Federal Disability Retirement: A Conscience for Work

It is a rare animal which one discovers, when a Federal or Postal worker looks forward to the day when he or she is preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS.

The concept of “conscientiousness” entails the traits of acting in accordance with the dictates of one’s conscience, and one’s conscience is formed and molded by the complex web of core and foundational beliefs — a system of accepted world-view developed throughout the course of one’s lifetime, refined by experience and applied through trial and error.  That concept is discovered in the Federal and Postal worker who has struggled and endured through the various medical conditions that he or she suffers from, and it is indeed rare that the Federal or Postal worker has a “desire” to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.

Having said this, however, does not deny the reality that there is a “necessity” to file, when the Federal or Postal worker has come to a point in one’s life where “wants” and “needs” clash.

One may want to continue to work; the reality of one’s medical condition, however, may dictate the need to file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits.  The fact that one has a conscience for work is a “good” thing.  However, where the desire for X contradicts the need for Y, and where Y entails a medical condition which is clearly preventing one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, then the clash of “desire” as opposed to “need” must give way, where the former must be recognized as subservient to the predominance of the latter.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire