FERS Disability

Last Updated on December 20, 2018 by FERS Disability Attorney

There is an anomaly contained in the attempt to “save” faded photos; it is an oxymoron of sorts, where modernity erases the backwardness of yesterday, and yet, at the same time, wants to preserve it.

We have all heard about companies that exist which “preserve” outdated family movies, photographs and taped recordings of distant times; it is all placed, preserved, edited and presented in a convenient “thumb drive” or in some “cloud” in the ethereal universe of a web-based phenomena.  That faded photograph, beautiful in its brown crispiness of an elderly man or woman who looks serious, because in those days having one’s image preserved for posterity was a serious undertaking — in contrast to today’s selfies immediately downloaded and uploaded into a social medium that is quickly disseminated to countries worldwide in an instant, displaying a foolishness that would shock a generation or two of those removed from such technological “advancements”.

The world of faded photos is an universe of past histories now forgotten, frozen in time by a captured expression depicting a time before, now replaced by a time after, and forever remaining in the memories of those who have survived but now sit quietly in nursing homes of corners relegated to mere existence in darkening folds of dementia and antiseptic coils of plastic tubing extending lives beyond what the photographs themselves intended to display.

The world of faded photos defy the modern attempt to preserve that which was meant to last for a generation only, just as men and women try in futility to ignore mortality by cosmetic corrections that makes for appearances which procrastinate the inevitability of time’s ravages.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the world of faded photos is the one that you remember “before” the onset of the medical condition, and instead of attempting to “preserve” the photograph, it is best to recognize that the image you see in the mirror today is the one worth protecting, and not the faded daguerreotype of yesterday, and the best way to do that is to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement so that you can secure some semblance of your future, and not be frozen in the timelessness of the world of faded photos.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire