Federal Disability Retirement: Perspectives, Altered and Static

Medical conditions have a way of changing one’s perspective; the daily outlook of merely taking ordinary things for granted reverts to an ongoing sense of appreciation for the mundane.  Even to be pain-free for a few moments may seem like an utopian state of blissful enlightenment.  The ordinary becomes the miraculous, and the order of priorities for others may become inversely reorganized.  But the problem remains for the world at large whose perspective has not been impacted by such alterations.

For the Federal and Postal employee who is suddenly confronted with a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the Agency, the Supervisor, coworkers, the U.S. Postal Service, etc., may not (and one can more forcefully predict, “does not”) share that change of perspective.

Pausing to smell the flowers may be fine for some, but not while in the same room as the Supervisor who sneers at such folly.  Such altered perspectives may need the mundane remedy of a legal response; and, ultimately, if filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is the option to pursue, because the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, then such a course of action should be initiated as soon as practicable.

Not everyone shares a change of perspective; and, indeed, the Federal or Postal employee who has an altered perspective should recognize that he or she once resided in the exclusive club from which expulsion and ex-communication is now imminent.  The static nature of the ordinary will always dominate; it is the extraordinary which remains in the minority, as history has always proven.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM FERS/CSRS Disability Retirement: To Whom Do We Owe Our Allegiance?

Whether allegiances are formed by a natural predisposition to an innate need to “belong”; or, as human beings are essentially social animals with a historical essence embracing a herd-mentality, it is a natural component within the personality, characteristic, and in-born psyche of our society that we crave a macro-personality above and beyond the micro-being of our individualism.

We give our allegiances freely, without thought, and with nary a price to be paid.  It happens naturally, within the context of our personal lives, our families, friendships, and in the employment arena.  One enters into a position, and before one is even aware of the potential consequences and pitfalls, you are deemed to be part of “that group”, under the mentorship of X, or suspected of surrendering your fealty to a particular management.

For Federal and Postal employees, whether under FERS or CSRS, such unthinking loyalty occurs almost immediately upon entering the Federal sector and workforce.  But one quickly learns that such mindless fealty is a unilateral embracing of an age-old puzzle: of what benefit does one accrue, and how strong is the fealty when tested?

The Federal and Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s job, quickly finds that “loyalty” to the organization is a unilateral concept, and never bilateral, where the agency owes anything back to the individual Federal or Postal employee.

That is when one begins to ask the question:  To whom, and for what, do I owe such unwavering loyalty?  It is only when this question is asked, that the Federal or Postal employee begins to look out for his or her own best interests.  Federal Disability Retirement benefits are available for those who find that the loyalty once relied upon is merely an empty chasm of broken promises and returned emotional items of defective goods; and the herd which once appeared to protect, is acting suspiciously like a predator in waiting.

For the Federal or Postal Worker, whether under FERS or CSRS, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is not a violation of one’s fealty to the agency; such blind loyalty, one must understand, never existed, except in the creative mind of a bureaucracy which dresses in wolf’s clothing in order to lure one into the trap of self-immolation.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

USPS Postal and Federal Gov. Disability Retirement: That False Sense of Loyalty

Longevity often masks itself for loyalty; yet, when an organization is so large and impersonal such that each cog in the wheel merely represents an irrelevant fraction of the larger entity, then the relative importance of the individual becomes correspondingly diminished in relation to the greater whole.

Loyalty has always implied the concept of bilateralism; but within an organization which has become a virtual Leviathan, it becomes an unilateral concept.  For Federal and Postal employees, length of service and commitment to the agency’s “mission” will often engender a strong sense of loyalty.  But such loyalty is misplaced if it is paid with the price of one’s medical health, whether physical, emotional, or psychological.

One of the greatest obstacles which forestalls a Federal or Postal employee from filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a sense of shame and misguided loyalty to one’s agency.  Somehow, the Federal or Postal employee thinks that he or she is “letting the agency down” by filing for Federal Disability Retirement and separating from Federal Service.  But such a sense of loyalty is misplaced, misguided, and at best a self-immolation of purposes.

Look to see how the agency treats you in actions, not in terms of how you perceive how the world should be.  While honor is a virtue to be applauded, failure to preserve one’s health is a folly which cannot be afforded.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire