Federal Government Employee Disability Retirement: “Difficult”

It is not the same as “unable to”, or even one of “incompatibility”; rather, it merely means that here are some impediments, but if one’s performance ratings are still fully successful, then it shows that — despite being “difficult” — the Federal or Postal worker is still able to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.

To qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, certain legal criteria have to be met, and the mere fact that it is becoming increasingly “difficult” to satisfy that criteria does not mean that you would qualify.  Having “difficulty” doing your job, but still being able to do it, means that you are still performing all of the essential elements of your job.

If your agency thinks that you are doing a great job by giving you “fully successful” performance reviews, then where is your argument that you are unable to perform all of the essential elements of your job?  Yes, yes, I know — the question often asked is, “Do I have to end up in a wheelchair before I can file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits”?  No, not quite; but the mere fact that you are having “difficulties” doing your job, but are still doing it, may not be enough.

There is a middle ground, a “flash point” that goes slightly beyond “difficult” but somewhat before becoming wheelchair bound, where the criteria of “incompatibility” comes into play.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and discuss the legal ramifications of where you might be in the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: Order & Disorder

Isn’t that what most of us are trying to do for a good deal of time spent?  Not to compare it to such a “Biblical” extent — but like the figure in the very first chapter of the very oldest book some hold as “sacred”: out of chaos, order is created.

Throughout one’s day, from the very awakening of those sleep-encrusted eyes, when the dreams dissipate and the nightmares subside, we wake up and try to create order out of the chaos that surrounds us.  The key to sanity is to keep pace with, or try and “get ahead”, if possible, of the impending disorder around us.  Thus can insanity be redefined as: We “lose” it when the disorder around us becomes exponentially quantified beyond one’s capacity to maintain the level of order required.

Think about it: the bombardment of stress that continues to envelope us; of a time not too long ago when “correspondence” was a written letter sent by one individual to another that took 2 – 3 days by first class mail to arrive after the postage stamp was licked and carefully placed, now replaced by a quick email and a button-push with a singular finger, multiplied by hundreds, if not thousands, and in a blink of an eye one’s “Inbox” is filled with requests, tirades, FYIs and spam beyond the measures order needed.

Isn’t that what “bringing up children” is also all about — of creating order out of disorder?  Without discipline, guidance, schooling and a bit of luck, we would all become maladapted individuals running about in diapers devoid of the learned proclivities of polite society, and be left with the allegation that one is “eccentric” or, worse, an “oddball”.

Medical conditions, too, have a way of overwhelming a person with a sense of “disorder”, in that it forces a person to do things outside of the ordinary repetition of an ordered life.  That is why it is so difficult to “deal with” a medical condition, even if it is not your own.  It interrupts one’s goals, plans, and the perspective of order that is so important to one’s sanity.

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, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often necessary just in order to attain that lost sense of order that has become created by the disorder of one’s medical condition.

Medical conditions make the universe formless and void; and it is the regaining of a sense of stability — of molding some sort of order out of the disorder — by obtaining some semblance of financial security through an OPM Disability Retirement, that the devil of disorder can be overcome with the gods of order in a genesis of new beginnings.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Representation: Forgotten

Is that the basis of our fears?  Does the concept of immortality haunt us precisely because we fear extinguishment, erasure, censure and being forgotten within a moment’s notice beyond the short mention in a local paper’s obituary?  Is that not, instead, the normal course of events — the way in which this non-teleological universe meant it to be — of returning to dust from whence we came, and become regenerated through the soil that embraces our ashes and decomposed flesh so that the genetic materials become recycled by the very foods we digest?

Mortality is that which men fear; becoming immortal is the goal of many; but being forgotten is the fear realized in the lives of most.  What difference, in the end, does it make?

We project an image through the creative imagination of our own psyche, and create images of a time beyond our own demise — of a weeping widow (or widower); children speaking in hushed tones of a person who was but is no longer around; and in our inkling of what it will be like, we posit our own consciousness by being present in a room that acknowledges our own absence.  Is that what sweet revenge is like — of imagining all sorts of regrets by those who shunned us, humiliated and ignored us when we were in their presence in life?

To be forgotten is to regret our own insignificance, and to constantly be haunted by one’s own irrelevance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition begins to prevent one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the issue of being forgotten becomes a reality quite quickly and soon in the process of deteriorating health and use of sick leave or going on FMLA.

For, Federal agencies and the Postal Service are quite adept at forgetting — forgetting the years of loyalty shown by the Federal or Postal employee; forgetting the years of service, unpaid overtime and those “extra” hours put in but left uncompensated but for unrealized hopes of future considerations that never come about; forgetting the contributions of yesterday because today and tomorrow are all that matters to the Federal agency or Postal Service; and it is when the word “forgetting” in the present participle transforms into the past participle of “forgotten” that we finally come to realize that health is of greater importance than loyalty; and that is when the recognition that preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, to be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the best defense against a bureaucracy that has easily forgotten the essence of human worth and dignity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Motive and Motivation

The similarities are almost indistinguishable; yet, the slightly nuanced distinction makes for the differentiation between intent and desire, and while both are nouns, it is not the grammatical identifier by which we seek their impetus.  The former is often unknown, hidden, deliberately concealed, such that a kind gesture or an act of empathy may have an ulterior basis beyond the mere surface of revelation.  Think about Vito Corleone in the movie, The Godfather; when he granted a favor, did he ever reveal his underlying motive?  The latter constitutes that ethereal quality, unable to be grasped but which, if the secret ingredients were bottled as merchandise to be sold, would grant the inventor untold wealth beyond those who market pills to boost testosterone levels in a society overcome with virtual madness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the distinction between motive and motivation may be the difference between remaining static or advancing in life.  To remain in place and attempt to decipher the former in the impending or anticipated actions of one’s agency, the U.S. Postal Service, or of Supervisors and Managers who daily connive and consider in furtive whispers of confidential backbiting, is to forever waste precious time upon the unknowable and indeterminate.  To possess the latter, whether in spurts of ephemeral wisps, like time which once seemed as the fortress of youth but left behind in the residue of an angel’s wings fluttering into the universe of the fantasy of unknown caverns, is to release the last vestige of rational import and move forward into a life beyond a career with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.  Sometimes, to accept less is to gain more.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement through OPM may not always seem like an act of advancement, especially given that one is giving up a career, cutting one’s income, and relying upon an agency for a lifetime annuity; but when a medical condition cuts short the presentation of alternatives to consider, preparing, formulating and 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 often the best motive in a universe constrained by the motivation of self.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: For Want of…

It is the lack which often compels motion, and thus do we observe that “necessity is the mother of invention”, a proverb derived from a centuries’ old Latin phrase denoting that hardships result in unique ways in which to compensate for deprivation.  The opposite perspective — of plenitude and overabundance of indulgence — also reflects a lack, but one which which identifies the predicate based upon the negative subject:  of being spoiled and wanting of motivation and desire to succeed.

Necessity, indeed, is often a prompting and incentivizing force, as well as fear of the unknown, a desire to secure a foundation of predictability, and a motivating factor to escape from the destructive jaws of a hostile work environment.  Whatever the underlying force urging one’s intent, the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who finds him or herself within the confines of a progressively deteriorating medical condition, and one which impacts and prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the dual-meaning of the phrase, “For want of…” is often the basis for action.

It can mean that there is an innate and compelling force or desire to attain something; conversely, it can denote the lack of a core need, which propels the Federal or Postal worker to begin to act, and in pursuing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is necessary to begin by taking some affirmative step in order to begin the process.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits can be a long and arduous bureaucratic process — one which depletes the soul, dampens the spirit, and denigrates the psyche.  But what are the alternatives?  We already know the destructive force of remaining where we stand, but it is precisely the incentivizing conditions of such deplorable circumstances which compels the Federal or Postal employee to consider filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement in the first place.

For want of future security (used in the positive sense) or for want of one’s health (used in the negative, “lacking” sense), the options are limited, but the end-goal can be rewarding, as wanting requires action and initiative, and want of one’s circumstances may be the compelling force necessitating alternate routes of inventive compulsions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Human Perfection

Human perfection, it would appear, can be achieved.  How?  Simply by altering the definition of terms and utilizing the malleability of language, the short attention-span of historical memory, and the capacity of people to fool themselves.  It is the methodology of “moving the goal posts” once the opposing team comes within striking vicinity of scoring in a game; instead of tinkering with the substance of the issue, we merely change the rules of application.

Such actions certainly reveal the disconnect between language and reality, where the former reflects the gymnastics of linguistic flexibility without direct connection to the latter, and where the latter can continue to remain unchanged despite the radicalization of the former.  It is the universe of Orwellian reality, where one may declaratively assert the truth despite empirical evidence to the contrary.  But there are limits to such an approach.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, the progressively deteriorating nature of the diagnosed medical condition, in and of itself, is just such a limiting factor.  Try as one might, you cannot “fake it”, or even if you can (for a time or a season), the nagging reality of the chronic and pervasive immediacy of pain, debilitating symptoms, and overwhelming fatigue tends to make irrelevant such attempts of avoidance, neglect and attempted pigeonholing of the medical condition itself.

Language is ultimately meant to connect the objective world with the capacity to communicate through the insular subjectivity of thoughts, responses and feelings; instead, in modernity, it is too often used to validate the subjective universe of narcissistic egoism.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who has come to a point where language can no longer redeem the reality of one’s medical condition, consideration needs to be given for filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  The Federal or Postal employee can only use the malleability of language only for so long; and just as perfection is never truly achieved just because we say it has, so the mere fact that the Federal or Postal employee asserts that the reality of the medical condition will “just go away”, doesn’t make it so.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Competence & Relevance

As applied to a person, the dual concepts refer to the capacity of the individual’s talent and the relational importance to the greater needs of an organization, entity or society; as inserted in a more general sense, it is an evaluation of the connection between import and applicability.  In both senses, it embraces one’s identification within a macro-context of where one fits in.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have striven for years and decades to achieve a level of competence and relevance within an organizational context which treats one like the proverbial faceless bureaucrat which generates a worn and tiresome image, age itself is a friend, to the extent that as one works at a craft or vocation for many years, the wisdom gained equalizes the lack of experience and compensates for overzealous enthusiasm.  But the flip-side of age and experience is that the human body and psyche are vulnerable, and susceptibility to deterioration and mortality itself becomes evident as one advances down the spectrum of a life.

Is life merely a project, as Heidegger would have it, in order to avoid the stark reality of our end?  Are the corollary concepts of “Being” and “Nothingness” the fearful entities which engender our vacuous spurts of energetic turmoils in an effort to hold onto one in order to forget the other?

For Federal and Postal workers who find themselves with a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to threaten one’s ability and capacity to continue working in one’s defined Federal or Postal position, it is the very question of one’s competence and relevance which begins to compel one to file 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, the vulnerability of age, infirmity, and the deterioration from one’s medical condition, compels one to reflect upon the status and stature of both.  Identification within a community is always an important component for a social animal, and human beings are innately conditioned, whether by DNA determinism or by nurture of upbringing, to find as important one’s “place” within a greater universe of interacting “others”.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suddenly finds that loneliness and isolation compelled by a medical condition is leading to a cold and heartless expungement through adverse actions, increasing hostility and questioning of competence and relevance, the necessity of considering an OPM Disability Retirement application must become a priority by choice.  Let others question through ignorance and self-hatred; the years of contribution speak for themselves, and let not meanness of doubt enter into the soul of one’s confined beauty.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: Explicit versus Implicit

The former leaves no room for confusion or doubt; the latter, a bit of “wiggle room” where insinuations, hints and suggestive openings are characteristic invitations of open regards.  They are not mutually exclusive within a paragraph or even a sentence; they are, however, antonyms, and should be used with context-defined relevance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the choice of either can determine the future viability of one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.

Certainly, there are times in life when one chooses the latter methodology, for various reasons — perhaps being forthright and blunt is not the “right” approach; perhaps there is fear of offending, or mere laziness and sludge of confrontation prevents one from being straightforward.  In the legal arena, the former approach is preferable, if only to squeeze out the light of linguistic malleability and flexibility in supercilious argumentation.  But in the context of an OPM Disability Retirement packet, there will often contain multiple usages.

One’s Supervisor, in completing SF 3112B (Supervisor’s Statement), may present contradictory information by checking a box which is relatively unequivocal (is that an oxymoron — to use the terms “relatively” and “unequivocal” in the same breadth of a sentence?) but placing remarks implying the exact opposite in response to “explanatory” and more expansive questions.  Or, for the Federal Disability Retirement applicant, in completing SF 3112A, the “Applicant’s Statement of Disability”, there may be a strategy in mixing both explicit statements and providing for implicit openings for meanings and connections.

Certainly, the “law” of Federal Disability Retirement allows for it; but one must always take care in addressing the nature, extent and susceptibility of statutory interpretation in formulating one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.  Ultimately, as in most things in life, the former is preferable to the latter; though, wiggle room and the dictates social conventions may sometimes require one to be explicitly implicit in order to be inefficiently efficacious.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire