FERS Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Liars

Do saints or angels exist?  That question necessarily implicates a further query: Are there beings in the universe who have never lied?

Of course, we do make the conceptual distinction between “a person who lies” and “a liar”.  The former refers to all of us; for, of whatever reasons justifying it or in defining the concept of a “lie”, we all must admit that we have engaged in the act at one time or another — unless, of course, we deem ourselves to be either an angel or a saint.  As for the latter — it refers to and implicates not a person who may lie every now and again, but rather one whose reputation is that of a chronically dishonest person.

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, the problem of liars becomes an inherent, regular part of the Federal Disability Retirement process.  For some reason, Federal Agencies, Supervisors, managers, H.R. Representatives, etc. — all seem to engage in and bring out the worst within a context of lying.

Why such fervency of opposition, as if a person’s disability retirement application must be opposed, and therefore memories falter, resistance intensifies — is it because people simply do not like the idea of someone else gaining a benefit?

Whatever the reason, liars must be countered with the force of truth, and that is where a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who has the experience of trial work, cross examination and articulation of legal argumentation is important to engage.  Contact an experienced Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer and prepare yourself to counter the lies that will surely come about, unless, of course, you believe that your Agency or Postal facility is full of saints and angels.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Parting Ways

Friendships will, sadly, sometimes result in it; husbands and wives, though with children, too often embrace it for selfish reasons; and companies and their employees come to that flashpoint because of divergent interests, better offers or loss of confidence in visions no longer convergent in future goals and aspirations.

Medical conditions, as well, often have consequences where parting ways must be considered.  Can the medical condition be accommodated?  Is the Federal employee’s performance becoming unacceptable?  Is attendance becoming a problem?  Is his or her conduct impeding the mission of the Federal agency or the Postal unit?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows the Federal or Postal employee to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, “parting ways” is often a gradual process involving realization, acceptance, and concrete steps required in order for the final transition to actually occur.  Filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is one way to complete the process of parting ways.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of parting ways by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer

  

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: The mud of life

Do we treat it like the fun of Play-Doh, or of unwanted waste that we screw up our faces in disgust and come crying to wash it off immediately?  What were we like as children – uncaring, carefree, without a mind to the soil that we mix with water and other wet substances about and around the orifices of human cavities; or, with a hint of a smidgeon that lightly touched upon the soles of our shoes, did we come crying to return to an antiseptic precondition of artificiality?

The mud of life is the stuff of movies; we can romanticize it, serialize it into a best-selling paperback novel (skipping over the formality of a hardback in order to sell to the masses), and even turn it into a weekly television series; but in the end, what it means is that we are stuck in a rut at a gas station in the middle of a desolate desert with no money and no prospects.

That is the metaphor of the phrase itself; there is little hope and even a fewer scintilla of a possibility of a potentiality to hope; many times removed, the mud of life is that period that we all hit now and again, where movement forward will never occur, and misery is the fated future forever and a day, beyond the drudgery of an eternity of toil, like the Myth of Sisyphus when the gods condemned him to an existential angst of eternal turmoil.

What can be done about the mud of life?

Like the quicksand in old jungle movies where the thrashing victim is unable to recognize that the greater the exertional motions applied, the sooner the doom of drowning, the best that one can do is to simply plod along, place one foot in front of the other, and somehow manage to get through each day.

Medical conditions tend to do that; they remind us that the mud of life comes more often than we want to realize, and it can be a state of earthly hell without the promise of tomorrow’s paradise.  Enduring it is the best way to get out of it, and then to systematically plan to move beyond.  But what constitutes the “beyond” is the question, for many.  Medical conditions make us realize that there is little point in tomorrow if you can’t even get through today; but even in that moment of being stuck in the mud of life, it is important to plan for tomorrow, if only because it allows you to get through the drudgery of today and seeing beyond to a point of some hope for the future.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from just such a mud of life, where a medical condition is preventing the Postal or Federal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of his or her position, the way out of the mud of life may be to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Whether you were once a kid who loved playing in the mud, or came crying home because of the dirt of earth’s detritus, as an adult it is time to plan for your future, and preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application may be the best first step to move forward and wash away that mud of life’s misgivings.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Tomorrow’s project delayed

We tend to delay that which we know is best for us, and embrace the moment for which we pay a dear price.  Man was created to engage projects; a purpose for life, a value for living, a reason to live.  Why it is important to initiate, continue, accomplish and involve, are considerable in quantity:  to make a living; to be compensated for work employed; to create and construct for the betterment of community and the greater world; and not merely because Heidegger posits that it is to avoid our mortality and the inevitability of our fate.

It is a worthwhile endeavor, and not something to be ashamed of.  It is, however, when the focus upon tomorrow’s project becomes all-consuming such that it takes priority over health, family and self-preservation that something becomes dangerously and irrationally askew, then such prioritizing of life’s opportunities is undermined by an obsessive culture of a singular focus towards self-destruction.

Tomorrow’s project may need to be delay, or abandoned altogether.  Whether we make decisions in life by prioritizing through some category of rationality, or life forces such rearrangements by the compelling introduction of sickness, deterioration of health, or a traumatic turn of events, issues delayed or otherwise avoided tend to come back to remind, irritate or others demand.

There is never an end to human projects; if fear of exhausting the human capacity to devise is ever questioned, such a query is akin to puzzlement of philosophical questions consistent throughout Western history – each generation revives the conundrums of the past precisely because that is what it means to be human.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, there is no difference in kind or type; like all other workers and bee-like busy-ness in this universe of activity, the list of “tomorrow’s” projects is long and often left to a haphazard delineation not intended to be categorized in any rational priority of accomplishments.

Events, however, tend to force things upon us otherwise left unattended, and preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often one of those “tomorrow” projects cast aside to be delayed – until that life event compels action.  Perhaps the delay is rationally-based; perhaps it is a procrastination of necessity; or, more likely, a necessity that is avoided like the plague of yesterday until the symptoms of decay and destruction compel the magnification to the forefront of our lives.

Admitting and submitting to an inevitable concern previously left for tomorrow is never a pleasant concession, but at some point, tomorrow’s project delayed – especially the necessity to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management – may become today’s necessary action required immediately; and, in that event, it may be wise to seek the counsel of a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer

U.S. Government Employees Disability Retirement: Failing to meet those goals

Goals define an aspect of humanity that differentiates from the beast; just look at nature and the existential encounter with the “now” at all times.  Animals besides Man look at the world around and respond appropriately and accordingly.  For them, the future is the now; the past is merely a basis upon which to react in this moment of time; and what the appetitive parts of the soul require, the predator attempts to satisfy.

Goals, on the other hand, project into the future.  They require plans, painted by hopes and dreams, and follow upon the trail of golden dust left in residue by the wings of flying angels fluttering by to whisper thoughts of tomorrow and beyond the mortal constructs of our everyday lives.  Reality, of course, dashes those very hopes and dreams, and places obstructions to prevent the accomplishments of those very goals we set.

Humans love projects – whether because of Heidegger’s cynical view that we engage in them merely to avoid thinking about our own destiny to nothingness and annihilation, or merely because that is who we are:  sentient beings who can only be content by projecting into futures yet unrealized, such that our potentiality is always in the molding and making each moment of our lives.

What makes us tick?  Who are we?  What imprint do we want to leave to better the world before we depart?  What can we do to make the old lady across the way find a moment of happiness, disrupted because of tragedies felt and experienced in private lives of living hell?  What inventions, refinements and accomplishments may we reach before we depart this earth?  What is our 5, 10, 20 year plan – sort of like those old Russian declaratives in meeting thresholds of farm output in a communal setting of common goals defined?

We may scoff at them, but we all engage it:  Goals in our personal lives, and endured throughout our professional capacity.  The corollary, of course, is that those who set goals also experience the failure of having not met them.  That is the Yin Yang principle of life.  Being and Nothingness; Life and Death; Happiness and Misery; Goals and Failures.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file 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, the bitter taste of failing to meet professional goals is bundled up with complexity of emotional turmoil when a medical condition cuts short the career goals of the Federal or Postal employee.

Accepting the shortness of meeting those goals often extends, unwisely, the point at which the Federal or Postal employee should be filing a Federal Disability Retirement application.  Yet, that is simply part of being “human” – of exerting self-will beyond what is good for one’s self; of ignoring pain and anguish and just continuing to engage despite self-harm; and always attempting to “meet those goals” despite all cautionary indicators telling one otherwise.  But health is what should be the goal, now, and not the completion of those projects that we believe only we can accomplish.

Life will go on; and failing to meet those goals should never be the final impediment to the ultimate goal one should prioritize:  Of health, life, happiness and family, somewhat in the order stated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Law: The mish-mash approach

Do you have a linear, sequential methodology?  Is the legal argumentation systematically constructed?  Or, is the mish-mash approach consigned – of a hodgepodge of thousands of hands at needlepoint in creating a colorful quilt for the Fall Festival of creative designs?

Is the Bruner Presumption invoked as an afterthought, and the Bracey-argument concerning accommodations defined in an obfuscated manner, such that the argument reveals more about what you do not know and understand, than of a pin-point accuracy as to the sharpening and attacking of the issues preemptively recognized?  Have, indeed, the knives been sharpened for the battle ahead, or have you revealed the dullness of the edges such that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will likely scoff with disdain and deny the case at the First Stage of this process?

There is a substantive distinction to be made between making an argument in a non-systematic way, as in a proverbial “shot-gun” approach or of throwing what substance you believe will stick and subsequently splattering it against the wall in hopes of increasing a statistically deficient implementation of the process; that, as opposed to a streamlined, methodological approach of sequentially addressing each issue in a preemptive, categorical manner, as well as recognizing what not to touch at this initial stage of the Federal Disability Retirement process, and in realizing what should be addressed.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, basing one’s approach upon a “hope and a prayer” that things will turn out well, is probably not the most effective nor efficient engagement of behavior.

First, the initial process and stage itself is a bureaucratically lengthy procedure, such that if the Federal Disability Retirement applicant does not enhance the chances of success at the First Stage, time is “lost” in that a denial will simply quantify by exponential multiplication the time taken at the Second, Reconsideration Stage; and further, another catastrophic delay if an appeal is needed to be taken to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

In the end, the mish-mash approach is what most of us do in life, and often is the very reason why we ended up where we are.  But in the preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, it may well be time to abandon the mish-mash approach, and consider consulting with a Federal Disability Retirement lawyer who specializes in a different approach – one reflecting a systematic, methodological and sequentially logical engagement, refined through many years of experience and encounters with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Character

If a person points to another and states, “He is really a character”, is it different from positing:  “He really has character”?  Can both statements mean the same, or is the subtle difference there to denote?  The former is customarily stated in defining a person as somewhat of an oddball, or perhaps eccentric to a degree that places him outside of the conventional norms of acceptable conduct.  The latter, on the other hand, could also mean that – the possession of it modified by the adverb describes one with a plenitude of extraordinary traits.  Or, it could connote the more classical meaning:  A worthy person of honor, dignity, courage, moral foundation, etc.

That is, in the end, what most of us consider to be the pinnacle and apex of that very noun, isn’t it?  Possessing it is that which makes of us; displaying it, what demands respect and attention; and abiding in it despite trials that test to compromise, what we hope and expect of ourselves.  Indeed, character is both tested and surfaces especially in those times of tumult and tribulation; it is the mettle challenged at the depth of the soul of being.  Yet, in this age of modernity where materialism prevails, power seems to overarch all else, and the traditional reference to one’s “character” no longer means much more than a rumble in one’s stomach as evidence of hunger or impoverishment, it is clear that neither form of the meaning evinces much curiosity.

Materialism is dominant; those in power dominate; and the once-vaunted “indomitable spirit” carried forth as a burden of possessing character no longer has much substantive weight.  Where it does reveal and manifest itself, however, is in the very lack thereof.  So long as things are going relatively smoothly; while the good fortune lasts; or, perhaps during those times when monotony merely puts one into a slumber of sorts, and actions and deliberations through life’s daily routine are placed on an unthinking mode of automatic pilot, the revelation or concealment of character matters not.

But take that onerous instance – as, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s life, and for Federal and Postal employees, compels one to consider 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; does character count?  One’s own and reliance upon another’s; both come to the fore and require an evaluation that will test the mettle of the substantive foundation.

For the Federal or Postal employee who begins to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application – tested to endure the administrative process and the onerous test of the entire bureaucratic procedure.  For those coworkers, family members and other encountering Federal or Postal employees, including Supervisors, Managers and Human Resource Personnel – of how they respond and what they do to make the process smooth and seamless.  In the end, character comes to the fore, and reveals the content of who we truly are.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Natural empathy

Is there such a thing, or do we just fake it even when we do not naturally “feel” it?  If the official, technical definition fails to make the distinction between “feeling” and “understanding”, does it not discount the differentiation of the traditional bifurcation – that of rational capacity as opposed to part of one’s emotional quotient?

Further, if it is merely an emotion, do some have a greater capacity because of a genetic predisposition, while others at a minimal level acquired through accident of birth, and thus can one be held responsible for merely being who we are?  On the other hand, if it has a closer affinity to an “understanding” one possesses, then can it not be cultivated and enhanced, and therefore within the purview of an educational system that includes “empathy instruction”?

How would one “teach” empathy?  Would you present slide shows of unfortunate events, and by instructional imprinting, have the teacher or headmaster unravel with emotional turmoil and manifest tears of sorrow, and hope that the students will by some mysterious osmosis embrace that capacity to experience such travails “as if” one were in the other’s shoes?  And, what do we mean when we attribute empathy as a “natural” course of human characteristic – is it counterintuitive to the distinction made of its opposite, of an “artificial” construct?

In Darwinian parlance, of course, there is little room for Natural empathy – the weak merely dilute the sacrosanct genetic pool of the strong and those fit to survive, and time wasted in trying to protect the weak or to understand those less fortunate will only succumb to the inevitable devouring by prey otherwise in waiting.

In the “civilization” of the human animal, there are certainly historical instances of unexplainable natural empathy, but whether there was always even therein a hidden agenda, a personal motivation, or a self-centered glint of purpose, we shall never know.  The naïve will posit that natural empathy is central to the human character; the cynic, that it is neither natural nor a tendency discovered in any species known, but just another societal construct forced upon the strong as part of the social contract to defend the weak.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the health condition has resulted in testing the natural empathy of coworkers, supervisors and managers at the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, there may well be a division and diversity of opinions on the matter.

Whether natural or artificial, unfortunate events do indeed test the capacity of human character, and when the Federal or Postal employee prepares a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the uncaring and impervious attitudes of those encountered along the long and arduous process in attempting to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits, can indeed test the attitudes of a generation yet to experience the cruelty of an otherwise imperfect universe.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire