming, utilitarian purpose: to help books remaining standing.  One rarely went into a store and bought only a single bookend; they come in pairs, and when one of the pairs is lost or damaged, then both became less of value in terms of everyday utility.

In going through basic training in the military, a similar concept was hammered: of pairing soldiers together and working in tandem to advance towards an enemy position.  Marriage is sort of like that; the cooperation, not the warfare (although some would point more to the latter than the former as representing the institution).  And so the statistical sales of bookends has been steadily declining.

Often, for Federal and Postal employees who come to a critical point of needing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the metaphorical association to the uselessness of bookends in modernity is obvious: the agency no longer supports the Federal or Postal Worker, neither in words nor in deed, and one can easily forecast the future value of one’s continuing presence. With the loss of such support, one feels like the singular bookend.

When that loss of agency support occurs, it is time for the Federal and Postal Worker to consider that option which exists precisely for that moment: to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS.  Work is important, but health so much more. When the bookend of the agency is lost or damaged, then one is looking at holding up one side of the spectrum.

Oh, and that metaphorical concept of the “buddy” system, taught in tactical military training? Like the singular bookend which can only hold up the rear, that’s precisely what the Federal or Postal Worker must look out for when once a medical condition is revealed to an uncaring Federal Agency or Postal Service.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire