FERS OPM Medical Retirement: Refutation of Stefan Zweig’s Essay, “Books are the Gateway to the World”.
Not quite a refutation, but merely a protest — and perhaps a defense of illiteracy. Zweig writes beautifully; persuasively; in colorful prose that captivates; in convincing form — if not in logical argumentation, but more as a poet who is convinced that words, books, literacy and the spread of the written word is indispensable to life itself.
He ends with this poetic flourish: “The more intimately the man associates with books the more profoundly he experiences the unity of life, for his personality is multiplied; he sees not only with his own eyes but with the countless eyes of the soul, and by their sublime help he travels with loving sympathy through the whole world.”
Who can argue with that? Who can so poetically refute and rebut a sentence of such insightful beauty? Yet, it is not with the argument for books and literacy that is objectionable, but rather, the notion that the man with whom he met and befriended but who is later found to be illiterate — that this rampage of sorrow and defense of literacy is at the expense of this unfortunate man.
Consider how he describes such a person: “He is walled in by himself, because he knows nothing of books; his life is dull, troglodytic (Definition: a “member of any of various peoples (as in antiquity) who lived or were reputed to live chiefly in caves” — i.e., “cavemen” or “cavewomen”). And: “I was shocked to think how narrow the world must seem to the man who has no books.”
True, Zweig may have felt pity for his new-found friend, whom he previously described as a person who possessed a “genius for mimicry and caricatured everybody”, and whom he found fascinating and of enjoyable company — until, it turns out, that he discovered his illiteracy.
The essay ends without a conclusion; perhaps he took the time (without writing about it) with the friend and taught him how to read. More likely, they went their separate ways — the other fellow pitied for the remainder of Zweig’s days, the author convinced that he was an individual to be pitied. But that is the criticism to be posited, isn’t it? That we make judgments without judging ourselves, and unjustifiably when we have the power to do something about the ills we encounter.
For Federal and Postal employees who have encountered that very circumstance — of facing judgments by others while nothing is being done — of a Federal Agency or the Postal Service that has determined that you are not worth “saving” because of a medical condition that now prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job; it is then time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.
Don’t wait around for help from your Agency or the Postal Service; it is likely that you will not receive it. Instead, consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law. For, in the end, the decision to take the next step to “help yourself” will be up to you, and you should not consider the Federal Agency or the Postal Service to help you as your “friend” — leaving aside whether they will even feel a scintilla of pity for you; they won’t.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Pre-Application Considerations | Tagged: air traffic sick leave request for long term illness, annuity payments for health condition inability fers lawyer, avenues to deal with harassment in the postal service of disabled usps employee, avoiding federal ruling against usps employee with an experienced attorney in medical retirement claims, can I work part-time when getting federal employee impairment pension payments, checking federal light duty status with federal employee lawyer, choosing an experienced attorney for disabled us postal service letter carrier, concerns and worries about form sf 3112c forms and application process, contact best attorney nationwide in case of postal employee terminated in usps for disability, contacting federal attorney about zero-balance paychecks while on owcp leave, depersonalized and indifferent reply on sf 3112d from supervisor federal employment, disability from the army for civilians contacting opm medical retirement attorney, dol employees with incapacities fers lawyer, ensuring a smooth federal employee's transition to medical retirement with the assistance of fers disability attorney, excessive sick leave use by usps employee, feb's incapacity worker, fed owcp attorney, federal employee getting fired for being sick, federal law enforcement disability pay schedule, federal owcp claims long term impairments, federal worker comp claim denied what can I do now, fehb health insurance long term condition lawyer, fema incapacitated government employees attorney, fers disability disapproval contact fers attorney, fers usps worker with physical impairment, filing for fers medical retirement with the opm, financial compensation from a disabling condition after employment with the federal government, finding an attorney for fers disability claims, form to apply for owcp disability annuity benefits to opm, getting a fers lawyer after that notice of proposed removal by federal agency, harassment usps supervisors employee lawyer, hostile environment usps fers lawyer, how a federal worker can gain an opm case number and a favorable decision in fers disability retirement with opm attorney, how to properly fill out light duty and early disability retirement request forms usps, I am applying for fers dr for mental disability, inability to work federal government fers due to thecal sac compression, incapacity mental fers lawyer, issues with federal workers compensation eligibility and considering permanent retirement instead with owcp, las vegas federal employee medical retirement lawyer, lawyer for usps disability, legal arguments usps incapacity lawyer, light duty accommodation fers attorney for us government workers, light duty federal employment lawyer, medical claim federal postal employee attorney, medical claim leave request for stress with assistance of specialized usps lawyer, nj fers disability lawyer, opm disability retirement status, opm medical retirement attorney helping federal employees in north california, opm medical retirement attorney serving new your city, opm medical retirement nyc lawyer, owcp return to work forced on, proof of owcp compensation and transition to fers disability retirement, requesting long term sick leave air traffic, requesting observation letter example for writing disability statement to attorney McGill during free first initial consultation, requesting sample physician letters for disability opm, seattle federal government disability retirement attorney, stress government attorney, stress leave for federal government workers with fers incapacity lawyer, tsp opm disability retirement benefits forum question link, using sf 93 form as medical evidence may not be enough for a disability retirement claim, usps depression lawyer, usps wrongful termination medical discrimination attorney, visit our forum for questions about postal employee community network forum, Washington state federal medical retirement lawyer, when opm hostile supervisors cause stress and depression on employees, when the us postal service uses awol and sick leave to fire postal employee, working part time while drawing disability pension from former federal employer | Leave a comment »
Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The mouse in the night
They are heard and often unseen; a scratch somewhere from the far corner of the room; a blur along the space between the couch and the wall; and the mouse in the night scurries along, making some amount of noise more greatly enhanced when the quietude of a late evening descends upon us.
