FERS Medical Disability Retirement from OPM: Meaning

There are singular meanings, in words of individuation, separate and apart from conceptual, compound meanings; of phrases, some which may be comprised of various interpretive constructs; of entire sentences, with subsets of meanings; then of a narrative as a whole, where there may exist a wider, perhaps more “universal” meaning.

Does it exist independently of the person with whom it is encountered?  This brings up the 60s sense of Zen-ness — of whether, if a tree falls in the middle of a forest without someone to witness it, did it make a sound?  Of course, one can transpose one’s imagination and argue that there are squirrels and other living beings who would have, might have, likely did, hear the tree falling; or even of the lush plants, trees and other fauna which apparently have the capacity for memory.

It is then, the problem which Kant brought to the fore in his philosophical analysis — of the structural input we provide with out encounter with Being, where we as humans bring meaning to the encountered objective universe.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from an injury or disease and where the injury or disease impacts the ability and capacity to continue in your choice of careers, contemplation of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the Office of Personnel Management, under FERS, is a serious step towards “switching” the meaningful apparatus of your life.

In order to prepare an effective and meaningful application for Disability Retirement as possible, you may want to contact an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law; for, in the end, it is only for a meaningful endeavor which allows us to continue down a path of meaning.

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.

 

FERS Disability Retirement Law: The Pulp of Dread

The definition of “pulp” is consistent in either context: Whether describing a mass of shapeless form, or a second-rate work of whatever genre, it describes an entity or fictional work — and perhaps even a mood or an environment — which is undesirable.

Pulp is the stuff in drinks which has not been filtered out; it is the leftovers of a fruit drink; it describes the mass-generated works of a failed author; or of a movie without any intellectual content, but merely for the entertainment of the lower senses.

The Pulp of Dread, similarly, is that sense of overwhelming disgust, fear or enmity which exists when something is about to happen, when a future event is about to come upon us, or of an expectation of foreboding disaster.  Perhaps it is about the “Holidays” upcoming, where we must put on our best faces and smile with aplomb, no matter how we feel or how we are.  Or, perhaps it merely refers to another workday because one’s medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from being able to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.

In the event of the latter — of the sense of pulp of dread for the Federal or Postal employee trying to hang on to his or her Federal or Postal career because of an ongoing medical condition — contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider getting rid of the pulp of dread.

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.

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Lives that matter

It is a trite truism to acknowledge that, If everything matters, then nothing matters; for, in the end, if all X is Y and all Y is X, then there is no distinction between X and Y.  That is the “rub”, though, isn’t it?  It isn’t just that “All X is Y” that can stand alone — for, if some of Y is Not-X, then a distinction can still be made between X and Y, whereas if there is even a scintilla of Y that is Not-X, then X neither subsumes Y entirely and Y doesn’t lose its identity completely.

Put another way, if everything is meaningless, then meaning itself loses its very applicability.  We can get lost in such hypothetical tropes, but when it comes to human beings, it is the individual that matters, the singularity which evokes relevance and the relationship itself that solidifies what “matters”.

Thus, the recent “controversy” about whether or not certain groups of individuals “matter” in contradistinction from the greater group of the whole will always rise to the level of contentiousness and conflict so long as there lacks a “connection” or relationship between individuals.  Individuals matter only so long as there is a relationship — the “I” to “thou” connection, as opposed to a perspective of subject-to-object.  That is, in the end, how mass murderers and genocidal extermination processes engaged by nations and groups are allowed to occur — by the treatment of individuals not in the “I-thou” relationship, but as individuals treated as objects that do not matter.

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 becomes apparent pretty quickly that the lives that matter are those who are “productive”, and the very “meaning” of one’s life is determined by the Federal Agency or the Postal Service based upon your productivity and capacity to work.

When that realization comes about, it is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective FERS Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the first step in that process is to contact and consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the perspective of lives that matter continues to be undermined by the attitude of a Federal Agency or the Postal unit which treats the lives that matter as mere objects, and not as valued subjects.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement: Distant lights dimming

How can distant lights dim when they are mere specks upon a blanketed panorama of darkness?

One looks up at the stars and we are told, of course, that the sparkling tapestry may contain those which are already vanished, and what we “see”are merely the residue of a dead or dying star.  In a universe based upon a visual-centered arena, the reliance upon sight to establish facts and verify truth-statements cannot be avoided.

That was Berkeley’s problem, as well — and one which he deftly avoided by re-defining the definition of existence by tying it inextricably with “perception”, including visual, auditory and tactile means.  Much later, and after a series of devastating criticisms launched at the entirety of empiricist tendencies that some would counter artificially manufactured unnecessary philosophical problems (but isn’t that the “fun” of philosophy — to always be left with more problems to solve than the day before?) which haunts us to this very day, Wittgenstein came along and waved aside such conundrums by relegating all such issues to mere problems of linguistic confusion.

Thus was reality divorced from the language we use to describe the phenomena that surrounds us, leaving science left standing as the Last Man and the primacy of philosophy relegated to the dusty shelves of Medieval Times.  Distant lights dimming?  No more a problem than the campfire dilemma — for, do we say that because we cannot precisely pinpoint the demarcation between light and darkness at the periphery of a glowing campfire, that therefore no campfire exists at all?  Of course not!

It is thus not the result of the physical objectivity of the world around us that confuses, but the inadequacy of language that confounds.  Yet, as Man must communicate by means of language and operate effectively within the objective world, so the development of various “language games” must by necessity evolve into greater heights of absurdity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts upon the reality of the “objective” world — entrance and introduction into the binary universe of language games and the greater world at large must also, by necessity, come together in the form of preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application.

You have the medical condition; the medical condition is impacting your ability and capacity to continue in your present position as a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker.  Such a medical condition may necessitate filing for Federal Disability Retirement — but understand that submitting a “paper presentation” to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you as the Federal or Postal employee under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, requires an adequacy of language that must go beyond the reality of the medical condition itself.

And like the distant lights dimming, what actually “is” may be divorced from the language which must be carefully chosen and transcribed, lest such inadequacy fails to describe and delineate the reality of the medical condition from which you suffer.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation on Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Plans

We all make them; whether for an anticipated journey or vacation; of a future date far in advance or nearby in time; or merely for an afternoon get-together with an associate, coworker, friend or family member — plans are essential to the coherence of a person’s daily life.

We have “planners” that we carry with us everywhere, and “planned vacations”, “planned playtime” for our kids; a “planned evening out” and meals planned well in advance even before our appetitive natures begin to rumble with echoes of hunger and delight.  There are “coordinated planned attacks” by terrorists, and “exit plans” before an assault is waged upon the enemy.  Then, there are life coaches who help to plan one’s future decisions, counselors who plan for college entrance exams and therapists who assist in planning this or that major decision.

From the moment we realized that simply reacting to the world around us was no longer an efficient methodology in maneuvering through a complex world, where the prey had become suspicious and did not stick around to remain as out next dinner course and predators began planning for counterstrategies to man’s wily peculiarities, we began to plan for the future.

However, the one thing that we have no plan for is the unexpected jolts of life’s servings that come upon one without warning or predictability, such as a deteriorating health condition that was never planned for.  Dreams that spawn plans are easily destroyed by life’s tumults that come in waves of unpredictable surges, just when we think that our “plans” are being realized.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition impacts and prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it may become necessary to alter one’s long-term plan and goal towards retiring upon reaching the “regular retirement age and time-in-service”, and instead to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Medical conditions are often the one set of goal-stopping issues that skewer one’s plans; it is normally unplanned for, and is a plan-modifier that requires not only a change of plans, but a new set of plans that should include a plan to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be planned for submission to OPM, and should also include a plan to seek to counsel and advice of an attorney who specializes in such planning.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The gathering clouds

We don’t have people saying such pithy or inane things, anymore, and the death of the metaphor is the fault of Google.  And, of course, the Weather Channel and the Smart Phone apps that give us the updated information concerning that which we can see for ourselves.

Who ever talks that way, anymore?  “The dark clouds are gathering” – a metaphor for trouble brewing, problems arising or bad people getting together to engage in no good deeds.  To which everyone whips out their Smart Phones and checks the most updated forecast, using the Weather Channel app that everyone has already downloaded onto their phones, and in unison respond: “No it’s not; today is only partly sunny, then tomorrow there is a 20% chance of rain and the temperature is…”  “No, no, no…that is not what I meant by saying that the dark clouds are gathering.  What I mean is…” And you are met with blank stares by the horde of millennials who speak a foreign language, fail to understand the generation before the Internet or Smart Phones, and don’t even own a landline.  What, is that even possible?

Time was once upon a millennium, when farmers felt the bones ache from the gathering storm; that one could sniff the winds of changed directions; and noting the behavior of rabbits, birds and the mutterings of crows in the bushes, the gathering clouds would be discerned as patterns of nature’s calling.  Technology has its place and uses, but in the end, it dulls the instincts that have survived and helped human beings to last for want of realization of a civilization lost in the silent graveyards of forgotten memories.

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 the Federal or Postal job duties, the “gathering clouds” is often hinted by the behavior of coworkers, supervisors, and other agency officials; of the tone and tenor of attitudes abounding; and though the adverse action or initiation of a PIP may appear to come as a surprise, you knew it was coming long before, just as you knew that you needed to start the process of the filing a Federal Disability Retirement application long before the time made it into an urgency, or even an emergency.

The gather clouds, no matter how much we may try to stamp out the underlying instinct felt, is still the same the world around; we just have a better way of suppressing it than in countries less technologically sophisticated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Systems: The sacristan

There was once such a job.  Now, of course, the closest we can come to it is forever hidden in the secrecy of our own private lives.  For, there is nothing sacred, anymore, and everything private has been allowed to be revealed in the public domain of electronic declaratives.  Whether of protecting holy oils, ensuring that decretals are unblemished in their interpretation; of maintaining the decorum, orderliness and cleanliness of the altar and the implements of worship; and initiating the timeliness of church bells to call upon the loyal throng to approach with the sacraments of piety.

When did such an important position become extinguished?  How did it become an anachronism and extinction of necessity, and who made such a determination?  Was it with the conflagration of the public domain upon the private – when formerly private deeds, of the sanctity of intimacy behind closed doors reserved by those who commit themselves into a tripartite unity of matrimony?  Was it when youth allowed for the destruction of dignity and defiance of decorum and all manner of discretion, of sending through electronic means photographs of acts beyond bestiality merely for prurient interests and chitter of laughter and good times?

The sacristan is unemployed; he or she is now merely a vestige of an arcane past where holiness, purity and the sacred have been sacrificed upon the altar of inconvenience and guilty consciences replaced by the King of Human Folly:  Psychology.  What do we hold sacred, anymore, and behind what closed door can we find the remains of a past forever absolved?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical conditions prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the question related to one’s own circumstances with the obsolescence of the sacristan, comes down to this:  In the course of dealing with my medical conditions, what altars of holiness have I compromised just to continue my career with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service?  For, as the desecration of the public domain has increasingly harbored the sacred into the domains of private thought, so those reserved altars of inner sanctuaries concern the essence of one’s soul and the inner-held beliefs that remained forever the last vestiges of a sacred self.

Preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is always just a means to an end.  The means is comprised of extrication from an untenable situation; the end is to reach a plateau of life where the sacristan may be reemployed, if only within the inner sanctum of one’s own conscience.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Past wrongs obsessed over

We cognitively compartmentalize, despite the fact that life doesn’t quite work that way.  Yet, if we do not categorize, relegate by priority of issues, the mirroring of the objective universe in a parallelism of societal constructs can result in the same messiness that life itself reveals.  We certainly do not want to manage and operate a household in the same way that nature works – where events can suddenly dictate emergencies, and when life and death decisions sound alarms whenever predators lurk about.

Reaction to the immediacy of necessity is how nature must operate; such an approach, however, is not always the best way for the office worker, the architect or the laborer to engage the projects of the day.  Yet, life sometimes requires reactive discourse and engagements; we cannot always be contemplative, distant, removed from the concerns which the objective world imposes upon us.

What is the “middle ground” – that proverbial height of mediocrity which all men and women pride themselves for:  the center between the two extremes, the “compromise” position that reflects rationality and reason, where vice is never to be completely refused and virtue too alien a concept such that we relegate it to angels, madmen and those who have lost their souls for a celibate fantasy of isolation.

Then, of course, human beings have the strange capacity to obsess over past wrongs committed – either by ourselves upon others, but more likely of those which have been perpetrated upon ourselves.  Hurts and wrongs penetrated leave room for vengeance and premeditation; we are admonished and given the tools to forgive, but harboring carefully concealed slights is a delicious means of fantasizing upon wreaking revenge upon those we secretly abhor.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, part of the key to writing an effective SF 3112A – Applicant’s Statement of Disability – is to refrain from engaging past wrongs obsessed over.

Yes, the Agency or the U.S. Postal Service has “done you wrong”; yes, they have gotten away with this, that and the other things; and, yes, in a perfect world, the individuals involved and the entity perpetrating the wrongs should pay a price and justice should prevail.  But the messiness reflected in the objective world reflects an imperfect human pathology, and trying to attain a Platonic Form of Justice otherwise nonexistent, will not help you “move on” with your own life.

Better to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application and move on so that you can focus upon your health and future, than to constantly become entrenched in past wrongs obsessed over; for, in the end, the smile of self-satisfaction should be when one’s OPM Disability Retirement application is approved, and you can wave goodbye to the messy cauldron of human detritus you are leaving behind.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Help: Caught in the world in-between

It is a purgatory of sorts; of the netherworld where twilight is a constancy of confusion, and when neither dawn nor dusk, between summer and winter, or of cognitive clarity and conundrums of confusion reach the pinnacle of an infinite maze.  Do we prefer clarity to confusion, or the light of dawn to a period “just before”, when consciousness of thought is suppressed or prevented by a darkness befalling thoughtful perspectives impeded by streams of dancing oracles upon a seamless stupor?

It is often uncertainty which tires the soul.  For, while wealth is preferable to destitution, and employment to its opposite, it is being caught “in-between” which engenders uncertainty and angst of future plans, and that is likened to a form of hell.

When a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker first learns of a medical condition — whether from an accident or injury on the job, or during a foray into uncharted recreational activities, it matters not for purposes of meeting the criteria for eligibility in a Federal Disability Retirement application submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — the weariness of time and the toll of uncertainty is often worse than the failure of resolution encountered through therapy, medication regimens, surgical intervention and the long delays in recuperation and rehabilitation.

It is that “waiting” which becomes the agony of life, for the questioning and incessant pondering resulting therefrom haunts the soul:  What will the future hold?  What will my job do?  What are they planning?  The “what”, the “when” and the ultimate “why” becomes a reverberating echo of repetitive songs unwavering in their monotony of questions forever unanswered.  For, it is the unanswered question and the unstated discretion of silence which makes for waiting to be just another agony of life’s challenges.

To be caught in the world “in-between”, where future plans are delayed because the present remains in a muddle of soft mush, and when past actions fail to concretize a pathway for mapping current stability, is a state of existence which is tantamount to a purgatory of eternal uncertainty.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, it is thus important to take some action and begin the process of filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement.  Wishful thinking will not make the medical condition go away; and while hope is always a basis for future planning, one often knows early on, within the core of one’s soul, whether the injury or medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing the essential elements of one’s positional duties will resolve to an extent possible in order to return to full duty.

It is not knowing which is the true hell of existence; and to remain caught in the world in-between is often a choice — albeit a bad one — which is based not upon want of certainty, but enmeshed in the essence of human tragedy, when delay prevented that split-second decision that could have avoided the disaster.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Dickens, Salinger & Capote, Continued…

One could easily spend a lifetime on each, separately; of the first in the trilogy, he mercifully died before the advent of the industrial revolution, whence he may have witnessed even greater upheavals of economic unrest and labor turmoil; of the latter two, they were contemporaries who followed divergent paths — with Salinger left in the hermitage of his insular world of fears, paranoia and distrust of a world which had offered only experiences which validated such churning for a tortured soul, and for Capote, a premature death prompted by a life of public destruction.

Today, we embrace the sophistication of paying strangers to listen to our meanderings of troubled psyches; for the three in question, the times for acceptance of such ways remained unkind and untested.

By standards of modernity, the childhood experiences of Dickens would have caught the attention of social services and the authorities in tow to save the poor boy; but then, we likely would never have had the pleasure of knowing his miscreant characters strewn throughout the ghettos of boundless imagination.  Of Salinger, who turned more towards mysticism in order to feed the slow withering of his wanting woes, the need to flee from the cruelty of the world resulted in the greater insularity protected only by the memories of his haunting past.  Of the three, it was Capote who openly laughed at the scorn of the world, and like the Clowns and Fools in Shakespearean tragedies, we watched as a major figure committed public seppuku in a slow and agonizing fashion.

They represent, unfortunately, the manner in which most of us live; either of haunted pasts and tortured presents, or of ongoing meanderings in troubled waters.  Then, when a medical condition hits the seemingly clean and linear timeline we live and embrace, the disruption becomes magnified with an even greater exponent of sorrow.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer because of a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positions, the need to file 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 becomes part of the tragedy of human life.

A life cut short is one which failed to be fulfilled; and, similarly, a career shortened is one which failed to accomplish its stated goals.

But, sometimes, it is of comfort and substantive contribution to see that others — even major figures like like Dickens, Salinger and Capote — had to endure the torture of life’s fated despair.  For, in the end, there is little dissimilar in the human essence of all three in relationship to the rest of us; each suffered, lived a life of fated misery, and had to “deal” with the cruelty of the world, thereby validating Hobbes’ description that man’s life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short…”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire