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

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Chasm Between Sanity and Twilight

Sometimes, there are moments of clarity where one is left with wonderment at the behavioral folly of individuals, organizations, and groups of collective consciousnesses (what an untenable word — the pluralization of that which ends in what appears to be the plural form of the noun).  Whether one agrees with the Supreme Court’s holding that corporations should be treated as “persons”, the fact is that organizations act in collective aggregates in similar manners as individuals and amoebas.

Group-think, herd mentality and symbiotic consciousness of behavior is not unfamiliar to us all; for Federal and Postal employees who suffer from an injury or disability, and where the medical condition leads the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker to file for Federal/Postal Medical Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether that Federal worker or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is a fairly routine matter that engagement with one’s agency can be characterized as one of workplace hostility, unpleasantness or unfriendly separation.

Why this is so; what bonds of loyalty become severed merely because the Federal or Postal employee expresses an intent to terminate the employment relationship as a consequence of the onset and intervention of a injury or chronic condition; and how the contextual animosity develops into a flashpoint where the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service believes that it must initiate adverse actions or punitive measures; these are all wrapped up within the conundrum of complexities which characterize the human condition, and that is why organizations and organic aggregates of individuals comprise a compendium of human behavior.

It is, in the end, an unexplained and incomprehensible phenomena; what it is; how it can be explained; where one goes to for enlightenment; these questions must be relegated to the dark corners of behavioral recesses within those chasms between sanity and twilight.

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