Federal Disability Retirement Law: The Finish Line

What is there, at that end which you strived so hard to reach?  We often confuse the end-goals and mix up the purposes engaged.  What is the purpose of the finish line?  Is it merely to reach and cross it?  Does a runner engage in the activity merely to cross the finish line, or is there a greater purpose beyond the mere crossing?

Certainly, for an alien from another planet — or even to a child where explanations have not yet been sufficiently comprehensible because of a lack of context and he or she is merely an accidental spectator not yet attuned to the “ways of the world” — watching men and women strain and struggle to reach a white line and collapse upon crossing it, is a specter of strangeness and peculiarity.

Was it for the health benefits of jogging and running?  Was it to win a prize — a ribbon, a trophy, some cash?  Or was it merely for the fun of competition — to train, to discipline, to achieve?  And what of metaphorical finish lines?

The “race of life”, the “marathon to achieve”, etc. — you know, the motivational constructs which allegedly compel us to greater heights of competitive highs.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who retain an image of a “finish line” — of reaching those magical numbers which declare to everyone, “I have made it!” — it may be that other factors intercede, interrupt and prevent you from achieving that goal of being able to cross that proverbial “finish line”.

What would be the point if, upon reaching the finish line, you collapse and die?  Or, end up in a wheelchair, debilitated and unable to enjoy those “golden years”?

People often mix up and confuse the purpose for the goal with the crossing of the finish line itself: Reaching the finish line is not the same as answering the “why” of getting there.  If your health is deteriorating and you are only destroying yourself in the very effort to reach that finish line, it is time to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application under FERS.

And yes, while being on Federal Disability Retirement, those years you are on it count towards your total number of years of Federal Service when it is recalculated at age 62, so that you are essentially building up your retirement systems while being on Federal Disability Retirement.

Contact a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider what the options are so that you don’t confuse and conflate reaching the finish line for the greater purpose of why and how you want to get there.

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 Medical Retirement Benefits: The Inadequacy of Language

Adequacy is determined by comparing the expectation of fulfillment to the reality of what occurs.  For a short period of time in the history of human existence, adequacy was met — for, language as a tool of communication was successful in conveying commands, following simple instructions, purveying uncomplicated thoughts, relating oral traditions of historical facts, etc.

As life became more and more complex, of course, language had to keep up in order to accommodate the greater need.  The development and evolution of language has certainly become more complex, and the discipline of philology reveals such evolving complexities — but the question always remains, Is language adequate?  And the follow-up question by necessity: Adequate for what?

One might avoid the question by criticizing the vehicle of language, of course — that in the end, language is adequate, but it is the speaker of a language whose inadequacy is revealed by the inefficient manner in which it is applied, the inability to choose or recognize the right words, etc.  In the end, it is likely both — for, even a lifetime of studying one’s own language is often not enough to be able to describe the inherent complexities of the world in which we live, especially given the technological expansion in modernity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition necessitates contemplation of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS, make sure that you recognize: (A) That such an application for Federal Disability Retirement is first and foremost a paper presentation to OPM and (B) that conveying the severity and extent of your medical conditions must by necessity be through the expertise of linguistic formulation.

As such, it is often the inadequacy of language which will determine the success or failure of an OPM Disability Retirement application.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and make sure that the inadequacy of language is not to your disadvantage.

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.

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Something happened

Beyond a mundane declaration of befuddlement, it is also the title of a novel by Joseph Heller — his second novel published some 13 years after the successful first one that most people remember him by:  Catch-22.

It lacks the surrealism of the first novel; the absurdity of tragic events unfolding distinguishable from the logical and sequential manner in which we see the world, turned upside down by images of madness countering the reality of the insanity around.  The genre of the absurd — depicted in such movies as “Life is Beautiful” and in works such as Catch-22 — attempts to unveil the underlying insanity beneath the veneer of a world acting as if normalcy abounds.

Other movies that attempt to portray the absurd might include Sophie’s Choice, where the main character (played by Meryl Streep) keeps going back to the comfort of her insane boyfriend because that is the more comfortable reality she knows, having survived the insanity of the Nazi death camps.

But long before the genre of the absurd came to the fore, there was the brilliant short story by Cynthia Ozick entitled, The Shawl, which has been noted for bringing out the horrors of the holocaust through a medium — the short story — that captures the essence of absurdity and the surreal in a mere few dozen pages.  The story is a small bundle that reverberates so powerfully that it overshadows any subsequent attempts at depicting life’s absurdity.

Catch-22 elevated the absurd to a consciousness that brought further self-awareness of the unreality of the real — the Vietnam War — and tried to unravel the insanity amidst a world that tried to explain the event as something logical and sane.

Something Happened —  a book about a character who engages in a rambling stream of consciousness about his childhood, job and family — is perhaps more emblematic about the life most of us live:  seemingly logical, yet interspersed with events, reminiscences and memories that are faulty at best, and far from perfect.  The title itself shows a greater awareness of our befuddlement — of not knowing “what” happened, only that it did, and the inability to control the events that impact our lives.

Medical conditions tend to be of that nature — of an event that we have no control over, and yet, we are aware of its “happening”.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have come to realize that something happened — a medical condition; a chronic illness that simply will not go away; a traumatic event that has had residual consequences which are continuing to impact; whatever the “something”, the “happened” part still resides.

Such recognition of the “something” will often necessitate the further recognition that it is now time to prepare, formulate and file an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, to be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to secure a future that is presently uncertain.

Consult with an experienced attorney who specializes in getting Federal and Postal employees Federal Disability Retirement benefits, and take the necessary steps to ensure that the “something” that “happened” is not one more tragedy in this tragic-comic stream of consciousness we call “life”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire 
OPM Medical Disabilities Retirement Attorney

  

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Parting grace in silence

Does grace extend even when the intended recipient is unaware of its attachment?  Can the undeclared withdrawal of revenge justified have its own inherent rewards, without the unsolicited admission left silent by anonymity undaunted?  If given the choice between leaving the scene where injustice prevailed and dominated – of wreaking revenge or parting grace in silence – which would we choose?

Of course, there is a greater contextual awakening to be narrated before such an event would occur – of quietly enduring the daily harassment, the constant criticism and demeaning remarks; of refuting, rebutting and reacting, as against an agency that initiates adverse actions one after another in sequential persistence of unfettered meanness.

From that erupts the natural tendency in thinking:  “They can’t get away with this”; or, “If I have to spend my last dime, I am going to get even with them.”  Yet, is the cost of revenge worth the time, effort and expenditures depleted?  What does it mean to attain “justice” in an unjust world?  If a verdict is rendered or a settlement reached, what is the barometer by which one has regained one’s reputation, reestablished that one was ‘right’ or recuperated the toil of anguish and angst expended?

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, is not a surrender of one’s soul to an agency that has not, will not or otherwise cannot accommodate one’s medical conditions.  Rather, it is an admission that there exists an incommensurability between the particular position occupied and the medical conditions suffered.

That is the point made in the case of Henderson v. OPM, in which the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board reiterated the alternative but equally valid approach in proving a Federal Disability Retirement case by a preponderance of the evidence:  a 1-to-1 ratio between a medical condition and an essential element of one’s Federal or Postal position is not the only methodology in establish a medical condition such that the Federal or Postal employee becomes eligible and entitled to Federal Disability Retirement benefits, but additionally, a showing that there is an incompatibility generally between the position occupied and the medical conditions suffered is also a basis for granting a Federal Disability Retirement benefit.

Whatever workplace issues have been a part of the content and context of a Federal or Postal employee needing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, once that decision is made to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement, one might consider this:  The past has passed; the present must be endured while waiting upon a decision by OPM; the future is based upon the decision of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; and in the meantime, where do you want to expend your energies?  You may want to consider parting grace in silence, instead of spinning the proverbial wheels heaping reactive acts of futile counterpunches upon those who know not the terms of justice.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire