FERS Disability Law: From Sanity to Madness

How quickly does it appear to disintegrate; and, yet, upon closer reflection, evaluation and inspection — of the signs missed; the indicia ignored; the greater positivity of perspective misplaced.

On the microcosmic scale, the seemingly “happy” family — of the regular routine of school, work, activities and the busy schedule confined to the kitchen table’s calendar marked with fulfilling lives; and then, the “sudden” disintegration by infidelity, followed by accusations, signs missed, evidence ignored, of claims to underlying unhappiness and a world gone awry.

On a macro-scale — of dealing with a rogue nation; of lavishing with red carpets, acceptance into the greater “league of nations” and believing that by encouraging comfort and affluence, the core of authoritarianism will diminish.  Then — invasion, mayhem, cruelty and bestiality of warring stratagems; and we “suddenly” awaken to a universe where yesterday appeared sane and today became madness.

From sanity to madness can occur in an instant — from individual lives to geopolitical spheres.  But of the signs we missed, the indicators ignored.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the sanity of daily living can quickly become interrupted by the emergence of an injury or medical condition impacting one’s career, daily living, and general livelihood.

Sure, there were probably some indicators early on about the severity and chronic nature of the developing medical condition, but more importantly, it is of relevance to evaluate and assess in the immediacy of its impact upon your ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of your job.

Contact a Federal Disability Retirement Attorney to discuss the viability of preparing, formulating and filing an application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, before the quick-step marching band which plays to the silence of the crowd doesn’t turn the relative calm of sanity into a mad-dash of madness.

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.

 

Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Disability Retirement: The Vanishing Point

If you are old enough, you know the reference to the 1971 “cult” movie.  It had a strange ending, and allowed for lengthy discussions which meandered into the apparent profundity of pure pablum.  In the end, it was just a “fun” movie.

In reality, the vanishing point occurs daily.  As one grows older, you come across people you once knew but who have “passed on”.  We antiseptically and euphemistically apply the careful language of avoidance, but the blunt truth is that people die or move out of our frame of reference every day.

The vanishing point includes many aspects of one’s daily life: The family dog that dies; the elderly parents who pass on; the coworker who suddenly quits and is never heard from again; the guy across the office who becomes hospitalized and never comes back, etc.

It is the “etc.” which is the reality of life — we all move on; it’s always the other person who is somehow left behind.  That was another one of those movies, wasn’t it?  “Left Behind” — a movie and series about the biblical concept of the apocalypse and people being left behind.  The fact is, the “vanishing point” begins long before a person is left behind; we just don’t know the private struggles which are being faced throughout.

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 “vanishing point” has already begun.  It began with the medical condition.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and begin the process of validating the vanishing point from your job by initiating the administrative process of filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

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

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Night wanderings

Ever open your eyes in the middle of the night and, instead of falling quickly back to sleep, allow for the eyes to wander across the silent room where others are still and asleep — the dog on the floor (or perhaps curled at the foot of the bed where human warmth has gathered for the pure comfort serving the creature) and the partner beside; the quiet glow of the digital numbers in bold red reflection; the pictures on the walls — though you “know” what they depict, the shadows hide them, and yet you believe you “see” them because familiarity arouses the imagination even in darkness; and the squeezing sense of silence so overpowering that you wonder about the universe at large and who, like yourself, is awakened by silence itself?

It is in those moments that, just before the panic of realization sets in that tomorrow is just a few hours away, we realize that mortality is a condition we must face; that the child’s imagination cannot revisit yesterday’s remorse; and the saddest of all truisms: For the most part, this is a cruel and uncaring universe.  Where do such thoughts originate?  Is it just the dream-world when sleep battles with sanity and one’s night wanderings will not suppress the bustle of the day’s meanderings?

Perhaps clarity comes in the wake of slumber’s twilight; whatever the phenomenon, night wanderings bring one into the netherworld of the “in-between”, where reality is not quite recognized and a dream is not ever fulfilled.  That is the type of experience that the Federal and Postal worker experiences when confronted with a medical condition that impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position: not quite in the reality of the world’s harshness, not yet tested by the Agency’s or Postal Service’s full force of cruelty and uncaring.

Will they put me on a PIP?  Will they require a “Fitness for Duty” evaluation?  What happens when my FMLA is exhausted?  Will the agency just cut me off?

It becomes clear at some point that the Federal Agency and the Postal Service are not there as a friend or colleague looking out for your bests interests, and that you must initiate the process of looking out for yourself by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Those night wanderings often have the advantage of giving clarity to a reality beset with the quietude of pure silence, but then morning arrives and the clash of the day’s reality awakens within us the cruelty of the world around.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Last

It is a peculiar word; for, it can mean both the final, end and trailing subject remaining in the far recesses of a sequence, likely to be forgotten and – except for the Biblical reference where such an entity can be accelerated to the front of the proverbial line – surely to be abandoned; yet, it also connotes endurance, the capacity to outfox others in similar circumstances, and the symbolic appearance of vitality and energy.  “Oh, that’s the last thing in the world you want to buy”, goes the dismissive utterance in considering that which is not of significance or relevance as a priority to be considered.  And:  “That’s one of a kind – it will last forever,” comes the accolade showered upon a product of excellence.

How can a single word comprised of four letters – the required singular vowel and the remainder of consonants surrounding like a moat protecting the castle encasing and elevating the royalty of linguistic peculiarities – possess such a diversity of meanings, like antonyms inherent in a conglomerate of a sole voice conflicted and yet without self-contradiction?  Is it like the grammatical equivalent of a tortoise in that famed fable who is considered always to be last, yet endures the scorn and scoffing of an audience that has no clue about that which will last beyond the ordinary circumstances of normative equivalency?

Yet, despite its innate complexity of meanings, ordinary people every day use it with aplomb, confidence and without any internal sense of being confounded by the challenges posed.  You don’t have to earn a higher-level degree or spend years of hermeneutical turmoil in order to offhandedly fling about in the daily language games engaged.  “I hope the good weather lasts”; “We’re the last ones in line”; “It is bad manners to take the last one”; “The parties hope for a lasting peace”.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal employees who need to file a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the process of enduring a Federal Disability Retirement procedure will have a lasting impact upon the Federal and Postal employee, and this is especially true whether the Federal or Postal employee is the last person standing, in a proverbial sense, and often that is how the Federal and Postal employee feels – as if he or she is the last person in the Federal Agency or Postal facility to be considered for anything, because he or she is targeted as that last bastion of a thorn in the metaphorical backside of a lasting fight against the last thing the Federal Agency or Postal facility wants to deal with – the last man standing who will last through the harassment, intimidation and adversarial process of a lasting Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Reversal of Fortune

Life itself rarely reflects a steady, linear progression on a graph; the zig-zagging representing times of economic turmoil more accurately profiles a person’s span of existence.  Moreover, one’s career is not necessarily the essence or paradigm of a given life’s experience; there are multiple factors, including emotional, births and deaths, marriages and medical conditions.  How does one quantify an experience?

The methodology we seek is often purely in monetary parallelism:  if one receives pay raises and cash rewards, then one’s career is considered to be on an upward trajectory; if one gets a reduction in salary (with or without a concomitant demotion in position), then the loss of linear progression is deemed a failure of sorts.  But like marriages, and life itself, careers never merely reveal a positive path of progressive purity; ask Elizabeth Taylor, who skews every statistical analysis of marriages and divorces.  And then, of course, there is the interruptive influence of a medical condition.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the daunting doldrums of a medical disability reveals many things not reflected on a graph of life:  the bother; the interruption of a career; the fear imposed; the dealings with coworkers; the reaction of the agency or Postal Service; the need for surgical and other procedures; a whole host of activities not previously contemplated.

For the Federal and Postal employee who finds that a medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, consideration then needs to be given for filing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, or CSRS Offset, of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Yes, unfairness is a characteristic of life not reflected in the graph of microeconomics; yes, sometimes experience teaches us that the proverbial cards are stacked against us; and yes, reversals of fortune constitute a reality rarely taught in classroom social studies.  But as life’s experience is never accurately or fully represented by mere lines and numerical paradigms, so a biography of a historical figure can never be captured, as fortunes and reversals thereof can never embrace the complexity of human folly.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Obligation through Declaration

It is through the vehicle of the declarative statement that obligations are created.  Thus, when one states:  “I promise…”; “I will…”; “You can count on me…”; and other similar declarations of intent, then the connection between the speaker and the one to whom it is stated, is immediately created, such that a binding sense of mandatory indebtedness is established.

In many ways, then, it is through the spoken word, arranged in a pre-established sequence of grammatical form, which constitutes something beyond a mere folly of ideas, but binds an obligation of intentionality.

That is why talking “about” something is often the first step towards doing it.  Of course, words alone can result in a continuum of inaction, and the more words which are spoken by an individual, without any follow-up as a consequence, can undermine the very force of those initial linguistic hints, until the day comes when those around simply mutter, “He’s been saying that for years…”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties of the Federal or Postal Service job, the consideration for filing for Federal Disability Retirement compensation will normally take those initial, communicative steps of inquiry:  first, with one’s family; next, with some research and thought; and further, some outreach to someone who has knowledge about the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS.

Mere talking and gathering of information does not create an obligation of an irreversible nature; but when one moves from declarative statements devoid of future contingency (“I plan on filing…”) to one of present involvement of intent (“I am in the process of…”), then the step from mere words to activity of production has been established, and the Federal employee is then well on his/her way towards securing one’s future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Attorney: The Quality of Input

We often forget that the quality, validity and accuracy of conclusions produced by computers will depend upon the input of information provided.  Thus, predictability of future weather forecasts are contingent upon present information selected, and the computational analysis resulting in the future paradigm is founded upon current constructs, analyzed through the cumulative data previously provided, with a dash of witch’s brew and a genuflection of hope.  In other words, the trash produced results from the trash collected; a rather self-evident tautology of sorts.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering 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, the issue of what information to provide, the amount of documentation, the precise wording selected, and the cumulative historical and current data introduced, will determine the statistical ratio of increased chance of success versus the possibility of an initial denial.

Receiving a denial from OPM is a down heartening experience, to put it mildly.  Expectations are that the subjective pain or psychiatric stresses which one experiences, will immediately be recognized and become translated into a societal benefit through a monetary annuity, especially as Federal Disability Retirement is an employment benefit offered for all FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset employees in the Federal system, and upon proof and sufficient information and documentation provided, one becomes eligible for the benefit.

The difference between preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, on the one hand, and computational analysis of information in other sectors of information processing, on the other, is that an intermediate human factor is present.

All Federal Disability Retirement applications are reviewed, scrutinized and evaluated for sufficiency by someone at OPM, and it is this very human element which remains the “X factor” in all Federal OPM Disability Retirement applications.  What can be done about it?  It is simply a reality which must be taken into account, processed and accounted for.  While bureaucratic and ultimately a rather depersonalized process, it is nevertheless an administrative system which must be faced.

It is as old as the ageless adage of yore, attributed to Isaac Newton:  What goes up must come down; or, what information is provided, is the basis of conclusions reached, and it is the quality of information in culling together a Federal Disability Retirement application which is paramount in achieving success.

 

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Medical Retirement: Life’s Scarring

It builds through repetition of wounding, or because it is deep, jagged, or otherwise unable to repair through normal processes of cellular regeneration.  It remains a mark of a person; over time, fading through exposure to sunlight, disappearance of discoloration, and the slow erasure of the damage done through the healing process of the linear course of a lifetime, may allow for one to forget.

Traumas, medical conditions and chronic maladies takes time to heal, and time is the commodity which society relishes, values, and measures by the worth of productivity.  It is that segment of immeasurable continuity which determines the markings of a lifetime’s work; like prehistoric epochs which we name in order to neatly fit in the existence of dinosaurs and their disappearance through volcanic and meteoric catastrophes, we bifurcate the unconquerable continuum with significations of memorable moments in time.

Medical conditions and their disruptions to lives require time for healing; and whether it is the impact of psychiatric conditions upon one’s psyche and soul, or the physical manifestation of a chronic illness or injury, that commodity of value in the world of economics remains unsympathetically beyond the reach of most.

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 the Federal or Postal job, the acquisition of time becomes ever more important and critical as one awaits the winding morass of a Federal Disability Retirement application through the bureaucratic maze of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Bureaucracies grind forward as if time is nonexistent; but all the while, life must continue to flow, as rivers unfettered by dams and natural obstacles, the course of life cannot be interrupted by mere tragedies of fate.  The problem is, of course, that the rest of the Federal bureaucracy — agencies, coworkers, supervisors, managers, etc. — does not have the patience to wait upon Federal and Postal employees during a daunting administrative process in which it is already known that, if successful, the Federal or Postal employee will be leaving the agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

So, what is the reaction during this administrative process?  Sometimes, it results in an administrative separation; more often than not, to simply allow the Federal or Postal employee to remain on LWOP and remain forgotten, lost in the maze of time immemorial.

In the end, it is life’s scarring which remains; how one has been treated; whether the burns of fate scorched upon flesh or memory were deliberate or through an uncaring indifference. No matter; as life’s scarring is like an organic monument of one’s test of endurance, so the manner in which one approaches the wound will determine the character of an individual.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Benefits: The Eyes Which Betray the Laughter

Plato noted the significance of the eyes; as windows of the soul, they reveal the depth of emotion, character, empathy, interest, boredom, meanness, etc.; and just as true, the lack thereof.  Laughter provides the concordance of mirth to context; cacophony occurs when the harmony between the two somehow fails to connect.

The pinnacle of sadness is represented when one looks upon an individual, hears the laughter, and sees the revelatory sadness deep within the eyes of the soul.  The discordant contrast takes us aback; it is perhaps the height of self-contradiction, where the parallel universes which are never supposed to transect, suddenly violate the very content of definition, and betray the consciousness of self-doubt.

What has transpired?  What tragedy has befallen?  It brings to mind the poignant story by Chekhov, entitled “Grief” (or otherwise translated as “Misery”), where the death of the son is magnified by the haunting question, “With whom shall I tell my grief?”  As the world he continues to encounter is filled with passengers who laugh and carry on with life, the father must continue within the disharmony of his own tragedy.

Medical conditions tend to do that to people; it remains silent, but for the sharing beyond the perfunctory response to the passing, “Hello, how are you?”  We are expected to say merely, “Fine, thank you,” and move on.  Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers know about the emotional disjunctive between the eyes and the emitting laughter.  When the sound of mirth and the sight of pain clash, it is probably time to make an exit by filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

While often not the “best solution”, it allows for the Federal or Postal worker to leave one’s employment, secure a disability annuity, and seek a restoration of one’s health, in order to reinvigorate the soul behind the eyes of tragedy.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a long and arduous journey through a bureaucratic maze.  There is the process itself; the need to substantively put together and formulate an effective and persuasive disability retirement packet; and then the long wait before the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Every Federal and Postal employee must make the decision of when and how; but as to the “why” of the foundation, it is when the eyes begin to betray the laughter, that affirmative steps need to be taken to begin to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer