Federal Disability Retirement Help: Adumbration

It is a vague foreshadowing for future events — often a sense of unease, a non-specific feeling of dire foreboding, or when someone says, “I cannot put my finger upon it but…”.

It is when your dog acts skittish, but you don’t quite know why until some unexpected event occurs, and you pause and wonder, “Was he trying to forewarn me?”  Or what the Native Americans in tradition and mythology could foretell because of their intimate connection to the behavioral psychology of birds, deer, other animals, etc., and even of rocks and boulders which shimmered some secretive reflection of nature’s future unease.

Adumbration is the sense of knowing without being specific; of an intimate connection to one’s context, but where context is now merely a shadowy doubt no longer ensconced upon the altar of Man’s worshipping misgivings.  Are you a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal Worker?  Are your medical conditions becoming an adumbration of a future yet uncertain?

One’s future cannot flourish, let alone merely continue, in one’s Federal or Postal job, precisely when there exists an incompatibility between one’s medical conditions and one’s Federal or Postal positional duty requirements.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not the adumbrations revealed in the symptomatologies one experiences is not the basis of a viable Federal Disability Retirement case.

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 Disability Retirement under OPM: The Difficult and Complex Case

Not every difficult case is complex; and, vice versa, not every complex case is difficult.

The “difficulty” of a case may be inherent or external — of problems within the body of the case, or some external elements which impacts upon the case.  Complexities can be qualitative or quantitative — arising from some element of a case which makes it more than the “run-of-the-mill” issue, or influenced by a multitude and variety of issues to be resolved.

Almost all cases have some inherent difficulties, and the complexity of a case can often be simplified by systematically resolving some of the inherent difficulties presented.  Often, a “complex” case is merely a matter of perspective — where the client believes in complications which in reality have no impact upon the case.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and which triggers the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, an initial consultation with an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law will often ferret out the complexities, define the difficulties, and simplify the issues to be resolved.

Every case has difficulties and complexities, but you should make sure that they are “real” ones, and not merely born out of not knowing the issues which are relevant.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement for Federal and Postal Workers: Beaten

It is a strange word.  In the past tense, it implies that nothing can be done about it.  When applied to an individual, it describes a haggard portrait of profound hopelessness.  It is the past participle of the verb “beat”, but when the “en” is added, it has a modern connotation of hollowness, of a sense of utter futility and nihilism that cannot be overcome.

Did Sisyphus have that perspective?  As he rolled the boulder up onto the next and endless precipice, did his shoulders sag, his head and eyes remain downcast, and was he forlorn and without hope?  Of course, Camus refashioned the anti-hero into such a figure of futility, which is what existentialism declares life to be: Meaninglessness with the freedom to choose meaning; futility from which manufactured human activity can originate.  Whether that can actually be accomplished, or whether Camus, Sartre and the whole bunch of those French Existentialists who sat around at street cafes and deliberated about the times of dangers and rebellion during the Nazi occupation, now seems like a far-off dream.

Today brings about a new set of problems.  No longer from an occupation force, nor even an identifiable enemy; in modernity, the daily stresses of technology — of simply trying to make a living; of the constant barrage of information; of demands in daily life which stretches the ends of human capacity; and then, when a medical condition intrudes, interrupts and interferes, it all seems to be so overwhelming that we suddenly feel “beaten”.

The beaten individual is the one who has reached his or her limit of human capacity; it is when the intersection of life’s demands exceeds one’s tolerance for sustaining the stresses of everyday life.

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, it may be well past the time that one should have, but still must, file for Federal Disability Retirement.  Do not wait until the term “beaten” applies; instead, try to beat the beaten, and consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, lest you hear someone whisper to another, “Oh, that person — he/she is beaten.”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Present Priorities

Present priorities differ from past ones, if only they have now passed as being present and thus are no longer priorities, as it is often the circumstances as presented in the “now” which matter most to us, as past priorities have lessened in terms of impact, significance, relevance and current importance.

The present priorities that were in existence a decade ago may no longer be the same priorities of the present of today; for, today’s present priorities have changed with the alterations of time, the focus of growth and maturity and their impact upon one another; and it is the context of today, the circumstances of the current period, that matter most to us.

Yesterday, the present priorities may have been the dinner or social function for that evening, or the open vacancy for this or that opportunity.  Then, a major “other” event occurs — perhaps the birth of a child or the death of a friend or relative — and suddenly, the priorities that seemed of such importance and consequence just yesterday, may seem trivial and insignificant today.

Medical conditions, too, seemingly have such an impact — of putting upon us a “reality check” that fades everything else into mere background noise.  What does it matter how one’s career is going, if you come home each night exhausted and unable to enjoy even the opening sonata of a symphonic masterpiece? Or if all of one’s weekend is merely to recover from the week’s fog of endless work, or of vacations and sick leave exhausted to endure constant and incessant testing and treatment regimens that leave no time for pleasure?

Whatever the present priorities and how they differ from past present priorities, one thing is clear: One’s health remains constant throughout, and preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted ultimately to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, reveals that the present priorities of the most important priorities always endure, and that must always include one’s health and well-being, as the application for an OPM Medical Retirement is more evidence that the focus upon past priorities must be re-thought in order to accommodate the present priorities which are of greater importance and significance now that one’s health is at stake.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: Messy lives

In those Eisenhower years with residual trails into the following decade, we had those perfect television paradigms – of “Leave it to Beaver”, “Father knows best” and “My Three Sons”, while the world around began its transformational process.

Hollywood decided much later that they needed to be at the forefront, leading social change and forcing cultural avant-garde transitions even if merely experimental and questionable for any positive good.  That decision is in stark contrast to the turmoil of the 1960s and 70s, where the staid and stodgy traditionalism of television series barely reflected the reality of the deconstructionism occurring in real time.

Somehow, those old sitcoms provided a paradigm of perfect lives and traditionalism that secured hope for the rest of us; for, the reality is that, like Dutch’s childhood and the rest of us, we grew up with messy lives, and paid the price for the rest of time to try and correct it and match it as against the paradigms of a reality that never was.

Medieval theological arguments always include the notion that, we would never have an idea of perfection unless there was some entity in the objective world that matched such a concept.  It is merely an extension of Plato’s argument for Forms, where the particulars in the physical world are mere imperfections striving to compare to the ultimate conceptual constructs of inviolable Forms.

That is often the problem with comparisons and arguments by extension; they make of our lives unsatisfying, precisely because we can never meet the expectations of others, let alone those we construct in our own minds.  That is why medical conditions can be so insidious; we possess and carry around with us those Platonic Forms of perfection, and when the reality of a medical condition prevents us from completing the career, the project, the lives we believe we were meant to live, the dispossessing trauma of realizing that we fell short results in a despondency because we set up paradigms of expectations that never were.

The question often left unanswered is:  What are the values involved?  What do we believe in?  What constitutes reality, as opposed to a fantasy based upon unrealistic expectations?  Isn’t “health” the priority of life?

If so, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application by Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers when a medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing the essential elements of one’s position, is the next logical step based in a reality-basis of an imperfect life.

Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the fact that medical conditions further add to messy lives is no matter; we all have messy lives, and whatever fantasies we held on to when we enjoyed those old favorites, ignoring the problem never solved anything, and perfection should always be left to Platonic Forms in the dialogues of angels whispering among the heavenly orbs that remain hidden in the esoteric pages of those theological arguments long shelved in the monasteries of libraries long forgotten in the dusty bins of rotting books.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Benefitting from doubt

What does it mean to “give” one the “benefit of doubt”?  Is it something that is granted automatically, or must one “earn it” through labor, circumstances or sheer luck?  What are the elements that lead to it, and why are some people accorded such grace while others are treated with impunity of disregard?

Take the following hypothetical:  You are at a party with friends and acquaintances; you sit with a number of people, and among them are a very close friend and confidante, as well as a mixture of those whom you somewhat dislike and otherwise consider an “undesirable” of sorts.  Well, let’s be honest – you despise especially this one person, and hope daily that that individual will die a horrible death in a slow, agony-filled manner.  You may even daydream of torture and mayhem, and how your laughter at such pleas for mercy fills your inner soul with delight so devious that it even frightens you to consider your own meanness and ferocity of unsympathetic attitude towards this one subhuman miscreant.

During a lively conversation – we shall call the “friend” X, and the one whom you wish the horrible and slow torture ending in death, Y – the former (X) says something that refers to you in an obscure and somewhat polysemic context.  You pause and consider; then dismiss it; for, as a friend, you give the benefit of the doubt that the utterance was said innocently and without any underlying meaning of harm or tincture of criticism.  Then, later, Y says something as well –  perhaps a reference to you, your group of people or your team effort in a project – and with obvious sarcasm, says, “Yeah, right”.

Now, had X said the same thing, it might have been taken as a joke; but when Y says it, you burn with inner turmoil and it is just a miracle upon a hair’s breath that you don’t throw the contents of your drink across the circular gathering, right at the individual’s face.  For Y, you failed to give the “benefit of the doubt”.  Why?  Is it because such granting of unconditional grace must necessarily be encircled by a context of relational warmth, and lack of it provides grounds for withdrawing or withholding any such unilateral mandate?  Is the spectrum of doubt’s convergence and emergence correlated to the level and extent of trust and friendship already established, or can it also occur in the vacuum of dealing with strangers?  As to the latter – dealing with strangers – we often coin as an act of the foolish or resulting from innocence and inexperience, don’t we?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers considering the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through one’s Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, then on to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the issue of giving various individuals the “benefit of the doubt” will come up in numerous contexts and encounters – from discussing one’s medical issues with a Supervisor or Manager, to informing the Human Resource Department of one’s Federal agency that one intends upon filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits; and such encounters, by necessity, will often involve that nagging feeling as to whether to grant (or not) the benefit of the doubt.

In the end, “doubt” is more likened to an intuition – like the hair reflexively standing on the nape of one’s neck as a warning against impending danger – and has more to do with our Darwinian background than any societal conventions we deem applicable, and when dealing with Federal agencies, it is often prudent to not grant that ultimate grace of unilateral conformity – and, instead, to withhold giving the benefit of the doubt in almost all circumstances.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The perfection of nothingness

The advantage of nothingness over the clutter of everything is that the former – despite lacking any characteristic of anything concrete, or perhaps because of it – retains and reflects an aura of perfection.  It is perhaps a puzzle to consider perfection in that which represents vacuity, but think about it:  It is the figment and filament of negation which can represent the penultimate artifice of unsullied brightness; everything that is in being, can be found fault with, but nothing that exists cannot be prosecuted for imperfection.

That is why Anselm’s Ontological Argument for God’s existence is so deliciously irrelevant:  lacking any “real-world” content, the irrefutable perfection of its linguistic construct allows us to believe with such irredeemable faith in the a priori nature untouched and unable to be deconstructed in a world where everything is otherwise unmasked as either superficial, virtual or unreal.

The prefatory acceptance of the major premise – “That than which nothing greater can be thought of” – is itself of such irrelevant tripe (the substantive reference to the content, not the animal’s innards) that we involuntarily warm our hands and lick our lips before pouncing with predatory glee upon such sophomoric tropes (easy to exchange the “i” for an “o”).  And then we turn to our projects, as Heidegger would describe, in order to forget the unmasked and unveiled reality of our present concerns, because procrastination is the epitome of acknowledging our unmanageable souls and lives of decrepit conduct unlike the angels of yore.

There is nothing but imagination to feed our tired souls, anymore.  This isn’t even a “postmodern” world; instead, it is a “post-cynical” world.  We have unmasked every hero, dissected anything of value, and demeaned all content and reduced it all to mere materialism.  The only thing left for us to elevate to a heightened sense of ecstasy is nothingness itself.  Only if it survives in the corridors of our own minds and creative imaginations, can it be considered perfection.  For, in the real world, nothing that is of value can be trusted, and everything else remains but nothingness.

That is why, for the Federal or Postal employee who continues to procrastinate his or her Federal Disability Retirement filing, the perfection of nothingness often remains as the final hint of hope.  For, so long as one never tries, one can never fail.  Perfection in the security of not, is the epitome of safety.  By failing to file and remaining miserable in the pain and agony of one’s medical condition, the hope of future filing remains as the hint of hope for the future.  But the problem with such an approach – as with Anselm’s argument for the existence of God – is that we live in a world of real pain, real deterioration, and real destiny.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application by the Federal or Postal employee requires a “next step” forward in order to move beyond the perfection of nothingness.

In the trite parlance of ongoing modernity, there is never anything gained if nothing is attempted, but for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker 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 one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the agony of continuing in a job which is self-destructive, is by its very nature an admission that perfecting that artifice of nothingness is nothing more than delaying the reality of an uncertain future where the perfection of nothingness will gain nothing more than the reality of nothingness, which is nothing to hope for.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire