Filing for Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: Remakes

Last Updated on February 21, 2019 by FERS Disability Attorney

Some hate them and vow never to view or accept them in any way, being purists at heart and unable to fathom any possibility that improvement can be had upon an old classic; others — the opposite side of the coin — welcome anything new and will relish all updated versions where the old can be replaced by the new.  Still others remain in a somewhat “neutral” frame of mind: Acceptance in the form of saying to one’s self, “Well, any remake is merely a new and different movie; you can’t compare the two because they are different interpretations by different people.”  Or, perhaps a more moderated tonality: “Let’s just give it a chance.”

Can Jeff Bridges be any better than John Wayne as U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn?  Can any modern adaptation recapture the magic in Twin Peaks or improve upon its avant-garde approach?  Can there be a “better” Charlie than Diane Keaton in John le Carre’s The Little Drummer Girl — depicting the emotional turmoil of the Middle East conflict through the instability and confusion of a single person?

Modernity thinks that all previous generations have been lacking in something; perhaps it is just arrogance to think that a “remake” can be better than the original, or is it merely a lack of creativity because the “now” is unable to come up with its own original ideas, and therefore must rely upon that which has already been done once — or twice, or three times before — with an effort to “improve” upon it?

To some extent, it is an inevitability of life’s misgivings, and so we all have to “remake” ourselves at some point in our lives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the “remake” that must face is the one that is in real life: Medical conditions force one to remake one’s career, life choices and future plans.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may not have been a “scene” in one’s life that was planned, but it has now become a necessity.  The movie reel within one’s life — the viewing of one’s future; how one sees one’s self; the “takes” that one shot of a career and a future — is forced to be remade when a medical condition hits one’s life.

Whether one wanted to or not, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes a necessity when a medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.  It is like “remaking” one’s life.

Just remember, however, that like all remakes, it is important to have a good “director”, and seeking the counsel of a Federal Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is an important feature of the upcoming film adaptation and remake of the truest of moves: One’s Own Life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire