FERS Medical Retirement: The Chance for Success

It is what everyone wants to know; we have all been accustomed to relying upon percentages — of probability theories from the likelihood of being struck by lightening to whether we will be attacked by a shark while swimming in the ocean (in both instances, of course, various factors come into play, as in: If you don’t venture into those circumstances which favor such calamities, the probability of such occurrences precipitously drops).

Or in the case of divorce, for example — Does including Elizabeth Taylor in the statistical analysis skewer the numbers— or those in Hollywood generally?

One can argue as to the accuracy of statistical analysis by questioning the data used, but we nevertheless seek assurance and find refuge in numbers, because of the impenetrable mysteries surrounding numerical certainties.  Math is a uniquely different language, and most of us struggle with comprehending its complexities while simultaneously defending its infallible status in the universe.

For Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who have filed, or want to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, the question often posed is — What are the chances for success?  The answer, of course, is: It all depends upon the various factors underlying your own particular case.

However, one thing is quite certain: You must be prepared to fight for your case, a each and every stage of the process.  You must prepare an arsenal of weapons — not the least of which, includes the legal cases which favor and support your case.  It may be a self-evident proposition, but here goes: If you are not willing to fight aggressively against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, you will surely lose.

So, take this simple advice from an experienced lawyer: Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is not for the “faint of heart” and must be engaged in only with a view towards a “long and arduous slog”.

And as for the chance for success?  With the guidance of an experienced Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer, it can be exponentially enhanced.

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.

 

FERS Medical Retirement Benefits: Words & Images

Enter a gift shop and see the generic photograph inserted within a picture-frame for sale.  Who is it? Why was the photograph taken?  Was it merely to help sell the picture-frame?  Enter an antique shop where one sometimes comes across old photographs — perhaps even a daguerreotype — often faded, normally of a stilted figure; perhaps of a young woman, an old man, a soldier in uniform; a family on an outing; of a city scene where horses and carriages fill the streets; or of a father and son smiling, a daughter and mother staring impassively at the photographer in a still-life of unknown origins and an unverified date.  Who were they?  Why was the picture taken?

For the casual visitor to the store, who merely glances at the collection of old castaways, the images mean little, if anything at all.  Yet, there is a story behind each image — one which may be forever lost.  For, why else would such photographs end up in an antique store, out of the safekeeping privacy where they once belonged, where once words and memories attached unassailably with the photographs which told a story.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from continuing in the career of one’s choice, the disjunctive between words and images becomes poignantly clear within one’s own mind: Who were we once, and do the words others use in describing you match the story between words and images?

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a step toward re-matching the image one has of one’s self — of vibrancy and accomplishment — and the words others use to describe you, as well as the words you use to describe yourself.  For the moment, however, the words used are necessary in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application — one of being in a lesser, debilitated state because of one’s medical conditions — must be carefully chosen in preparing one’s Statement of Disability on SF 3112A.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, and make sure that the words and images utilized in preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application accurately portrays the state of present mind experienced.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Medical Disability Retirement Attorney

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Workers: Lost Paradise

We all have a notion of it; for some, it may just be a memory of a day at the beach; for others, somewhere in the recesses of a childhood memory; and for others still, the reality of a time before an illness, the rise of a medical condition or even of that moment when a doctor declared a diagnosis.

Paradise itself is a relative term; it engenders images of perfection and pleasure; of endless joy and a state of eternal mirth; or even of a negation of sorts.  For, if a person lives in constant agony, doesn’t it stand to reason that the negation of that agony would represent a paradise of sorts, and the loss of that state of happiness occurred because of the existence of whatever created that state of agony?

One who burns in hell would consider a momentary cessation of the agony of eternal torture to be a slice of paradise, and the lost paradise no more than regretting the sins committed.  We rarely consider the greater good as that which we take for granted, and that is why when we are confronted with the hypothetical proposition of “3 wishes to be granted by a genie”, we jump to material goods or conditions of physical pleasure, unlimited wealth or a time of perpetual joy.

Rarely do we include the wish for good health when we already enjoy it, precisely because the paradise one lives in, until lost, is assumed as eternally granted.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the lost paradise of good health no longer allows for continuation in one’s Federal or Postal career, it may be time to consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes exclusively in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Don’t let the lost paradise of former days extinguish a future of hope and betterment; for, the mythological state of a paradise lost need not be a perpetual state of dread and dismay.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The misplaced comma

It is such an inconsequential mark in the universe of imprints that pervade, and yet so significant, but in a cloak of anonymity, when misplaced.  It possesses the same features as other punctuations of grammar — identical to the apostrophe, the same in mimicking as the singular quotation mark that is so prevalent; and the same shape is used in multiple diacritic writing systems common within Ancient Greek writing systems, and still survives apparently in the written systems utilized in Latvian, Romanian and Livonian.

It allows for clauses to appear, to become dependent and separated, and to confine into a separate meaning where the conceptual clause, whether dependent and leaning for support upon the main thought expressed, can convey an independence of meaning that adds and modifies the original idea.

It is the misplaced comma that makes one pause and ponder — why must we hesitate here?  Why did they put a red-light in the middle of the sidewalk?  Why does the sign say, “No passage” in the center of a store, and yet we can step beyond the red line and still proceed?

Does the misplaced comma apply in spoken language?  Take the following example: You are standing and talking to a friend, and the friend says: “Now, I want you to — no comma, here — know that tomorrow it is going — no comma, here — to rain— here, there is a comma — and therefore we have to have — no comma here — our umbrellas with us.”  Aside from rendering an irritating manner of speaking, it was all so unnecessary, wasn’t it?  We don’t have to apprise others of a misplaced comma unless it is actually misplaced, and when speaking as opposed to writing, it is not needed because the hesitation in speech itself tells us of the comma, whether misplaced or not.

In written form, however, the misplaced comma — again, aside from being a mere irritant — compels us to pause, to hesitate, to take a reflective millisecond — like coming upon a crack in the sidewalk when we were kids and thinking, “Should I skip and jump over it or just be brave and step on the crack?”

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 one’s Federal or Postal job, the pervasive feeling of one’s tenuous position in the workforce is often likened to a misplaced comma.  You no longer “fit” into the mission of the agency.

Others begin to hesitate when approaching you; there is “talk about” you that you sense, and there appears to be commas all around, bifurcating, separating, creating dependencies that seem to segregate and confine, like invisible fences — nay, commas – that have been placed all around.

It is then time to begin to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  Consult with an experienced attorney and replace the misplaced comma with an emphatic period that will end the misery that continues to deteriorate.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The perfect person

By all accounts, he or she doesn’t exist, except perhaps in theoretical constructs of theological paradigms; and of academia, where one may argue some alternate version of Anselm’s argument by positing that, because the concept of perfection could not be thought of without the reality of a Being constituting perfection, ergo a perfect Being – God – must by necessity exist.

Yet, we live “as if” the perfect person exists – either imposing such a standard unknowingly, unwittingly and unwillingly upon our own selves, or by thinking that movie characters actually exist somewhere in the ephemeral world of Hollywood, Instagram and Facebook concoctions that only put forward to the public’s eye the image of perfection.

We overlook the distorted concept of perfection when we say of a movie character, “Oh, he’s not perfect; he drinks too much, cheats on his spouse and is violent.”  Yet, the make-believe character still solves the mystery, is philosophically coherent when drunk, and somehow remains an attractive character despite all such character flaws.  In other words, despite the appearance of flaws, we make gods of characters we create.

It is the same on the Internet – despite the knowledge by all that there does not exist the perfect person, nevertheless, we allow for Facebook postings and Instagram photographs of meals, dogs, kids, families, selves and neighborhoods as the perfect depiction of unblemished lives.  And of ourselves, perhaps the greatest of culprits alive – for perpetuating the mythological depiction by engaging in the flim-flam of projecting the existence of the perfect person.

Yet, what is the alternative?  No one wants to hear the perpetual whining of the constant apologist – that person who points out his own failures and shortcomings at the drop of the proverbial hat; of he who apologizes for the slightest of errors, the scent of a mistake and a hint of failure to reach perfection.  Name a movie character or a movie, excepting a comedy, where the character is merely a bundle of imperfections and unattractive to boot.  Even Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther series, played long ago by Peter Sellers and by others more recently, captured the culprit in the end, despite all of the blunders and pitfalls.

In the end, we all participate in the grand larceny of perpetuating the existence of the perfect person – until we are hit with a medical condition, and the façade then suddenly falls apart.  Yet, everyone else continues in the charade.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who can no longer keep up with the make-believe world of the perfect person because of a medical condition, where the medical condition prevents the appearance of the perfect person to perform all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, it may be time to admit imperfection by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted ultimately to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the imperfect Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For, in the end, it is the perfect person who embraces the imperfection of this world, and that is at least a beginning for the Federal or Postal employee who must continue to face the Federal Agency or the Postal Service in facing the reality of living imperfectly in this all too perfect universe.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Moments of clarity

There are those moments, aren’t there?  It may come as a flash, in the middle of the night, while walking quietly in the woods (or in one’s back yard, pretending that it is in the middle of somewhere’s nowhere, despite the loud humming of lawn mowers and air blowers whoosh-whooshing in the distant yonder over the fence beyond); and it need not be because of some eureka moment or because of problems faced and meditated upon.

There are moments of clarity in life, and they may be identified and described in various ways – of periods of inspiration; of a heated splice of madness; an awakening from a dream despite lack of sleep.  Or, perhaps a spark of genius came about.  A childhood memory, a dream once vanquished, a feeling of regret later in one’s life; these are the crumbs that gather in the corner of the dinner table, left behind like the ghostly apparitions of yesteryear’s hopes and unfulfilled cannibals of thoughtless mimes; and yet they can haunt or stir.

Such moments of clarity can bring about change; or, we can repress, suppress and ignore them, and allow them to wither away like flowers left in the pot of life’s mish-mash of events, and slowly they die, weakened by lack of care and ignorance of beauty.  Medical conditions themselves can bring about such moments of clarity; of the futility of trying to maintain appearances, and instead of facing a reality that is sharpened by pain, anguish and society’s definition of what it means to be productive.

Health is indeed a gift; poor health, or deteriorating health, brings about a different kind of gift – one that sometimes allows for those moments of clarity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition brings about a realization that the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to carry on as before, and that preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is now a necessity, it may well be that such a conclusion of a necessary change in one’s life came about because of one of those “moments of clarity”.

Don’t ignore it, as it may not come about again.

Instead, like warnings, clues and prognostications of impending necessities, the need to listen carefully to one’s health and mind may be just a moment of clarity that your body is simply telling you something.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Different hats, many roles

We all wear them, don’t we?  Husband, parent, worker, co-worker, supervisor, babysitter, grandparent; or, to remain neutral and non-sexist, wife, mother, worker, co-worker, supervisor, babysitter, grandparent, etc.  There, we have dispensed with any allegation that we have not been fully “balanced” in our perspective, allowing for an all-inclusive approach so that no one feels left out.

Yet, if you closely scrutinize the “list” that was previously posited, you will find the slight nuance of a difference between the two – instead of the neutral “parent”, the word “mother” was unscrupulously inserted, and those who are hypersensitive may want to shout, scream and otherwise pour out a stream of invectives in alleging that such a differentiation in the distinction between “parent” and “mother” reveals an underlying motive, unseen and concealed baseness that betrays a discriminatory or biased intent in the writer of such a list.

Such subtle distinctions are supposed to “uncover” and reveal that which was previously skillfully (or not so skillfully) disguised and only subconsciously manifested in an accidental revelation not previously presumed.  But is this fair?  Does the mere wording based upon previously-accepted normative paradigms necessarily compel a conclusion of subjective intent?  Or, should it instead merely trigger an intermediate step of clarification?

Clarity, of course, is the foundation of communication, and wearing different hats in many roles can often confuse the acuity of defined roles.  For instance, does the Federal or Postal employee who is “disabled”, does he or she have certain “rights” that can be protected?  Does a request for an accommodation have to be submitted before a Federal Disability Retirement application can be filed, or is submission of a requested completion of SF 3112D sufficient to satisfy that legal criteria?  Does the “different hat” that the Federal Disability Retirement applicant play – of a “disabled applicant for OPM purposes – mean that there is now a “different role” that the Agency must play, or that OPM must recognize during the process?

We like to think that while the world around us changes, we remain steadfastly “constant” in who we are and what we stand for; but the reality is that, when a medical condition strikes at the heart of a person’s occupation, preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, requires at the outset when we have to wear different hats, the accompanying different roles will require a reassessment as to the viability of what our next steps will be, especially when preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Separation from Federal Government Employment: The Life of Clichés

Use of cliches allows for minimal effort of expression; the very loss of originality, of benefit derived from utterances overused but generally understood, and the utter dependence upon past acceptance of declarative thoughts without needing to consider the applicability of the conceptual connotation — these allow for laziness to wander throughout a thoughtless platitude.

The aggregate of a linguistic universe, however, is one thing; to live a life of cliches beyond merely stating the obvious, is to embrace, engage and ultimate believe in them.  “Life’s lottery has left me bankrupt”; “This is merely the quiet before the storm“; “All is fair in love and war”; “The writing is on the wall”; and as the heuristic methodology is forever forsaken, the thoughts one expresses become molded into the very character of one’s life and manner of living, with the consequential quietude of a static and emotionless construct, leading ultimately to a negation of that which defines what it means to be human.

The automaton of life’s requirements tend to beat down the creativity we are born with; as we were once “diamonds in the rough”, so the long journey of difficulties faced throughout the trials of daily toil, incrementally and insidiously wear upon us, until one day we look in the mirror and the reflection reveals eyes which stare back in a vacuum of human suffering not known in those days of former innocence.

Once, we laughed in the company of our siblings as the ocean waves rolled over the fragile sand castles we built without fear of impending doom, and not knowing was a vanguard of happiness, where delight in one another was yet unconsumed by the worries of economic turmoil and complexity of adulthood; until we somehow “grew up”, lost our sense of direction and compass of fortitude, and slowly allowed the heavy atmosphere of fear, trepidation and anxieties of living overwhelm us.  We became a walking cliche.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must face the reality of such a situation, especially when a medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits becomes more and more of an urgent requirement.  Working for a Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is in and of itself a challenge; what with the pressures of budgetary cutbacks and insistence upon squeezing blood out of a stone (there we go again), it becomes all the more unbearable when a medical condition is introduced into the equation.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through one’s Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service may sometimes seem like waving the proverbial white flag of surrender; but, often, that is the only alternative left, unless the Federal or Postal employee wants to become the modern-day version of a walking zombie, devoid of any real life left to live.

Ultimately, all Federal Disability Retirement applications must be decided by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether submitted first through one’s Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service (for those Federal or Postal employees not yet separated from service, or not for more than 31 days), and it is often a daunting administrative process full of bureaucratic pitfalls.  But the alternative is to merely live a life of cliches, where you must never lose track of time, and filing in the nick of time is important, lest you fail to be as clever as a fox, but hopefully, where all is well that ends well.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Dickens, Salinger & Capote, Continued…

One could easily spend a lifetime on each, separately; of the first in the trilogy, he mercifully died before the advent of the industrial revolution, whence he may have witnessed even greater upheavals of economic unrest and labor turmoil; of the latter two, they were contemporaries who followed divergent paths — with Salinger left in the hermitage of his insular world of fears, paranoia and distrust of a world which had offered only experiences which validated such churning for a tortured soul, and for Capote, a premature death prompted by a life of public destruction.

Today, we embrace the sophistication of paying strangers to listen to our meanderings of troubled psyches; for the three in question, the times for acceptance of such ways remained unkind and untested.

By standards of modernity, the childhood experiences of Dickens would have caught the attention of social services and the authorities in tow to save the poor boy; but then, we likely would never have had the pleasure of knowing his miscreant characters strewn throughout the ghettos of boundless imagination.  Of Salinger, who turned more towards mysticism in order to feed the slow withering of his wanting woes, the need to flee from the cruelty of the world resulted in the greater insularity protected only by the memories of his haunting past.  Of the three, it was Capote who openly laughed at the scorn of the world, and like the Clowns and Fools in Shakespearean tragedies, we watched as a major figure committed public seppuku in a slow and agonizing fashion.

They represent, unfortunately, the manner in which most of us live; either of haunted pasts and tortured presents, or of ongoing meanderings in troubled waters.  Then, when a medical condition hits the seemingly clean and linear timeline we live and embrace, the disruption becomes magnified with an even greater exponent of sorrow.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer because of a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positions, the need to file 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 becomes part of the tragedy of human life.

A life cut short is one which failed to be fulfilled; and, similarly, a career shortened is one which failed to accomplish its stated goals.

But, sometimes, it is of comfort and substantive contribution to see that others — even major figures like like Dickens, Salinger and Capote — had to endure the torture of life’s fated despair.  For, in the end, there is little dissimilar in the human essence of all three in relationship to the rest of us; each suffered, lived a life of fated misery, and had to “deal” with the cruelty of the world, thereby validating Hobbes’ description that man’s life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short…”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Competence & Relevance

As applied to a person, the dual concepts refer to the capacity of the individual’s talent and the relational importance to the greater needs of an organization, entity or society; as inserted in a more general sense, it is an evaluation of the connection between import and applicability.  In both senses, it embraces one’s identification within a macro-context of where one fits in.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have striven for years and decades to achieve a level of competence and relevance within an organizational context which treats one like the proverbial faceless bureaucrat which generates a worn and tiresome image, age itself is a friend, to the extent that as one works at a craft or vocation for many years, the wisdom gained equalizes the lack of experience and compensates for overzealous enthusiasm.  But the flip-side of age and experience is that the human body and psyche are vulnerable, and susceptibility to deterioration and mortality itself becomes evident as one advances down the spectrum of a life.

Is life merely a project, as Heidegger would have it, in order to avoid the stark reality of our end?  Are the corollary concepts of “Being” and “Nothingness” the fearful entities which engender our vacuous spurts of energetic turmoils in an effort to hold onto one in order to forget the other?

For Federal and Postal workers who find themselves with a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to threaten one’s ability and capacity to continue working in one’s defined Federal or Postal position, it is the very question of one’s competence and relevance which begins to compel one to file 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 vulnerability of age, infirmity, and the deterioration from one’s medical condition, compels one to reflect upon the status and stature of both.  Identification within a community is always an important component for a social animal, and human beings are innately conditioned, whether by DNA determinism or by nurture of upbringing, to find as important one’s “place” within a greater universe of interacting “others”.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suddenly finds that loneliness and isolation compelled by a medical condition is leading to a cold and heartless expungement through adverse actions, increasing hostility and questioning of competence and relevance, the necessity of considering an OPM Disability Retirement application must become a priority by choice.  Let others question through ignorance and self-hatred; the years of contribution speak for themselves, and let not meanness of doubt enter into the soul of one’s confined beauty.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire