FERS Medical Retirement: The Age of Absolutes

Philosophy attempted to discover them; Theology claimed to probe them; and Science promised to apply them.  Absolutes — those Aristotelian principles undergirding the mechanisms of grinding Nature.  Philosophy became entrenched in the perennial questions without resolution; Theology became sidetracked by a Darwinian view of the world which seemed to undermine its authority, whether by a yawn or a snarl; and Science turned into a business like any other — sometimes workable, at other times a sham.

And with failure comes resignation; and so we have the current state of affairs — no less the Age of Absolutes, but this time not based upon any principles, methodology, testing of a hypothesis or any grand theory of Relativity or other doctrine of stupendous profundity; no, and yes — Yes, we still live in the Age of Absolutes, but No, it is not based upon anything of substance; merely, our own opinions.

Listen to the airwaves; hear the voices in politics; open your eyes up to people speaking; freedom of speech has become relegated to the liberty of opinions — and it doesn’t have to be based upon anything but “whole cloth” and “thin air” — or, more likely, of hot air.  The Age of Absolutes has become the fabrication of man’s achievement — of thinking of himself near the Angels, above the brutes, and building the once-crumbling civilization that began with the Tower of Babel.

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 — if you tried to engage the First Stage of the Federal Disability Retirement process and received a Denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, you will note that OPM writes its Denial Letter “as if” they are the gods of Absolutism.

The Denial Letter makes it sound like you never had a chance; that nothing that you submitted came anywhere near meeting the legal criteria to be eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.  But remember — as with dead philosophers, former theologians and mistaken scientists, OPM can be, and more often than not, is (as in the “isms” of modernity) wrong in its assessment in denying a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Their absolutism in denying your disability case is merely another example of this Age of Absolutes.

Contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal or Postal Disability Retirement Law, and begin to counter the false absolute of OPM in this gilded Age of Absolutes.

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.

 

FERS Medical Disability Retirement Benefits: Not Just

There are at least two meanings to the phrase; one can be considered as a declarative sentence, complete in itself; the other, a prefatory remark, unfinished and incomplete.

Yet, perhaps both are correlative in their meanings, and essentially state the same thing.  For, one can witness a violation of human dignity and declare, “Not Just!”  That would be one sense.  Or, a person can lament the incompleteness of describing one’s personhood, as in: “I am not just X, but also A, B and C” — or, more particularly, for someone to be seen only as a plumber, a teacher, a student, a child, etc., without regard to the greater complexity and inner psychological intricacies that make up the whole person.

But, perhaps, the two meanings merely complement each other: It is not just to just consider a person in a one-dimensional manner.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the danger is that the Federal or Postal worker begins to become characterized more and more as “just” that individual who isn’t capable of doing his or her job, anymore.

People judge others quickly and harshly; there is rarely any nuance to the judgment.  Either you are good or bad; proficient or not; part of the agency’s “team”, or an outsider.  And when a medical condition hits, you are “just X”.

Contact a disability lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement case so that you become not just another casualty in the heartless world of a bureaucratic morass, but a person not just defined by your medical condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Figuring it all out

We all try and do it.  Somehow, pride’s fall and the fool’s failure arrives by way of the solitary figure trying to go it alone.  Friendship never had a chance, and the neighbor’s mended fences never allowed for any conversation of depth beyond the wave of the hand or the occasional “hello, how are you” — punctuated by a quick about-face and racing with terror into the sanctuary of one’s home.

Figuring it all out on our own; walking about mulling over, obsessing into and turning it over and over, again and again; whatever the “it” is, that is where the focus of our attentions gain the greater amount of time and wasted efforts.

What is the “process” of “figuring it all out”?  Do we ask others — experts, perhaps, in respective fields where a lifetime of devotion to details has been contributed to and energy expended for — or do we just begin trolling the Internet and various websites, hoping that unsourced and unreferenced information “out there” will provide answers to questions of which we know not what to ask?

In modernity, where “facts” have now been conflated with unverified opinions, and where truth and falsity are all relative and justified as on an equivalency of values, it has become dangerous to “figure it all out” without some rational basis, some inception-point of a reference where even a remote semblance of simplified questions-and-answers can be gotten.

Life is complex as it is; trying to figure it all out can make the complex into a conundrum; and further, we must always come back to the age-old question:  It all depends upon what the “it” is (as opposed to what the meaning of “is” is), doesn’t it?

Fortunately, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition is beginning to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job — figuring it all out can, and should, begin with previewing and perusing “The Law” governing Federal Disability Retirement.

However, as there is much information — and misinformation — “out there”, be careful in believing what sources to rely upon, as there are many bumps and pitfalls in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law; don’t try and “figure it all out” on your own, as it is an unnecessary and misdirected misadventure.

Only in the movies is it acceptable to “go rogue”; in real life, consulting with an expert is the best way to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Figures Larger than Life

Once, mythological figures and characters looming larger than life itself wandered amidst the common populace of everyday working folks; their very presence bestowed a greater sense of purpose, of a pride in knowing that better days lay ahead, and that even in the upheavals of tempestuous travails and turmoils which interrupted every economy and fiefdom because of the inevitable vicissitudes of economic activity, that somehow we would all survive through the common efforts of community.  But the pureness of the mountain stream became poisoned, diluted and polluted by egomaniacal intrusions of selfish constructs; “we” did not matter much, if at all, and the accolades of accretion demanded greater self-congratulatory spotlights of self-centered egoism.

Thus was the “selfie” born.  In the midst of such a society, empathy for the disabled will be wanting and rare; the saying that he would shove his own grandmother under a moving bus is not merely a warning, but a confirmation of normative character.  For 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, it is well to know who, and what, one is dealing with.

Agencies and Post Offices which may have shown care and comaraderie during better times, may not continue the surface-appearance of comity and cooperation when it becomes clear that the Federal or Postal employee can no longer remain as fully productive as in years past.  Human nature being what it is, the self-contradiction of man’s thought processes can always amaze and delude:  One believes that one is neither naive nor ignorant; concomitantly, that the world is generally an evil arena of life; but, somehow, one’s own friends, family, and agency are the exception, when the callous experiences of life have shown us otherwise.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits by the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a clear indication to one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service that you are no longer “one of us”, and more to the point, can no longer contribute to the betterment of the agency, the Postal Service, or to the advancement of management’s careers and objectives.

You become considered as mere dead weight and fodder for the wasteland of problems and pecuniary penchants of piracy and pernicious paupers.  You become erased and digitally deleted from those seemingly happy images of office parties and ceremonial accolades where words of praise once were dispensed with generous helpings and heaps of adjectives and adverbs not often heard.  You become the nobody that you always were perceived to be behind those lying eyes, had always been, and forever considered; you just didn’t know it before the occurrence of confirmed establishment.

Perhaps we know too much today, because information is cheap and available; and perhaps giants never roamed the earth in epochs extinguished by time and modernity; for the figures larger than life are nowhere to be found, but in what we make of our lives through sheer effort, planning, and genuine concern for the man sitting right next to us.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Attorney: The Cauldron of One’s Past

The oversized iron pot hangs over the open fire, and the gurgling of ingredients steams and burps the lid in predictable sequences of rhythmic timing; the aroma is an admixture of sweet and mysterious combinations of one knows-not-what; perhaps of bones, marrow and herbs, here a whiff of something which touches upon the dark recesses of one’s memory, and there a hint of harboring horrors, reminding us of past deeds and loathsome reminiscences.

The figure who stands hunched over the source of pervading uprisings, is covered in a dark shawl; a bony hand gripping the large wooden ladle, mixing, turning, crouching over to sniff and taste; and from the chasm of the figure’s hollow mouth, toothless and echoing a chamber of snorting chafes, the sigh of satisfaction emits, as the cauldron of one’s past is ready to be served.  And so the story goes.

Who among us would want the fullness of one’s past and history of deeds to be revealed?  What pot would hold the full taste of one’s misdeeds, private concerns and actions engaged?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, the process itself sometimes feels like one is forced to partake of a witch’s brew — who will be in the mix?  What private information will have to be revealed?  When will the pot of information be ready?  Who will mix the ingredients?  The mysteries contained within the mixture of the witch’s brew is indeed terrifying.  Every process which is unknown and, moreover, unknowable, is one fraught with concerns and trepidation of purpose.

For Federal and Postal employees under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the decision to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is like the witch’s cauldron — it must bring to the fore one’s current circumstances (the medical condition), the impact upon the future (finances, future job prospects, etc.), and potentially the confrontation with one’s past (agencies love to do that).

The key is to understand the complexities of the administrative process, and to maneuver through the bureaucracy of the witch’s brew.  In doing that, one must always be cognizant of the cauldron of one’s past, and keep out of the reach and grasp of those bony fingers which reach out to encircle one’s throat, lest you become an ingredient in the admixture of the skeletons found at the bottom of the pot.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Crumbling Walls of Professional Conduct

The aged bemoan of modernity; youth view the present as merely fodder for change and future potential; and caught in between, somewhere in the netherworld of inertia, those inconsequential individuals relegated to the irrelevant category of “middle age”, who must stand by and witness the slow and progressive destruction of the past, the deterioration of cohesiveness of the future, and the present infirmity of impotence.

Medical conditions are funny animals; because they are personal in nature, the revelation of such private matters tends to scare people, because the emergence of such confidential conveyance violates the unspoken walls of professional distance; but for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact the performance of one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service, it is often necessary to provide some component of one’s medical condition in order to ascertain and establish the extent of needed accommodations — for purposes of filing for FMLA, to take needed SL or LWOP, or to counter allegations of misconduct or violation of “leave policy”, etc.

Within the greater context of life, there is a sense there the walls of professional conduct which once protected privacy concerns and acceptable behaviors, are crumbling in modernity.  Anything and everything goes; there is no normative constraint, anymore, because the demarcation between private and professional have disappeared.

The same is true when applied to the administrative process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The entire bureaucratic process engenders privacy concerns because of the sensitive nature of the information which must be submitted.  But those are merely “side issues” which should be placed in their proper perspective; for, in the end, when the final wave of goodbye is motioned, and one has obtained an approval from OPM in order to exit with a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, the crumbling walls of professional conduct as revealed by one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service will be but a far echo of past misdeeds, as one walks out into the future of a brighter tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Time Was, When…

Reminiscences represent a harbinger of the state of existence and the mental attitude of individuals; once engaged, they reveal the past-oriented focus, as opposed to the future dreams of youth.

Do young people reminisce?  At what point does one engage in such leisurely exercise?  And the spectrum of historical context, or the lack thereof — does the limited span of a past life determine the narrow course of future remembering?

It is always a danger to place too glowing and positive a light on the past; for, as present circumstances may be a pocket of discontent, so the warped perspective may, by contrast, create a fictional scenery of the past by unknowingly diminishing and extinguishing less notable events once experienced.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are subjected to the hostility of one’s own agency because of the manifested impact of a medical condition upon one’s capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s positional duties, it is natural to embrace the refrain, “In the good old days”.  Health often brings that careless attitude of flippant fortitude; it is when we have something that we unknowingly take for granted, and when it becomes diminished, or is suddenly gone, the human tendency of regret and return of rectitude begins to pervade.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the pathway out of the muddle of reminiscence; there is, perhaps not yet known to the Federal or Postal employee, life beyond the Federal government or the Postal Service.  If too much time is spent in the past, then the robber barons of yesteryear pervade in the present, to rob one’s future.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is not merely for escapism from a current “bad” situation; it is to secure the future such that there will be one, where one day in the twilight of a life, one can look upon the current negative circumstances and begin with the reminiscence of, “Time was, when…”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Anonymity of the Routine

Most people prefer anonymity; although, in more recent years, the hunt for one’s five minutes of fame by “hook or by crook”, whether to impose, intrude, push through, etc., and wave in front of a camera, or to perform some demeaning act to attract a byline in the Guinness Book of Records, has become a prevalence beyond mere happenstance exception.  Perhaps it is the age of Youtube, of selfie images and the need to see one’s portrait, name or reference reflected in the public domain, which belies the common quest for the mundane.

There was once upon a time when discretion and the desire for privacy pervaded; now, the anonymity of the routine is mere boredom, and the eternal quest for admiration, recognition, even ignoble acknowledgment, is preferable and actively sought.

For bureaucratic purposes, however, attempting to define by deliberate exceptionality, can be a two-edged sword.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, of course one wants to submit an OPM Disability application which “stands out” beyond the mere routine.  But that depends upon how one characterizes and defines that which is “routine”.

Medical conditions are unique by inherent definitional standards; and to “stand out” can take on multiple connotations. Certainly, excellence of preparation and formulation should be the overarching standard in the compilation and presentation of one’s Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.   But if by “being out of the mainstream”, one attempts to bring in irrelevant or immaterial facts or allegations which shock or otherwise disrupt merely for the sake of “standing out”, then the preferable methodology is to remain with the anonymity of the routine.

Federal Disability Retirement is a compensatory benefit which must be proven with medical facts, criteria-based argumentation, and a solid compendium of legal bridges established through coherence of information.

While the rest of the world may seek attention and approval, for the Federal or Postal employee preparing to submit an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM, it is the anonymity of the routine, prepared through excellence of information and cogency of argumentation, which is preferable to the publicity stunts of last year’s forgotten tirades.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: Adrenal Fatigue

One need not be officially diagnosed with Addison’s Disease in order to incur the wrath and ravages of adrenal insufficiency.

Life’s multiplicity of compounding and complex stresses; exhaustion beyond merely feeling “run down” or otherwise out of synchronized balance from everyday feelings of adequacy; a sense of profound fatigue, where cognitive dysfunctions develop, and where symptoms of falling asleep at meetings, where the world appears at times to become a distant echo chamber and what others view as a normal pace appear in dizzying fashion of incomprehensible clatter of distractions; and where visual disturbances occur systematically as one attempts to view the computer screen and perform work which, in previous times, was merely mundane and monotonous, but now requires an effort beyond sheer force of will.

Does modernity and technological stress contribute to medical conditions which may have no name, and often defies pigeonholing because of the mysteries of the human body and psyche?  A broken arm is easy to identify, and normally just as correctable; a cervical or lumbar disc degeneration, perhaps a bit more complex, but often manageable; chronic pain, but for a parallelism between objective testing and pain points, sometimes an anomaly; psychiatric conditions, of greater mystery which has become too often a pharmacological corridor for treatment modalities; but where profound and intractable fatigue more often than not is beyond the capacity to be diagnosed.

However one characterizes it — of adrenal fatigue, insufficiency, chronic fatigue syndrome, or other designations of type; it is ultimately the reality of the daily toil and turmoil with which the patient must contend.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who experience such a state of physical and psychiatric condition, 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 be the best and only alternative available.

In the end, adrenal fatigue may be more than an endocrine imbalance; there is often a complex component where multiple medical conditions ravage the body and mind, and as with so many issues in law and life, there is a vast chasm between having a medical condition, being properly treated for the condition, and proving one’s medical condition in law such that one can be found eligible for Federal & Postal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Fatigue, whether of the adrenal kind or of resulting impact from a lifetime of stresses, is a basis for Federal OPM Disability Retirement; attending to the condition should always be the first order of business; proving it, the second and subsequent thereafter.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Life We Perceive

The state of having an epistemological privilege in the first-person singular, means that we occupy a unique position of knowledge, cognition, perception and viewpoint.  Concurrently, however, we must recognize and acknowledge that others have a similarly extraordinary vantage point, and that no matter how hard we may try, we will never truly understand the depth and complexity of the “others” who surround us, whom we encounter, and who pass by our field of vision in the greater context of life’s coincidences and happenstance meetings.

That we may never be able to fully understand another human being is not a sin; that we fail to care to at any given moment, is merely a fault; but that we callously disregard despite indicators of greater suffering and turmoil so evident that the trembling whispers of human frailty touch upon tears of sorrow, shows a misuse of that unique position of epistemological privilege.

For 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 Postal or Federal job, the impact is such that one must often consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and thus to end early one’s chosen career in the Federal sector.

One would expect, despite the unique position of epistemological privilege which everyone occupies, that some semblance of empathy or caring could, or should, be expected.  Instead, the Federal or Postal employee in the process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits often encounters greater resistance and bureaucratic turmoil than statistically experienced in other similar administrative endeavors; and can this be attributed to mere mathematical calculus of acceptable differentials?

It is doubtful, because it is precisely in the recognition that perversity of intent is also found uniquely in the human animal, and even in cases of suffering and trauma, when medical conditions clearly present to the life we perceive a state of grief greater than simple sympathy, but beyond pain, suffering and turmoil of body and mind; even then, the complexities of jealousy, envy, spite and cruelty, overwhelms the soul who knows not the inner depths of depravity within the human makeup.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire