Columbus Day 2022

Whether as Columbus Day or as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it is an official day off for Federal and Postal employees.  Does it matter what and how we ascribe it?  It has been many centuries since the voyage of Columbus; each child born today, and for many centuries past, can hardly be blamed for the ill-deeds of past generations.

That being said — if we are blameless — is it merely in the beliefs to which we identify, which marks the differences between us?  Certainly, for a Native American, it is irritating to hear someone claim that “such and such discovered America”; for, by definition, a land already inhabited cannot claim to have been discovered except by the inhabitants themselves.

But the argument is that the present society into which people are currently born, cannot possibly be blamed for the genocidal extermination of its indigenous peoples; and so, what can it mean as to whether or not one calls it “Columbus Day” or “Indigenous Peoples’ Day”?

The counter to that, of course, is that the reservations into which Native Americans were forced to accept, still reverberates with current loss of water rights, mineral rights, etc., and is a constant reminder of what was lost.  And it may be of some restoration of dignity to insist upon historical accuracy, where insistent inaccuracy is the basis for acrimonious inter-cultural relationships.

Yet, in this Post-Factual Universe where the Western approach of the Correspondence Theory of Truth once prevailed but no longer dominates, is there even a difference with a distinction?

For most, where the meaningful divide is between those who are overworked, barely able to make a living, and are stressed to their limits — which constitute the greater majority of individuals — and those who live a fairly carefree life of leisure (the greater minority of people), the fact of a day off, whatever you want to call it, is what seems to mean anything.

And for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who can enjoy the day to spend with their families and loved ones, Happy Columbus Day and Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2022.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

OPM Disability Retirement Law: Confusion and What to Do

Confusion naturally follows upon a new and challenging circumstance.  That is not an anomaly; it is not a negative reflection upon a person’s ability or capacity; and it should not be taken as a sign of some inherent weakness.

We like to think that we are prepared for every eventuality, but even the wisest amongst us can use some guidance.  This has become a “specialized” world, where no one can any longer be that “jack-of-all-trades” person.

Modern life has become complicated beyond the capacity of any single individual, and the loss of extended “support systems” — because of fractured family relationships, the incursion and influence of Social media beyond their healthy originations; and the sense of isolation despite the greater freedoms we enjoy — makes for increased confusion in the midst of so much information available through the internet.

The self-contradiction is inexplicable: The greater the availability of massive amounts of information “out there” in the electronic morass of the internet, the lesser knowledge attained and wisdom displayed.  Perhaps it has to do with the loss of need for memorization; perhaps because of over-specialization; but whatever the reasons, we have become less knowledgeable.

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, confusion and what to do is a problem which must be faced.

Contact an OPM Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and consider the next steps in confronting the challenges being faced when a medical condition begins to impact your ability and capacity to continue in your Federal or Postal job.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Attorney

 

Federal & Postal Medical Retirement: Performance Levels

They vary.  What are the indications of reduced, lesser or insufficient performance levels?  Perhaps for a professional race car mechanic, the mere sound of a NASCAR team’s engine, its vibrations, its volume, its purr, the sounds at high RPM or at idle — the performance level can be intuitively known from experience.

For the rest of us, it is a subjective drive, a feeling known day in and day out; we can push ourselves, but some days our performance levels are merely adequate; on other days, they surpass even our own expectations.  There are factors that impact upon our performance levels — the weather; whether we are sick or in good health; our moods; our energy and stamina levels for the day, the week, the month, etc.

Most of us are driven — whether by hope for the future, fear of what may come about if we do not meet expectation levels, or perhaps even by a mere desire to please.  When medical conditions hit, the inevitable decline of our performance levels follow soon thereafter.  There is a direct and inextricable correlation between our performance levels and the health that we find ourselves in, at any given point in our lives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts our ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of our job, you may want to consider preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and consider whether your health is more important than your performance level.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Employee Retirement Attorney

  

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Covid-19 Impact

The residual impact of this global pandemic is yet to be seen.  More facts; more scientific evidence; more tracing studies will have to be engaged.

Yet, for many Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the direct impact of the Corona Virus has already been felt.  Whether having contracted the virus and been hospitalized; whether deemed a “high risk” individual because of other underlying medical conditions or because of a suppressed and compromised immune system; these and other factors may result in a Federal or Postal employee being prevented from continuing in his or her career.

In that event, filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may be the appropriate course of action.

Consult with an attorney to discuss whether or not Federal Disability Retirement is the right next step during this Pandemic that has wreaked havoc over so many lives, and which will continue to do so for years and years to come.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Gov. Employees: Something Less

This is a country that has preached abundance for multiple decades, a couple of centuries, and certainly for a lengthy run on the concept: Expect more, not something less.  It has been touted as the flagship of opportunity, a place where dreams come true and hope abounds.  There has never been a view towards something less, for something less is an unacceptable concept to endure.

Commercials and television ads tout that we can “have it all”; that with a pill, things will be better; that if you buy a certain product, magic occurs; and if you whiten your teeth, everyone will like you better.  But what if life occurs where something less must be accepted?

Federal Disability Retirement pays 60% of the average of one’s highest 3 consecutive years of service for the first year, then 40% every year thereafter.  It is something less than what a Federal or Postal employee makes, but certainly something more than “nothing”.  It then actually does allow you to make something more — for, on top of the 60% the first year and 40% every year thereafter, you are allowed to go out into the private sector and make up to 80% of what your former Federal or Postal position currently pays.

Of course, your medical condition has already made you realize that life has to be adapted to with something less — something less than your full health; but Federal Disability Retirement does allow for something more, as well: Of a career beyond the Federal government.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and obtain the counsel and guidance of something more in dealing with a medical condition which has already resulted in something less — in terms of health and your ability to perform all of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Retirement for Medical Incapacity: Tranquility times turmoil equals?

Alliterations often require deliberate disentanglement; for, the focus is often upon the consonant being repeated, as opposed to the coherence of the alliterated sequence of words.  Both can be attained, however – of coherence and of repetition without incomprehensible aggregation, and in this instance, the multiplying effect of the calm of one’s life by events beyond one’s control can easily result in turmoil that was never requested, never desired and remained always unasked and unrequested.

Tranquility x turmoil is the idea that we fail to enjoy the relative calm in our lives because of the anxiousness of knowing that all good things cannot last for long, and must come to an inevitable end, no matter how hard we try to remain the solitary stoic in life, regardless of the hermitage we seek and irrespective of the complications we shed in order to attain a Zen-monk-like livelihood.

That is when, for instance, a medical condition hits us and the complexities of the life we attempted to avoid come to the fore and become all the more magnified, times 10 in an exponential ferocity that we simply cannot ignore.  True tranquility, however, requires the ability and capacity to keep all things in perspective, and to resist the temptation to allow for the turmoil to overwhelm us.  Keeping in mind that the concept itself can never be reduced to a mere mathematical equation, the question then becomes: What is the multiplicand, the multiplier, and finally, the product?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal worker’s job, it is when the monotony of daily living (tranquility) becomes interrupted by the medical condition itself (turmoil), that the product of decision-making is forced upon one’s life.

There are multiple options, and none of them are very satisfying: The Federal or Postal employee may just endure and continue on “as if”; the Federal or Postal employee may get terminated or sanctioned because of excessive usage of leave, whether of Sick Leave, Annual Leave or LWOP, or a combination of all three; the Federal or Postal employee may ultimately believe that resignation from Federal employment is the only option left; or, the Federal or Postal employee may recognize that preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted and considered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the most viable conclusion to a mathematical equation that one never expected to have to calculate.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Left to our own devices

This is a world where loneliness prevails.  Despite all of the “connectivity” that is bandied about, the fact is that the suffering of human relationships has been on the rise since the industrial revolution, and perhaps even before that.

The proverbial term itself has taken on a double meaning (for those who are comfortable with a more sophisticated linguistic and grammatical ascription, that would be a “double entendre”) – not only in the traditional sense of the phrase as encapsulating the abandonment to make our own way in the world, but in the sense of modern technological overload, of the very pragmatic sense that each of us are surrounded by the electronic contraptions we have embraced in pursuance of connection and social constructs that have resulted in a foreboding sense of growing isolation and angst at the loss of a human touch.

It is that loss of tactile warmth – of holding hands in a movie theater, picking up on the subtleties of facial expressions and looks; of being able to read the soul’s essence through intonations and the mystery of sense impressions.  We are all, in the end, left to our own devices, and more so in this universe of appearances and medium of messaging through words and abbreviations of words where illiteracy parallels the self-delusion of relationships created, maintained and transmitted by light’s illumination.

As Philosophy lost its pinnacle of wonder and incessant questioning when the pragmatic successes of science overshadowed queries perennially posited but never resolved, and as British Empiricism relegated all problems to mere linguistic wastelands where the tinkering of word-orders resolved long-held philosophical conundrums as mere confusion over grammatical misunderstandings and incomprehensible definitional mishaps (as only the British could so arrogantly decide for us how we should speak our language – although, oops!  — the greatest culprit was not English at all but that Vienna-born rabble-rouser, Wittgenstein); so we have now come full circle and find ourselves lost in a paradise of our own seclusion, like the image of the Cave in Plato’s Republic, where we see only shadows, only our own devices, and forever isolated within the illuminated tablets of devices made in foreign parts unknown.

That is the same sense that Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers feel when they are hit with a medical condition that cuts short one’s Federal or Postal career.  Isolation, being left to one’s own devices (in both senses of the phrase – of having no help from one’s own agency and presented with a number of puzzling and confusing forms to fill out), and like the boat up the proverbial river with no paddle, a reduced chance of success with the behemoth of all agencies, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Fortunately, however, there are “repair-shops” and refund policies for devices which don’t quite work; and the first step is to consult with a disability retirement lawyer who specializes in doing FERS & CSRS law.  Left to our own devices, we are bound to come up short with inadequate answers; for, in the end, it is the devices which we use, in the proper and most effective way, that makes the difference in an otherwise mad, mad world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Of the Black Widow

The subtlety of its attractiveness is often overlooked because of its mythology of potent venomousness, where it is said that its sting is more than 15 times the deadliness of a mere prairie rattlesnake, which — at least we can attribute an anthropomorphic characteristic of favorability — warns one with its loud systems resulting from its namesake.

It is often invisible, as its black and unassuming appearance allows for quiet traversing along the undersides of human existence; and the signature red or orange marking, often reflecting an hourglass on the ventral abdomen tells the frightening narrative of the limited time remaining once smitten.

Perhaps, while sitting outside enjoying the warmth of a mid afternoon pause, you reach half-asleep beneath the slats of the lawn chair, and it awaits; or the enthusiastically rapacious urban gardener who wants to feel the richness of the soil in the thawed gallows of springtime brightness, working by reaching with ungloved hands through a thicket of branches and deadwood, unintentionally grabs a bevy of clumpish organic material, and instead disturbs the habitat of this beauty of deadliness.

The mythology surrounding the Black Widow spider increases exponentially with greater study; from its sexual cannibalism to its neurotoxic potency, the innate fear towards spiders in general is magnified when encountering this particular one of is own species.  Yet, by metaphor or mere anthropomorphic analogy, we encounter similar and parallel behavior within our own species — of venom so toxic, and of seemingly innocuous engagements that barely warn, but where wariness should prevail over our lack of judgment and insight.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and where the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the confrontation with an agency’s Black Widow can be shocking, daunting and ultimately fatal.

And they can — of the human kind — lurk anywhere and everywhere; from sudden eruptions of coworkers and Supervisors whom you thought were harmless, to Human Resource personnel who spew secrets of stinging, venomous sprays which can destroy the privacy and personal information of countless victims; they, like the spider of infamous beauty, can reveal greater enmity than the prairie rattlesnake.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the only antidote available; but like the signature mark of the hourglass glowing in revelatory horror only after it is too late, filing for Federal & Postal Disability Retirement should be considered way before reaching into territories where unknown responses and reactions may prove too deadly or too costly.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Superiority in light of misfortune

Why is it that we delight in the misfortune of others?  Is it a perversity of defective character, like a genetic malformation of deviancy magnified by exponential proportions within the essence of man?  Or, is it that, by comparative analysis and contrasting the parallel states of being, we can elevate our own estimation of worth by pointing to the relative denigration of our neighbor?

Certainly, we proffer the words of appropriate opprobrium; “I feel badly for X”; “I get no joy out of hearing that,” and similarly innocuous statements of hypocritical emptiness.  But we liken the principle of action/reaction, downward trend/upward spectrum, and similar opposites to reflect the superiority of our own circumstances.  “Here by the grace of…”  Is that why the “herd mentality” and the predatory instinct of running with a pack of wild dogs from whence it arises?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer the indignation and daily harassment at the hands of agency coworkers, Managers, Supervisors, and those who were once considered “workplace associates”, and further fine-tuned and magnified in the hostile milieu of the Postal Service, the daily encounter with pure meanness and focused unpleasantries is experienced pervasively by the Federal and Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal and Postal employee from performing the essential elements of one’s positional duties.

Why, when the medical condition itself should empower one with greater empathy, a higher reception of closeness and affinity, does the very opposite phenomena take place?  The superiority of others in light of one’s misfortune speaks ill of the human essence.

That is why, in the end, 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, is an important step to take for the Federal or Postal employee, precisely because it allows for a “new beginning“, a “step forward”, and all of the cliched foundations in order to escape the greatest delusional cliche of all:  Superiority in light of another’s misfortune, when in fact nothing has changed, either for the one who feels better, nor for the other who suffers, except that the perversity of man is merely reinforced with a deserved reputation for cruelty.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: A Series of Refinements

Age does not necessarily result in greater wisdom; rather, for many, it merely sits in a puddle of stale intransigence.  As well, palpable advancement on a linear scale occurs only in the context of the capacity to make progress, but remains in a state of limbo without an intermediate causal impetus.  Throughout life, it is the refinements made which make for differentiation.  A minor tweak here; a self-reproachful reminder here; for, very few begin the journey needing a complete overhaul, but merely a readjustment and cleaning of those spark-plugs gone bad.

Thus, when a medical condition hits an individual, it often becomes a crisis of identity; for, throughout, up until the point of realizing that a change in career may be necessitated by the unexpected health condition, the thoughts and plans always included a series of minor refinements, and nothing more.

But Federal Disability Retirement for Federal and Postal employees is, in fact, nothing more than a greater series of minor refinements; it is the focus upon the change which transforms it into a traumatic event of sorts.  For, in the end, it is precisely those series of refinements made throughout the course of one’s life, which has prepared one for the vicissitudes wrought by unexpected circumstances; throughout life, we prepare for the next storm; wisdom is merely the ability to recognize the inevitability of change, and through a series of refinements, to adjust accordingly.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the need to file an OPM Disability Retirement application through OPM is often looked upon as a crisis-embroiled act.  And, indeed, it is certainly a troublesome venture, one fraught with headaches, obstacles and administrative confusion; but in the end, it is a step necessitated by circumstances beyond one’s control, and merely another in a series of refinements required by life’s bumps and bridges, and one which requires some amount of wisdom in going forward into the bureaucratic nightmare of OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire