Medical Retirement Benefits for Federal & Postal Workers: Mapping the Future

Young people these days have no concept of mapping the future; being entirely dependent upon “Google Maps”, where you just tell the Smartphone the destination point, you then just follow the metallic voice like an obedient pet waiting for the next morsel of food.

In life, it is important to possess the ability to map out one’s future — whether in the short term (getting to the grocery store and buying certain items) or in the long (determining a career choice; what educational background is needed; what financial commitments are necessary, etc.).

As well, mapping the future is often forced upon us — as when a medical condition besets a Federal or Postal employee, and it becomes necessary to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Where does one go to?  What resources are available?  Will my Smartphone tell me what to do?  Or — contact a disability attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, and let the specialized lawyer guide you in mapping the future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Postal & Federal Employees with Disabilities: The Field of Play

Perhaps the field of play has already been determined.  It is the place you have always met and played; the tennis courts just down the road; the neighborhood gym; the backyard where you have always played catch with your son or daughter; and in professional sports, the rotation which does away with home field advantage by going back and forth between the cities of sporting events.

The concept encapsulating the “field of play” also is often applied in other contexts, as well — as in which office a meeting will take place; where will people sit during negotiations; in what forum will diplomats from different countries come together, etc.  Do you “play” on “their” field of play, or on your own?  Who determines which issues should be “put in play”, and which rules of “the game” apply?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have filed for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is important at the outset that you determine which field of play you will be engaging — OPM’s, or your own?  Often, OPM will move to draw you into their field of play — focusing upon certain issues that they believe you must address.

When that moment comes, it is important for you to have an attorney who narrows each issue, and turns the proverbial tables around and forces OPM to come onto your field, address your issues, and play by the rules which actually govern Federal Disability Retirement Law.  Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer and make sure that you have the home field advantage, and that the field of play is on the legal field of battle which you have chosen.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Dismal

At the outset, you realize that something is wrong with the caption.  Not being a noun, the space following demands the question, “The dismal what?”  Adjectives require it; we all learned about them in grade school (if that is even taught, anymore) about grammar, and how they “modify” the noun.  It cannot stand alone.  It is a peculiar adjective, isn’t it?  It is one that cannot modify a noun except in a negative way.

Others can be modifiers but can themselves become altered by the mere fact of relational influence.  For example, one may refer to the “beautiful ugliness” of a landscape, and understand by it that the contrast between the two modifies one another.  But with the adjective “dismal’, it seems never to work. Whatever noun it stands beside; whatever word that it is meant to modify; in whichever grammatical form or content — it stands alone is a haunting sense of the dismal — of down, depressed and disturbed.

It is like the medical condition that attaches and refuses to separate; of an embrace that will not let go, a hug that cannot be unraveled; and a sense that cannot be shaken.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, the adjective of “dismal” often precedes the realization that one’s career must be modified in order to attend to one’s medical condition.  Work takes up a tremendous amount of one’s time, energy and strength of daily endurance, and obtaining a FERS Disability Retirement annuity is often required just so that one’s focus can be redirected in order to attend to one’s health.

The process of preparing, formulating and filing, then waiting upon, a Federal Disability Retirement application is a daunting one, and you may want to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the dismal turn into a morass of a bureaucratic nightmare which fails to modify the noun that all applicants yearn for: The approval.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The narrative we write

Each of us carries a narrative within; the David Copperfield segment of our otherwise unrevealed lives.  It is who we are; the past that enlivens or diminishes; the memories of yesteryear or just a fortnight ago; and it resides continually until that day of atonement or the diminishment though dementia of fated unkindness.  What we say; how it is written; how it is related through the handed-down oral traditions of storytelling and bemused tales of a Dickensian happy endings (excepting Little Nell and other debatable few unnamed); and how it is told, in what manner, with what punctuations and unctuous phraseology applied; these matter, especially when others are listening.

Perhaps, in modernity, the oral traditions of storytelling have disappeared, like graveyards unvisited because of loss of faith.  Once, family members were buried on the plot of land in the pasture behind; now, that plot is another suburban home, easily fungible and sold if profits justify enough.  Lineage is irrelevant, except to search one’s genealogy in order to establish the bloodlines unique to resist disease and incest; and as children listen not to the storyteller at dinnertime, but to rap singers on iPods and Smartphones, and digitized voices in virtual fields of games and electronic media; even they get their sense of who the “I” is, by songs uttered with vitriol and You-Tube clips streaming for self-aggrandizement.

We lament that which we have no control over, yet do nothing to exert but a trifle of influence.  The standard adage should remind us:  “Garbage in, garbage out”; and, yet, who among us steadfastly maintains the duties of the vanguard who must imperviously maintain a standard of who is invited and what is kept out?  Or, does “popularity” rule, and the old edict by a shoe company trying to dominate the cutthroat world of sales and profitability, “Just do it” – is that the philosophy we follow?  Or, how about, “If it feels right (or good), then…”

The narrative we write is the storyline that follows, and the byline that stamps its approval at the bottom of the tale acknowledges who we are, what we believe in and where we intend to go.  What would your response be if a child suddenly came upon you and asked, “Who are you?”  Would the narrative that bespeaks include struggles encountered, battles engaged and promises kept?  Or would the story be a confused delineation of a skeletal clutter, barely recognizable as a unique reflection of the angels we fly with?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing, formulating and 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 narrative we write, especially on the Standard Form 3112A, is perhaps the penultimate component of the essence of the effective Federal Disability Retirement application.  How it is written; what information it should contain; the relevant period of discourse; the proper delineation in answer to the queries; these must all be taken into account before submitting it to OPM.  And, just as the response to the query by the curious child should give one pause, greater reflection before submitting an SF 3112A to OPM should be taken, lest the narrative we write reflects that which we no longer want to own.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirements: This cold and impervious universe

Of course, the title is more akin to Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, as opposed to an interventionist deity of a personal nature.  Yet, even of the latter, the question of whether any real influence can be gotten, or whether fate had already predetermined the course of future actions, is certainly debatable.  If one ‘appeals’ to the guidance of a personal idol, but hears nothing, is there any distinguishable distinction to be made from that of a prime move, unperturbed by cries of tragic consequences?

Aside from the metaphysical queries, the view that we live in a cold and impervious universe is one of unaccountable ‘feelings’; and while one’s emotional response may not correlate with the firmer foundation of logical analysis, there is little basis for undermining the validity of such conclusions any more than arriving at it from a systematic rejection of a metaphysical argument.  Both approaches are equally valid, and the former may be more so, given the experiential reinforcements by most through anecdotal evidence.

That wars in foreign lands devastating entire communities, decimating whole cities and making refugees of innocent children and bystanders who merely want to live a quiet life, cannot be denied.

Closer to home, of antiseptic neighborhoods in classical suburbia – that quintessential cauldron of “phoniness” rejected by Holden Caulfield in his magnum opus, The Catcher in the Rye.  Here, where communities are defined by fences and self-imposed solitary confinement, the only time we open our doors is when an ambulance or other disturbing intrusions forces us to gawk with concern for another neighbor quietly being transported to an unknown facility of no-return.

And for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has come to a critical point where performing the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties becomes an incommensurability beyond mere difficulty, but a reality that can no longer be hidden – the conclusion that this is a cold and impervious universe is merely heightened by the uncaring unresponsiveness of the Federal or Postal employee’s agency and its co-conspirators.

The legal terms are always bandied about:  “Accommodations”; “FMLA protection”; “allowance for being on LWOP”; and other such mechanisms; but truth be told, the agency and the U.S. Postal Service merely wants to shed itself, as soon as possible, of any employee who dares to whisper the heretical utterance:  “I am suffering, and need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.”

In the end, it is the law itself that allows for the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement, whether the Federal employee or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, that gives one pause, for the benefit itself is at least one counterpoint to the question of whether this world we live in is entirely a cold and impervious universe.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire