Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Game of Calumny

Last Updated on September 21, 2015

If not one’s reputation, what is the remaining value?  If truth is not a goal, then what fills the void?  Yes, from ashes to ashes, and back to dust, and the elements which make up man are constituted by nothing unique beyond the environment from which he originates, and to which he returns; but the linguistic act of reductionism fails to achieve a full embrace, and just like the defensive football player who hesitates for a moment and sees the blur of the ball carrier speed past, so the aftertaste of materialistic reductionism is somehow unsatisfying.

For, to say that X is “nothing more” than an aggregate of atoms is to characterize a masterpiece as a mere collection of colors, and that is precisely Roger Scruton’s point, isn’t it?  Then, there is the game of calumny, of the capacity to try and strip another through slander and innuendo.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, that game by other Federal and Postal employees becomes a daily onslaught.

Somehow, it is not enough that one must suffer from the gods of fate and contend with deteriorating health.  Instead, one must further deal with the sudden isolation into disfavor, like lepers of yore shipped to colonies in deserted islands beyond the reach of virulent populations scared of their own shadows.  Slavery was outlawed decades ago, but the treatment of workers barely has changed.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the game of calumny by one’s “fellow” workers is merely another indicator that we are not merely a collected mass of elements to be spat upon, and that is a positive side to man’s inhumanity; but, then, finding out the truth about one’s fellow man is always better than to live in ignorance thinking that one’s Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service was going to be supportive through thick and thin.

The time of “thin” has arrived, and it is in the thick of things that one must now fight for one’s rights.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire