Federal Worker Disability Retirement: Worth and the Sanctified Process

To hold sacred and to consecrate; it is a recognition that a period, an event, an article or symbol is worthy of being set aside for reverential sequestration.  When one once recognizes that the body which one occupies, is being attacked by a medical condition, it is time to care for it.

Life cannot go on as days of yore; as guilt precedes sentencing, so the manner in which we act will determine the length of days for which we must account.  And so the cycle of humanity wrapped in empathy, of souls anguishing over spent days of youth, and whether we wasted our finite activities of superficial social interactions; as we tended to our dying parents, or merely showed concern for a sick relative, the age old question sometimes haunts us:  Are we our brother’s keeper, and to what extent do we owe an obligation?  But it is different with one’s own health; its ownership and obligation cannot be avoided; as health deteriorates, so the days grow longer and require greater exertion and arduous efforts. In the end, how we treat our own bodies reflects the depth and extent of who we are.

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, the avoidance of the issue and the struggle to simply “hold on” to that which is familiar, is a way to delay the penultimate realization that there are priorities in life, and the worth of a life is intricately entangled in the choices we make, and how we treat the process, whether with sanctified reverence, or of a lasting imprint of stigmata.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit accorded to all Federal and Postal employees, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS.   It is ultimately a process which ends up at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; and while it is merely a mundane administrative process, it is the accessibility of time, reflection and future alternatives which, if approved, allows for the Federal and Postal employee to tap into, where the worth of tomorrow, and the sanctification of memories once held but lost in the turmoil of daily living, can again be attained through the restorative reflection of time and quietude of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: Life’s Strata

In geology and archaeology, the term strata refers to layers of sedimentary rock, soil, etc., which provides for identifiable characteristics distinct from previous and subsequent layers, such that time periods and markers can be established and differentiated.  From it evolved the discipline of stratigraphy.

The fact that we can actually study dirt and debris and glean meaning from it is exceptional in what we do in life; but on the other hand, it should not be surprising, given the extent of such debris and layers of rot which we allow to form upon our own lives on a daily basis.  We rarely even notice how much dirt we allow to accumulate; then, at the end of the day, we look at our hands and realize how dirty they are, and proceed to wash them without thought.

But what of the strata of human debris?

Of traumas and psychological harms which we allow to press upon us, leaving aside the toxic physical fractures which we ignore until it requires emergency surgery.  Medical conditions will sometimes occur suddenly; often, however, they result upon the incremental cumulative impact from repetitive laying of stresses, both physical and psychological.  And like the strata studied in geology and archaeological expeditions, in retrospective reflection, there are clearly identifiable markers during a specific time period of our lives.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from medical conditions such that the medical conditions, whether physical, psychiatric or emotional, impact and prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is important to consider the option of Federal Disability Retirement.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, may allow for the next strata of life to be identifiably distinct from the previous layer, and therefore allow for the stratigrapher to engage in the true study of relevance:  an improvement in the human condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire