OPM Disability Retirement: The Grist of Life

It is that substance which is most useful; the essential part of the grain grounded in order to make flour; the rest and remainder — of the stem, the outer coating and armor which protects it — they, too, have some role to play in the larger scheme of things, but in the end, it is the grist of life which produces the essence by which we live.

Meaning, for everyone, may posses some external differences; but in the end, values which sustain and are sustainable, cross over and overlap; and yet, rare is the instance where such matters are discussed, even in the closest of families.

What is the grist of life?  Is it to drink, party and have the greatest extent of pleasure achievable?  Is it to “make a difference” in the short time we have upon this world?  Is it to accumulate the greater amount of “toys” and, in the end, to be declared the “winner” because of the amount and extent of wealth amassed?

Or, is it about “relationships” — of Father & Son; Mother & Daughter; Father & Daughter; Mother & Son; extended families; of grandparents; of the coherence or crisis; of a community which no longer exists.  When did we lose that sense of community?  When did the grist of life become a matter of money?

Whatever “it” is, you know that you have lost it when your health begins to deteriorate; for, when your health is a concern, no longer is there a question as to what is the grist of life — it begins and ends with one’s health.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that filing for Federal Disability Retirement is contemplated, the grist of life becomes quickly clarified:  Health, in order to to be able to have a quality of life.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and return to the essence of what it is all about:  Health, Life — a brighter future.

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.

 

Medical Retirement from Civil Service: The Unendurable Turmoil

Perhaps (and thankfully) for most, there does not exist one.  Turmoils are a part of everyday life.  Most are endured; some small numbers of them are actual “emergencies” which require urgent attention, but for the most part, life is a series of upheavals which has to be endured.

There comes, however, every now and again, an unendurable turmoil — a circumstance of such immense importance and of great impact such that it seems to be unendurable.  It is the moment during or just after a crisis; a recognition that things simply cannot go on like they have; a “breaking point” where something must give.  That point prior to the explosion or where the dam suddenly breaks and the massive flood of life’s fears begins, is the pressure point where help must be sought, attention must be obtained, advice must be acquired.

Medical conditions can bring a person to such a crisis point — especially where the intersection of work, family, pain and fear all aggregate and come to a “head”.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, don’t allow for your particular situation to culminate to a point where it becomes an unendurable turmoil.

Instead, consult with an OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer and get some advice.  Such advice from a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer may be that proverbial last straw before it is placed on the camel’s back which prevents the situation from becoming the unendurable turmoil.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Federal Jobs: The Time we Spend

The time we spend implies the level of our concern, our interests and our priorities.  The proportionality reveals where one’s “mind’ resides.  If work takes up the greater portion of our lives, then one is deemed a workaholic; if video entertainment seems to dominate, then some will whisper of being “addicted”; or of too much of anything — leisure, pleasures, topical asides or exotic obsessions — the tendency is to make judgments based upon the time given and the attention reserved.

When does an “interest” in something become an addiction or an obsession?  Does it depend upon each circumstance and the context surrounding the reasons imparted?

Certainly, initiating a “start-up” requires greater commitment than to be employed with an established firm; and learning a new activity or engaging a fresh issue will require a greater commitment at the outset.  Medical conditions, as well, often require a greater focus and investment of time. The problem with medical conditions is not the disproportionate time needed, but the time it takes away from other activities — from work; from time with family; from the time previously spent on other necessary activities, including the mundane like taking out the garbage.

For Federal and 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, the time we spend on an ongoing medical condition — from taking SL, AL or LWOP (or being deemed AWOL), to being unable to complete tasks, etc. — is an indicator of when a Federal Disability Retirement application should be filed.

To obtain an objective assessment of one’s likelihood for a successful outcome, consult with an Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Claims: Hanging on a contingency

The metaphorical image representing such a phrase allows one to pause and reflect: the dichotomy between the physical world and the conceptual one — of a person “hanging”, as from a cliff, with his fingers turning white from gripping the tenuous life-line of a flimsy branch, a loose boulder or an outstretched hand of another; and of the technical term that possesses meaningful discourse only in a purely theoretical universe of conceptual constructs — denoting the idea of a future event or circumstance that cannot be relied upon with certainty, but may trigger a series of consequential future contingencies or further occurrences, etc.

Thus does the physical and the conceptual come together in an aggregation of a compound conceptual construct that may connote thus: You are in a tenuous situation where your physical well-being is dependent upon a future uncertainty that may result in events that may or may not yet happen.

Such a conditional circumstance is often how the Federal or Postal employee feels, who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition may result in the necessity of 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, it is indeed the “physical” part of the entire event — the medical condition itself — which makes one feel “as if” one is dangling from the edge of a cliff.

And it is the “contingency” — the uncertain triggering mechanism, such as the anticipated adverse reaction of the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service; the tenuous reliance upon a doctor’s diagnosis and treatment; the growing inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties — that makes the medical condition all the more magnified in its exponentially-exacerbated conditions of anticipated calamities.

Life is often an unfortunate series of having to hang on to a contingency, but when a medical condition enters into the fray, it makes it doubly more tenuous, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is at least a concrete step that allows one to grip the reality of one’s situation, and perhaps leave all future contingencies, tenuously anticipated, aside.

Sincerely,

Robert R.McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The direction of life

We are told from a very early age that we must have one; like winds that carry seasonal warmth and jet streams that bring unseasonable temperatures, we are ingrained to be purposive, teleological and focused upon the goal in mind.

Wisdom-filled proverbs echo beyond the history of instructional transference from parent to child, community to individual and generation to modernity: aiming for the target; sticking to a task; seeing things to their completion; being patient in everything you do; treating others fairly; 5-step, 10-step or multi-step plans for one’s life; we are admonished throughout of the importance of having a direction in our lives, as if the destination has been predetermined and arriving is merely being pointed in the right direction, traveling some distance and getting there without thought.

Some people clearly follow such a linear route – like the proverbial straight line from point A to destination B; then, there are others who never seem to get a handle on such a concept, while most of the rest of us meander through a confounding maze and are stuck somewhere “in-between”, like those kids in the middle of a brood of accomplishments lost in anonymity between the oldest who is the star of the family, the first born and who gets the greatest amount of attention, and the last one who is the “baby” whom everyone fawns over.  But what if a community, a society, the nation as a whole, no longer embraces a cogency of purposive goals?

It is like that “cause” we all live and die for; where modernity scoffs to expunge such lofty ideals, the residue of the populace must abide by its dire consequences, where echoes of past vestiges haunt in cave dwellings of paintings now faded and meaningless, lost forever to the history of silent voices.

Once, there were causes to fight for – of man’s manifest destiny; of fascism to defeat; of the great “Red Scare”; of the domino theory occluding freedom and resulting in totalitarianism; of patriotism and the flag upon a hill; and other images, all the while where the fighting and dying is accomplished not by the sons or daughters of the wealthy and privileged, anymore, but by sons of southern belles and minorities who die or get blown to bits.

Of what door does one knock upon to get one’s direction of life?  Where, in life, do we get a free pass to obtain the map in order to even know where we are, where we are going, and how to get there?

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 positional duties, the direction of one’s life becomes fairly linear whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

There are three “pathways” to steer upon: Stay in the job and suffer; Resign and walk away with nothing; or, the best direction in such a life, is to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  And, even as to the second of the three roads taken (Resigning) – remember, you have up until one (1) year from the date of separation from Federal Service to file a Federal Disability Retirement application with OPM.

It is, in the end, good to have a compass in order to lead onwards in the right direction of life, wherever that may be, however one may obtain it, and whenever it is finally achieved.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Artistic precision and the caravan of words

The two words in the initial linguistic compound are rarely combined; for, as the former denotes a free-wheeling flow of undisciplined handiwork, it resists against the latter for its constraining methodology of instrumental pragmatism.  Thus, an “artist” by definition belies the very definition of precision, and “precision” connotes too rational an approach within the contextual themes of scientism and material fortitude.

Are they oxymorons?  Not quite.  Inconsistent in an aggregation of conceptual constructs?  Perhaps, to a degree of some incommensurability.  Nevertheless, as even opposites can still attract, and manage to discover ways to synchronize, so the free-flowing phenomenology of creativity inferred by an artistic hand, can with the guiding principles of methodological precision, garner a coordination of approaching beauty by analogy and pastoral effect by metaphor.

With that, we approach the latter half of the title — of a “caravan of words“.  Some would picture in the mind’s eye of a distant past, where antiquity and modernity clash in a final battle of lost yearnings; of a line of camels against the sunset of a desert’s sky, when languages uttered were foreign and exciting in their romantic interludes.  Nowadays, in a world gone mad, no one cares a twit about such scenes except to fear the violence and mayhem which is represented by a technological world having replaced the transport of goods by beasts of burdens.

It is, however, the addendum of “words”, attached to the concept of a caravan, which qualifies for significance and meaning.  For, by conveyance through a manner lost now in the fading antiquity of time, memories and forgotten worlds, we once communicated through a caravan of words, but now simply rush upon a computer key or a smartphone app.

We thus come to the ending chorus, the finale, the drumbeat of closure:  True communication can only occur through a series of burdensome approaches in transporting language into an effective word picture, utilizing both the imagination of artistry and the deliberations of scientific precision.

This should be kept in mind when a Federal or Postal employee who is preparing the Statement of Disability on SF 3112A, that the narrative to be told in response to questions asked, should encompass all of the elements discussed:  unrestrained by the questions themselves, yet precise in formulating the argument; conveyed not by mere convenience of transport, but carefully packed upon the backs of reliable caravans.

Words mean something, and when the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker sits down to prepare an effective Statement of Disability on Standard Form 3112A in order to formulate a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is important to engage in the artistic precision of a caravan of words, lest the means for conveyance of one’s narrative be delayed by an obstacle of technological obfuscation.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Figures Larger than Life

Once, mythological figures and characters looming larger than life itself wandered amidst the common populace of everyday working folks; their very presence bestowed a greater sense of purpose, of a pride in knowing that better days lay ahead, and that even in the upheavals of tempestuous travails and turmoils which interrupted every economy and fiefdom because of the inevitable vicissitudes of economic activity, that somehow we would all survive through the common efforts of community.  But the pureness of the mountain stream became poisoned, diluted and polluted by egomaniacal intrusions of selfish constructs; “we” did not matter much, if at all, and the accolades of accretion demanded greater self-congratulatory spotlights of self-centered egoism.

Thus was the “selfie” born.  In the midst of such a society, empathy for the disabled will be wanting and rare; the saying that he would shove his own grandmother under a moving bus is not merely a warning, but a confirmation of normative character.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers 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, it is well to know who, and what, one is dealing with.

Agencies and Post Offices which may have shown care and comaraderie during better times, may not continue the surface-appearance of comity and cooperation when it becomes clear that the Federal or Postal employee can no longer remain as fully productive as in years past.  Human nature being what it is, the self-contradiction of man’s thought processes can always amaze and delude:  One believes that one is neither naive nor ignorant; concomitantly, that the world is generally an evil arena of life; but, somehow, one’s own friends, family, and agency are the exception, when the callous experiences of life have shown us otherwise.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits by the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a clear indication to one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service that you are no longer “one of us”, and more to the point, can no longer contribute to the betterment of the agency, the Postal Service, or to the advancement of management’s careers and objectives.

You become considered as mere dead weight and fodder for the wasteland of problems and pecuniary penchants of piracy and pernicious paupers.  You become erased and digitally deleted from those seemingly happy images of office parties and ceremonial accolades where words of praise once were dispensed with generous helpings and heaps of adjectives and adverbs not often heard.  You become the nobody that you always were perceived to be behind those lying eyes, had always been, and forever considered; you just didn’t know it before the occurrence of confirmed establishment.

Perhaps we know too much today, because information is cheap and available; and perhaps giants never roamed the earth in epochs extinguished by time and modernity; for the figures larger than life are nowhere to be found, but in what we make of our lives through sheer effort, planning, and genuine concern for the man sitting right next to us.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Law: The Time In-Between, Afterwards

That time, as a historical event, is quite different from the retrospective vantage point of what we perceive today; and that is good to keep in mind.  After the event itself, the followers were not waiting around for the next event; rather, they were likely scrambling to determine what to do next, as they had no foresight of the coming circumstances, and thus did not consider themselves to be “in-between” two major historical pillars awaiting the next condition for completion.

In the aftermath, we can look upon it as a continuum, and view the time in between as one of anticipation and waiting; but from the real-time moment of the figures involved, the past trauma had already occurred; what was to come next could not have been known.  That is similar to how we live a life today.

For Federal and Postal employees who are anticipating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is a good lesson to view things in the “now”, as in-between, or afterwards, and from a later perspective.

Waiting upon a behemoth of a bureaucracy as that of OPM is never a pleasant experience, and one often feels like being in a suspended mode of administrative purgatory; and yes, there can be contingencies which must be first established before the next “move” in life can occur; but in the end, one should not wait upon the approval of a Federal OPM Disability application, but rather continue to pursue and build upon one’s life as in the aftermath of the occurrence. That is sometimes difficult to do, but necessary.

Waiting is often the hardest part; once the “happening” occurs, the tumult is released, and the Federal or Postal employee often feels that he or she is “set free” from the bonds of suspended time. But then, think about those followers of the fisherman who waited from that Friday until the morning when a seeming disaster turned into a triumph of historical proportions untold and unknown, at the time.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Obligation through Declaration

It is through the vehicle of the declarative statement that obligations are created.  Thus, when one states:  “I promise…”; “I will…”; “You can count on me…”; and other similar declarations of intent, then the connection between the speaker and the one to whom it is stated, is immediately created, such that a binding sense of mandatory indebtedness is established.

In many ways, then, it is through the spoken word, arranged in a pre-established sequence of grammatical form, which constitutes something beyond a mere folly of ideas, but binds an obligation of intentionality.

That is why talking “about” something is often the first step towards doing it.  Of course, words alone can result in a continuum of inaction, and the more words which are spoken by an individual, without any follow-up as a consequence, can undermine the very force of those initial linguistic hints, until the day comes when those around simply mutter, “He’s been saying that for years…”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties of the Federal or Postal Service job, the consideration for filing for Federal Disability Retirement compensation will normally take those initial, communicative steps of inquiry:  first, with one’s family; next, with some research and thought; and further, some outreach to someone who has knowledge about the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS.

Mere talking and gathering of information does not create an obligation of an irreversible nature; but when one moves from declarative statements devoid of future contingency (“I plan on filing…”) to one of present involvement of intent (“I am in the process of…”), then the step from mere words to activity of production has been established, and the Federal employee is then well on his/her way towards securing one’s future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire