FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: Options

We all have them; they are ‘out there’ in the objective, nether world.  Since they exist, the only remaining question is, Will we effectively exercise them?

Recognition is the first step; identification of the various ones in their plenitude is the second one; and finally choosing which one is the best course as the final and best decision.  Most of us fail to take the first step, and often skip over the second, and rush into the third without much thought.

In every challenging circumstance, there are almost always multiple options o choose from; it is up to us to seek them out, sift through them, analyze the potentiality of each, and then to make the best choice, whether based upon prudence or idealized empowerment.

It is this last step which often befuddles us;  For, the resulting consequences may require courage and fearless sacrifice — a giving up of something substantial for the short term in order to keep one’s eye upon what past philosophers have described as the “good, the true and the beautiful”.

And what if we run out of options?  Sometimes, patience is then required.  Time allowed to solve or resolve some issues is often the best option to choose, and likely to be the hardest to recognize, as patience often requires the most difficult of actions — that of inaction.

For Federal and Postal Employees contemplating preparing an effective application for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS, patience is sometimes called for; for, the process itself is a long and arduous bureaucratic morass, and it must be prepared carefully and meticulously.

If you have a medical condition which prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your Federal Gov. or Postal job, contact a FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Law and know what your options are before you take the next and most important steps.

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.

 

Postal and Federal Employee Disability Benefits: Purpose and Meaning

They can feed off of each other in motivating us, and have cross-boundaries in their definitional relevance.  “Meaning” provides the foundation for the signification of one’s activity or engagement; “Purpose” gives us the reason — or the meaning — of that which we do.

Before the development of the cognitive universe, we were compelled and motivated by instinct — of the basic reactionary need to survive without thought, purpose or meaning.  Or, perhaps one might argue, survival itself contained the meaning and purpose for every existence.

Once the cognitive universe began to develop — you know, that area of internal living comprised of our thoughts, words, conceptual universe, and the strings of sentences which form the universe of our daydreams, plans, anxieties and schemes — we required more and more of that duality of motivators: Purpose and Meaning.

For a good part of our society, work provided meaning and purpose; families solidified it; relationships obligated it.  When the seams of society begin to unravel, however, the duality of our motivations follow in successive disintegration, as well, and purpose and meaning become hollow echoes of sounds reverberating from a pebble dropped into a deep and uncaring cavern.

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 being able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, purpose and meaning may become undermined precisely because of the deteriorating circumstances triggered by the medical condition itself.

Contact a disability attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of recovering that purpose and meaning — that duality of motivators — by first securing your future with a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, then figuring out what will motivate you to move forward in life, into the next sector of this barren universe where one must find purpose and meaning outside of the postmodern era.

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 Employee Disability Retirement: Deus ex Machina

It is a contrivance which finds its origins in Greek plays of a civilization now gone; of the recognition of unsolvable problems created by human hubris; and when all seems lost, the “machina” (machine) which lowers the god (the “deus”) onto the stage then resolves everything by supernatural means.

The contrivance itself would probably not be acceptable in this era of modernity, where the cynicism of “reality” would not allow for a supernatural force to intervene and solve the problems of mankind (although, it might be acceptable if an extraterrestrial were to appear from outer space and solve such problems with a taser gun — which tells us a lot about our culture where we disbelieve in gods but lend credibility to aliens where there is scant evidence of such existing beings).

Yet, in everyday life, we believe and daydream of a deus ex machina: Of fairytales and knights in shining armor; of winning the lottery despite the billion-to-one odds against; or of simple acts, like thinking that one’s Federal Agency or the Postal Service will be “nice”, “kind” or “understanding”.

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 Federal or Postal job, hoping for a deus ex machina to provide a solution is to engage in mere fantasy-daydreams.  The fact is that the problems that are created by a medical condition can be resolved through the reality of the law — by preparing and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law — for, while such a lawyer may not be a modern-day Deus ex machina, the successful result of obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity may prove to be better than a Greek tragedy ending with an improbable outcome.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The subtlety of first light

Have you ever stood outside when first light breaks upon the darkened grounds?

How you struggle to see as your feet stretch forward with trepidation, unsure because of the shadows that befall, and with squinting eyes and a deepened sense of sleepiness, you struggle with the dawn of pre-dawn solemnity; and then, with such creeping imperceptibility, the world around begins to come into focus like the steamed mirror that suddenly lifts to show a reflection of a man standing and staring back at you; and the world in its sharp clarity unravels and manifests with a form of Being in its truest essence of Being.

When does the subtlety of first light sharpen into an image of unmistakable lightness of Being?  Can you ever pinpoint the moment?

It is always the incremental nature of beauty that creeps upon us, like the stealthy impact of the perfect word, the unannounced comma and the hyphenated pause; or like medical conditions that begin with a slight unease, evolve into a nuisance and become a chronic presence that just won’t go away.

Perhaps you cannot point to a particular day, or even a period when you first noticed that you could no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position?  Like the subtlety of first light, there is no way to quantify the precise moment where darkness and light once clashing became the dominant force of visual clarity when once dawn reached beyond the rim of the universe?

Yet, on Standard Form 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, it asks the question when you, as a Federal or Postal employee, first became disabled — i.e., unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job.  It is an important question and should not be lightly answered; for, there can be some dire legal consequences if you put down the “wrong” answer.

A “misstatement” can come back to bite; both in monetary terms, as well as providing a basis for an inconsistency where the U.S. Office of Personnel Management can use it selectively, as they often do, and extrapolate from other sources and argue that the inconsistency is more than mere coincidence, but a deliberate attempt to mislead and obfuscate.

And like the subtlety of first light, the answer to a question posed on SF 3112A is more than a fight between light and darkness; it is a question posed that may determine the success or failure of a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: The waiting room

We have all experienced the psychology of the cursed “waiting room” — that place which is assigned as the “intermediate” lull, like purgatory for the virtuous-to-be, where they think that by making you believe that you have now been chosen to wait in a separately sequestered area, your patience will become refreshed and you will allow for another lengthy wait.  The psychologists have it all figured out, don’t they?

First, you are left to wait with the “rest of them”; then, your name is called, and you leave those who have been waiting just as long, or some even longer, with a smug smile, thinking to yourself, “Whew, finally!”  But that sense of relief is short-lived, for it becomes clear that the room you have been lead into is merely another surreal suspension of reality’s cruel viciousness — for, this is merely an intermediate form of torture: The Waiting Room, where the real wait begins.

Somehow, the psychologists have figured out through studies conducted that patients, clients, potential customers, etc., will tolerate quite a bit of waiting so long as there is an “interlude” between waiting periods.  So, say you are at first forced into a queue with a group of others — the studies have revealed that 20 – 30 minutes is the maximum before agitation begins to manifest itself, unless you are “selected” and sequestered into a separate queue where your tolerance for a further waiting period can begin anew.

Of course, in reality, nothing has changed — it is simply that your waiting has been transferred from one area to another.  Can this occur multiple times?

Apparently, the studies have shown that, yes, so long as the logistics of the waiting period have been altered — as in, say, after 20 minutes for the 2nd waiting queue, a nurse walks in, looks at you and places a folder into the filing basket attached to the door.  Somehow, that momentary interruption focuses the waiting individual that your time is approaching, that we have not forgotten about you, and you will soon be seen.

The psychology of intermediate contacts increases one’s hope for the end of the waiting period, despite the fact that the same waiting period continues — it is just that the hour’s wait is broken up into segments of three 20 minute slices, and that, according to all of the psychological studies, makes all the difference.

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 Federal or Postal job, one of the frustrating aspects of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS offset, is the long and arduous wait that must be anticipated before a decision is made.

Expect the worst; hope for the best.  There are multiple stages to the process — of the Initial Stage; of the Reconsideration Stage; of an Appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board; and even of a Petition for Full Review before the MSPB.

Thus, if you took all of the multiple stages, the “wait time” is tantamount to the slicing up of that very “wait time”, and the best way to give yourself the benefit of a higher percentage of success is to make sure that you increase your chances of getting it approved at the Initial Stage by consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest you remain fuming in the Waiting Room where everyone else taps his or her foot while the collective blood pressures continue to rise.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for Federal Disability Claims: Rituals

All of us engage in them — whether of religious significance or arcane remnants of superstitious beliefs harkening for magic, witch’s potions and lost incantations we believe can still work (or perhaps a childhood belief from watching Star Wars that there is really a “force” beyond the cold reality of day-to-day monotony) — we just don’t think of it in those terms.

How we wash our hands; what daily preparations we must engage before leaving the house; the manner of locking doors; the inner voices of prayers said before a meal; or of begging voices just before a sports event; these and many more rituals are the fodder that make for individual personalities otherwise uninteresting to the rest of world except to one’s family, spouse, brothers and sisters, and often not even to them.

Is it all bosh or superstition?  Can we — or should we — submit to the cold and impervious reality of logic, science and the algorithm of facts and mathematical calculations and discard the rituals of ancient cultures and dungeons where nuns bore babies and the fervently religious were tortured and murdered? Do we so callously abandon the humanity of our forefathers merely because the Age of Science is now upon us?

In the end, the rituals we embrace may give us comfort beyond the repetition of predictability; they may be engaged because they “work”.

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 may be time to “change” some of the ritualistic thinking that we have become steeped in.

Change, alteration, modification, etc., is a difficult pathway to adopt.  One must, in the end, consider “why” we engage in a ritual — for, if it is because we have “always done it”, as opposed to retaining a meaningfulness and significance beyond the rote of repetitive monotony, then it may be time to reconsider and rearrange the proverbial furniture upon the deck of a sinking ship.

The Federal or Postal worker who has — through the pain of a medical condition — come to work and engaged in the daily ritual of performing the essential elements of a Federal or Postal job, may need to consider adopting a different ritual: one that focuses upon one’s health and rehabilitation of one’s condition.

Federal Disability Retirement is an employment benefit that allows for ritualistic thinking to be reconsidered, and for the Federal or Postal worker who can no longer perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, anymore, because of an ongoing, chronic or traumatic medical condition, it may be time to abandon those outdated rituals and consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and rearrange the priorities that have been ordered from a past that is no longer relevant.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Disability Retirement: Divided order

Most people are able to tolerate life’s bombardment of stresses by dividing them up, placing them into some semblance of order in priority of tackling them, and bifurcating the individual slices from the aggregate of the whole.  For, if you focus too much upon the forest, as opposed to the individual trees that provide markers for finding your way out, your will become overwhelmed and lost.

It is thus tantamount to the idea of a chaotic rationality, or a messy desk that is disorganized for anyone else but for the one who sits and works at the desk; no one can find anything when asked to look upon the messiness, but query the person who “owns” the desk and he can locate the document immediately.

Similarly, the divided order is where the stresses of life, the messes of living and the chaos of all that must be accomplished in the day-to-day discourse of an individual – from family obligations, work, leisure time, spending time with kids, making a living, paying bills, exercising, keeping up with one’s professional education and obligations – must all be “divided” in order to maintain some semblance of order, and the division itself must be done internally, mentally and within the sphere of private thoughts and unspoken actions; and it is out of the chaos of the world around that the order is imposed by the very division placed within the quietude of one’s consciousness.

Then, of course, complications can occur – that proverbial “last straw that broke the camel’s back” can come sauntering in the dead of night and bring about chaos where chaos once was bridled and restrained.

A medical condition can certainly do that.  For, in many ways, a medical condition is itself chaos defined.  It is an attack not only upon the body, but of the mind as well, and undermines a sense of balance, integrity of self, and self-confidence.

That is why 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 becomes an external imposition of an order divided from within.  It allows for a hopeful look into a future, where one may be able to escape from the chaotic darkness of the deepening morass arising from work, the problems of the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal facility, and the constant struggle with pain, paranoia or uncontrollable anxiety; and replaces it with a retirement that allows for a basic annuity that extends until age 62, at which point it is recalculated into regular retirement.

A divided order is thus one more step that needs to be attained in attending to one’s medical condition, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is often the first next step to reaching that goal.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Judgment

How does it develop?  Does youth necessarily, by definition, undermine the existence of it, and if so, why does such a “rule” become obviated by the old fool who rests his arms (and other elements of the anatomy) upon the shoulders of one who could be one’s grandchild, only not by birth?

Is life not linear, but circular, and thus do we all revert back to childish ways when old age and decrepit bodies reveal the sanctity of our fragile mortality?  When Darwinism prevailed upon the civilization of discontent, did we not recognize that ultimate reductionism to pure materialism would trickle down into a singular desire to discover the fountain of youth?

It is involved in both the process as well as the conclusion; to have good judgment is to necessarily engage in a careful weighing of all information, consider opinions and analyze relevant data, dividing significance from irrelevancies.  To make a judgment, or arrive at one, does not necessarily involve the former; one can have good judgment, yet make a bad one; but, then, retrospective evaluations would define the latter in light of the former, and vice versa.  How can quality of judgment mature without direct and consequential experience?

If a young driver, on the first day after obtaining a license, comes upon a primary roadway accessible from a side road, where cars are traveling at the maximum speed limit in both directions, including trucks and commuters rushing to meet deadlines and timelines; where, the new driver must traverse across one lane in order to make a left turn – what experience does he have to judge distance, timing, suppression of fear and capacity for quickness of movement?

Or, in either love or war, what is the foundation in which to act, or recognize the difference between hormonal ravages and meeting the lifeline of a soul mate destined for longevity; and in the trenches of the latter, to fire at the moving target that may not be a threat, but a child needing to rush to the facilities in the far-off village where rumors of enemies lurk?

What constitutes the finality of conclusions as to who possesses “good” judgment, as opposed to “bad”?  Wisdom, experience, analytical capacity and evaluative abilities – which came first, the chicken or the egg?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to make a judgment on one’s career, future, and decisions about timing, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is an area where judgment becomes crucial.  There are many legal pitfalls and obstacles throughout the administrative process, and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a behemoth of an agency that can try one’s patience and defeat one’s purposive goals.

Lack of judgment is no crime, and not even a sin; but where such lack leads one to blindly enter into the arena of land mines, failing to consider legal representation is tantamount to the young driver who, in frustration of waiting at the busy intersection, closes his eyes and puts his foot on the gas pedal, hoping for a foolish act to defy the gods of fate, when all that was needed was for judgment to seek the advice and counsel of one wiser from years and experience.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The numerical veil

Statistical constructs indicate group shifts and movements; numbers, based upon controlled samplings, provide the substantive fodder for analysis of trends and patterns of population deviancies.  There is, however, the question of the incommensurate nature between mathematical paradigms and linguistic application; stated more simply, Do numbers hide more than reveal, and can anything be extrapolated from them and interpreted in terms we can understand and comprehend?

To a winner of the lottery, the numerical phantasm “one in a billion” remains meaningless; and to the dismissive statistical irrelevancy stated in language more readily comprehended, that there is a greater chance of dying in an automobile accident than from a shark attack, becomes inconsequential and of little comfort if you are laying in a hospital bed with a good part of your flesh missing from such a traumatic event.  That’s the problem with numbers, of course, and the use, misuse and abuse of statistical analysis; in the end, it depends upon how it is used, the methodology of discourse, and the manner of application.

To be hit by lightening may well be more uncommon than death by drowning, but if your job is to be a caddy for an eccentric billionaire who enjoys golfing on days of severe weather patterns, the generalizations ascribed by comparative mathematical analysis may be somewhat skewed.  And, of course, for romance of young couples who scoff at divorce rates and patterns affirmed by celebrity lives and the cultural meltdown pervasive throughout, the lack of life experiences, the want of provocation through trials and turmoils yet to be encountered and not yet encumbering, allows for hope, charity and a sense of optimism despite the universe which surrounds of cynical diatribes.

We take comfort in the veil of numbers, precisely because we can manipulate them in the ways we want.  Facing a bleak outlook, we can justify resistance with a dismissive wave of the hand (or that invisible wand of magic and sorcery) and declare, “Well, the chances are…”  Numbers never tell of the human emotions and toil of reality; they remain as cold mathematical calculations, jiggered and manipulated by the picture of emotionless bureaucrats who wear spectacles to magnify the inconsequential harm imparted upon the lives left behind.

And for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management?  Such individuals, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, become part and parcel of the statistical conundrum who once had names, faces and identities, but somehow became relegated into the numerical aggregate of “those” people who departed by filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM, all because they could no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of the positional duties assigned.

Does such fear of becoming a mere irrelevancy of statistical obscurity make the Federal or Postal employee pause, despite the chronic pain or the psychiatric despondency which tells of the urgency to file for the benefit?  Probably.  Yet, beyond the numerical veil which hides, each Federal or Postal employee who departed and left behind such a statistical imprint, go on to live productive lives thereafter, with ongoing emotional ups and downs, as real people, living authentic lives untold by the hidden abyss echoing from the chambers of silent digits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The repairs we need to get to

It may well be a distinction with only a slight difference, as most such conceptual bifurcations tend to be.  In this day and age, we tend to just gloss over the minutiae which used to delight curious minds and pave the pathway for tenured professorships by way of publishing in esoteric journals of the Gestalt conclusions derived in academia — those slight nuances heretofore unnoticed which are suddenly and miraculously discovered by the keen insights of an eccentric perspective.

Thus, in life do we leave many things behind and set aside, for repairs to be attended to at a later time; and like a trail of dust reflected well by Pig-pen in Peanuts, the junk scattered tells of the character of the person, the inner essence of the personality, and the core of a human being’s wants, desires and tendencies of action or inaction.  At the end of one’s life, what does the junkyard of humanity reflect and represent?

We, each of us, create them; of vast reservoirs of rusting appliances, and often unrepairable masses of collected antiquities, where components for any semblance of working order have become obsolete or otherwise unavailable.  Some of those items scattered behind or left asunder, are the “emotional” ones; others, of family ties broken or damaged so severely as to belie any chance of regeneration, where reincarnation in the next phase of life must muse to consider reinvigoration of animation, whence the lifeless form once showed a promise of a future still bright.

We cannot go back and repair everything we have left aside or behind; there simply is not enough time in life in order to do that.  That’s why we left things undone in the first place; time requires prioritization — otherwise, in attempting to do everything, we end up doing nothing.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have, in the last few years, felt the progressive decline of health and the consequences of being unable to attend to the most important of issues facing anyone and everyone — one’s own health — the time to prepare and formulate an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed through one’s own agency (if not yet separated from Federal Service, or otherwise separated for 31 days or more, but not 1 year hence from the date of Federal Separation) and then to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is likely upon and passed beyond the time of prudence.

Junkyards are common sights; some are openly displayed, while others are hidden behind walls and fences; but it is the scattered debris of things unseen, the physical pain and the emotional scars ignored, which need the greatest of care, attention and repair; and for the Federal or Postal employee — whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, who suffers from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job — it is well beyond the time to prioritize the central themes of life and living, and get those repairs done which we need to get to, and forget about the peripheral concerns which should have been left behind long ago.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire