Federal & Postal Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS: Clueless

Last Updated on January 26, 2022

We are, for the most part, clueless in most things.  Those very limited subjects of which we are deemed an “expert” or having some partial knowledge about, are merely one in a million, and so we walk around thinking highly of ourselves, yet clueless in 99.9% of everything else.

Fortunately, there is no criminal statute that can be imposed upon being clueless.  Life is complex enough without having to acknowledge that we walk about without any real idea as to how to tackle the problems; but as braggadocio wins the day for most people, most of the time, so long as the next guy believes that we know what we are doing, it counts for much of life’s conundrums.

Most people aren’t even barely competent in their chosen fields until they have been engulfed in the technicalities presented for 20 – 30 years; then, just when competence is assured, we are fired or otherwise dismissed summarily.  Knowledge and wisdom in this country is never valued; rather, the cult of youth, plastic surgery to extend the appearance of it, and the irrelevance reflected in casting aside those who have passed the halfway mark reveals much about this society.

That’s the problem with Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service; they believe that Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are essentially fungible goods, replaceable with youth or some other inexperienced and clueless individual.  Look at the entire issue of “accommodations” and Federal Disability Retirement law; agencies rarely put in the effort, other than a simple computer search to try and do a “match” between skill-sets and position descriptions (sort of like a corollary to internet dating sites), and the entire process and procedure reveals much about the value that Federal agencies and U.S. Postal workers place upon experience and wisdom.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing 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 questions surrounding SF 3112D and the Agency’s efforts to reassign or otherwise “accommodate” the Federal or Postal employee’s medical disabilities, is a rather complex issue to explain in full.

Suffice it to say, however, that a truly viable, legally-acceptable accommodation rarely, if ever, happens, and therefore is almost never a roadblock to filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.  It is just another indication of how clueless even the Federal Agencies are, as well as the U.S. Postal Service; and as we all step into the general cauldron of cluelessness within the confines of a clueless universe, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application can serve to be an escape into the next phase of a clueless process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

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