At some point in one’s life, there is a recognition that a “gap” has been established between the dreams of one’s youth, the expectations of reality embraced in adulthood, and the lack of achievement one has attained in the final stages of one’s life. It need not be a final moment of a gestalt-like profundity, where we suddenly realize with a declarative “Aha!” at some critical juncture in our life; rather, it can be a subtle realization over time, concluding with an expectation of acceptance, or of bitterness towards life’s unfairness.
Life is, indeed, unfair. Two people can toil and sweat at one’s work and have starkly differing results. One may become very wealthy; the other, constantly struggling just to live from paycheck to paycheck; and yet, the extent of cognitive or physical effort expended by each may be of little difference. One may counter: It is not the effort expended, but rather, the value of the product or service offered. But even that is not quite true, is it?
The classic example is the pay scale of a teacher — irrefutably of greater value than the sale of vehicles or mink coats, yet of relatively paltry return. One never hears of a wealthy teacher; one hears of wealth attained through frivolous services based upon an idea engineered in the basement or garage of a computer whiz-kid.
Recognition is an important crossroads; of the disparity between what one expected and what one has achieved; of determining early on what is of value, of how one defines “success” as opposed to “failure”; and of resisting the idea that all of youth’s folly must be realized in order to be deemed a success, leaving aside whether success itself must be narrowly defined by a person’s pocketbook contents.
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, there is often a necessary prerequisite of a recognition that one’s Federal or Postal career is over.
Filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS is not, however, a recognition that one will never achieve or attain what one originally set out to do; rather, it is a recognition that there is life after a Federal or Postal career, and that the medical condition has merely revealed an incompatibility between one’s Federal or Postal position and the medical condition that one never asked for, but a reality with which one must deal with — a recognition itself that is an important first step.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Reflections of an OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer | Tagged: after the usps disability denial insufficient medical documentation, alternatives after owcp appeal second opinion, annuity pension usps medical retirement attorney, Arizona fers medical retirement lawyer, considering objective and subjective medical evidence for depression and anxiety, csrs medical retirement lawyer, dea fers disability retirement lawyer, dealing with a reduction of force in usps employment, dealing with inaccurate information on standard form 3112d with an attorney a board, disability pension position statement attorney, disciplinary actions for awol medical leave fers lawyer, eeoc medical discrimination are often harder to prove than opm medical retirement claims, excessive sick leave postal employee lawyer, fers lawyer assistance with doctor's narrative report, getting approved with the assistance of a fers disability retirement lawyer, getting help from opm medical retirement attorney, getting permanent benefits when you have a partial disability which won’t allow you to work in the federal government with efficiency, health related resignations in the federal government, how a federal worker can gain an opm case number and a favorable decision in fers disability retirement with opm attorney, how to apply for postal medical retirement benefits, how to apply for retirement for disabilities at the post office, if a postal employee on owcp doesn’t expect to recover from an illness or long term injury, inefficient federal employee with disabilities, information about fers disability retirement, knee replacement and owcp disability retirement attorney, law blog government medical retirement benefits, law enforcement from different us federal agencies injured off work can still get incapacity retirement through the opm, lawyer blog on how to get approved for fers medical retirement, mail carrier postal employment light duty, medical records fers owcp disability retirement lawyer, owcp schedule award and disability retirement lawyer, partial disabilities postal employee, postal accommodation lawyer, proof of owcp compensation and transition to fers disability retirement, reduction in force for government disabled employees, rehab postal employee benefits attorney, rehab usps medical retirement lawyer, rehabilitation usps lawyer, requesting advance long term leave for postal mail handler, resignation from federal job medical issues consult fers disability attorney, standard forms disabilities in the postal service, taking a postal medical attorney aboard, tennessee postal disability attorney, the law blog of attorney Robert McGill, the when and why questions and medical compensation lawyer blog, top postal disability retirement attorney for memphis tn area usps employees, us postal service offers of a modified job assignments, usps disability retirement process, usps how to apply for retirement due to incapacity, usps rehab lawyer, when a usps letter carrier is removed for injuries contact immediate an experienced postal private attorney, when dealing with federal medical retirement forms know what law says you need to prove, when opm hostile supervisors cause stress and depression on employees, when the postal services refuses modified work assignments to disabled usps employees | Leave a comment »
Federal Disability Retirement: The Ledger of Life
The Ledger was once that oversized binder which recorded the economic transactions for various purposes — of maintaining income and outlays; of keeping an accounting of various details in one’s life, whether of activities in business or even of one’s habits and patterns of existence. Somehow, it doesn’t seem the same as typing such information into a computer, or of buying a software that categorizes and makes everything neat and simple.
That old Ledger that had to be lugged from one place to another reflected the weight of seriousness just in the act of lifting it; and when you opened the front cover and turned the pages where the latest entry still emitted the scent of ink still drying, one sensed the permanency of recordation as a trait of relevance that could never be erased.
And what of the metaphor — of one’s “Ledger of Life” — a recordation of the transactions that one has engaged; of the weightiness of that placed on one side of the ledger as compared to the negative notations appearing on the opposite side; of the image of St. Peter as the gatekeeper reviewing the annotated columns to determine if you “made it” — all because “The Ledger” reflects the value of your actions during the course of a lifetime?
Do we even think in those terms, anymore? Or, while the dusty old books that used to be kept beneath the wooden grains of counters in dark and dank workshops were left behind when first the technology of modernity made for obsolescence of such anachronistic record keeping, did we then just revert to making mental notes for the things we did or did not do?
Most of us, if asked if we are “eligible” to pass through St. Peter’s exclusive club, would respond thus: “Oh, all in all, I have been a pretty good person and so, Yes, I believe I would qualify.” And so we approach most things in a similar vein: We give ourselves a “pass” and believe that the Ledger of Life would favor our eligibility status.
And so it is with Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer form a medical condition and need to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management: Because you suffer from the medical condition and believe that the medical condition cannot but be proof of eligibility, so you believe OPM cannot but see what you see. But filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a paper-presentation to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence.
It is very rare that any Federal Disability Retirement application is a “slam-dunk” case, or even an “easy” one; and like the Ledger of Life that we have left behind in the dusty heaps of bookshelves long forgotten, preparing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application is not just a simple transaction to be annotated into columns of neat book keeping, but a bureaucratic process that must be proven and argued for — somewhat like the Ledger of Life that must be submitted to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates of Heaven.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Filed under: Reflections of an OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer | Tagged: advise from opm lawyer on disability retirement physician statement, after the usps disability denial insufficient medical documentation, atrial fibrillation fers medical retirement attorney, attorney serving disabled federal employees in massachusetts, awol for medical reasons federal employment, biased disability reasonable accommodation committee in post office and what my options are, dealing with inaccurate information on standard form 3112d with an attorney a board, dealing with supervisors negative comments on request for fers disability retirement, degenerative disc disease on postal employee, disabilities bop retirement benefits, disability leave for postal employees, disciplinary actions and disabilities discrimination fers attorney, disciplinary actions for awol medical leave fers lawyer, documentation needed to show usps disability retirement, federal employee disability retirement attorney serving in arizona area, federal employee disability rights under fers, fers application for immediate medical retirement, fers benefits if resign for physical or mental impairments, fers opm boise Idaho retirement attorney, fitness for duty examination postal employee with arthritis, forced fers medical retirement by us postal service, free first time consultation with fers lawyer, harassment in post office by management and stress leave, how to resign from the postal service if I have a disabling condition, ice owcp medical retirement benefits lawyer, if a usps employee is terminated for mental stress but the excuse by management is criminal misconduct, law blog on tips to complete sf 3112 attorney for federal employees, looking for resignation example from federal employer due to disabilities, ma federal disability retirement lawyer, mdd help with depressive condition in federal employees, medical documentation needed to show or prove usps medical retirement, mental conditions postal service incapacity opm pension, mental disabled designation criteria in the usps, modified job assignments medical limitation postal attorney, office of personnel management retirement csrs disability, opm advanced sick leave denial considerations, opm definition hostile work environment for retirement purposes, opm lawyer for help in fers disability retirement process, opm medical retirement for lumbago and low back pain, opm schedule of rating disabilities, paperwork to file for fers disability and expert advice, postal employee terminated unfairly mental stress and anxiety, postal service letter to sign for disabilities, postal service ps form-50 termination proposal for excessive sick leave, power of attorney signature in fers disability attorney contact attorney mcgill first first time consultation is always free, qualifying for a disability retirement under opm fers, removal medical inability to perform federal position attorney, resignation not advisable fers medical retirement lawyer, resigning from federal service health reasons, separation from federal employment medical inability to perform position chores, supervisors at postal service creating a hostile environment for usps employees, suspension of disabled employee fers disability lawyer, terminated from government employment for physically inability to perform tasks, termination proposal of postal employee with disabilities without opm pension benefits, unfair termination of usps employee for misconduct but real reason is mental stress, usps owcp disability retirement forms after workers comp nurse’s return to work, when advance sick leave is denied in the usps what can I do next?, when dealing with federal medical retirement forms know what law says you need to prove, when sedentary postal positions for light duty won’t work, when you are being surveilled and harassed by postal inspectors while on owcp, workers comp with usps long term sickness, working while filing federal retirement disability | Leave a comment »