FERS Medical Retirement: One Crisis Before

That is how we live: One Crisis Before.  Before what?  That is the impending question; Before we go off the edge?  Before the stability of the family breaks apart?  Before someone goes “Postal”?  Before….  Then we should ask the converse question: Is that how we should live?  If the answer is a resounding, “No!” — then, why is it that we do not change?  Is it because we feel so powerless as to submit to the impotence of our self-made circumstances?

It is like Mr. Woodhouse, Emma’s aging father in Jane Austen’s novel, who reflects that “Life is like eating one bowl of gruel to the next” — of monotony, boredom, a life filled with stressful events, until that sudden turn of events occurs.  How did we get here?  Did we ever have a choice?  It is like the saying — “We went a bridge too far…”  And the consequences of going beyond the capacity to reinforce and secure the area?  Cut off; isolated; unable to regroup.

That is how most of us live in this modern life where leisure was promised and losses were promulgated.  What we gained — greater mental stresses because everyone’s focus was turned inward — to the computer; to having the requisite daily focus and concentration for engagement of cognitive duties; of constantly being connected via Smart Phones, Email, the Internet, etc.  Did evolution ever have the time to prepare for such a world?  Or did it work upon the physical body, only, adapting to dangers once foreseen but now outdated?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from an illness or disability such that you are now one crisis before, it may be time to consider preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin to initiate the process before it becomes a bridge too far, and one crisis before.

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.

 

Legal Representation for Federal Disability Claims: In a Mirrorless World

Would it be placed in a science fiction genre, or perhaps a horror story?  Or perhaps shot with a grainy-grey film in a pre-modern totalitarian regime?  Would it even be possible, today?

Perhaps in an isolated country like North Korea, such a mandate would be possible — of a mirrorless world where the “self” cannot be recognized.  Of course, there would still be the possibility of a reflection in a pool of water, or a glass door, a reflective surface, etc., which allows for one to view that “somebody” who is distinctively a different self from “others”.

When does a child — a toddler — begin to identify a distinctive entity unique and separate from others?  Does it occur only after a certain accumulation of experiences involving encounters with the objective world?  Does a person without a memory of past experiences ever identify one’s “self” from others?

In a mirrorless world, would we all be selfless automatons who work cooperatively as a singular unit?

For the Federal or Postal employee who sees him/herself in the mirror and finds a “self” different from the one who first entered the Federal workforce, is that image of the individual who now must change a career, consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, etc., any different now with a medical condition than that person who was once healthy?

That “self-image” and how we view ourselves is important: Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is not the end of that “self” who was once productive, vibrant, interesting and full of energy; rather, it is merely positive change for the future in a mirrorless world which fails to reflect a future still bright and promising.

Contact an OPM Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and forget about the mirrorless world which fails to take into consideration the reflective totality of who you are.

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 for Federal Employees: “There Is a Time For…”

Whether religious or not, most are familiar with the general passages from Ecclesiastes.  In the Old King James Version, the poetic refrain; the beautiful cadence; the self-evident and comforting idea that the “rightness” of something and the perfection of “fitting” occurs under the heavens; that, somehow fate is already determined and we need to simply become attuned to the changes in our lives.

When there is a discordance between what we are doing and how the objective world is responding to our actions — that is when a sense of unrest occurs.  The old adages can pile up: Trying to fit a square peg into a round hole; failing to hit the nail on its head; kicking against the goads, etc.  Somehow, we all know about being a misfit in life.

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, it is important to recognize that there is a time for change.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits may be that change required by your particular circumstances, at this particular time, within the uniqueness of your situation.  While not as poetically stated as in the King James Version, consider consulting with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Expertise

What constitutes it, and who determines the status of when it is achieved?  We hear about people who are “experts” in this or that, referring to either experience, association or credentials, and based upon that, we accept their status of being an “expert” in the field.  Can that be undermined by personal experience?

Say a person has a Ph.D. in a given field, has worked in the capacity of that field for 30 years, and everyone in the field refers to him as the “resident expert” or “the best of the best” in the field; and yet, in a given situation calling for his or her expertise, he or she fails, is wrong, or otherwise falls short of having provided any competent input.  Does that undermine the expert’s status as an expert, or does one shrug one’s shoulders and say, “Well, you can’t be right all of the time”?  Say a “non-expert”, during the gathering of expertise and amassing of various opinions in making a critical decision, suddenly pipes up and says something contrary to what Dr. X – with-the-Ph.D-with-30-years-of-experience believes and has stated, but in the end he turns out to be right — does that make him or her the new resident expert?

There are, of course, the various logical fallacies — like the fallacy of “association by reputation” or of presumed certitude based upon past experiences (refer to David Hume, for example); but the ultimate question may come down to a simple grammatical one: is the concept used as a noun, an adjective or an adverb?  How does one “gain” expertise, or attain the status of an “expert”, and can it be by experience alone, a credential earned, or by reputation gained — or a combination of all three?

How did Bernie Madoff swindle so many people for so many years?  Was he considered an “expert” in financial matters, and what combination of the tripartite status-making byline (i.e., reputation, experience and credentialing) did he possess to persuade so many to be drawn to him?  Or, is it sometimes merely greed and a proclivity of vulnerability to a good storyteller enough to persuade one that a certain-X is an “expert”?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have come to a point in their lives and careers where a medical condition has begun to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform one or more of the critical or “essential” elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, a certain level of expertise may be necessary before preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Ultimately, it is not “expertise” or some prior reputation that is important, but the accuracy of information received and the truth of the knowledge relied upon — and for that, one should do due diligence in researching not merely the “credentials” of those who declare some “expertise” in the area of Federal Disability Retirement Law, and not even self-puffery of self-promoting success, but in addition, an instinct as to the truth of what is stated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early OPM Retirement for Medical Incapacity: The many tomorrows yet to come

Does hope lie fallow when the basket of tomorrows become numbered too few?  When endless tomorrows lay before one’s imagination, too numerous to count that one need not bother, does that purport to show that one has a great quantity of hope, or merely that youth’s folly allows for a carefree tomorrow where an eternity of tomorrows can never be reduced to a handful beyond a few todays?  Can time and incremental portions of divided moments be quantified in that manner?

That has always been an anomaly for the undersigned writer — the quantification of time, as in the manner that religious beliefs are scoffed at when it comes to the story of genesis.  For, those who hold to the strict construction and literal meaning of the timeline of how old the earth is, count the obscure generational extensions of people who lived in former times, and somehow declare that the world is X-amount of years old.  How one can calculate with precision that which is not explicitly stated is a conundrum in and of itself, leaving aside the issue of whether time can be quantified if the order of the planetary system and our specific galactic orbit had not yet been established.

Evolutionists, of course, contend that the world was clearly created billions of years ago.  To both, the question is:  Tell me the logical difference between the following 2 statements — 1. The world was created a long time ago, and 2. The world was created billions of years ago.  Do humans have the capacity to imagine time beyond the present moment, or perhaps yesterday or a couple of days ago?  What does it mean to say to a person, “A type of human being walked the earth 10 million years ago”?  One can barely remember where one has placed the screwdriver used last week, and yet people want to put some significance upon a belief-system that purports to quantify time.

Ultimately, the question of whether one believes that the earth is a mere 10,000 years old, or billions of years in the making, is not a factual or scientific one; it is, a political condemnation that categorizes a person’s religious belief into a bifurcated system of: Is he/she “scientific” or “religious”?  In the end, time cannot be so easily quantified; rather, it is a basis of hope and an anticipation of a future yet to be resolved.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal and Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal position, time often becomes paralyzed, much like our imagined world of dinosaurs and prehistoric images of those Pleistocene eras and beyond; and as time is unable to be made meaningful except in the here and now — by imagining the many tomorrows yet to come — preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application that lets you project a life beyond the present-day circumstances of pain, medical conditions and deteriorating health, is the singular differentiating way that humans can separate themselves from other species: with hope.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: How words matter

They do, don’t they?  Otherwise, how else to explain the endless plethora in the course of a single day, heard from every corner and source imaginable: The radio; the television; DVD; streaming; other electronic mediums; bystanders; on the telephone; written forms in email, texts, Facebook postings; everywhere, the insular words of a private-public conversation — public because much of it is accessible to everyone, except for those whispered soft nothings in the privacy of bedrooms and lips upon ears, but throughout acted upon “as if” each exchange of communication is between the sender and receiver, the declarative and the reply, the conversationalist and the lecturer; and so the infinite stream of words flow back and forth like the ebb of tides that have washed the shores of this earth from the beginning of time, or so it seems.

But what if actions never follow upon words; do they still matter?  When a person condemns another and shouts out, “He’s just full of it!” — what exactly do we mean?  A person makes a promise; words are spoken; perhaps even a “contract” is written up and entered into.  But then, nothing happens.  No actions are taken; a lawsuit is filed, and more words are entered into the database of the “justice system”; a trial is held, and more words spoken, this time in front of a judge.

At what point did the words originally spoken or written fail to matter, and when did they then again matter?  What is meant by “matter” — is it only in conjunction with actions taken, or do the words themselves, hanging in the suspended universe of the ethereal, have some impact despite no one taking any notice of it?  Is a “vow” or a “promise” something more than mere words?  If a person makes a promise and marries, takes the traditional vows of fidelity and honor, do the words matter, or only by the actions that follow, or both?  And what of the person who says nothing — in past ages, there were men (and women) who had a reputation of “being a man (or woman) of few words” — but always follows through on his or her commitments?  Do the words not spoken matter?

Yes, yes — the linguistic philosopher will observe that the very lack of words was telling all the same, but we are not talking about that — not of silence, but of words spoken, and not of those unspoken.  Thus do we say of the person who keeps his promise — “He is a man (or woman) of his/her word”. But what if he/she breaks every promise spoken, and says upon getting caught, “But I never meant a word of it anyway”?  Does that make a difference?  Or of the boring lecturer who no one listens to, but then when a fire breaks out and a small child yells, “Fire” and everyone listens and exits safely — how did the action following upon the words spoken matter?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has come to a point where preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, what must always be kept in mind is that the entire administrative process of the bureaucratic methodology of “Federal Disability Retirement” is based entirely upon “words” — of meeting the legal criteria with words; of describing the nexus between the medical condition and one’s positional duties with words; of making persuasive legal arguments with words.

Words matter by being effective, where actions follow upon the singularly unique encounter between the insular world of subjective words and the objective reality of “others” listening, taking it in, then acting upon them — as in granting an approval for a Federal Disability Retirement application upon a submission of a bunch of effective words that comprise a successful Federal Disability Retirement compilation.  That’s when words matter, and the manner in which words are put together.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: What we have to do

In once sense of the phrase, it denotes a duty or obligation; in another, the foundational basis of a practical, pragmatic nature – of that which we do, simply because it needs to be done in order to survive, to maintain a certain standard of living, or because we believe it is the “right” thing to do.  Each individual must decide for him or herself, of course, as to the criteria by which to determine that which we have to do, and the “what” will often be placed on a wide spectrum of moral ends that are meant to justify the means by which to proceed.

What we have to do – it is also a phrase that is said when shaking one’s head, as in the whispering to one’s self in gritting one’s teeth or biting our tongue and engaging in a soliloquy of thoughtful silence, saying, “What we have to do.”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, despite the medical condition beginning to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, it is a familiar refrain – of working through the pain, of trying to endure the paralyzing panic attacks or the heightened anxiety and depression that pervades, and to try and hide the medical condition and do what we have to do in order to economically survive – until it reaches that crisis point where the medical condition cannot be controlled, cannot be hidden, and comes bursting out like NFL players running through the tunnel from the locker rooms of one’s mind and body.

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, is just one of those other things that can be characterized as what we have to do.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have a medical condition that begins to impede and prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the filing itself of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is what we have to do, especially if the alternative is to stay at the job or walk away with nothing, which are actually no choices at all.

What we have to do – a familiar refrain for the Federal or Postal employee, and a necessary next step if you suffer from a medical condition that impedes or prevents you from performing one or more of essential elements of your job.  After all, you’ve been doing what you have to do all of your life, and this is just one more instance of it.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Life’s mortgage

We all know well the concept behind it – of borrowing against the object itself, in order to “half-possess”, occupy and enjoy it presently against a future promise that it will be paid over an incremental period of time.  Sort of like life itself, or at least of one’s health.  Borrowed time; life’s mortgage; banking on a better tomorrow; relying upon a promise being kept based upon today’s favorable circumstances over a lengthy period of time well into a future we can never be certain about.

Yet, because the collateral is the object itself – normally, the house that is being mortgaged – the loaning institution actually doesn’t take any gamble at all, even if the value of the collateral plunges below the agreed-upon amount to be paid; one is still obligated, no matter what.

It is sort of like life’s challenge itself – of the promise of a promising life based upon an anticipated health that will last until the day when one is suddenly gone.  But life doesn’t always work that way, just as the mortgage, lien and promise of financial growth doesn’t quite always fold out as planned, like the scrolled blueprint that keeps trying to roll back into an obscured cylinder with each attempt to lay it flat.

Sickness occurs; health deteriorates; the 30-year mortgage that was promised at the onset of the contract signed doesn’t unfold as anticipated, and sometimes a default occurs – like the health that deteriorates and the career that must be ended.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit accorded to all Federal and Postal employees under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, based upon the idea that recognizes that while a long-term commitment to a career is reasonably anticipated, there are instances where such a commitment may need to be modified in the event of failing health.  Unlike the bank’s position in a mortgage-relationship as lender-to-borrower, however, it is not quite all that one-sided.  There are options still open.

Thus, because Federal Disability Retirement requires only that a person be unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s position being occupied, the Federal or Postal employee is allowed to go out into the private sector and work at a job somewhat dissimilar (so long as there are “essential elements” which are not identical to the former Federal or Postal position), and make up to 80% of what the former Federal or Postal job pays currently.

For, in the end, life’s mortgage is unlike the home mortgage where the lender holds all of the proverbial cards; at least for the former, the great thing is that the reliance is upon the capacity of man’s ability, and not upon the fine print hidden within the banker’s contract.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Lawyer: Reality, perspective & medical condition

Reality is the existence of Being; perspective, the Kantian structures of how we see things; and a medical condition is that intervening, interrupting and corroding event that may render the first and second of this tripartite concept into a skewering of prospects.

Of course, a medical condition impacts the reality of a situation, especially a person’s ability, capacity and initiative towards a goal, and further, one’s perspective may become completely altered as a result of the event –priorities may change, the goals one has may be pared back, and even the enthusiasm towards certain things may become modified.  That is why a medical condition is sometimes considered a “game changer” in the reality and perspective of one’s life.

Life is full of bumps and bridges; of trespasses and rightful directions; and even of encounters with empathy, love and kindness; and though the reality of one’s situation may often appear that any perspective other than one seen through the eyes of meanness, cruelty and hardened hearts is merely a child’s dream of a fantasyland long passed and forever extinguished, there are still times of joy to look forward to, moments of smiles and days of sunshine left.

A medical condition is often a dark cloud, but a proper perspective on the reality of that darkness needs to be gathered.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who sees nothing but turmoil, disaster and progressive deterioration because of the medical condition that prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, 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, may lend the Federal or Postal employee a different perspective on the reality of one’s situation.

No, filing an OPM Disability Retirement application will not be the answer to all of reality’s problems, but it may change one’s perspective as to the dark cloud that has gathered upon the reality of that medical condition that won’t seem to go away.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: Paradoxes

Quine, probably the greatest logician since Bertrand Russell, notes that paradoxes often occur as a result of presumed beliefs otherwise left unstated, and once they are “fleshed out” through query and made explicit via closer scrutiny and analysis, the portion which befuddles often disappears.  Confusion within a language game, of course, is often a large part of it, and certain unstated preconditions and assumed facts otherwise implicit and hidden will leave the stated portion incomplete such that others must come along and unravel the mystery.

In a similar vein, statements made as “necessarily” so also retain unstated presumptions.  Thus, if we claim that “the sun will rise tomorrow”, we are asserting that it is “necessarily so”.  If a child asks, “Why is that so”, we will often revert to nothing more than Hume’s response that because it has always risen in the past, and the revolution of planets and rotation of the earth around the sun has been a reliable compass upon which we can depend, it is the regularity of events in the past that determine the necessary expectation of repetition for the future.

It is, then, those unstated or “hidden” presumptions that made certain statements and claims unclear, and the job of an attorney is to clarify that which is left in a muddle.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where it becomes necessary to file an effective 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 questions surrounding paradoxes and necessity can be important.

Medical conditions can certainly be paradoxes.  Without explanation, they can debilitate, progressively deteriorate and impact a person’s ability and capacity to continue on as before.  Even with a medical diagnosis, prescribed course of treatment and sometimes surgical intervention, they may remain a befuddlement because of a lack of knowledge or explanation.

Having such a medical condition may nevertheless require that the Federal or Postal employee file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits because the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job.  The filing itself becomes a “necessity”.

The gap between the paradox of the medical condition and the necessity of filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes quite clear: Necessity does not equal entitlement, and the paradox must be proven.  In doing so, implicit facts must be explained and explicated, and more than an argument of “because it has always been so” will have to be put forward to persuade OPM of the viability of one’s case.

To that extent, do not allow for concealed and presumed “facts” to defeat your Federal Disability Retirement application, and never allow your statement of facts to remain a paradox, lest it become “necessary” to engage further steps of appealing the Federal Disability Retirement process in pursuance of an approval from OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire