FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: A Bang or a Whimper

We live in a universe of extremes.  People cannot have “reasonable beliefs” for, you are then deemed lacking, and in such a state, somehow a person without the passionate character who is a “true believer”.

The “middle point” which was espoused by Aristotle and the Stoics — of having the calm demeanor and not reactively excitable; of a reasoned approach to every issue; of maintaining a demeanor of the Zen Monk; this approach is now considered dead and irrelevant.

We must all be extremists.  Whatever cause we take up, whichever banner we decide to flagrantly exhibit (on our cars or with signs and banners ugli-fying our homes and front yards), we must go out with either a bang or a whimper.  If with a whimper, at least we tried.  If with a bang, then we have succeeded.

In modernity, it matters not what the substance of the issue is; only as to whether we are “passionate” in our feelings.  For, after decades of focusing upon the validation of our feelings (as opposed to cultivating the rational faculty of our souls), we have now succeeded in upending the importance of governing the feelings.

Yet, in the field of law, there is still a need for a rational, reasoned approach, and for Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, it is necessary to contact a lawyer who approaches the issue of Federal/Postal Disability Retirement as a matter of legal and medical necessity, and one who sees each case as not a matter of a Bang or a Whimper, but as a legal issue which needs to be approached in a calm, stoic matter — in applying “the Law”.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who will not engage in the Social Media and modern approach of great fanfare, but instead, relies still on the stodgy old way of doing things — of actually speaking with the client, explaining the process, and doing the work himself.  Neither with a Bang or a Whimper, but with a straightforward approach of applying the damn law.

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 & Postal Worker Disability Retirement: The Patchwork Approach

It has come to be a sought-after item, often referred to as artistic and creative.  Like antiques which were once merely furniture used and other items daily utilized by others long ago, the patchwork quilt, blanket and other textile items put together from different fabrics and pieces from worn-out castaways — the remade product was an attempt to salvage the best of the worst, then put those sections together to make something new from the old.

Such an approach has also been applied in other disciplines and subjects — even in Federal or Postal Disability Retirement applications.  The Patchwork Approach is to put together whatever seems helpful, without any overriding conceptual umbrella or legal theory, approach, paradigm, etc., then sending it off to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — somewhat akin to the “shotgun approach”.

But is that the best way to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS?  Or, is the better approach to retain an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and present a cogent, coherent and well-argued case, and to leave the patchwork approach for quaint Amish blankets?

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 with Disabilities: Making the Decision

There are always multiple factors which must be considered — of a career invested; financial viability; of a self-image still lingering of a more vibrant self from a mere few years ago; of not being able to let go of the daily routine despite the added stresses, the suspicious looks from coworkers, the fear of your agency’s initiation of further restrictions and potentially adverse actions, including a Performance Improvement Plan (a “PIP”), or leave restrictions, proposed removal, etc.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition impacts your ability and capacity to perform your job duties, making the decision to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a difficult decision which must take into consideration multiple factors. Of all of the factors to consider, however, the first one which should be understood is whether or not you may or may not be eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Contact and consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits and call a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Spam

If you remember eating it as a kid, it “dates” you — for, who in this day and age eats something that is singularly unhealthy, contains high levels of fats, calories and sodium, as well as unnamed preservatives?  On the other hand, the younger generation doesn’t blink an eye, and instead sees the word as a forgotten acronym for “junk email”, or otherwise known as “unsolicited commercial email”.

Are the two related?  Can there be a coincidence between a word which has two meanings or more, but contains some similarities and parallels?

Spam as a commercial yummy — oh, but of those memories when the can is first opened, of using that metal “key” where you insert the “thingie” and roll back the metal strip; and upon opening the can, the thick fat that surrounds in globs of hibernating hews of highlights hidden amidst the green shadows of delectable delights.  Spam as unsolicited commercial email — oh, but how that folder fills up so quickly, and yet do we nevertheless obsessively check each one “just in case” it was mistakenly misidentified and sent to the wrong folder?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who cross over generational lines — of whether you remember the word as the delectable blob of pork making its popularity entrance sometime after WWII, or of the “new” generation who makes the connection to unsolicited commercial emails — if a medical condition begins to prevent you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your job, you may want to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Spam is a reality of life; medical conditions, too, occur and become an unavoidable reality; and whether of either reality that uninvitedly intrudes upon your life, it the next step beyond that a person takes which is the important moment of actionable directions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: The Essence of Relating

How is it that a human being — an entity quite unique among species that cannot relate — can understand, comprehend and even become comfortable with the anomalies of life’s encounters?

Other species seem to weave among and amidst their surroundings with familiar repose; certainly, intelligent dogs recognize a new couch, an unfamiliar visitor or a different dog food introduced; but in the wilds, it is the familiarity of the surroundings that make for comfort in life.

For human beings, how does one relate to the strangeness of an entity — of an alien; of a science fiction novel that introduces a world beyond; of another culture that defies every normative structure of one’s own world?  It is, more often than not, by analogies and metaphors, is it not?

We begin by “discovering” the similarities — that something is “like” the thing we know because they share characteristics x, y or z; and it is through the familiarity of similarities by which we begin to formulate an idea of understanding, then of comprehension, and finally of a feeling of comfort.

Similarly [sic], how does one convey the idea of pain to another person who has had very little experience of it?  What if that “other person” has never experienced pain?

Yes, yes, the rebuttal would be that everyone has experienced it — even if it was a scratch, a dog bite, a paper cut, etc.  But as pain is subjective, there are certainly those who have had limited experiences of a subjective phenomena, and certainly many who have never experienced a spectrum of excruciating, debilitating pain.  Or how about psychiatric conditions — of Major Depression so overwhelming, or Anxiety so paralyzing, or panic attacks so debilitating that the condition itself prevents a person from being able to perform one’s work?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that an application for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes a necessary next step, it is the essence of relating — of how to formulate ones narrative in the Applicant’s Statement of Disability (SF 3112A) — that becomes of foundational importance in the success or failure of the application itself.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law before moving forward; for, the essence of relating requires not only the existence of a medical condition and its impact upon one’s ability or inability to perform one’s job, but more than that, it requires the ability to convey an understanding of the facts, the law and how the two intersect.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Medical Retirement from the OPM: Who we are

The “I”, of course, always dominates; but the two cannot be separated, for they are inevitably interlinked and intertwined in the consciousness of our collective selves.  And so the “we” is subsumed by the “I”, and the “I” cannot effectively be distinguished from the “we”.  Who we are is inextricably aggregated with who I am; who I am is a product of who we are.

That is why the loner is distrusted in society; the maverick who does things his or her own way is a threat — unless that loner accomplishes something in life so irrefutably magnificent that we cannot but embrace him or her as the paradigm of a virtue we wished we had first thought of.  Whether by burning jealousy or with disdainful pride, we then go on and watch to see if that loner will not self-destruct, then relish the thought that, all along, we were right in predicting that the outlander was the scum of the earth, anyway.

Who we are — we want always to be able to distinguish ourselves from the pack, separate one’s self from the fold and glow in the spotlight away from the herd; and so we lose ourselves in the soliloquy of our inner worlds where the universe of the self-conscious “I” can imagine of heights and pinnacles that others will never see.  That is why virtual reality is so infectious; why the perfection reflected in Instagram photos and Facebook postings is so insidious; for, though we give lip-service to the proverbial “village” or wanting to belong to a certain cohesive society, we reservedly display all of the characteristics of desiring out.

It is, in the end, the “forced out” that is most intolerable, and 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, it is when harassment by the herd, antagonism originating from one’s Agency or the Postal unit, and workplace hostility initiated by one’s coworkers and supervisors — it is then that the necessity arises to bifurcate and differentiate by preparing, formulating and filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

For, it is no longer a matter of “who we are” — because you are no longer one of the “team” because of your medical condition.  Instead, it is who “I” am — to look after your own best interests, by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, and consulting with an Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: This upside down world

How many whistleblowers would do it all over again?  How many regrets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  The answer: Few as to the first question, and at least a dozen in response to the second.  For, as to the second query, while one person engages in the mechanical act of lighting up the room, it takes all of the others to fail to assuage the regrets of a person who has tried to do the rights thing, and has lived to suffer the consequences.

We grow up being taught all sorts of empty adages — how “truth reveals all”, or that “justice prevails in the end”; and though the old hero of simplicity has now been replaced by more “complex” characters of mixed good/bad/neutral, still the naïveté of childhood upbringings tend to haunt beyond the loss of innocence delayed.

This is an upside down world where the clear-cut demarcations that once were inviolable have now become obscured, and where leaders can argue with a straight face any and all positions, whether self-contradictory, hypocritical or just plain nonsense, and can get away with it without any regrets or loss of sleep.  Perhaps it has always been like that and we just didn’t realize it.  The wealthy have always been able to get away with more; the powerful, without much consequences; and when the combination of wealth and power become aggregated, there is little to impose any checks and balances that might have tempered the onslaught of injustice.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, where 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 fact that we live in an upside down world becomes exponentially the case because of the medical condition itself.

Progressive deterioration and chronic debilitation are often the rule of a medical condition, and just to survive another day without pain, without emotional or mental anguish — these are the hallmarks of needing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The world is about as topsy-turvy as it can get; but when the private world of one’s health begins to deteriorate, that upside down world becomes a tumultuous maze of a conundrum wrapped within an insanity that cannot be escaped from, and that is when you know that preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application becomes a necessity in a universe that requires some wisdom, and turning to the advice of an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement is often the first step in providing a balanced perspective within this upside down world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Ascribing wrong motives

Is it wrong to ascribe wrong motives?  And, unless there emerges practical consequences, does it matter?  If a non-family member forms a relationship of friendship with an older person, do we fairly ascribe an underlying intent of malicious deliberation?  We may think thus:  He is hoping to gain something – gifts in return; an inheritance, perhaps; or, maybe even a more blatant act of stealing or forcibly engaging in a criminal enterprise.  On the other hand, there could be a purity of motives – of responding to loneliness and a desire for company; but who in this world ever believes that, anymore?

In a universe of depravity and disseminated cynicism of purpose, we know better, yet cling to that time eons ago of innocence and purity, when not everyone darkened his inner soul of decadence.  What was that age-old adage that once applied, when mothers and grandmothers admonished us to invite strangers into the home, lest one day a disguised angel appeared amongst our sinful souls?  Of scenes during the Great Depression when the hungry would knock humbly on backdoors and stand with hat in hand, eyes cast downward, and children in tattered clothing looked up with forlorn eyes in bulging anticipation for a morsel of forgiveness and food?

Yes, we give to that homeless man or woman in a moment of panic, when the urge of empathy is not so much overwhelming, but more fearful that we want to avoid the image that, “But for the grace of God, I may become like that person”, and quickly hand over some loose change or fumble for our wallets and pocketbooks to swiftly dispense with our duty to our fellow mankind – and if a stranger looking askance smiles sardonically and quips under his breath, “Yeah, right, as if you really cared” – is it any different in ascribing a wrong motive, than the mercenary who targets old ladies and innocent children with threats of harm?

This is a pivotal point in civilization’s evolution towards a pinnacle of maturation:  as the West has no mechanism in the generational transfer of wisdom, where the young learn of lesson’s past through dinner-table discussions of nightly musings; so the imputation of cynicism’s haunting residue will only exponentially overtake any purity of a soul’s essence.  We become what we fear, because fear overtakes and is more powerful than any singular love for one another.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who is considering 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, it is often the case that the Supervisors, Managers and coworkers of the Federal agency or the Post Office at which one works, will ascribe wrong motives to the Federal or Postal worker filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

That is a sad thing.  For, no one else can “feel the pain” as the person suffering from a debilitating medical condition, just as empathy and sympathy become waning characteristics in a society increasingly devoid of such human essences of Being.  In the end, one must simply ignore such lack of civility, and move on, as the saying goes; for, the old adage of proverbial significance – that a person is unable to understand unless you have walked a mile in his or her shoes – still applies today, whether or not the other person has ascribed wrong motives or not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Attorney: Out to Pasture

There is a natural proclivity by the previous generation to resist the transference of authority before its designated time; the conflict arises not as to the inevitability of such change, but rather as to the appropriate context, procedural mechanisms instituted, and the care and sensitivity manifested.  And that is often the crux of the matter, is it not?

The brashness and lack of diplomacy and propriety; the insensitive nature of youth in trying to take over before paying one’s proper dues; and a sense that the young are owed something, without paying the necessary price through sweat and toil.  And the older generation?  From the perspective of the young, they are often seen as intractable, unable to face the reality of the inevitability of generational transfer; the ideas once seen as new and innovative are mere fodder for laughter and scorn.

Such treatment of those on their “way out” are often given similar application for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who show a need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Such employees are viewed as those being “put out to pasture”, and as something less than human, partial in their worth, lacking of completeness, and needing to be shoved aside to make room for the healthy and fully productive.

Resentment often reigns; the insensitivity of the approach of agencies in their bureaucratic indifference is often what prevails; and once the exit is complete, those who were once the warriors and conquerors of yesteryear, are mere vestiges of forgotten remembrances of dissipating dew.

Always remember, however, that there is another perspective than the one which is left behind.  For the Federal or Postal employee who is put out to pasture by one’s agency, there is new ground to break, fresh challenges to embrace.  The pasture that one enters need not be the same one that the former agency considers; it is the one which the Federal or Postal Disability Retirement annuitant plows for himself, and whatever the thoughts and scornful mutterings of that agency left behind, they now have no control over the future of the Federal or Postal employee who has the freedom to follow the pasture of his or her limitless dreams.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire