Last Updated on August 8, 2021
The slow, methodical tap-tap-tap of a dripping faucet; what does it portend? Metaphors abound, and one wonders whether this new generation, attuned only to a digital age of technological quietude, as opposed to the churning smokestacks of the industrial age, can even comprehend the commonplace analogies which were once taken for granted within the community — such mundane descriptions as, “The marching of time” — for, without the mechanical ticking of the clock or watch, can one understand what one has never experienced? But it is the dripping faucet which still remains with us — of an indicator that there is a crack, an invisible hairline imperfection, a weakening over time, and one which we all know can only progressively get worse. It is a preface, a predication, an object-to-the-subject; it tells us that we must attend to it.
Like time and the inevitable progression of age, wrinkles, sagging eyes and the dying spirit, the sound of a dripping faucet reveals to us that the simplicity of a warning sign portends of an underlying complication which, once dismantled, may manifest the ill-winds of the future. It is like a medical condition; perhaps it began as a mere nagging sensation, one which could be ignored, or at least mentally set aside. But then, one day the nagging sensation became just “slightly more”, and from then on it stayed with us, like a whipping dog whose loyalty cannot be shaken.
The dripping sensation — for Federal and Postal employees, it may be the first chapter in the lengthy novel which must ultimately embrace the theme of Federal Disability Retirement — an option which is viable only because, fortunately, it is available; and in the end, that nagging sensation almost always needs tending to; and for the Federal or Postal employee who has that option of considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, while the faucet in one’s house may require the services of a plumber, at least the alternative to attain a level of recuperative periods of relief from one’s medical condition can be attained through an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire