OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Disintegration

It is the negation of integration — the idea of coming together and connecting the various disparate parts of uncommon elements and coalescing into a coherent whole and working together in cooperative combinations of cogent communities, and the negation of it results in a dramatic crumbling where the adhesive which held together the various parts begins to unravel at the seams and break off into independent and isolated components.

It can happen over time, in incremental and progressive ways, or suddenly by a tragic event.  To witness the former is to observe society in a downward spiral, as in Western Civilization’s current state of affairs.  The statistical evidence is irrefutable; and the trend of self-absorption undeniable.  How far the disintegration will take us, only time will tell.

Regardless of the macrocosmic scale of disintegration, which we can readily sidestep and attempt to ignore, it is when individual lives begin to experience the phenomena (i.e., on the microcosmic scale) that we begin to comprehend the full meaning of the concept.  It often begins with an unexpected event — like a medical condition that suddenly turns into a crisis. Such an event can turn one’s universe upside down.

It will test the strength and viability of the adhesives which you have relied upon and constructed throughout your life — of friends and family, the lifetime you have built, the community you sought out, and many other components, besides.  Will your family rally around you and give you the necessary support, or will they abandon you and forget the reserve of goodwill you compiled?

Your true friends and loved ones will be revealed during the difficult trials ahead, and the bifurcation separating mere words from action will become readily evident.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from an injury or chronic condition  that prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing all of the essential elements of their Federal or Postal job and must consider preparing, formulating, and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS laws with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), you have the further advantage of the benefit of FERS Federal Disability Retirement when the crisis of disintegration occurs as a result of a medical condition.

However, as OPM is not a part of that “integrated community of support”, you may want to contact an OPM Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in OPM Medical Retirement Law before proceeding.

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 for Federal Employees: Altering Events

There are critical junctures in everyday lives that alter the course of our plans, daydreams, expectations and choices.  Most are mundane and go on unnoticed; others, more significant and captivating; and those few, of memorable relevance which necessitate a wholesale upheaval and changing of the metaphorical furniture in one’s life.

Altering events are those new circumstances which change one’s perspective, outlook, attitude and priorities.  Medical conditions are normally included in that definition of altering events.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition has come to a critical juncture of an altering event, contact a disability attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

For, in the end, all altering events become altering by the decision made by the altered individual, and not by the event alone.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Categories of Time

How do we bifurcate and box up time?  Is the prevailing and overriding “segment” between the years — of this year and the next; or do we just ignore that and look upon all of the years as a continuum neatly divided naturally by the seasons?  Are we more aware of the categories of time than, say, the farmer of a 100 years ago — who saw the seasons, marked the changes and worked assiduously to prepare for the coming shift?

Modernity is ruled by calendars; of daily segmentation of hour-by-hour, and even by the minutes which break up those hours; and when we finally come up for air and — while walking on concrete sidewalks broken up only by the mere creases of unnoticed time — see the green leaves upon a city tree, do we become aware that seasons still exist, that temperatures rise and fall despite our calendars, and the world around us moves imperviously despite our best attempts to ignore it all?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition which impacts their ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of his or her position within the Federal Sector, the conventional categories of time no longer apply.  Instead, pain and disability are what dictate the categories of time.

If calendars no longer matter and the change of seasons become irrelevant, it is time to contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement.  For, the categories of time are for those who can stop to appreciate tomorrow as a moment of hope, and to do that, one’s health must be paramount; and Federal Disability Retirement under FERS is a benefit to reach that moment.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Pure fun

Are we the only species who does that?  Do other species engage in the sheer pleasure of its purity, without regard to any instructional end or substantive gain resulting therefrom?

Of course, anthropomorphism often presides when issues of interpretive psychology is involved; and thus do we say when the lioness and her cubs are engaging in playful wrestling, that she is “teaching” them how to interact within acceptable boundaries; or when dogs race around with abandonment, that they are letting go their pent-up energy, etc.

Whether with purposive resolve or not, the purity of engaging in pleasurable activities is a necessary component of life; it is for those pleasurable moments, however few, far-between and of whatever nature, for which the remainder of human drudgery becomes worthwhile to endure.  The ratio between “work” and “pleasure” may be different for each individual — i.e., for some, it may be an acceptable threshold to maintain a balance between 80% work and 20% pleasure; or, perhaps, of 2% versus 98%, or thereabouts.

When the recipe bifurcating the two goes askew — where leisurely activities without seemingly purposive intent outweighs one over the other, we then begin to suspect and allege hedonism, wastefulness and wanton loss of self-worth.  Why is that?  Can one not have pure fun each and every day, for every waking moment, without being looked down upon with judgmental eyes of damning disdain?

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 question of a ratio between “work” and “pleasure” has already been resolved and answered: For, with a medical condition, there is no acceptable level of balance between the two.

Medical conditions by their very definition conflate and confuse the two; no longer is it possible to escape the vicious cycle of work-and-no-pleasure, precisely because the pain of the medical condition disrupts both.

When that threshold of balance between work and leisure becomes so out-of-whack that life’s pleasurable moments, however small and limited, can no longer be enjoyed, then it is time to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, so that the ratio between work and play can be regained to the extent that “pure fun” can attain its semblance of purity, and where “fun” can again be enjoyed without the interruption of life’s drudgery.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement: Keys to the universe

When a metaphor turns into a reality that we all begin to believe in, the fantasies of our own making have become distorted and we need to begin the process of regaining the sanity once embraced but which is now lost in the surrealism of time’s warped viewpoint.  It is by simile, analogy and metaphor that one gains a greater understanding of circumstances, fields and subjects, but it is also by such vehicles that we can misplace reality with a virtualized representation of a universe nonexistent.

Sermons abound with metaphors involving a “key” to this or that; or even of those positive thinkers and corporate motivational speakers who talk about the 10-steps to this or that, the “ultimate key to success”, and similar such drivel that makes one think and believe in the existence of a singular implement that needs to find that lost sliver of hope, insert it into the corrugated slit cut into the brass knob that stands between success or failure — and suddenly, the doors unlock, the entranceway is cleared and one can step into the future yet unanticipated by the fullness of contentment.

Do we really believe that there is such a key?  How often do we speak in terms of a metaphor, a simile and an analogy, but over time our spoken words lose the clear distinction that the simile was meant to ascertain?

We begin with: “It is as if there is a key to the universe,” or, “It’s like having the keys to the universe.” Then, gradually, the “as if” and the “like” are dropped, quietly, unnoticed, like the short-cut that assured one of arriving earlier if only the right turn into the thick fields of the wild forest is taken with confidence: “I need the keys to the universe.”

No longer the metaphor, and certainly without the distinctiveness of the simile; the keys become the reality without the padded divide of recognizing that existence cannot be forced to appear in reality; our minds have tricked ourselves into believing.  Then, we often come to realize that the metaphor which purported to “unlock” (a metaphor itself following upon another) whatever it is that we believed was previously inaccessible was nothing more than a mundane process or methodology that we could have figured out ourselves — sort of like (there we go again with a simile) the Master Burglar who spends hours trying to determine the combination to a safe that had all along been left open by a careless bank clerk.

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, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the “keys to the universe” of obtaining an OPM Disability Retirement are quite simple and straightforward: Prove that the medical condition prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your job.

However, as the devil remains in the details, the simplicity of the metaphorical “key” to a successful outcome is not dissimilar (a double-negative that turns out to mean “similar”, sort of “like” a simile) to most such Keys to the universe: a systematic, methodological compiling of proof combined with legal precedents to cite in presenting a compelling tale to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, such that the “key” is effective enough to “unlock” an approval from them.  Of course, as with all metaphors, the analogy is like the simile that refuses to be like other such metaphors, or so it is often said in the vicious circularity of language’s mysteries.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Our place in the world

One morning, we wake up and go into the backyard or, perhaps if one is living in an apartment, simply observe some trees or a little oasis of nature — a park; a clump of bushes situated in a grove of lawns coalescing; or just a singular mulberry tree that has grappled upon a cracked corner of the concrete jungle where some soil has erupted, surviving in the middle of a desert of the city’s impervious view; and a bird sits and sings.

We don’t think about the bird:  Does it know where its place is in the world?  Did it struggle as a young bird-ling to find its place, to “fit in”, to be “unique” and thus “special”?  No — it is just us humans who engage in that sort of thinking — of the awkward youth who tries to find his or her place in the universe; of going through those difficult years finding one’s place, one’s niche, and one’s solace in the troubled waters of one’s soul.

Are those merely foolish thoughts of a young person — do we all eventually grow out of it and return to the level of cynicism and conclude that it’s all bosh, and there is no such thing as one’s “place” in this cold and impersonal universe?  It is a safe haven, is it not, to remain as one’s father and forefather’s placement offered, and not have to think about one’s place independently and separately?

To that extent, birds and others who merely survive based upon instinct and thoughtless intuitiveness possess a survival advantage over those who must search and become affirmed:  There is no need to find one’s place, for that has already been pre-determined from generations ago.  Then, in later life, what does one do when one has lost one’s identity?  If you never searched for it to begin with, will it feel as a “loss” if you lose something you never attained in your own right in the first place?

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 position, part of the fear, angst and anxiety in initiating and proceeding with the process of Federal Disability Retirement, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the loss of our place in the world.  For, that career that you worked so hard to sustain — whether in an administrative field, a technical niche or as an expert in this or that elite vocation — may have to either come to an end, or become modified to accommodate your medical conditions.

Your “place in the world” may become upended, and that is often a fear that must be confronted.  But like the hummingbird that seeks the nectar of life’s offerings, if health is not the first priority that makes it all worthwhile, then you’ve likely mistaken which priorities need to be first in line, lest you mistakenly think that your Federal Agency or the Postal Service will help you in the never-ending quest for one’s place in the world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Was it all worth it?

It is that penultimate question – the one that has multiple cousins and unwanted siblings, illegitimate off-springs and uninvited guests, like:  What is the meaning of my life (refer to previous posts concerning Russell’s quip that such pedantic queries are often the result of indigestion)?  Did I do the right thing (such lines of interrogatories often emerge from a guilty conscience, so you might not want to ask that one)?  Did I spend enough time with my kids (almost always, “no”)?  Did I remain true to my marriage vows (sadly, according the statistical analysis, most people would have to answer in the negative)?  Have I behaved honorably throughout (it would depend upon the definition of the term, and of by-the-way, we tend to have private dictionaries defining words these days in a subjective, self-serving manner)?

“Was it all worth it” goes in so many directions, it is like the catch-all phrase or the “general aegis” over which all other questions and queries reside.  To whom?  By what measure?  In contrast to what other “it”?  And the more important one: Can we clarify and “flesh out” what the “it” refers to?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prompts a need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the interrogatory itself often means that the point of “worthiness” refers to the delay and loyalty shown by the suffering Federal or Postal employee before taking the next needed steps in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Often, to the detriment of the Federal Disability Retirement applicant, such a query means that you have already pushed yourself well beyond that which is actually for your own good, and while loyalty, faithfulness, hard work and such similar attributes are laudable and “example-setting” characteristics reflecting well upon the one who asks the question, the answer may be – at least from a medical perspective – formed in the negative.

For, isn’t part of the point in filing a Federal Disability Retirement application to do so before the medical condition gets to such a severe crisis point of deterioration so that there is actually a retirement to enjoy?

Remember that the standard of proof in obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement is not to reach a state of “total disability” (which is the standard in a Social Security case); rather, it is to show that the Federal or Postal employee cannot perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s position.

Thus, when you ask the question, “Was it all worth it?” – it is indeed important to know what the “it” refers to, both in the second word of the question as well as the fifth and last.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: That Song That Won’t Go Away

There is that song, tune, jingle, etc., that sticks to the mind and refuses to go away; and the circularity of the anomaly is that, the more one tries to expunge the melody from one’s mind, the greater the force of staying power; it is only when we “give in” to the persistence, and “give up” trying so hard in suppressing beyond the subconscious, that there comes a time when we can give a sigh of relief and acknowledge, “Ah, it’s gone” — and upon that very instance, it comes right back!

Such persistence of pernicious placements in the universe of cognitive capillaries are not the only conundrums in life; the general rule to be extrapolated is that, the greater the resistance, an equal and exponential quantification of insistence will reverberate.

Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who try to avoid, suppress or otherwise ignore a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s positional capacity to maintain productivity and a semblance of denial, the greater force by the agency to increase the pressure, and the further exacerbation of the medical condition itself because of the added stresses of the agency, the Postal Service, etc.

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 always an option and alternative that needs to be considered, if only to prepare for an exit and avenue out of the constant morass which fails to let up.  Prioritizing of life’s challenges involves taking affirmative steps towards a resolution.  If you don’t do it, other forces outside of your control will.  When it comes to your own health and well-being, it is the Federal or Postal employee who knows well when the time is ripe to begin the long process of preparing, formulating and filing for FERS or CSRS Disability Retirement benefits.

In the end, the song that just won’t go away is merely a melody of irritation; when it comes to the nagging deterioration of a medical condition, however, the stakes are much higher, and comparing the two is fine for metaphorical purposes, but not for the challenges which must be faced before the universe of reality and pragmatism.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Other Side of Work

The entanglement of work with value and worth is an inescapable aggregate of custom, upbringing, time spent, and the egoism of leaving some indelible mark upon an otherwise implacable universe.  Where work resulted in income, and income the cumulative wealth of a lifetime, the driving force behind it never mandated the fury of necessity.  Of course work has always been tied to livelihood; that is a given.  But when the doors for credit, mortgages exponentially exceeding an imbalance beyond capacity to repay, and the idea became accepted that luxury need not be left for tomorrow, the slavery of bonding work to worth became an unworthy concept.

Then, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, the fear and trembling for future needs begins to encroach.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition is having an effect upon one’s performance of work, the reality of potential alternatives must be faced, and quite quickly, lest the other side of work, like this side of paradise, leaves one with neither work nor income, but a bleak future without either.

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, will take time to develop, submit, and wait upon in order to receive a decision from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  It is a complex bureaucratic process with multiple administrative facets.  The reality of needing to file, however, should never be confused with the bundled confusion one has concerning worth, work, and the value of one’s contribution to society.  It is the medical condition itself, and attending to the symptoms and effects of that which one never expected, asked for, nor desired, that must be focused upon .

Some things in life are, indeed, worth of greater value than work, and the value placed upon the other side of work will determine the course of one’s future, whether of joy and love, or of further puzzlement beyond the imprint of time spent without one’s family.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Attorney: Doldrums

It is an actual pocket of calm in areas of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, where maritime sailors dreaded in days of yore because they presented calm and quietude when the necessity for winds to power the sails of movement suddenly died and disappeared.  One could be trapped for weeks, and sometimes months, when the doldrums hit.

In modern vernacular, of course, they represent a parallel metaphor — of that state of emotional inactivity and rut of life, where melancholy and gloominess overwhelms.  Sometimes, such despair and despondency is purely an internal condition; other times, it is contributed by circumstances of personal or professional environment.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal Worker who suffers from the former because of a medical condition which leads to a state of dysphoria, the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits often commingles with the latter, precisely because the internal and external are inevitably interconnected.  The emotional doldrums become exacerbated by the toxic environment engendered and propagated by reactions engaged in by the agency; and the continuing effect becomes a further cause because of the hostility shown and heightened actions proposed.

How does one escape the doldrums of stale despair?  For the mariner whose power depended upon the winds of change, waiting for altered conditions was the only avenue of hope; for the Federal or Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition presents a doldrum of another sort, taking affirmative steps by preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the primary and most effective manner for efficacious change.

Sitting around helplessly like a victim of the vicissitudes of life may have been the way of past responses; for the Federal and Postal employee of modernity, we have greater control over the destiny of one’s future, but to utilize the tools of change requires action beyond mere reflection upon the doldrums of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire