Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Persuasive Impact

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it is important not to confuse the difference between that which is central in proving one’s Federal Disability Retirement application, from that which is merely of persuasive import.

In some cases, there may be a necessity, for very pragmatic reasons, to deliberately switch the two; but as a general rule, the argument for persuasive documentation should be used as secondary sources of proof.

Often, the choices are limited for the Federal or Postal employee:  either one continues to work at a job where it is clear that performance, attendance, or capability to continue is steadily and progressively deteriorating; or one can simply quit and walk away from the Federal or Postal job without doing anything (not an advisable option); or, one can file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  That being said, if the Federal or Postal employee takes the third option of Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, then one must necessarily prove one’s case.

In order to prove one’s case, one must have a supportive doctor.

While VA ratings, OWCP Second Opinion doctors’ reports, etc., constitute examples of evidence which may be persuasive, the centrality of one’s case is represented by a narrative report from one’s own treating doctor.  In some cases, when one’s own doctor will not support such a case, one may use the persuasive evidence as the key to proving one’s case, but as a general rule, they should remain as collateral sources of proof.

Remember that “what” is used is important, but sometimes, “how” it is used can be just as important, if not more so.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: In troves of battered grey

It is the crisis point of one’s life, and the interruption of plans, which seems to define the value of the narrative.  We tend to judge by leaps of negation; in a hurry to determine worth, we skim the beginning chapters, then rush through the middle, and read with intensive interest the last few pages and conclude the life of a character based not upon the lengthy experiences of amoral devices, but by the standards of terminal avalanches.

A short story is merely a slice of life; a novel, a jagged graph of extrapolated instances cumulatively garnered to present a coherent and systematized itinerary.  But real life is different.  Each entity is a uniqueness in and of itself; never a mere compilation of facts, nor a composite of irrational emotions; it is, instead, a story unto itself.  Like troves of battered grey, we try and open the chest of drawers and determine in an instant before we close the chapter.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact — and define — one’s worth to the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, it is well to remember not to judge too harshly.  One’s worth should not be defined by any arbitrary point on a linear graph of time, nor determined by those who look disinterestedly beyond yesterday’s contribution to the “mission” of the agency.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who can no longer perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, and who need to consider 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, should never see the entrance into the steps of administrative and bureaucratic malaise as an “end” to the chapter of one’s life, but rather, still the ongoing narrative which requires further telling and editing.

When one is in the midst of turmoil, it is often difficult to see beyond; but like the troves of battered grey we encounter on a foggy night in rain-drenched clothes, we must remember that there is always the warmth of tomorrow, and sunshine of days to come yet to recall the moments of slumber when once a crisis tried to define a lifetime.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Observing Dogs

They belie conformity of thought, though they are willing to obey and follow strict adherence to rules and commands; and while “experts” in clothing of meandering letters, capitalized after the patronymic lineage displayed proudly as designators of validity and knowledge, may conclude that they neither smile, nor exhibit greater intelligence than primates deemed closer to our ancestral genetic heritage, what constitutes a test of possessing such a quotient is often irrelevant to defining the species.

They can defy; they can doubt, and be suspicious; anticipate by mere thought or look; and know the scent of danger from miles afar, long before any human capacity to fathom such instinctive acuity.  We think we are the great observatories of behavior and time; but dogs can as well decipher with watchful eyes, and smell the aroma of turmoil and disease, oftentimes long before a diagnostic tool can determine the course of future treatment.

We can learn much from observing dogs; for, while we may marvel at the obedience displayed, we mistake such adherence to commands as mere acts of automatons, as opposed to the want to please and the love they possess.  And how much of one’s life is characterized by a need to please, even when it is refused and countermanded with cruelty and crass contempt?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who continue to remain in a Federal or Postal job, despite all indicators from their bodies, minds and spirits to leave for the sake of health, is it any different than the observations gleaned from dogs who obey despite the cruelty of a contemptible master?

It is like the famous quote from Hemingway, that in modern warfare, a man will “die like a dog for no good reason.”  Sometimes, obedience and adherence is nothing more complicated than a desire to please, and to “stay the course” because no other way is known or shown.

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, is no different than the curse of the cur; and while we may applaud our own superiority by making grand conclusions based upon observing dogs and other creatures, the wonder of it is what those observing dogs must consider of our own plight, as fellow mongrels in a universe replete with stupid cruelty.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire 
Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer

   

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: The Quiet Corridors of Shame

“Shame regards the world as virtue delights by advances, whereas the blushing eyes rustle past quietly in the night.”  Such adages, at one time or another in the history of words, linguistic battles, and pendulum tensions of behavior accepted and acceptable; moral turpitudes unconcealed and depiction of baseness meaningfully displayed; and so it goes, as standards crumble away and societal scorn diminutively dissipates with each passing day.

It was Mark Twain who quipped that Man is the only animal that blushes — or needs to.  But with the advent of the Internet, where Facebook and its corollary links (or, perhaps another way to describe them, as “co-conspirators”) reveal all, and everyone has bought into the idea that all things private can remain so by plastering everything in a public way, and Orwell’s contribution in his novel, 1984, is comparatively naive by standards of modernity.  Some would say that expungement of stigma and marks of unacceptable behavior have merely shifted and found replacements; regardless, it is always the people who shuffle in silence through the corridors of shame that have to live with the consequences.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are daily harassed and intimidated because of the vestiges and residuals of the medical conditions which prevent the performance of one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal workforce or with the U.S. Postal Service, the dire targeting like the days of Darwin’s descriptive accounts of evolutionary forces aggregating for greater genetic survivability, lives today and in steady, vibrant form.

For U.S. Government employees who suffer from medical conditions, the old standards of empathy, concern, accommodation and neighborliness are not the exclusive societal inputs which are applied.  Rather, it is harassment, intimidation, scorn and impatience — those very vices which were publicly decried but privately reserved.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are mere targets and fodder for the brute force of environmental determination.  For those Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who feel the brunt of Darwinian interludes, 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, is the proper course to take, the “manageable” route to travel, and often the only exit to follow.

Otherwise, the targeted Federal or Postal employee will merely continue to shuffle quietly down the corridors of shame, despite such vestiges allegedly having been made inconsequential by the political correctness of our times.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset: To Lose a Kite

It is that loss of innocence; of a childhood cut and let go, a bifurcation of sorts, where the fluttering tail fades into the misty distance of time past, eternity unfulfilled, and the present moment shattered by a loss not valued by economic standards, but by the negation of that which was, will never be again, and won’t be coming back. The loss of anything is valued by the attachment of human passion, the trembling fear of future consequences known and yet to be determined, and the expectation of a hope left as a residue of hard work and toil.

Do we remember that loss of a kite, at a critical moment in time when the champion of winds clapped and cheered as we controlled the destiny of an artifice so flimsy in manufactured quality and yet defying the aerodynamic laws of the greater universe?  Neither the Law of Newtonian physics nor the quantum theories compromising Einstein’s theoretical constructs could defy the persistence of levitational determination, coupled with a coil of thread in the stubby little hands of a child, with but a tug and a pull; and then, suddenly, it was gone.

Is not the future of an adult like that fleeting moment? What a qualitative difference a day may make; when once free of pain, then to experience the excruciating agony of debilitating onset; or where rationality and promise set the course for future happiness, only to be overwhelmed by fear, anxiety, depression and panic attacks. Life is tough; but when a medical condition intervenes and tears apart the very fabric of living, that compromised life becomes almost an unbearable mesh of a twisted cathartic of impenetrable jungles of psychological, physical and emotional turmoils. For many, there is no escape, and that snap of a thin reed which left the child’s hand empty of promise, is all that remains.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have the minimum years of service under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is often the best — if not the only — recourse out of a madness undeterred. Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit accorded to all Federal and Postal employees as part of one’s compensation package, and allows a person to stop working, receive what amounts to a lifetime annuity, while accruing more years in building towards a final retirement converted from disability retirement to regular retirement at age 62; and all the while, to live upon that rehabilitative plateau in order to attend to one’s health and well-being.

For, when a Federal or Postal worker is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the choices become stark and limited: To continue in pain and agony; to walk away with nothing to show for one’s efforts and toil; or to file for Federal Disability benefits.

It is like the child who once felt the pleasure of life through the flight of a kite, only to experience the tenuous reed of promise when the snap of the thread leaves the twirling object uncontrolled and uncontrollable, left to the nuances of turmoil and trauma; but to move on is to forge a different path, with the echoes of regret howling in the memories of our childhood consciousness, never to be regained but for a semblance of fated warmth.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire