FERS Medical Retirement: The Dissolution of the Monasteries

One is puzzled as to why it is being read, why it continues to fascinate; and why continue to plod through a work comprised of 500+ pages with hundreds of footnotes and meticulously annotated and “sourced” — of life in 16th Century England as the religious monasteries will be dissolved under the mandate of King Henry VIII.  Perhaps it is because, in reading all of the minutiae of life in the 1500s, one realizes that it was a different world, no less alien than a spaceship from Mars or from some other solar system.

We live in a world which is the culmination of absurdity — of school shootings being an accepted part of our psyche; of an ever-growing explosion of teen depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders where psychotropic medication regimens have become the norm; and where all of the traditional institutions we once trusted and depended upon have failed us: The schools; the churches; the government; the local community.

Other worlds, other times; reading about an era centuries ago reminds us that change is inevitable; that history is never static; that there are trade-offs in every dimension of life.  One is struck by the limitations imposed upon a person’s life — where options in making a living were essentially predetermined, both by station and status upon birth, or by the restrictions of one’s abilities; that religious orders offered a vibrant accommodation for intellectual engagement and a steady, if somewhat limited, standard of living.

But times were changing; the monastic dissolution was just around the corner; and as this stupendous work annotates well, nothing is ever static.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are facing the dissolution of a career with the Federal Government or the U.S. Postal Service as a result of a chronic medical condition, consider the option of an OPM Medical Retirement.

For, like the dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, when there was no other option but to accept the change, the Federal or Postal worker who must face the prospect of change because of a medical condition which is no less restrictive, at least an OPM Medical Retirement is an available option of last resort, when you are no longer able to perform one or more of the essential functions of your job.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of bypassing the potential dissolution of you job by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the FERS system.

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 Disability Retirement Benefits: Toxic Associations

At some point, the “distancing” begins.  First, a subtle move — not saying “hello”; not answering a phone call; avoiding the places where the usual meetings once took place.

Then, perhaps the prefatory denials: “We weren’t really friends” (an adverb to enhance the denial, but a form of grammatical insertion which is more telling when used than not applied at all); “Oh, I didn’t know him hardly at all”.  And then the final nail to the coffin: “Who?  The name is not familiar.”  Well…how about these photographs which show that you were with him/her multiple times?

Toxic associations can range from the blatant to the subtle; but once the toxicity becomes apparent, the rats begin to abandon ship in droves.

Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition are often treated as such associations — “toxic” to the extent that they are looked upon as plague-filled individuals who are no longer a member of the “team”.  When those allegedly toxic associations begin to be felt — of coworkers ignoring you; of supervisors looking at you with suspicion, etc., it is time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Your medical conditions are often viewed as contagious — not in terms of transmitting diseases, but in terms of no longer being useful to the Agency or the Postal service.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits and begin to disassociate yourself from the toxic associations — theirs, not yours — and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Horror Tales

Whether of Edgar Allan Poe’s many tales, like The Tell-Tale Heart or The Black Cat, or perhaps a taste that extends to more modern versions, of the Stephen King genre, people like to scare themselves silly, and then to be able to declare, “It was just a story”.  Whether reality reflects fiction, or that fiction can never truly recreate and mirror the sins of our own existence is a debate that will perpetually persist.

The horrors of genocidal mankind — from the Roman era of stadiums filled to capacity to witness cruelty as entertainment, to the Holocaust and Pol Pot’s mass killing fields; to the machete-wielding genocidal killings in Rwanda between the Hutus and the Tutsis; there never seems to be a lack of horror stories, whether by creative imaginations or in the reality of a universe gone berserk.

We read about them; experience nightmares of a reality so steeped in absurdity that they awaken us with a cold sweat; and some few of us have lived them, whether in wars, by being innocent bystanders, or somehow corollary victims otherwise referred to as “collateral” damage.  Each one of us walk about with horror stories; some of insignificant vintage narratives; others, of consequential victimhood to such an extent that we disbelieve our ears or refuse to listen to the whole story.

Then, there are the daily horror stories; maybe they don’t count as such and few would even bother to listen — like Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition and where the medical condition is about to end the once-promising career that has suddenly hit the “pause” button and ceases its once-ever-trajectory towards an upward trend.  Medical conditions at any age are “horror” stories that are often kept secret, stuffed in envelopes of silent lips unopened, and festering in the suffering inner minds of zombie-like peoples walking amidst the turmoil of a world gone berserk.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the horror stories one carries about may not quite meet the plot or characters of an Edgar Allan Poe tale, or a Stephen King twist; but for the individual who must live and suffer through the process of ending one’s career and fight for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, the tale of horror is nevertheless real, and consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law may well blunt the ending of a tale which is fated to otherwise end in a fit of screams and mayhem.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement from the Office of Personnel Management: Predictions

How did the first person accurately predict the oncoming change of weather?  Of course, some would contend that no one has accurately predicted such a thing, and would scoff at the thought.  Was it merely by observation?

Why did logic not overtake the attempt at prediction — of Hume’s contention that there is no such thing as a “necessary connection” between cause and effect, but merely a repetition of events that can be defied when, in the next instance, what one expected may turn out to be wrongly presumed?  Or of other events — of the outcome of a contest between two teams; of great horse races, the Triple Crown, or even of Olympic events: Can accuracy of predictions be statistically enhanced by observation, analysis, careful scrutiny and always with a bit of luck included?

And in the field of medicine — is a “prognosis” the same, or similar to, a “prediction” of sorts?  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the requirements necessary in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset includes a “prediction” of sorts — a prognosis that the medical condition will last a minimum of 12 months from the date of the application.

This does not mean that a Federal or Postal worker must wait for 12 months to establish that the medical condition itself will last that long, but merely that the medical condition itself will last a minimum of 12 months from the time one applies for Federal Disability Retirement — which, as a practical matter, makes sense because it takes about the same amount of time, on average, to get an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and there would essentially be no point in filing if, upon an approval, you no longer suffer from the medical condition itself.

A “prognosis” is, indeed, a type of prediction, and most doctors will be able to provide “within a reasonable degree of medical certainty” as to the lasting effects and enduring nature of a medical condition, based upon experience, analysis and clinical encounters.

Now, as for the weather…

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation for OPM Disability Claims: The stand-around guy

It is pointed out in contrast to the other finger pointed towards another — not the “stand up” guy (or girl), but the “stand-around” guy (or girl).   The former refers to a person who can be trusted at all times, is straightforward when asked about his or her opinions on a matter, and is generally known as an individual of “good character”.  By contrast, the latter describes a person who is unsure of himself; who loiters because he cannot decide what his purpose is for being anywhere; and is generally picked last, or next to last, when teams are chosen for a pick-up game of basketball or touch football.

It refers to a person who is the “extra” and the odd-man out where, on dinner dates of foursomes or six-somes or whatever-somes, arrives alone and makes it into an awkward three-some, five-some or other-some with an odd number.  She is the little sister tag-along, the younger brother pop-up character and the whac-a-mole that keeps reappearing no matter how many hints are given that his or her company is no longer needed, is undesired or otherwise disinvited; but to be direct and pointed to the stand-around guy would be cruelty in its worst form, as he or she doesn’t quite understand or would rather be subjected to the indignities of being the butt of all jokes rather than to be sent off into the lonely despair of self-confinement and isolation lost upon an island of one’s own thoughts.

He is the person who arrives and never knows where to stand; the last one to be seated, and only if their is an available chair vacated; and yet, the last one to leave despite the desertion of a party where he was unnoticed, never talked to nor engaged and included in conversations where circles and semi-circles of people gathered but no one noticed.

The stand-around guy is the “extra” on a movie-set hoping to get noticed, yet too fearful of such notoriety; and as the activity of the main set continues to focus upon the stars and central figures upon the stage which we call “life”, he or she shuffles about for years and extending into decades, unknowingly contributing to the drama of civilization’s inertness where kindness is rarely shown, humanity is concealed from history, and the cruelty to life’s misery keeps bubbling to the surface like a volcanic eruption percolating unnoticed beneath the seething surface of hidden appearances.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, does it often seem like the rest of the Federal Agency or the Postal Service is beginning to treat you like the “stand-around guy”?

Is it recognized and subtly acknowledged that you are no longer part of that “mission”, and because of your extensive leave-usage or LWOP excessiveness, or merely because you asserted your rights under FMLA, that now relegated into that status of persona non grata, the leper who was mistakenly given a pass out of the leper colony, or like the individual who says things embarrassingly in crowds of socialites who snub their noses at those who feign to be a part of the pseudo-aristocracy?

If you are beginning to be treated like that stand-around guy, it is likely time to begin to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset — lest the stand-around guy becomes the invisible man whose memory is quickly extinguished because of a removal action that came suddenly and unexpectedly from the upper echelons of powers-that-be, who decided to rid the Agency or the Postal Service of that stand-around guy whose presence was no longer needed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Hardened hearts

They are unseen, but exist; and like zombies that wander through the nighttime skies as mere shadows in a one-dimensional universe, the concealment of hardened hearts can only be kept secret for a short while.  Where does the apex begin, and the downward spiral begin?  At what point does one possess a hardened heart, and does it insidiously creep upon one without one’s knowledge, conscious thought or deliberative realization?

We fight against it; we refuse to submit to it; but life happens, disappointments abound and the subtle cravenness begins to slowly, inevitably overtake.

Hardened hearts result from the encounters with life’s misgivings, and the more the misgivings, the harder the heart hardens.  Is it mere cynicism?  Does it emanate and originate from a single encounter, or must there be multiple clashes, butting of heads and piercing of hearts before the innocence of youth transforms into a meanness of spirit?

Hatred is an emotion that festers and eats away; and like flesh-devouring predators that feel nothing about their prey, hardened hearts shrivel into a latency of unfeeling behaviors.  It is a difficult road but a necessary one to take – to resist, to fight against, and to protect the purity of one’s soul.  Hardened hearts are the result of giving up, of losing hope, and of turning one’s back upon a society that has otherwise already given up on an individual.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who feel the onset of that condition known as “hardened hearts”, the symptoms are quite noticeable: of bitterness; of anxiousness in going to work; of the recognition that one’s Federal Agency or the Postal facility does not show any loyalty towards you despite years and decades of dedicated work.

The diagnosis of a hardened heart, if the Federal or Postal employee suffers 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, may be to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

In the end, hardened hearts are merely another happenstance of life’s misgivings, evidencing the cruelty of the world in which we live; but there are ways to avoid the final diagnosis of a mortality robbed of joy, and that may be by filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application and “moving on” to try and save that last vestige of an innocent outlook upon life’s sunset of tears.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Character Deficits

We all have them; we just never like to admit them to others (which, of course, becomes unnecessary and an irrelevancy if one has a spouse, who is more than willing with energetic bluntness and zeal to volunteer as the one to point them out, quite vocally at that, and without a hint of jealousy at not having them, and with a fury of warning looks darting at crosswinds if one dares to suggest otherwise).  Whether by deep in the recesses of forgotten caverns of childhood psyche damaged in the whirlwinds of growing up, or infected by osmosis by bad company in good times, we will never know.

Freudians believe in such origins within the occipital lobe (or was that post-Freudian or Jungian?); and Aristotle believed in the irrelevancy of such judgments until late in one’s life; but at every stage of a linear progression in life’s trials, we recognize the negation of perfection, and that is clearly represented by the mirror image of the ruling animal of this earth.

Most of us battle throughout our lives – not so much to correct the deficiencies, but to deny, rebut and otherwise patch over any allegations and prosecutorial insinuations that we have them.  In other words, we worry more about the appearance of reputation, as opposed to the essence of the core by which we exist, and to that extent, Plato was right in directing our attention to the universality of Forms, thereby concentrating our attention upon extrapolated natures and thus allowing for the conversation of human folly to be engaged in by third-person accounts and objectified measures.

Otherwise, if we look too closely to the glare of our own reflection, the ugliness of a magnified being would be too much to bear.  Has there ever been a time in history when man held closely to the self-realization of such negations of angelic features?  Perhaps when the onerous hand of belief, the days of torture in Seville when the Grand Inquisitor roamed the homes of suspected idolatry (and spurred the imagination which produced Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov); but even then, we all reserve our suspicions that the closeted man was just as evil, just as mischievous and likely more so in the veil of virtue and virulent self-flagellation against vices known or otherwise hidden.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who experience the modern version of a witch-hunt, it is time to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application in order to escape the wrath of the Agency’s predatory appetite.  The U.S. Postal Service and the Federal Agency are predatory animals who can sniff out the scent of weakened prey; and as the Federal or Postal employee, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, who has a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, necessarily becomes the focus of attention, it becomes an inevitability that issues involving character deficits will arise.

From the agency’s standpoint:  No longer the competent golden boy or wonder girl, but suddenly faults abound and in endless streams of negative assessments.  From the Federal or Postal employee’s perspective:  The continuing battle to prove ourselves.  Is it all worth it?  Or is it just another character deficit that we have to contend with, as we have been doing all of our tireless lives?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Generational Transfer of Wisdom

If wisdom is the collective knowledge, information and experience of a culture, then the loss, refusal or rejection of such historical amassing of purposive accrual of cognitive aggregation would result in the disintegration of a cohesive identity.   Foolishness can therefore be defined as the state of reinventing the wheel at every turn, merely because of a stubborn refusal to listen and learn.  And that is precisely the current state of modernity; youth portends to pretentiousness; all of knowledge is discovered only today, and the older generation knows not the profundities of present-day philosophers who tweet daily gems of lifestyle advisories and post declarative idleness of incomprehensible vacuities.

The generational transfer of wisdom appears not to occur, as age determines relevance or signification of acceptable attributes, and pop culture and kitsch are the declared values of societal constructs.  Then, where does that leave the vulnerable and infirm?  The rejection of generational transfer of wisdom is merely an indicator; what it points toward is a greater denial of values, truths and ethos of a culture.  It begins with a coarsening of normative boundaries of conduct, and progressively crumbles the inherent foundations of a society.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have witnessed the increasingly adversarial environment of the Federal agencies and U.S. Postal Service, the measurable and palpably observable abuse and neglect of basic rules of conduct and behavior are harbingers of greater stress and intolerance.  Federal and Postal employees are always asked to do more with less; and when a medical condition enters into the equation, the need for accommodating — even temporarily or for extended periods of absences or predetermined blocks of time — becomes a mere formality for discrimination and dismissal.  Medical conditions are a part of life — and how we deal with individuals with medical conditions constitutes the character of a person, group and society.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from the duality of adversities — the medical condition itself, and the cold disregard of the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service — consideration should be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Does the Federal or Postal employee need the advice and guidance of a Federal Disability Retirement lawyer in pursuing Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM?  That is a microcosm of the greater question of rejecting the generational transfer of wisdom as reflected in society as a whole; for, as the fool in Shakespeare’s tragedies often imagines himself to be the final word on all matters of importance, so the resulting destruction in the final act in both the play and of life is often costly, if not predictable.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Fear and Trembling

The reference, of course, is to the major philosophical contribution by Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish Philosopher; and his title is a further extrapolation from the Bible.  It is an investigation of the test placed upon Abraham to make of his son, Isaac, the sacrificial lamb as a testament of his faith and obedience.

Whether one is religious or not, the value of such an investigation cannot be disregarded.  Such a test and endurance; how far Abraham was willing to go; were there indications of behavior which revealed hesitancy; did doubt ever enter into his mind; is obedience to faith ever justified when it seems to overpower fundamental moral considerations; does the author of moral uprightness have the right to violate the very laws of issuance (similar to the theological conundrum, Can God create a rock heavier than He can lift, and if not, does that not undermine the very definition of omnipotence?); what emotional turmoil was Abraham wrestling with, and what of fear and trembling?

These are mere surface questions which Kierkegaard attempts to encounter; the fact that most of society fails or ignores to consider, is a reflection of the state of our own being.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts (A) one’s own health and livelihood, and (B) the capacity and ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the issue of fear and trembling should hit close to home.  Fear is attributable to the uncertainty of one’s future; trembling concerns the state of persecution one experiences at the hands of a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Kierkegaard leaves no stone unturned in his rapacious search for truth; for the Federal or Postal employee, even a surface scratching of what Kierkegaard questioned, can be of relevance in moving forward.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may not seem like entering the lofty towers of ivory perspectives as presupposed by Kierkegaard’s work; but it is in the end a pragmatic decision of fortitude which secures one’s future and allows for the stresses of our times to be set aside, deliberately, purposefully, and with regard for one’s own life and being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government: The Run

Stockings and watercolors do it; time, with quietude and solace of a steady march, moving with predictable sequence like the consistency of a drumbeat; and, of course, the rhythm reminiscent of cardiac health, as do joggers and concerned citizens chasing down a purse snatcher to retrieve a possession of identity.  And life, too.

Sometimes, there is a good “run” of something — a lengthy period of calm and productivity, where all of the pistons of a complex and interactive mechanism akin to a turbo engine are firing away in tandem, and life is good, fruitful and positive.  But the inevitability of a breakdown can always be around the proverbial corner; a medical condition, suffered by a Federal or Postal employee, is not merely a stoppage of such a “run”, but can be a disruptive cacophony of ceaseless interruptions, both to career and to personal contentment.

The key is to get beyond, over, or around the obstacle which lands in the middle of one’s pathway for future well-being.  The child who fails to see the watercolors running; the invention of the stockings that never run; the life that seemingly runs smoothly; all, a perspective wrought at a price of neglect or deliberate ruse.  The fact is, life always has interruptions.

A medical condition can be a major one, and when it begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the Federal or Postal employee under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset may need to consider an alternate course and begin anew a run of a different sort.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is indeed a change of course.  It involves a complex bureaucratic strategy to get from point A to destination B, and the administrative obstacles are many, but not insurmountable.  And, like the verb itself, it provides many meanings for differing circumstances, but the one and central root of the process involves embracing the paradigm that life is never as easy as one thinks, and like the child who believes that he is the next Picasso in training, the run of the unpredictable always betrays the truth of our condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire