OPM Disability Retirement: Extending One’s Career at a Cost

Our identity is often bundled up and inextricably intertwined with the careers we have chosen.  It is therefore understandable that, even with a medical condition that begins to debilitate, we would want to extend the chosen career to the furthest extent possible.  The question then becomes one of performing a cost-benefits analysis: Does it make sense to try and make it to the proverbial “finish line” of retirement if the cost of doing so is to end up in such a debilitated state that any enjoyment derived in those “sunset years” is minimal, at best?

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are, as a whole, a committed workforce dedicated to accomplishing the mission of the Federal Agency or the Postal Unit — often at the cost of one’s health.  There comes a point, however, when the cost of one’s health is not worth one’s contribution to the mission identified, and when that critical juncture is reached, it is time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.  Extending one’s career at the cost of one’s health is one thing; to do so where the cost means accepting an actual harm to one’s well-being and a permanent loss of enjoyment in one’s retirement — well, that is often termed as a decision that only a fool would make.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider retiring early so that the cost of one’s health doesn’t become the payment overdue for one’s over-zealous commitment to the mission at large.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: 2 countervailing rules

Here are 2: If you have an idea late at night, unless you write it down, you will never remember what it was in the morning.  The other half of the countervailing rule?  In the morning, it won’t seem as profound a thought as it first appeared late the previous night.  Or: Forgiveness can come easily when once you admit to your fault; and the counter to that — if it is your spouse or close relation, don’t think that you won’t be reminded of your need for forgiveness when once the first sign of trouble appears.  And another: Time will heal; yet, the countervailing reality: others rarely care to sacrifice their time in order to allow for the time needed to heal.

And for Federal and Postal employees 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, the first “rule” of the 2-part countervailing rules of life is often: “Oh, I have been such a good employee all of these years, I am sure that my Agency or the Postal Facility will be understanding while I prepare a Federal Disability Retirement application — for, doesn’t all of those years of good service count towards a good-will well deserved?” And the countervailing rule to that is: “Buddy, you’re no longer going to be a part of this team, and what you did yesterday counts only until this morning, and no more. Let us give you a freshly-minted medallion that you can pin on your lapel, and boot you out the door the moment we discover that you are planning to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits — even though you are doing only that which you have a perfectly reasonable right to”.

And thus do the countervailing rules always come in a duality of balancing coordinates; and, unfortunately, the behemoth of a Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service always seems to have the upper, dominant hand, which is why you may want to first consult with an attorney who specializes in dealing with such countervailing rules of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Present who of past what

It is a peculiarly human endeavor: of looking at a photograph (yes, digital nowadays, no doubt), and trying to discern from a present who what the one-dimensional picture says about what we were doing some years past, or maybe a few weeks or even yesterday.  It is the present “who” of one’s identity, trying to extract meaningfulness from a singular snapshot of an emotional freeze, whether of self-conscious “cheese!” declared knowing that the picture was being taken, or of a cold stare that locks out the soul’s essence of what we actually felt, and trying to extrapolate within a 3-dimensional universe the foundation of what had occurred.

We all play that peculiar game, do we not — of standing in the present by the very being of who we identify as ourselves and looking at a photograph of someone whom we can identify as the “I” in the image before us, and then remembering, with the contextual history hidden within, of the past what that depicts the picture present who stands before staring at the past what; while others may be doing the same thing many times over, multiplied exponentially in volumes unimaginable, yet each instance being insularly singular because there may never be a discussion about the present who of past what that no one talks about?

It is akin to having a medical condition, isn’t it — and of continuing to smile, walk about, carry on “normally” and everyone else in their insular universes not knowing about the medical condition you carry about, and the suffering you must endure because of the present who of who you are but of the past what where others see you and judge you as you were, what you were, who you were, while all the while it is the present who of today that has changed and is no longer the past what of who you were?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition is preventing the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job and positional duties, that feeling is often familiar and well known — the present who of past what.

Others see you and expect the same; you may even appear to be unchanged, but inside, you know that the present who is no longer of the past what, and that is precisely what must be conveyed in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether as a Federal or Postal employee you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset; for it is precisely the present who of past what that is the you of today with the historical context of the past what, but nevertheless needing the present who for a future whom no one but you can know or discern.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The din of silence

They are opposites, and yet they can confer meaning and communicate conceptual clarity by the very usage of simultaneous reflection in conjoined placement within a singular sentence of repose.  Can silence be of such tumultuous unnerving, and a confusion of loud noises be characterized within the context of its opposite, and still retain a clear sense of meaning?  Would it make the similar, mirror-image sense if we transposed and flipped those same words, and instead spoke about the “silence of din”?

That makes it sound like a movie title, or a short story encompassing a mysterious foreign land where Zen monks chant within the quiet gaze of an assassin’s eye.  But there are times when silence becomes so overwhelming in its quietude, that truths become revealed and concealed perspectives are suddenly manifested, and it is during those moments of enlightening revelations that realizations of necessity come to the fore (or, perhaps, it merely means that our stomachs are rumbling and we are merely hungry).

To paraphrase Bertrand Russell, the ever-mischievous agnostic, who once quipped that when a person thinks that questions of eternal salvation, the need for a higher being and questions of profundity encapsulating transcendent issues and metaphysical concerns begin to invade and come to the fore, it is probably nothing more than indigestion and a good pharmacological prescription pill should take care of it.  But it really does not work the other way, or make any sense, does it?

There is no “silence of din” – the latter is just that, a tumultuous cacophony of deafening onslaught, and that describes most of living in modernity, where the search for a slice of silence within that din is like a breath of eternal sighs in exasperated tones of forgiving acrimony.

But there is a “din of silence” – that moment when we can stand in the unprovoked thoughts of our own reflections, when we can remove ourselves for a slice of contractions where pain cannot reach and confusion will not confound, and it is in the monastic paradigm of clashes where worth and value coalesce, when thought and action extend, and how the true essence of a person becomes revealed in a moment of naked reality.  But then, the real world comes crashing back, and we awaken from the slumber of transcendence.

There is, often in the momentary timelessness between reality and slumber, a realization of that which needs to be accomplished in order to move forward.  That is the point when the Federal or Postal employee, who experiences the pain of a medical condition, must decide as to whether to continue in the same modality as the “rest of the world” in trying to just survive, or to “move on” to another stage of life.

It sometimes takes the din of silence to figure that out; but for the Federal or Postal employee who suffers 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 the Federal or Postal position, it is never advisable to wait for the din of silence before deciding to file a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset; for, in the end, you may end up in the silence of din before achieving the peaceful repose of the din of silence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The importance of not

We go through life applauding always the forward progress of things remembered, projects completed and issues resolved; but all throughout, the negation is forgotten, the sullied bystanders shoved aside, and the nothingness untethered, are never recorded in the annals of trumpeted narratives.  It is, in the end, just as important not to do X, if such negation results in a consequential Y intended and foreseen, as it is to embrace a positive-W which will follow a similar and parallel course towards self-immolation.

We place so much relevance and importance upon doing and succeeding, and forget that much of life is refraining, restraining and possessing the discretion of not; but because negation is a nothingness subsumed by anonymity, it is only the blaring signification of self-aggrandizement which results in notice and promotion of purposive entailments.  How many of us recognize the importance of not?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, this is an important component and element to consider when preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

We spend so much time and energy in wanting to spew forth the narrative of our lives; but life responds more to Iona Potapov’s quiet refrain, in choosing the content carefully, and biding the time for the right context; and when importance of substance and weight of relevance guides the necessity of doing, it is the vacuity of nothingness, the spaces in between, the void separating, and the vacuum surrounding, which is often of greater determinism in the fates of our lives unsheathed.

For the Federal or Postal employee who must prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM, remember that the things left unsaid, unstated and undone, are sometimes as important — and even more so — than a rush to release all and reveal the compendium of every inner thought and ravage of timeless venting.  As most wrongs in life are correctable, so mistakes submitted to OPM are likewise as much, but the one mistake which cannot be amended is to place blinders upon the eyes of those having seen, have been allowed to view, and of information already released through the unconstrained folly of life’s misgivings.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Riddance of the debasing alloy

It is always that minor impurity which devalues the whole; “but for” the element identified as an invasive component, the rest would constitute the purity of perfections.  It is how we point fingers and bemoan the state of our own affairs; and how we make of a peripheral inconsequence the centrality of our problems.

The evil that we identify as the foundational source of a problem is merely the canard for justification, and in the end, we don’t want it to go away, but to remain as fodder to fester as the legitimate basis of an illegitimate claim.  But when it is a pervasive impurity, attached to the very essence of the composite aggregate, how do you get rid of it in the first place?  Precision by surgical selection is an impossibility; to excise it is to kill the whole, as it touches upon a vital organ which cannot be separated from the rest and residue.

In the universe of metallurgy, it is the composite attachment, interaction and interchange between various alloys which form the basis of the science itself; each possesses a characteristic unique for its particular element, yet often share traits of similarities which allows for the technician to ply the trade of forming aggregations of multiple differences into a singularity comprised by many.

In the parallel universe of people, societies, civilizations and empires, that reflection of strength through unity of diversity is merely where artifice reflects the reality of nature.  But when destructive criticism by pointing fingers at a misidentified source of impurity becomes the basis of a movement to change, then the crumbling nature of the whole begins to infect the fragile nature of each individual component, especially where independence from the other is no longer possible or practical.  In the end, riddance of the debasing alloy may not be possible, and it is often too little too late to even bother attempting a surgical separation without doing harm to the whole.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, however, the impurity of the singular alloy can be identified as the job itself.  It is “the job”, the position, the craft which once formed the basis of a productive “career”, but is now the impurity which harms and debases.  No longer something to look forward to, but reduced to another of the stresses of life, a surgical excision becomes necessary, and 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, becomes a necessity in and of itself, in order for the rest, residue and remainder to survive.

The choice to separate the “impurity” should not be a difficult one; and while riddance of the truly debasing alloy — the medical condition itself — may not be possible for the Federal or Postal employee suffering from a chronic medical condition, at least the “other” impurities of identified stresses may be circumspectly curtailed and separated, by the mere act of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire