OPM Disability Retirement: The Pause Button

But that we all had one, applied to life.  Weekends constitute a form of that — like in days of old, when Grand Armies fought battles, but everyone knew that Sunday — The “Lord’s” Day, the Sabbath time for Christians, etc. — the bombardments would pause, the shelling and firings would cease, if only for a day, out of respect for a tradition of pausing.

In modernity, weekends represents the pause button — or so they say.  Technology was supposed to allow for greater leisure time, when in fact it has made unwelcome incursions into the very precious time of being away from work.

Time was when one could close the office door on a Friday, and not have any encounters with one’s profession or job until Monday morning — except, perhaps, for the occasional emergency phone call which required a break in the pause.

Today, emails follow us everywhere; many people have a “home office”, and the eye of the computer tracks us wherever we go.  Vacations once sacrosanct are regularly interrupted; and it is interesting, isn’t it, that people often choose destinations deliberately where wi-fi reception is spotty, at best?

The Pause Button is now no more, except for those who intentionally create one.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a injury or disease such that the injury or disease prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, there never is a pause button, because medical conditions don’t respond to such devices.  Instead, they continue to haunt, debilitate and progressively eat away at any sense of life’s peacefulness.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Medical Retirement Law, and consider whether or not your own health is more important than the disconnected Pause Button.

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.

 

Disability Retirement under Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS): Does Sequence Matter?

So, when you are building a house, for example — does it matter whether you start with a solid foundation?  Or do you start with the roof and move downwards?  Or in writing a short story — does a writer finish the conclusion, then work backwards?

That actually doesn’t sound so strange, does it? — because it is often the “idea” of an ending which prompts the writer to write a story; but when it is presented to the reader, what is the sequence?

Is the reader given the ending, first, then the narrative of how the ending came to be?  Yes, even that — some creative writers have accomplished that, and sometimes quite effectively.  But that is a deliberate style of presenting a story — where the sequence is reversed for dramatic purposes, and so even when the ending is first, sequence, in fact, matters very much.

For Federal and Postal employees who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, “sequence” does matter.

There are multiple and complicated tentacles which are required to be completed and accomplished in a Federal Disability Retirement application — from the type and quality of medical reports; treatment records; Agency’s portion of forms to complete; the Applicant’s portion which needs to be completed; the language which should be used; how a request should be made — in the aggregate where the chaos of multiple actions need to be performed, the sequence of how those actions are initiated is often overlooked despite its impact and importance on a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of ordering the sequence of things which matter.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Recognition

At some point in one’s life, there is a recognition that a “gap” has been established between the dreams of one’s youth, the expectations of reality embraced in adulthood, and the lack of achievement one has attained in the final stages of one’s life.  It need not be a final moment of a gestalt-like profundity, where we suddenly realize with a declarative “Aha!” at some critical juncture in our life; rather, it can be a subtle realization over time, concluding with an expectation of acceptance, or of bitterness towards life’s unfairness.

Life is, indeed, unfair.  Two people can toil and sweat at one’s work and have starkly differing results.  One may become very wealthy; the other, constantly struggling just to live from paycheck to paycheck; and yet, the extent of cognitive or physical effort expended by each may be of little difference.  One may counter: It is not the effort expended, but rather, the value of the product or service offered.  But even that is not quite true, is it?

The classic example is the pay scale of a teacher — irrefutably of greater value than the sale of vehicles or mink coats, yet of relatively paltry return.  One never hears of a wealthy teacher; one hears of wealth attained through frivolous services based upon an idea engineered in the basement or garage of a computer whiz-kid.

Recognition is an important crossroads; of the disparity between what one expected and what one has achieved; of determining early on what is of value, of how one defines “success” as opposed to “failure”; and of resisting the idea that all of youth’s folly must be realized in order to be deemed a success, leaving aside whether success itself must be narrowly defined by a person’s pocketbook contents.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, there is often a necessary prerequisite of a recognition that one’s Federal or Postal career is over.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS is not, however, a recognition that one will never achieve or attain what one originally set out to do; rather, it is a recognition that there is life after a Federal or Postal career, and that the medical condition has merely revealed an incompatibility between one’s Federal or Postal position and the medical condition that one never asked for, but a reality with which one must deal with — a recognition itself that is an important first step.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
FERS Disability Lawyer

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Intolerable conditions

We all have a threshold of tolerance; it is, in the end, a spectrum and a range which cannot be generalized.  The MRI that reveals degenerated tissue or organic dysfunctioning may parallel the pain experienced, but it does not determine the level of tolerance for any given individual.  Yet, while thresholds may vary, there is a limit to human toleration, and the question for each individual is: At what point do conditions reach the limit of my tolerance, and do I wait until I reach that ceiling, or is it then too late to have waited so long?

Most people wait until the intolerable conditions reach a critical juncture.  That is the rub of the matter — that, yes, human beings possess a great tolerance for the intolerable, but the further question that is too often missed, is: Should we?  Is it healthy to?  And: What damage is incurred by resisting the warning signs that our bodies and minds give such that we reach beyond those warning triggers and milestones of caution, and when we get beyond them, we leave them behind as sirens which have faded and been forgotten?

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, the intolerable conditions which have erupted often includes: Increasing harassment from one’s Federal Agency and the Postal Service; exhaustion of SL, AL and FMLA; dealing with the medical condition itself; the failure of coworkers and managers to empathize or understand; the stress that is placed on personal relationships because of the deteriorating conditions in the workplace; the loss of stability; the increasing loss of livelihood, etc.

Any one of these, or all in combination, create those intolerable conditions, and when it becomes apparent that the proverbial rubber band that has held the whole together is about to snap, then it is time — beyond the time, maybe — to prepare an effective FERS Disability Retirement application, to be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Federal Service: By what right?

It is a question often posed in the dead of night by those who would undermine an assertion based upon an instinctive sense of fairness, but perhaps not able to be articulated in comprehensible form.  By what right do you enter these premises?  By what right do you express that opinion?  By what right do you think you can do that?

It is, as with many questions, one that has a sadly contextual background of a negative past – for, whenever a person, a populace or a segment of a greater society begins to assert a “right”, it was generally preceded by a breakdown of community and caring.  For example: A violation of another’s property where a fence has not yet been placed should be resolved by two neighbors discussing the infraction or infringement without resorting to a higher authority.  If that “neighborliness” cannot resolve the conflict, then a fence may be built and the right to build such a fence can be asserted by the fence-building-neighbor as a “right” of property ownership.  No one would, or could, dispute such a right to do so, but the mere fact that a fence had to be built is evidence of a preceding breakdown of the unspoken rules of a community, where resolution of a conflict could not be accomplished by discussing, caring, understanding and compromising for the sake of a community’s greater good, but instead results in a declarative reference to one’s “right” to do X, Y or Z.

Rights should have the insipid connotation of negativity to the extent that asserting them is something of a last resort and the last bastion of scoundrels and suspicious individuals seen in an unfavorable communal light; but in modernity, shouting out one’s “right” to do this or that, or standing on a soapbox and pontificating about how we (why does everyone assume that he or she has a “right” to speak on behalf of that undefined “we” in the first place?) have every “right” to be here, do this or that or be “in your face” because of the proverbial “catch-all” – the “Bill of Rights”.  By what right?

For Federal and Postal employees who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it may well be that asserting one’s right to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits was preceded by a context of negativity – of the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal facility failing to, refusing to, or otherwise not showing effort for, accommodating one’s medical condition, illness or disability, and that is when the assertion of declaring one’s “right” to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits becomes the inviolable pathway to an exit out of an untenable workplace situation.

To that extent, preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is somewhat akin to building that “fence” between your property and the next-door neighbor’s, whose dog keeps coming into your yard, digging up the freshly-planted bushes and vegetables, pooping all over the place and attacking your cat, and cares not a twit to try and resolve the issue; that, in many ways, is the Federal agency or the Postal facility you work for.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Pretending

It is the creative imagination which ultimately separates man from his counterpart; and, in the end, those costumes we display, and wear as vestiges of who we were, what we have become, and how we want others to appreciate us — in the aggregate, they reveal either our pretending selves, or at the very least, our pretentiousness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the extension from childhood through adulthood is best personified in the ability and capacity to “pretend” — assume the role of the loyal civil servant; march on in quiet suffering; brave through in silent grief the turmoil of a progressively worsening medical condition.  But when “pretend” encounters the reality of pain and self-immolation of destruction and deterioration, there comes a point in time where childhood fantasies and dreams of want and desire must be replaced with the reality of what “is”.

That annoying verb, “to be”, keeps cropping up as an obstacle of reality, forever obstructing and denying.  Reality sometimes must hit us over the head with harsh tools of sudden awakenings; for the Federal or Postal worker who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the wake-up call is often the alarm-clock that rings after a long weekend, when rest and respite should have restored one to healthy readiness on the workday following, but where somehow the face of pretending must still remain.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Of Vultures Riding the Currents of Time

Watch the vultures float the currents of time, gliding high above, awaiting a trail of destruction behind.  Universally, across the globe, they have similar outward appearances; with wide wingspans for the ability to soar and patiently await high above, watchful for death and decay to progressively come to fruition.  Is it the scent of decay, or the fading gaze of death which attracts?  Or, perhaps, weakness and state of debilitation has a natural aura which draws?

The weak among us becomes a magnet for prey; the scavengers of time become the savagery of timelessness.  Despite our declaration for civility and sophistication, the brute essence of man comes to the fore when elements of weakness manifest. Sympathy and empathy constitute window dressings for civilization’s social contract; a concession to effeminate yearnings voice that of the spectacled class.

Look at the brutality of Federal agencies when once a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker announces an intent to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Suddenly, the skies are filled with gliding wingspans of watchfulness.  No one seemed to care before; now, the sunlight is blocked by widespread fans of feathery flurries.

Federal Disability Retirement is a rightful benefit which can be asserted by any and all Federal and Postal employees who have the minimum of Federal Service (18 months for those under FERS; 5 years for those under CSRS).  But as with every contingency in life, there are residual consequences in filing for a benefit, and such resulting ends will often involve the hostility of the Federal agency, the sudden shying away by one’s coworkers, and a subtle (or not so hidden) loss of camaraderie among peers and supervisors.

But what are the choices? For the Federal and Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is the path to escaping the slow and progressive deterioration of one’s health condition.

That the vultures may circle during the wait, may be an inevitable consequence; what one wants to prevent, however, is for such creatures to land and begin the pecking process of maggot-laden flesh.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer: The Happiness Principle

A society’s trending obsession is often reflected by the backdrop of books written, published and popularized in culture corridors of mass media; and so the Oprah of timeless celebration never loses its luster for belated works attempting to keep pace with the commercialization of principles which once may have been considered seriously.

Plato and Aristotle addressed the issue; Existentialism arose from the ashes of war, and sidestepped it by considering the bleakness of the human condition; but in the age of technology and the optimism blanketed through mass dissemination of information, the focus has shifted from essence to residual results, where the natural consequences of X becomes the focal obsession of Y.  Happiness was once, in a time of yesteryear, an afterthought to survival, secondary to ethical conduct, and tertiary to a productive life.

Today, it seems that the principle is the primary goal of living, as organisms and amoebas naturally tend towards food sources.  Beyond the happiness principle, however, is the undeniable fact that it cannot be attained when certain interrupting forces blockade and obstruct; and pain, psychiatric conditions and medical disabilities certainly fall into that category.

There is, then, the condition itself (the medical condition) which impedes the happiness principle; and administrative processes (such as Federal Disability Retirement, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management) which constitute a bureaucratic obstacle to corollary life principles.

Obtaining Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM does not and should not pretend to resolve medical issues; but it does allow for the Federal or Postal employee to attend to the primary concern underlying one’s life — the medical condition itself. Often, we confuse the essence of a thing with the appearance of that which presents itself to us.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal Service worker, it is important to understand that preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is not the “end all and be all” of attaining the ultimate goal, but rather part and parcel of multiple components which, like pieces of a puzzle, need to be gathered, sorted and organized in order to create that collage of life called contentment.

Thus the “happiness principle”:  perhaps not the destination to be confused, but the quality of the ride to get there.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Long Goodbye

The relegation to the basement office; the loss of niceties with coworkers; the negation of superlatives from higher ups; the clues become overt, blatant and uninviting.  Long goodbyes are often fertile ground for the souring of relationships forged over decades, and human interactions which reveal a perversity once thought uncommon.  Does the past count for anything, anymore?

Medical conditions and their impact are meant to evoke empathetic responses; instead, they often bring out the worst in humanity.  For Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service, they portend of headaches and interruption of efficiency; they are a bother.  For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the growing absences, the need to attend to one’s medical conditions — all become the priority of life and living.

From the agency’s viewpoint, it is a malignancy of logistical magnitude; another problem to be solved; and the longer the goodbye, the greater the extenuating interruption.  It is this clash of interests which calls for resolution.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is an indicator to the agency that there is an end in sight, and once filed, it is merely a waiting game before finality of decisions is reached.  Often, the mere filing relieves the increasing pressure felt, like the encasement of boiling water which needs an outlet.

Medical conditions often require a long journey of sorts; it is the long goodbye which makes it all the more evident.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Law: The Time In-Between, Afterwards

That time, as a historical event, is quite different from the retrospective vantage point of what we perceive today; and that is good to keep in mind.  After the event itself, the followers were not waiting around for the next event; rather, they were likely scrambling to determine what to do next, as they had no foresight of the coming circumstances, and thus did not consider themselves to be “in-between” two major historical pillars awaiting the next condition for completion.

In the aftermath, we can look upon it as a continuum, and view the time in between as one of anticipation and waiting; but from the real-time moment of the figures involved, the past trauma had already occurred; what was to come next could not have been known.  That is similar to how we live a life today.

For Federal and Postal employees who are anticipating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is a good lesson to view things in the “now”, as in-between, or afterwards, and from a later perspective.

Waiting upon a behemoth of a bureaucracy as that of OPM is never a pleasant experience, and one often feels like being in a suspended mode of administrative purgatory; and yes, there can be contingencies which must be first established before the next “move” in life can occur; but in the end, one should not wait upon the approval of a Federal OPM Disability application, but rather continue to pursue and build upon one’s life as in the aftermath of the occurrence. That is sometimes difficult to do, but necessary.

Waiting is often the hardest part; once the “happening” occurs, the tumult is released, and the Federal or Postal employee often feels that he or she is “set free” from the bonds of suspended time. But then, think about those followers of the fisherman who waited from that Friday until the morning when a seeming disaster turned into a triumph of historical proportions untold and unknown, at the time.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire