Disability Retirement for Federal Workers: Natural Pairs

Shoes come in pairs; gloves, eye glasses, slippers and shoelaces. Obviously, products are manufactured to fit the need, and the loss of one of the pairs often requires the purchase of replacement for both, precisely because it is difficult to locate a store which will sell you only one of the replacement pairings.

Other couplings may not be as easily identifiable, but nevertheless tend to be related; for example, “stress” if often paired with “anxiety“, and a hostile work environment is tied to both stress and anxiety.  Though we may not refer to such related concepts in the manner similar to a pair of gloves (one doesn’t hear the term, “the pair of stress and anxiety”), the combination coincides precisely because of the inherent nature of similitude.

Perhaps it is more appropriate to speak in terms of a tripartite concept: of a hostile work environment, increasing the level of stress, and resulting in the medical condition of exacerbated anxiety. Or, perhaps a tetralogy of a compound concept: a hostile work environment; stress; anxiety; a medical condition. Or are the latter two so interrelated and therefore count as one, as “anxiety” is a “medical condition”, and so we should revert back to the tripartite category? For, it is certainly the case that when a medical condition enters the workforce, there is too often an increase in workplace hostility, resulting in greater quantification of stress, and the consequence of exacerbation of anxieties, which further compounds the complications of medical conditions, which…

So, perhaps the proper and more appropriate conceptual identification involves a somewhat vicious circle of cause-to-effect, effect-to-cause? Whatever the technically precise categorization of conceptual identification, for the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, one thing is clear: all such concepts are interrelated, connected, intersecting in conceptual constructs, and compounded in complexities of human behavior.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for consideration, is an option which should be considered by the Federal and Postal Worker, if one wants to entertain a viable alternative to remaining in that vicious cycle of medical condition, stress, hostile work environment, anxiety…

The pairing of conceptual constructs is a reality in the world which is not mere linguistic play; the medical condition is real; the world of work is often harsh; stress is a silent but true killer; and anxiety is not just a passing phase in one’s life. No, it is not the pairings which are unnatural; rather, it is artificial nature of how we cover up the reality of such pairings, which makes for sadness in this world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Postal and Federal Disability Retirement: Workplace Stress

Stress symptoms are not always visible

Stress is that pernicious aura, neither visible nor definable, with a spectrum of tolerance particularized by individuals, and which pervades silently and invisibly but for the manifestations through physical reactions. It can lead to both physical ailments as well as psychiatric turmoil, requiring medical management ranging from prescription medications to hospitalization.

Who among us knows where the “breaking point” is, for a coworker, Supervisor, etc.? Are there signs of stress where one could have predicted the actions or reactions of another? As a silent killer of incremental gnawing, stress impacts different people in variegated ways, and can often be the primary foundation for multiple medical conditions, but rarely diagnosed as such.

OPM may dismiss your stress claim as being situational: “But it only happens at work” (they may argue)

Stress in the workplace, of course, carries over into personal lives, and conversely, people who experience exponential quantification of stress in one’s personal life, will carry it into the professional arena despite monumental efforts to contain it.  Stress can be the exacerbating force in compounding and complicating already-existing medical conditions.

While stress itself, standing alone, becomes a problematic issue in which to base a Federal Disability Retirement application upon, because it points to the potential of being “situational” and therefore contained within a particular work environment; nevertheless, stress can be, and often is, a part of any Federal or Postal Disability Retirement submission.

Federal and Postal employees can become eligible for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, if it can be shown that one’s medical condition prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

Stress may even affect the way we present our legal cases

What role stress plays in such an application; how it is characterized; the manner in which it is presented; where in the compendium of medical conditions it should be stated — all are important in the complex narrative presentation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, for any Federal or Postal employee who is considering filing for the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement.

In the end, however stress is described, one thing is certain: it plays a large role in everyday lives, and pervades as oxygen and toxins alike permeate the atmosphere of the air we live in and of which we breathe.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal and Federal Disability Retirement: Fault Lines

In Geology, fault lines involve plate tectonic forces and planar fractures which reveal significant evidence for causes of earthquakes and help in determining and predicting areas of subduction zones and active faults which likely will result in future major earthquakes.  Movement, activity, fault? Sounds familiar. The anthropomorphic language, where we attribute human characteristics to inert matter, is a reflection of the beauty and elasticity of language.

For Federal and Postal employees engaged in employment disputes, and where medical conditions often underlay the seismic reverberations resulting from adversarial encounters between Supervisors, Workers and Agency cohesiveness within the greater context of asserting power and authority, often the wrong focus and engagement of the issues will result in greater calamities than was necessary if the issues were properly narrowed and pragmatically determined.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, OPM Disability Retirement may be the option most viable in solving an ongoing issue.  Filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is a benefit accorded to all Federal and Postal employees, whether under FERS or CSRS.

In Geology, proper and precise location of fault lines may be crucial in determining essential predictive accuracy of seismic tectonic shifts; in human affairs, it is often not the fault lines which matter, but how to maneuver around them.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire 
Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer

    

OPM FERS/CSRS Disability Retirement: To Be a Squirrel, for a Day

Watching them is an exercise of fascination; with nimble flight, to jump from a rooftop to the tip of a branch 10 feet away; scurry up and down trees with little thought (or is that merely a human projection without justification?) and no hesitation between the daredevil act and the graceful landing; and then to sunbathe in the midday warmth on a protruding ledge of the fence.

What a carefree existence; or so it would seem.  For, upon an extended observation, one realizes that there is never a moment when the squirrel is unaware of its surroundings, and that the anxiety-filled existence of human beings is not too different from that of the animal kingdom from which we conceptually separate ourselves, but of which reality forces a recognition of kinship.

One wonders how the ordinary individual can survive the daily stresses of life; but in turning to an uncomplicated animal such as a squirrel, you quickly realize that we are created as a bundle of stress-resistance nerves.  For the squirrel, the probability of a predator ready to pounce requires a heightened spectrum of awareness that approaches constant vigilance.  For the individual human being, the technological, artificial, but nevertheless just-as-real “stressors” of stimuli which require minute-by-minute responses, are readily received by the evolutionary adaptation first developed in the dangers of wildlife.

Thus, it is little wonder that when a medical condition hits an individual, the quickened pace of deterioration and progressive chronicity of the condition turns to debilitating impact.  By then, the stress-overload has reached its maximum impact.

For the Federal and Postal employee who is beset with a medical condition such that one must contemplate filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the time between the onset of the medical condition and the need to file is often short.  This should not be surprising, given that the Federal and Postal employee has often ignored or otherwise overcompensated for the warning signs of impending consequences.

OPM Disability Retirement can take some time to obtain.  Whether under FERS or CSRS, every Federal Disability Retirement application must be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the waiting time tends to be arbitrary, but in each case, somewhat lengthy.  Given that, once the crisis point of “needing” to file has been identified, it is important to take the next giant step and initiate the process.

And, like the squirrel of whom we imagine is merely frolicking in the sun, the lack of outward appearance of a need is never the true indicator of what is going on underneath.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire