FERS Disability Pension: The Flickering Flame

It is a metaphor for that which is about to be extinguished; a last hope, a dying ember; where the shadows are about to engulf the remaining dusk and dawn of the visible world.  The flickering flame usually means that the source of energy undergirding the remnant of light is diminishing; or, perhaps the wind that blows, the movement of the current, they are stronger than the futile gasp of the energy yet resisting, but about to go, and once gone, the enveloping darkness to ensue is the fear which keeps it flickering aflame.

Human beings are like that.  We go on and on, sometimes beyond the endurance reserved, and like the flickering flame, we push on and try and survive to the very last plume of curling smoke.  We complain not for fear of showing our weaknesses; we put on a smile, a stern, unforgiving frown, and endure the pain and suffering at the cost of our own health.

It is, indeed, the flickering flame which is the metaphor for human misery, for human life, for the life of modernity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition no longer allows the Federal or Postal worker to continue in his or her career of choice, the flickering flame can stand as the metaphor of two paths: First, that it represents the state of health of the Federal or Postal employee but, second and more importantly, that it stands for the benefit of OPM Disability Retirement — precisely because it is the last gasp, the light still shining, in order to have an early retirement annuity to secure your financial future and to focus upon your health, first and foremost.

Contact a FERS Retirement Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and let the flickering flame allow for the light to shine at the end of a long and dark tunnel.

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 Medical Retirement Claims: Things We Didn’t Ask For

Perhaps the list is long; or, somewhat shorter than expected.  If it is a long list, one must question whether or not you actually didn’t ask for the items on the list.  If it is comfortably short, then it may reflect a greater control of one’s life.

Some things which the list may include: Financial problems; difficulties at work; a dog, a cat or some other stray animal having made it to your home; unruly kids; unappreciative kids; kids who never grow up.  Marriage often adds to the list — not because you don’t love your husband or wife, but because marriage is often an involvement of complex compromises where not everything is agreed to.

Can a shorter list reflect a greater capacity to control one’s life?  Perhaps — but the one column you cannot control is: A disabling medical condition.

That’s one of the things we didn’t “ask” for, although living a certain type of lifestyle may implicitly be interpreted as having “asked” for it, like: Jumping out of airplanes while being in the military (with later consequences of degenerative arthritis in the knees, for example); living in an unregulated state where upriver or downwind is a chemical pant spewing out dubious toxins which rain onto your lawn, forever killing anything and making those tomatoes a strange grey pallor, as in the state of Texas and perhaps some others; or of excessive use of drugs and alcohol in self-medicating for stressful issues, etc.

But, for the most part, a medical condition is one of those on “The List” which we didn’t ask for.

For Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition — whether you asked for it or not — the prospect of preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS may well be necessitated by one of those things you didn’t ask for.

When a medical condition prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your job, it is time to ask for something which you need — a Federal Disability Retirement Annuity — because of that which you didn’t ask for — a medical condition.

Hopefully, your application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will fall into another known category: Of Ask, and You Shall be Granted: An approval, from OPM.  Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Medical Retirement Law and begin the process of asking for a benefit which is your right under Federal 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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits under FERS: The Silent Sufferer

It is normally to one’s detriment; yet, the converse is the one whom we dislike and find irritating — the constant complainer.  The silent sufferer is the one who goes through life quietly, unassumingly, and often anonymously; and when it is time to retire, little fanfare is given, and life moves on without the presence of that person.

It turns out that the silent sufferer did most of the work and his or her absence becomes exponentially emphasized once gone because people suddenly notice what had been accomplished when the person was present.

For Federal Disability Retirement purposes, of course, the silent sufferer is the more difficult case.  For, often, not much is found in the office/treatment records of doctor’s visits, because such a person doesn’t like to complain.  It is only when the medical condition becomes an acute emergency, or when a critical juncture is arrived upon which precludes the ability or capacity to go on as normal.

Everyone is surprised, of course — because Mr. X or Ms. Y never said anything about the medical condition.  It is as if we are talking about some “other” person other than the one needing to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits.

For such people — and there are many of them — it is necessary to contact an attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement benefits, and to begin to establish the pathway to a nexus connecting the medical condition to the essential elements of his or her job.

For, in the end, the silent sufferer still suffers in silence; it is merely a matter of turning the silence into a tentative shout for help in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer
Postal & Federal Disability Lawyer

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Smelling the roses

It is a simplistic attitude, but one whose truism dominates and attracts: to enjoy life and have the capacity to relish in it.

“Stopping to smell the roses” is all well and good to declare when you don’t have much to do, or when you are in a position to reverse life’s onward march; however, for most of us, the stresses of daily living, of trying to make a living, and of the uncontrollable demands that beset us every day, undermines the advice of the sage: yes, tranquility can reflect a healthy mind and slowing of pace can lead to longevity and stave off mortality’s inevitable decline; but how does one contend with and control modernity’s screaming frenzy?

The appendage to the image of “smelling the roses,” of course, is the admonition to “pause” or “stop and” take the time; but is our loss of olfactory sensitivity a result of our lack of use?  How many of us even notice the scent of a flower, whether when we walk into a room or meander along a country path? Instead, most of us sneeze with irritation, beset with asthmatic symptoms of allergic disdain, and view such niceties as merely one of life’s obstacles to overcome and ignore.

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 job, the concept of pausing and “smelling the roses” is the last thing to consider, and life’s travails will only continue to shout and scream to prevent such a prosaic declaration.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will not necessarily allow for greater time to smell those roses, but it will allow for more time to attend to one’s own health — and isn’t that the point?

We take for granted our health, but when our health begins to deteriorate, the stresses begin to compound and exponentially aggregate.

Smelling the roses comes only after the priorities of our life have been placed into proper order, and preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits when it becomes necessary is the first step towards reaching for the ultimate paradigm of life’s resistance to the stresses inherent and overwhelming: Health; life; relationships — then, to pause in order to smell the roses.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Wisdom amidst noise

There is much of the latter, and too little of the former.  Further, the latter tends to drown out the former, and while it is the former which should gain prominence within the spheres of influence, it is the latter that dominates and strangulates, leaving only the emptiness of seeming profundity and relevance so that what remains is the hollowness of inaneness.

Do we consult the Aged?  Or, in this era of modernity where the cult of youth predominates, is it back to the blindness and ignorance of Plato’s Cave?  Noise is more than the drowning sounds of a multitude of chatter and drum beats; it is the sheer volume of words spoken without meaningful discourse.  How many corners in forgotten Old People’s Homes reside the wisdom of timeless insight, and yet they are left to shuffle about and stare with vacant eyes upon a world that cares only for celebration of the young.

There is noise; then, there is wisdom amidst noise; the question is, Do we listen and can we learn when the din of irrelevance takes the form of profundity when logic is lost in a world that has renounced rationality in favor of celebrity?

Those old dusty books — of Plato’s Republic to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; the writings of the Medieval Scholastics; of Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and of recent vintage, almost anything written by Roger Scruton — who reads any one of them, anymore, and less likely, do we approach them with curiosity as once in the child’s eyes wide with want of wisdom in search of it?

Wisdom is a rarity in a universe of noise, and it is the noise which deafens for timeless eternity.

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 important to seek wisdom as opposed to the noise of the moment.

Federal Disability Retirement Law is a complex bureaucratic process which involves many levels of administrative perplexities, and while there is a lot of hype and noise “out there” among H.R. Specialists, coworkers and even among lawyers, it is always the best course of action to seek wise counsel and advice, and to be able to distinguish wisdom amidst noise.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Bumps along the road

On any trip or travel, how many bumps are felt or experienced along the road?  Many are imperceptible; some are noticeable; a few may be jarring to the effect that it jolts one from the automatic-consciousness-mode of how most people remain while driving.  But what impact does the entirety of the aggregate have upon both the vehicle being driven and the individual sitting behind the wheel?

Take first those almost-imperceptible bumps — what effect do they have, over the life of a car, upon all of the parts, bolts, springs, complex computer systems, etc.?

We know that, over time, stresses and metal fatigue over many trips and upon thousands of miles of travel can result in the sudden breakup of an airplane engine, or when a catastrophic event suddenly occurs where a car stops running or a plane crumbles in mid-flight, we come to the realization that the aggregate of imperceptible bumps can, over time, cumulatively have the effect of a single jarring event.

The fact that they are ‘imperceptible’ doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, nor that they have no impact; rather, it is just that we do not perceive them.  That is the old Berkeley problem in existential philosophical discourse, is it not?  Of the following: Do mountains exist on the far side of the moon despite the fact that we do not see them?  Does perception equal existence, or merely one’s perspective upon an opinion concerning such existence?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition necessitates the effective preparation, formulation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the bumps along the road in the complex administrative morass of a Federal Disability Retirement process will be many and sometimes overwhelming.

Some of the proverbial ‘bumps’ may be minor and merely irritating; others, looming large and difficult to conquer.  To ensure that the ‘ride’ is smooth and relatively trouble-free, you may want to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the bumps along the road result in a jarring decision of denial issued by OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: Lives abstract and pointless

It is easy to speak about others in an abstract and pointless manner.  What is more difficult is to engage the complexity of a human being.  When we refer in such a manner, and reduce to a conceptual entity, the minimization allows one to refer to “it” as an object of derision.  Thus can one subordinate and state without feeling, “Oh, X is worthless” or “Y is a waste of time”, as if the value of an individual can be quantified like mineral ore or spectrums of inestimable qualities.

It is the cognitive process which is likely unique to the human animal, and has been variously evaluated, assessed, judged and analyzed by different philosophical schools of thought, under multiple titles like “An inquiry into human understanding” or “The puzzle of the human mind”.

Abstraction, placement of sensible objects into forms of conceptual paradigms otherwise negated by the particular; these generalizations have a duality of purpose, of utility that can be moral or evil, deliberative or of pointless venue.  Obliteration of the particular is consistent with the capacity of a nation to subjugate and murder in mass quantities, for it is by the vehicle of objectification that the subject can be ignored and shirking of humanity can be achieved.

From the ashes of the Second World War rose the stems of Existentialism, and Sartre and Camus positing the anguish of dead souls unable to experience the fullness of life.  And thus was the hero an unlikely one – of a solitary figure toiling despite the severing of that which gives impetus to life: the relationship between meaning and motivation.  For, Sisyphus was condemned to engage for eternity in the monotony of toiling to push the boulder up the incline, only to have it roll back down, then to repeat the senseless act endlessly.

It is this metaphor applied to life itself, and by which existentialism sought to bring meaning and purpose to the human condition.  That is why relegation to abstraction and subjugation to pointless conditions became the clarion call of protest for the tide of human suffering, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes of war left to devastation and human misery.

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 the Federal or Postal positional duties, the experience of being referred to as lives abstract and pointless becomes a daily encounter; for, Federal Agencies and Postal facilities place value upon the Federal or Postal worker only so long as productivity and the advancement of the Agency’s mission continues; and thus is loyalty defined as a one-way street leading up to the Agency’s doorstep or the Postal Service’s bottom line; never does loyalty embrace the Federal or Postal employee’s medical condition.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a way to break that endless cycle of Sisyphean plunder; for, in the end, lives abstract and pointless are defined not by what “they” are doing, but what you – the unique individual – are capable to doing, and escaping the harassment and adversarial actions of the agency by obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is often the best and only choice to attain that purposive goal.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Amoebic Devolutions

What if the telltale signs are there, but we cannot, or are unwilling to, recognize them?  Perhaps the forward progress has already stopped, and we are in the throes of having reversed course without knowing, and that the innate genetic material by which Darwinian advancement promised a glowing epicenter of continual advancement, has in fact turned around, and we are witnessing the march towards a regressive, amoebic devolution?

Maybe we have already reached that penultimate pinnacle of a paradigmatic precipice, and the discovery of our technological prowess has already peaked, to where humanity’s U-turn is characterized by the behaviors we exhibit towards each other, to institutions we once beheld, and of reflections in misty ponds where our own images can no longer be discerned with clarity of teleological purpose, but where childhood dreams were once of fluttering butterflies, colorful not just in flights of fancy but in the twilight moon of castaway days, when goblins, elvin creatures and hobbits of yore delighted the human soul with imaginations beyond mere cravings of fantasies, but of that time when the breath of peaceful solitude cast shadows beyond the cavernous dangers where ogres lie?

Certainly, one can make a forceful argument that, If X constitutes the highest achievement of Man, then Y must be an indicator that the deconstructionism of civilization has already begun the process of devolving further into the abyss of decadence of soul.  Is this all there is in life?

Once, in days of Roman legions and civilizations expanding with the quickened pace of cultural upheavals, the dawn of man’s hope and the pinnacle of invention, the arts and the Renaissance of Timeless beauty brushed across the canvas of humankind, and revealed the inner sanctity of an empty religiosity.  There are no more principles worth dying for; and that is precisely why people blow themselves up.  There are no causes valued; and that is why despair pervades throughout.  Are those two candidates the best we can offer?

Do we treat our spouses as we would our best friend, before we discard the years of shared belongings like so many dishrags we fling down the garbage chute?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, in addition to the harassment, difficulties and intimidations felt at work, it is often an agonizing decision to make — to take that initial step in order to begin the process of 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.

For, the tripartite compartmentalization of one’s life must coalesce in order to advance:  Recognition that the “status quo” cannot continue; a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties; the ability and capacity to amass and prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that all of the eligibility criteria for OPM Disability Retirement benefits are met.

And of the amoebic devolution?

That march in the midst of time cannot be stopped, any more than the harassment, intimidation and workplace hostility can be set aside; and as the latter is probably an indication of the former, it is best to accept the reverberating laughter of the gods who look coyishly down upon the caverns of that hell we create, and wink at them from afar with the knowledge that we may well join them in the greatest farce we have staged — that of Man’s capacity to live in his own excrement while delusionally opining on how cultivated he believes himself to be.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: Writing a life

It is lived; or so we attempt to do so.  This thing called “life”; neither an art form, and forever unaccompanied by instructions or even a cheap compass; most are abandoned at the junkyards of forgotten corners, where the trifecta of raw sewage, mistreatment of body and spirit, and the crass exposure to the detritus of human discontent coalesce to present the irony of birth preceding an inevitable death.

Heidegger taught that we engage in projects in order to avoid the ultimate outcome; for Nietsche, nihilism opened doors for optimism contrary to the preceding generations of convoluted castaways; and while Zen and Hindu mysticism explained away the agony of the body, the remaining torture of living the reality of the now somehow wasn’t enough to extinguish the suffering groans of an impervious universe devoid of feeling, empathy, regard or constancy.

If the implements to create are not provided, and cannot be afforded no matter the toil from birth to death, of what use is the life given if living it cannot be achieved?  Moreoever, how can one engage in the writing of a life, let alone the living of it?

Autobiographies are mostly forgotten narratives undertaken merely to dispose of haunting ghosts of passing groans; and biographies, only for those who become a footnote in the dustbin of society.  And thus are we forsaken, like the cross abandoned on the hilltop where agony was first embraced in an effort to expiate the sufferings of our forefathers.  And then we are asked to write a life — no, not merely to live it, but to engage in art as reflective of ugliness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are attempting to prepare an SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, the arduous expenditure of describing even a slice of it can mean the difference between securing one’s future or losing a lifetime’s career of investing in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service.

Whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the labor of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application must by necessity describe the impact of the medical condition, its nexus to the Federal or Postal worker’s inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, and to “prove” it by a preponderance of the evidence.

Such a daunting task is tantamount to writing a life — perhaps, one could appease, merely a slice of one, a portion of a greater whole, and an abbreviated compendium in an abridged form.  Nevertheless, the task involves the aggregation of descriptive narrative, a coherent structure of prose encapsulating facts, evidence and a legal argumentation with a focus towards meeting a statutory criteria for eligibility; indeed, some could argue that the entire project is one demanding something well beyond the mere writing of a life; it is, moreover, to convey and communicate the most private of concerns before a public forum in a maze of bureaucratic complexities amidst an administrative nightmare in a sequence of conundrums.

Yes, living a life is hellish and unaccompanied by direction or explicit purpose; writing a life is even worse — for it entails the remembrance of things past, the present undone, and a future filled with uncertainties but for the successful execution of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Program: Word Piles

The etymology connotes the Biblical narrative found in Genesis, generally referred to as the Tower of Babel; in that case, not of words, but of civilizations attempting to reach the heavens in order to breach the power of the universe.  But Babel was more than the diaspora of a rebellious cabal of God’s children gathered to defy and deface; it had to do with evil, impure intent, and the conspiracy of human depravity in the face of a pure heaven and the violation of man’s sacrosanct relationship implicit after the metaphor of the Great Flood.

Words, likewise, hold such a contractual connection.  They were meant to convey the differentiation between Truth and Falsity, and to correspond to the objective universe in communicating the worth and beauty of a sanctified world.  The defamation of that level of spiritual relationship was violated not because of the tower’s construction; rather, Babel’s unanswerable sin had to do with the depravity of the human heart, and the essence of a soul’s darkening.

Whatever the motivation of the gathering’s aggregate will never be known; and of individual reasons for participating in the construction of such a structure, we can only guess at; but what is clear is that the response was one of anger, and such reaction must have had a reason:  the dispersion was both an explanation of the state of current affairs, a forewarning for any who might consider future similar actions, and a consequence of man’s violation of a once-sacred right.

Modernity suffers from a parallel state of affairs.  Though clinging to the paradigm of a Darwinian explanation of human history, and devoid of everything spiritual, mythological or generational transfers of traditional narratives, the metaphorical pile of words we amass reflect not just an attempt to become gods ourselves, but in the very process, to rebel against the very foundation of what words were meant to accomplish.

Once upon a time, in the flickering shadows and glow from fires where the village gathered to hear the storytelling ancients of the town historian, sorcerer and magic healer, the traditions carried forth from the inception of timelessness into the mysteries of the heart would pierce like the spear of the warrior, and children listened with wide-eyed wonder at the shaman who effortlessly rolled the tales from tongues emitting not mere sounds, but images and shadows of pictures more frightening than the lion’s roar or the wild boar’s tusks.

Words spoken, meant something, then.  Truth was bundled in the very telling of the tale; and falsity reflected the depravity of man’s heart, confounded by the loss of innocence in a world gone mad.

We can still get a sense of that — that encounter with words, meaning and truth; and, indeed, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must convey facts, circumstances and narratives of human experience when preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the piling of words upon words must convey a test of reality, and a dose of the shaman’s storytelling.

Preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application is, in the end, not just creating a word pile; it is to communicate the essence of the human condition in a world which often fails to listen, and refuses to hear.  That is why it is important to formulate it effectively, accurately, and with a coherence beyond mere word piling, lest the fall be a cloud of dust greater than the collapse of the Tower of Babel.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire