Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The advantageous disadvantage

In life, we often fight over things even when the goal has already lost its meaning, or the resources expended far outweigh the benefit to be gained.  We take advantage of things, people, and other concerns, despite knowing the consequences of harm to the very essence of our being.  It is as if the evolutionary core of our DNA determines our actions, like addiction upon the dawn of broken promises and childhood wisps of tearful mournings left behind.

Determination of actions despite knowing, and despite the constant drum of billboards, radio advertisements declaratively preaching against, and the distant voice of one’s nagging mother — ineffective reminders like shadow boxing before the perfect storm.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who struggle daily with 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 positional duties with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, the daily fights and taking advantage of the slow process of justice in remaining in the Federal job or the Postal position, is a toil of principle; but of what gain is there if one’s soul is being destroyed?

The Leviathan of Legendary Lore bespoke of creatures who destroyed without care or compassion; and today’s metaphor of such monsters are represented by gargantuan bureaucracies which crush without blinking an eye, unaware of just another number in a long line of conquests like unnamed tombstones in an abandoned graveyard.

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 a step towards taking advantageous advantage over a situation which has become untenable; the procrastination and delay in order to fight the Goliath of modernity, is to remain in a rut where one may continue to take advantage of a disadvantageous situation, and remain in the clutches of a slow torture, like the frog who sits comfortably in a pot of warm water, unaware that it sits on a stove set for boil.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Happiness Goal

Whether human happiness is the goal to strive for, or as a byproduct to savor in those moments of sudden revelation, is for each individual to ascertain and abide by.  One can study the sages and philosophers and realize that there is a distinction to be made between joy and happiness, of contentment and satisfaction, and from a sense of peace as opposed to the turmoil of anxious foreboding.

Life is full of moments; but is it for those moments we live, or do such ethereal segments compel us to greater achievements?  From Aristotle’s Eudaemonism to Confucius’ focus upon maintaining the balance between family and normative behavior, or the extreme nihilism of Nietzsche and the existentialist’s embrace of the absurd, the modern approach has been to ensconce happiness as the principle of highest regard.  But life has a way of interrupting every neat packaging of human endeavor.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, whether of physical pain, the chronicity of progressive deterioration, or the overwhelming psychiatric conditions which impact mental acuity, cognition, with symptoms of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, etc., the desire for the “happiness principle” is sometimes merely to have a day without the symptoms of one’s medical condition.

Filing for Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal workers is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, can be an intermediate goal, and not an “ultimate” one.  For, in the end, if the Federal or Postal employee can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the loss of job satisfaction will be exponentially heightened either by the agency (through disciplinary procedures or termination of employment) or by one’s self (through frustration of purpose, increasing recognition and acknowledgment of one’s inability and incapacity, etc.).

In the end, the “happiness goal” is often defined by who controls what; and in taking the first steps toward preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, one asserts control over one’s present and future endeavors, and fights against the winds of time and mortality by controlling the undetermined destiny of a period of life yet to be deciphered in this complex world of mysteries wrapped in a chasm of conundrums.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

The Devaluation of the Federal Employee with Disabilities

Countries engage it deliberately with its currencies; economic circumstances force it based upon fluctuating market volatility; and the basic principles in capitalism of supply and demand will often expect it.

Currencies are never stable indexes despite the best attempts by countries to manage and control their economies; the fact is, in this interconnected world of global economic entanglement, devaluation of worth can occur overnight, just after the soft breathing of nightfall overtakes, but before the dawn of first light when the halls of stock markets in faraway colonnades lined in symmetrical facades open their doors for the business of commodity markets.

Fortunes can be made, and lost, overnight; but the devaluation of that which implicates worth, can just as easily fall upon the human soul.  Medical conditions tend to do that.  We exchange, trade, value and appraise based upon a commodity’s supply, demand, desire and greed of want; but when it comes to human beings, though we deny such callous approaches, the encounter with such baseness still prevails.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, facing devaluation is nothing out of the ordinary when a medical condition hits.  Once the Federal or Postal worker suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the avenue of choices becomes starkly clear:  One can try to hang on; one can walk away with nothing to show for those many years of dedicated and loyal service; or one can file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

It is the last of the tripartite alternatives which is the best option, and one which can secure a future for the Federal or Postal employee.  For, ultimately, the whole point of devaluation in paradigms of economic theory, is to stabilize the currency for future years; it is the experience of short-term suffering to attain long-term calm.  Economics is merely a microcosmic reflection of a macro-global perspective, and application of parallel principles are relevant to situations which might otherwise appear foreign.

Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service engage in devaluation, just as governments do, when the worth of the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is seen in terms of productivity for the moment, and not for the long-term benefit gained for the future.

We live in a world of short selling trades; everything is seen for the immediacy of gain; but fortunately for the Federal or Postal worker who must contend with the attitude and approach of a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service in viewing the devaluation of the worker based upon productivity, the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is one which is available, attractive, and allowable for those who are eligible to prepare, formulate and file for the benefit.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Reflections on Winter’s Desolation and OPM Disability Retirement

Seasons bring out certain characteristics and traits of primate natures; and while artificial lighting, civilized constructs of community comforts and technological distractions of virtual reality may somewhat temper the appetitive rhythms of inherent evolutionary origins, the fact is that our attempts to suspend the reality of our nature can only be met with partial success.  Winter is a time of desolation (unless, of course, one’s home is based in a climate where seasons barely change, in which case the envy of others will reach you through temporal vibrations of mental jealousies).

Somehow, medical conditions become magnified exponentially; physical pain is exacerbated, and psychiatric despair becomes quantifiable. Statistically, there is no greater number of filings for Federal Disability Retirement during one season as opposed to another; but in reality, it is probably more a sense that, as the trees are stripped bare of leaves and the greenery of lawns and nature’s interludes are crisp with reminders of decay, the beatitudes of distracting influences become minimized, and one can turn inward and make a careful assessment of one’s future.

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, need to ultimately make that decision, and take that step of affirmative evaluation and assessment, in determining the course of one’s future.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a serious matter, and one where consideration of all factors should be carefully performed.  But how does one go about properly and thoroughly performing the necessary evaluative process?  Often, insular rumination by a singular voice of counsel is less than effective; being one’s own counsel in matters of importance rarely provides an alternative perspective, which is what is needed in matters of gravity.

Seeking the advice and guidance of someone who knows and understands the process, and what the administrative and bureaucratic pitfalls and potential problems one is likely to encounter, is the first step in making a wise decision.

For, while winter’s desolation may allow for the revelation of the nakedness of nature, it is man’s plight which must be considered with open eyes and careful scrutiny, beyond the lonely swirl of the crinkling leaf which floats in the endless time of a hardened ground as it falls far from the tree which sheds itself in winter’s gloom.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Experience and Federal Disability Retirement Benefits

The vicious circularity of having or not having “experience” is comprised of the following: If too much weight is placed upon it and one is passed over because of its lack, then one will never be able to attain the experience needed in order to qualify; in order to attain experience, one must be given the opportunity to grow by trial and error; but such trial and error only reveals the lack thereof.

For most endeavors, the experience of undergoing X is merely a singular event, and one need not have repetitive encounters in order to aggregate a composite of a series of such events in order to become “better” at it.  For FERS and CSRS employees, whether a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker, the experience of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is normally just a singular lifetime event.

The experience itself may well be a difficult one; and while no prior experience is required in order to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, it is often a good idea to obtain the counsel and advice of someone with experience, in order to make the process a less-than-devastating experience.

Experience matters; experiencing an administrative process without the guidance of experience makes that experience all the more a difficult experience. It is in these conundrums of life that we find the true puzzlement of the tumultuous linear-ness of experiential phenomena, and for Federal and Postal employees filing for the difficult benefit of an OPM Medical retirement, such mysteries are made all the greater when one is left in the dark about the secret matters which boil in the cauldron of a witch’s brew.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire