Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Rubik’s Cube

Why we spend so much time of our lives attempting to return and reattach ourselves to that which once was, is a puzzle of human nature.  Comfort zones and childhood safety sensations of warmth and security; and yet, often the reality is that, to cling to something gone is best left behind, and the romanticization of past events is the undoing of present paths of success.

The frustration of fiddling with Rubik’s Cube is an anomaly; once the cube has been rearranged out of the original order of colors, we spend countless hours attempting to return it back to its state of inception.  In life, as in virtual reality, as in the games we invent to whittle away time, we perpetually attempt to return to the origin.

For Federal and Postal employees 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, that same characteristic of “holding on” to the security of that which we are fondly familiar with, is often the making of our own downfall.  While we try and return to the place of bygone days, the agency moves steadily forward, but without the baggage of romantic notions of loyalty and keeping to the past.

If you are not fully productive, they will find someone else who is or will be.

Like the repetitive attempts to solve the puzzle of Rubik’s Cube, the frustration of trying to change the lumbering course of an agency’s methodology of interaction with its employees will leave one to merely run on a treadmill which goes nowhere.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, is an option which is available for all Federal and Postal employees who have the minimum years of service (18 months of Federal Service for FERS employees; 5 years of Federal Service for CSRS employees).

If attempting to solve the puzzle of Rubik’s Cube is performed merely as a leisurely exercise, that is a productive distraction.  If, on the other hand, it is a metaphor for engaging in the substantive labors of life, then it becomes an exercise of frustration leading to dire consequences of epic proportions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Asymmetrical Lives

Asymmetrical systems are an important principle which dominates organisms and prevails in the world around us.  Symmetry involves balance and parallelism; a defiance through a counter-symmetrical eruption is normally an anomaly and deviation — a mutation in organic evolution which often results in extinction precisely because it is unnatural.

Humans live according to symmetrical principles.  Symmetry can involve a linear conceptual perspective; of a balance where childhood and youth is represented by X; young adulthood by Y; middle age with Z; and old age in retirement and calm.  But such a perception of linear quietude defies and ignores the realities of life’s disruptions.  Unexpected calamities, such as a car swerving into one’s path on any given day; being fired from a job because of an unforeseen reorganization at the management level; being inflicted with a medical condition such that the medical condition impact’s one’s ability to perform one’s chosen vocation; these are events which violate and infringe upon the linear symmetry we expect in our lives.

For the Federal and Postal Worker who suddenly finds that a medical condition is no longer allowing him or her to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, the asymmetrical condition is in contrast to others who are healthy, as well as to the expected path of one’s own career.  But in the artificial civilization of man’s own environment, symmetry and its opposite are what we make of it.  Since we are the masters of our own destinies, lack of symmetry does not necessitate extinction of an element of mutation.

Thus, for the Federal and Postal employee, filing for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, is a viable option precisely because it is an administrative process which was created in order to allow for the potential eventuality that some workers may become disabled from being able to fully perform one’s job.

Federal Disability Retirement is a concept which works within the system of asymmetrical principles; taking full advantage of it is precisely the reason why it was formulated in the first place.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire