It is similar to the proverbial truth of the “straw that broke the camel’s back”; or of the wise commoner who saved the king’s daughter from drowning, and who was offered a bounty of rice, to which he proposed the following: on each square of the chessboard, a doubling of the number from the previous square. The temptation of the exponential factor is almost always unable to be resisted; that is the converse principle by which we live: by adding one (we are told), it will make our lives less complicated (so we believed).
Technology and the addition of each innovation would buy us more leisure time; work and stress would be lessened, because the salesman persuaded us that it would be so. And so we have become accustomed, attuned, and trained to think in a linear, progressively upward trend; that the more we accumulate, the happier we will become, until one day the economics of aggregation become so burdensome that the weight of all of those additional threads of straw pile upon us with ever-growing pressures of daily living, and the salesman who sold that last gadget has walked away with the sack full of rice, content to have saved our lives (or laughing all the way to the bank with a knowing grin).
It is the conditioning of a cumulative-based society. And, of course, when the burden is further exacerbated by a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts one’s ability to remain at the same purchasing power of economic viability, we are willing to sacrifice our health for the sake of more stuff. For the Federal and Postal Workers who have dedicated their collective lives to furthering the mission of one’s agency, it is often a little more complex and complicated than just the economic issue; it is entangled with a sense of self-sacrifice, and a loyalty tending towards irrational discourse. Perhaps this is a natural course for things; perhaps it is “the mission” which first tempted and attracted the Federal or Postal Worker to begin with.
In any event, Federal and Postal Workers fight to the end before contemplating filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, and often to the detriment of one’s own health. Federal Disability Retirement benefits are there, however, for the Federal or Postal Worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job. Whether under FERS or CSRS, it is ultimately filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
While it is an annuity which will reduce the purchasing power of the Federal or Postal employee, the question which all Federal or Postal employees must ask is the following: What is the priority of one’s life, and at what point in our lives did we come to believe that acquiring things were more important than life itself?
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Reflections of an OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer | Tagged: beginning the process or continue with pain and a and progressive deterioration of your health, civil service disability retirement, controlling your own health and finances with opm disability retirement, disabled federal employees: whether money is more important than health, discerning priorities and needs after an accident in the postal service, federal disability retirement and a matter of priorities, fers disability retirement won't make you rich but at the end you may end up making just as much as with your former federal job, FERS medical retirement, going blindly through the same route may deteriorate your medical condition, if the federal worker has a progressively deteriorating illness, if you find yourself taking excessive days off just to recuperate from a medical condition that may be an indicator that you need to consider filing for federal disability retirement, if your health is more important than your job, injured federal employees and pursuing their own priorities, injured federal employees' dilemmas - money or health?, is the future of your health and finances worthy to fight for?, just narrowing your options putting your health always as a priority, life priorities after a disability in the postal service, living with a deteriorating living condition and the injured postal worker, medical decision is more important than economic issue, Postal Service disability, preserving one's deteriorating health, recuperating from a federal on-the-job injury, setting your priorities straight after an injury or illness at the federal level, the difference between wealth accumulation and moderate financial stability with federal disability retirement, the main priorities that disabled federal employees must take, the main priority a federal agency is its mission not the welfare of an injured or disabled employee, the more you wait to file form opm disability retirement the less time you'll have for medical recuperation and healing, the necessity of the present and the priority of the future, USPS Disability, what's more important for the injured postal worker money or good health?, when federal agencies only care about their ''missions'', when health is your main priority (as it should be) then your only choice you got is federal disability retirement, when subtraction of wealth becomes inevitable and one must start all over again for the sake of your health and overall well being, when the owcp finally denies your benefits for good and ever, with federal disability retirement you won't become rich but you will have some financial stability and your health most likely will not deteriorate as much as before | Leave a comment »