Should we put out a mouse trap? The problem with that is that the dogs might come down in the middle of the night, smell the cheese and get his nose trapped and yowl with pain, waking everyone up. Or, hope that the mouse in the night minds his own business, scurries about without anyone noticing, and we can all pretend “as if” he doesn’t live in the same house as you do.
Like spiders, centipedes and other crawlers, the mouse in the night is there, has been, and perhaps always will be; we only try and rid the home of it when we hear it and it becomes bothersome. That’s how we often treat medical conditions, kids who are nuisances, and neighbors who are irritants – we attend to them only when they reach beyond a level of tolerance or a spectrum of acceptability, and then it is often too late.
When does “not yet” and “too late”, or almost too late meet on the spectrum of provocation? Does the mouse in the night become the provocateur merely because we hear him and imagine the slow but steady destruction he imposes, or the danger of the wife or daughter in the house who may scream suddenly (or is that being sexist to think that only the female gender will react in such a way)?
The mouse in the night is very much like a medical condition, where it comes and slowly steals one’s energy, eats away at the energy one has stored, and scurries along the contours of the walls in a blur of running confusion.
For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to now consider preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the sudden realization that there is a connection between the medical condition and the slow deterioration of one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of the job can be likened to the mouse in the night – you always knew it was there and that it was slowly eating away, if not by the noise, then by ignoring its presence; you just kept putting it out of your mind because of those “other reasons”, like the trouble it takes, the fact of facing up to it, the avoidance, and maybe even the hope that it would just go away.
But neither mice nor medical conditions go away, but remain as problems that keep gnawing until the hole in the wall becomes too large to ignore.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Reflections of an OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer | Tagged: a postal worker need to stay on disability employment only 18 months to be eligible to retire under fers, annual leave for long term sickness mail handler, awol for medical reasons federal employment, california residents opm medical retirement attorney, columbia district fers medical retirement lawyer, considering objective and subjective medical evidence for depression and anxiety, csrs disability retirement forms, dealing with supervisors negative comments on request for fers disability retirement, degenerative disc disease on postal employee, disciplinary actions and disabilities discrimination fers attorney, disciplinary actions for awol medical leave fers lawyer, distribution clerks with weight lift limitations and other physical incapacities requesting opm medical leave, feb's incapacity worker, fed owcp attorney, federal attorney serving usps disabled employees in connecticut and the rest of the usa, federal employment resignation form for disabling conditions, fema incapacitated government employees attorney, fers benefits if resign for physical or mental impairments, fers disabilities rating scale don’t exist search google bing or yahoo for: recognized disability ssdi vs. fers lawyers.com mcgill, fers disability retirement lawyer serving philadelphia area, fers medical documentation for retirement, fers usps worker with physical impairment, filing long term disability documents for usps, financial compensation from a disabling condition after employment with the federal government, finding an attorney for fers disability claims, forced fers medical retirement by us postal service, getting a fers lawyer after that notice of proposed removal by federal agency, getting approved with the assistance of a fers disability retirement lawyer, gov agency private practice lawyer for disabled employee, gov.owcp disabilities attorney, harassment in post office by management and stress leave, homeland security disability lawyer, how to apply for retirement for disabilities at the post office, I need help getting disability retirement from the post office, is a good idea to resign while under a proposal to remove from federal service for medical reasons, knee replacement and owcp disability retirement attorney, law enforcement fers fed mental incapacity lawyer, lawyers serving disabling federal employees wash d.c. area, mdd help with depressive condition in federal employees, medically retire from usps with assistance of nationwide recognize postal attorney, no such a thing as a fes disability rating scale visit fers-disability-retirement.com section medical conditions, opm disability retirement status, pennsylvania fers medical retirement attorney, post office disability retirement lawyer, postal disabilities lawyer, postal service letter to sign for disabilities, qualifying for lupus disability eligibility on federal government employees, questions about federal disability retirement, resignation from federal job medical issues consult fers disability attorney, sending my application for fers disability retirement, separation from federal employment medical inability to perform position chores, sf 3112 disability application package, supervisors at postal service creating a hostile environment for usps employees, termination proposal of postal employee with disabilities without opm pension benefits, us postal service offers of a modified job assignments, usps workers' compensation claims, visit our forum for questions about postal employee community network forum, when opm hostile supervisors cause stress and depression on employees, when sedentary postal positions for light duty won’t work, when the postal services refuses modified work assignments to disabled usps employees | Leave a comment »