Disability Retirement for Federal and Postal Employees: The Diatribe

There may well be an appropriate time for a lengthy diatribe.  The act itself often finds its impetus in bitterness; it also implies a lack of control, overwhelmed by anger and originating in attribution by an act of injustice.  But where emotion controls rationality, the loss of sequential propriety normally results in a corresponding lack of coherence and comprehension.

For Federal and Postal Workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal Worker is under FERS or CSRS, the urge to right past wrongs is a compelling force which often erupts in a diatribe of sorts, within the content of a Federal Employee Disability Retirement claim. This is, unfortunately, a self-defeating proposition.

Yes, agency actions often comprise a compendium of injustices; yes, treatment of coworkers can be the basis of collateral actions; yes, discriminatory behavior may be a justifiable basis for filing EEO actions; but, no, weaving one’s frustration into the substance of a Federal Disability Retirement application is not the right path to take, for the simple reason that it is not the appropriate venue in which to vent.

Federal and Postal Workers who intend on filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, need to bifurcate the issues, and recognize the practical dualism in existence:  OPM is a separate Federal agency from the one employing the chronically ill or injured Federal Worker who intends to submit a Federal disability Retirement application (in most cases, unless of course the Federal employee works for OPM — and even then, the section which reviews the Federal Disability Retirement application is separate and distinct within the agency).

Context and appropriateness are invisible lines which need to be followed.  Diatribes may have their place in literature; it rarely serves a useful purpose in filing for CSRS or FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: Striving for an Unobtrusive Life of Quietude

When first entering the adversarial universe of trial lawyers, a kindly but seasoned opposition who easily made foolish mincemeat out of the flustered composite of inexperience and youthful exuberance, but later approached to compliment the young whippersnapper to give some sagely advice: “You have a yellow pad. That is good. You kept looking down at it as if it was a security blanket. That is revealing”.

Whenever I see a man with a roadmap, and it is my job to disrupt the travel route from Point A to Point Z, it makes my job easier to make the opposition take some circuitous routes to force the journeying adversary onto more interesting pathways, to make him take in the sights and travel in a zig-zag manner, rather than in the straight line he desires to take. Point taken.

Revealing too much can have the negative effect of allowing the opposition to know one’s travel route; and if the purpose of one’s mission is to make miserable any goal-tending individual and preventing him or her from attaining a life of unobtrusive quietude (as is often the superficial purpose in life of Supervisors, Managers and other minor dictators who control multiple miniature fiefdoms throughout the Federal and Postal Sectors of employment), then providing an insight into one’s itinerary is like posting a copy of the newly discovered treasure map on Facebook and expecting secrecy because you clicked on a few privacy settings.

It is, indeed, a sad world in which we live; for, if the goal of most is merely to attain an unobtrusive life of quietude, the minimalism of expectation is for each to respect the privacy-space of one another. But perhaps that is asking too much of humanity.

For Federal and Postal employees, whether under FERS or CSRS, who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition has interrupted the unobtrusive life of quietude, filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through one’s agency (if one is not yet separated from Federal Service, or has been but still within 31 days of such separation) is the administrative requirement. If separated for more than 31 days, then the Federal Disability Retirement application needs to be filed directly with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

In either event, of course, all Federal Disability Retirement applications end up at OPM.  But in so doing, timing, the extent of any prefatory information to be revealed to the agency; to whom; for what purpose; and the ultimate question: When? These are all questions and concerns which must be dealt with in a sensitive, thoughtful manner, and particularized to each situation.

Mapping out a strategy on the proverbial yellow pad is an intelligent approach to take; providing a copy of what one has prepared, to whom, when, and to what extent, will determine whether one’s journey is an unobtrusive straight line from point A to point B, or a zig-zagging line of confusions beset with multiple points of disquietude.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Repairs

NASA astronauts train to repair their own complex instruments in space

It is to fix or mend, often applying to inanimate objects in attempting to return it to a state of existence prior to damage or defective manifestation.  We repair cars and upholsteries; lawn mowers are good candidates, and watches and anachronistic clocks of antiquity represent a special and technical requirement of expertise well beyond the facial simplicity of the unspeaking time teller.

It is that inner working of complexity which requires one to surrender a thing of incalculable beauty to a stranger with a mysterious ocular eye piece; like some futuristic member of the Jedi Order whose knowledge of the mechanical turbulences comprised of mainsprings, pendulums, balance wheels and pinions, with a dose of magic sprinkled by the wizard of time, hands trembling over the cauldron of sorcery with mumblings of necromancy and prophetic divinations.  It is the face of the clock or watch which makes its appearance one of beatific simplicity; the ugly inner workings are hidden, covered, concealed by the skin of time and the scales of infinity.

Despite all advances in medicine and medical research, scientists still have a long way to understand the complex human body

Humans are like that.  Though organic in nature, it is perhaps the complexity which is concealed that requires a wizardry beyond mediocrity in order to repair.

The stresses of the world impinging daily in incremental insidiousness, slowly and progressively destroying and gnawing at the internal mechanisms of complex functioning; until, one day, the spring which kept the timepiece accurate, or the pendulum which swayed to and fro in a symphony of monotonous rhythm, snaps suddenly to explode upon the surface of seeming quietude.

In common parlance, we say that he went crazy, or “postal”, or perhaps in more sublime instances of coordinated conspiracies, that a person simply could not take it any more.  Whatever the linguistic characterizations, responsibility for the damage to the time piece is never directly attributed; those who created the hostile work environment dissipate, and the sorcery of responsibility is magically disbursed into a thousand corners of ratholes to where such scoundrels scurry.

For Federal and Postal employees, whether under FERS or CSRS, there is always the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to escape the inevitable march of time which deteriorates. It is a benefit accorded to all Federal and Postal employees. It is not an escape hatch; it is not a cop-out; it is a necessity for those Federal and Postal workers who have dedicated themselves throughout all of these years, but have come to a point of crisis where one’s medical condition has begun to erupt through the surface of concealment, and has impacted one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job.

When conventional treatment and medication regimens won’t work for you anymore, perhaps it’s time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits

Just as modern technology and the worldly sophistication of today no longer relies upon the sorcery of incantations over bubbling cauldrons of mysterious but sweet-smelling ingredients, so it is often the failings of our own predilections of behavior which prevent us from moving forward towards that which is best for us. And like the time piece which needs the ocular eye managed by a futuristic Order of the Jedi, so the Federal or Postal employee needing Federal Disability Retirement may require the expertise of the appropriate counsel of choice.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: The Effective Approach

The sales pitch comes from every direction, all vocations, countless product lines and endless announcements of fanfare and ceremony:  the 3-step plan, the 5-point road to success, the 10-ways of X or Y:  it is meant to be a formulaic methodology of achieving a stated goal.

Formulaic approaches are perfectly reasonable; they provide an avenue which, through prior experience of trials and errors, the “seller” has formulated a method or product as the best means possible for achieving success in any given venture.  But the gimmickery of any formulaic approach can wear thin after a manner; and in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, ultimately the fanfare must be supported by three basic elements (see, even the undersigned writer engages in a 3-point plan):  The supporting medical documentation; The supporting statement of disability; The supporting disability law.  Of the three elements, it is the first (the supporting medical documentation) which is paramount and, to borrow (albeit in a non-technical, misused sense) Aristotle’s verbiage, the “first cause” or “First Mover” of a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Ultimately, substance over form must prevail, and will be most effective in a Federal Disability Retirement application; and the “substance” in this case is the medical condition itself — one which needs no fanfare, and certainly no 10-point plan for effective advocacy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire