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: Awareness after a Respite

Memorial Day weekend, like other extended weekends, provide for a temporary respite, where an interval and delay from returning to work provides for some relief in order to recuperate.  Yet, for those Federal and Postal employees contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under CSRS or FERS, the temporary nature of the respite becomes apparent as there is an increasingly shortened period of return, such that the ratio between “rest” and “benefits of rest” become increasingly and progressively disproportionate.  

As one’s chronic and intractable medical conditions require a greater amount of rest, the benefits returned as a result of such rest become less and less apparent.  Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit which is available to all Federal and Postal employees who prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that he or she is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.  

One must prove one’s eligibility, and to that extent, it is not an “entitlement” but a benefit that must be accessed.  If the benefit and rate of return through rest on weekends and evenings becomes disproportionately and exponentially overshadowed by the need for such times of respite because of one’s medical conditions, then it may be time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.  

It is precisely why the benefit is available — in order for the Federal or Postal employee to obtain the benefit which will be most beneficial of all:  an extended period of time for recuperation, commonly known as “rest”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire