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

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement Attorney: VERAs

With spring comes the rumors of love, furtive dalliances, clandestine consummation and intrepid interludes; as well as the potential for Voluntary Early Retirement Authority for Federal and Postal employees.  What the latter (known under the acronym of VERA) has to do with the multiple listings of the former (rumors of love, furtive dalliances, etc.) is anyone’s guess; perhaps there is no connection at all or, more likely, the cognitive comparisons we make have to do with offers of change, adventure, and a need to evaluate the impact of all of the above upon the security of one’s future.

The devil, as in all things, is in the details.  Whether a VERA is accepted or not should be based upon the incentivized offer; and it is often the short term gain (a large enough sum of cash “up front” in order to make it attractive), like the adrenaline-flowing excitement propelled by a romantic interlude, which compels the Federal and Postal worker to accept the VERA.

Be not fooled; the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Worker is proposing a VERA not out of the kindness of their abundant hearts; rather, it is to streamline, strip and effectively make skeletal the overburdened bureaucracy of the Federal government and the U.S. Postal Service.  But the question, as applicable to all VERAs (as well as to romantic dalliances) is, Is it good for your future?

If the Federal or Postal worker must accept a VERA, the underlying reason and rationale is often because he or she can no longer continue in the job anyway; and, to make the point ever more poignant, that foundational reason for an inability to continue often involves a medical condition.  That being the case, it would be wise to evaluate and compare the short-term gain potentially attained through a VERA, as opposed to a long-term security of purposes accessed through filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Both a VERA and a Federal Disability Retirement application must be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Both are ways to discontinue the present set of circumstances the Federal and Postal employee finds him/herself in.  The VERA, however, is a plan of self-indulgent action proposed for the benefit of the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service; Federal Disability Retirement is a course of determination based upon the best-interests of one’s health and well-being.  And, like clandestine romances engaged in behind the locked doors of distant roadside motels, the VERA may merely be a response to a mid-life crisis leading to an emptiness in one’s soul once the excitement has passed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Twilight’s Landing

Sleep is often the category of escape; restorative sleep, a palliative prescription for a medical condition.  Upon closing one’s eyelids, the images which pervade from the day’s stimuli slowly recede as the dark chasm of one’s own consciousness begins to fade, and sleep begins to overtake, leading us into that shadow of twilight’s landing.

It is when chronic pain, discomfort, and the gnawing neurons which fail to relax but continue to send signals of dismay and distress, that the world of wakefulness and the dawn of sleep fail to switch off; or the continuing anxiety, depression or panic attacks control and jolt one into the awareness of darkness.  Medical conditions have an impact not only upon the daytime soul, but in the sleeplessness of non-sleep as well.

For Federal and Postal workers who are formulating a Federal Disability Retirement application and preparing one’s Statement of Disability on SF 3112A, one aspect of the descriptive narrative which is often overlooked, both by the doctor as well as the Federal or Postal applicant, is the role that profound fatigue plays upon performing the essential elements of one’s job.  While often implicitly stated or otherwise inferentially contained, explicit extrapolation is important in order to convey all of the elements of one’s medical condition and their impact upon the Federal or Postal employee’s inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties.

Perhaps one was reprimanded or suspended for “sleeping on the job”.  Was it mere laziness, or was the underlying medical condition the intermediate cause of an act or event otherwise seen as an insubordinate statement of defiance?  Reasons and rationales provided make all the difference in this very human universe of language games and counter-games.  For, in order to effectively submit a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal Worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the important thing is to make sure and sufficiently describe and delineate the primary and secondary causes of one’s underlying medical conditions. This includes the inability to have restorative sleep, the profound and intractable fatigue one experiences, impacting upon one’s daily cognitive functions, etc.

Otherwise, the medical conditions are not adequately conveyed, and when one goes back to sleep in attempting to reach that twilight’s landing, the difficulties of the world will be magnified by another potential problem — a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, of one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely, Robert R. McGill, Esquire