FERS Medical Retirement Law: The “EU” Prefix

Good; well; uttering sounds which portend of good omen; and of the root word of “euphemism”, it comes from the Greek word, “phemos”, or “speech”; or of the word, “Euthanasia”, the word after the “eu” is derived from the Greek root, “thanatos”, or death.

And thus do we alter and modify the very meaning of the words by attaching the prefix, “eu”, and turning a negative concept into a positive one: of speech which could be harmful or derisive, into an utterance of a more positive outlook; and of death — that ultimate end which portends of agony and pain  — into a painless sleep into that eternal darkness.  It is the prefix attached upon a word which can turn the negative into a positive.

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, preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the current Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is tantamount to place the “eu” prefix onto your life and career, where the medical condition itself has become the negative impact upon your life and career, and where the “eu” prefix can turn that around and make it into a positive circumstance.

Contact an Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of attaching a positive prefix onto a negative circumstance by become eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

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 Disability Retirement Law: Obstacles

Some avoid them completely; others, shy away when they can; still others, make a feeble attempt, then easily give up; and yet, there are those who relish the challenge and even seek out in order to test their mettle, their competence or other such virtues real or imagined.

Obstacles exist throughout, whether sought out or avoided; some, no matter the extensive efforts to avoid, appear immovably in every conceivable pathway of one’s “journey” through life, making it impossible to avoid.  Most of us are not self-flagellating egoists who want and desire the challenge of obstacles; rather, the easiest line of travel with the least amount of obstacles is the means to a comfortable life.  We are presuming that the people at Google thought in a like manner, and that is why they invented Google Maps or other such “Apps” for convenience’s sake, in order to avoid those obstacles which delay and frustrate.

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, filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may be a necessity, and if so, two obstacles immediately come to the fore: First — the one you already know — is the medical condition itself, which impacts every aspects of your life and is becoming progressively debilitating, and Second: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, who looks at every Federal Disability Retirement application as a bank robbery which must be prevented.

In order to overcome the first obstacle, you should do everything to get the proper medical treatment, and to make your health a priority.  As for the Second Obstacle, contact an attorney who specializes in countering the denial of OPM, lest the avoidance of the obstacle unnecessarily becomes a greater one of burdening impossibility.

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 System: Musical Chairs

Do you remember the fun of it — perhaps in elementary school or beyond?  The shrieking laugher; the methodology used; the adaptation for caution; the guarding of the few remaining chairs; the inevitable clash of 2 people trying to fit into one chair; the disappointment of elimination; and just the pure fun of it all.

Perhaps, in this day of political correctness, the game is no longer played, as inclusivity is the popular theme over elimination and exclusivity.  Yet, reality and the harsh lessons of the “real” world more than supports the metaphor of musical chairs.  It is a lesson well-learned — of life as a moment of music which suddenly ceases, and a decision must be quickly made that might alter the course of your life: To be a “part” of something, or to be forced to abandon it and to move on to something else.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the “music” of continuing in one’s Federal or Postal career has stopped and can no longer continue, and where “elimination” from the missing chair no longer available to continue in one’s career is forcing a decision to seek a seat in one’s life somewhere else, consult with a Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Elimination in the game of musical chairs is one thing; termination in the Federal Sector or the Postal Service — either because you can no longer perform your job, or from “excessive absences” or a similar reason, is a valid basis to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  It might be a good idea to make some decisions before the music stops, and to get a head start in the game of real-life musical chairs.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Keeping it all together

It is hard enough to keep things together without those “extras” impeding, interrupting and infringing upon one’s time.  Then, when that proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” is placed before us, a sense of doom and gloom (another trite, overused and ineffective phrase that is applied as a euphemism to conceal the crisis-point of our existence) pervades and blankets, like the undisturbed blanket of snow covering the desolate fields of an abandoned farm.

We say to ourselves, “Well, if I can make it to the weekend, I will be able to rest and recuperate” — unless, of course, it is Monday morning, or even Tuesday, and the “weekend” seems like an eternity away.

This is a stressful world.  The very busy-ness of life; of the daily demands placed upon the psyche — even of those stresses we don’t even notice, of impinging and daily overload of factors whirling about us; traffic; news; information from emails and other Internet demands; and then there is the question as to how many other people around us, unknown to us, are barely themselves “keeping it all together”.

We live lives of pressure-cookers; whether the top explodes or not is barely a matter of thin lines and close calls.  Then, when a medical condition intervenes, it is as if the excuse to keeping it all together disappears — precisely because the very foundations for the reason to continue as always have all of a sudden disappeared.  Medical conditions shake the foundation of one’s existence: What is this all about? Why am I killing myself doing this, when the stress of this life merely exacerbates the destructive force of the medical condition itself?

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, the ability of “keeping it all together” often falls apart when it finally becomes apparent that the price one must pay just to maintain a facade and semblance of “keeping it all together” is too high.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is an option to consider. Consult with a FERS Attorney to discuss the viability of your case, and then take the advice into consideration in the ongoing effort of keeping it all together.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Growth Stopper

In life, inertness is considered “bad”; it is progress, the ascent of man and the constant striving towards attaining and achieving which are considered “good”.  “Growth” and the incessant need to extend, expand and extoll the virtues of acquisition and accomplishment remain the medals of success; and whether we agree with such values, it is as if we never had a choice.  Isn’t how we define the parameters of what is important to us the basis of happiness?

For Aristotle, the world was seen in terms of constant potentiality striving to reach the actualization of an entity’s intended fruition.  Thus, a stone does what it is meant to do when it constantly falls to the lowest point in the chaos of the world; a lion achieves its value of Being by being what it does best — of being the aggressor and catching its prey; in other words, by being a lion qua lion-being.

And what of man?  To reach his or her potentiality by achieving the essence of what each individual human being was meant to strive for and accomplish, but in a moderated way without the excesses of either extremes upon the spectrum of choices (read his Nicomachean Ethics).

Growth, for every organic being, is crucial to the very essence of its reason and value for existence.  It is thus its opposite — the “growth stopper” — that is considered as “bad”, “evil”, and contrary to human nature.  But sometimes, in life, we have no choice in the matter, and having a medical condition is that “growth stopper” that must make one pause and redirect one’s focus and value.  Ultimately, 2 things have to always be done: Define what values constitute “growth”; then, determine the best course of action to progress in that endeavor.

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 job, “growth” will need to be redefined.  Is “growth” worth it at the expense of one’s health?

FERS Disability Retirement is not a “growth stopper”, but a growth enhancer — for, it is a retirement and a basic annuity to allow the Federal or Postal worker to pause, refocus one’s priorities upon one’s health and well-being, and then take the steps to progress toward other endeavors and vocations in life.  In other words, to re-prioritize.  Yes, the medical condition can be seen as a “growth-stopper”, but it is how we define our values which makes all of the difference.

Sincerely,

Robert R.McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Attorney

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Artemis for Our Age

Perhaps the most venerated of the Greek deities; but why?  As protector of young girls, the Greek mythological figure is always associated with the hunt, carrying with her a bow and arrow, accompanied by a loyal deer; is it chastity and fidelity that make her so attractive?  Do we have an Artemis for our Age — someone whom we can look up to, to feel the warmth of love and pure presence, if only to provide comfort in times of turmoil?

We give lip-service to terms like “community” and how it “takes a village” to bring up a child; of the importance of “family” and “family-values”; and yet….  When words are merely utterances without an action to follow, do they ring as hollow as the sound of an echo in a dark cave where no one can hear?  Is it because we have become so cynical in modernity that we cannot fathom an Artemis for our Age?  Does believability depend upon ignorance, and does ignorance result in the greater bliss where faith and happiness can coexists despite the dreary conditions of daily existence?  Did Greek Mythology develop because of a need for human beings to explain the anomalies of the universe, and was it science that destroyed the structure of such paradigms?

Without an Artemis for our Age, the promise of creativity in the innocence of childhoods yearning for something more than the reality of daily existence becomes a mere hope without even the scent of faith.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are seeking to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, the ugliness which develops in the very process of such seeking is often what destroys any faith in an institution.  Medical conditions, once revealed, tend to bring out the worst in agencies: Suddenly, “loyalty” is no longer a concept discoverable; “empathy” is a far cry from reality; and “accommodation” becomes a foreign concept even when there are laws to try and protect it.

The Artemis for our Age has simply become the use of laws as the weapon to wield; and when a Federal employee needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, legal representation is what forces the Agency and OPM to comply with the law, and that is about as close as we can get to in finding an Artemis for our Age.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Hope & Plan

It is the latter that gives rise to the former; and the former that remains forlorn and tattered until the latter begins to take shape.  Hope without its latter partner, a Plan, is like the proverbial boat without a rudder; drifting amiss amidst the torrential currents of directionless pathways, being guided throughout by the vicissitudes of uncertainty.

One can hope for many things in life, but hope without a plan is tantamount to allowing a child to wander through a candy store without instructions or restrictions; unfettered liberty leaves one to one’s own devices that more often than not leads to self-destruction.

Whether “the plan” is a good one, a well-thought-out one, or a flawed shadow based upon a rational discourse of options considered is less besides the point than to formulate one in the first place.  Plans can always be modified along the way; adapted to, altered and changed in order to “fit the circumstances”, as every blueprint is merely the rough draft of a finalized product.

For Federal employees who are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset who have begun to 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 the person’s Federal or Postal job, the “hope” is that the medical condition will soon go away, health will be restored and the Federal or Postal employee will become fully recovered.

Sometimes, however, hope’s desire fails to become fulfilled.  In such an event, hope needs a plan, and the plan is to prepare, formulate and file 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.

For, the solitary hope without a developing plan is likened to a piece of driftwood racing down the river of time; what you do not want to have happen is to travel so far down hope’s uncertainty where the waterfall meets the lack of a plan that dashes any hope left.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: The Statement

We often hear of various events or transactions in the public arena where a “statement” will be issued, and such a conveyance of information is often prepared, pre-written, read from a piece of paper or plastered upon a teleprompter where the delivering individual merely reads from a text that has been previously written and composed.

It is like a musician who varies not from the score before him, or the player who follows the conductor’s baton with precision of a mime; to vary is to veer, where error becomes the hazard to avoid.  That initial “statement” to the listeners, the recipients, the audience, or however and whomever you want to characterize it as — why is it so important that it is conveyed, portrayed, delineated and communicated in just a “right” manner?

Is it not similar to the importance of preparing an SF 3112A — the Applicant’s Statement of Disability?  Isn’t the SF 3112A a foundational, “first impression” statement that needs to be prepared carefully, with meticulous formulation, like a novel’s opening sentence that must captivate and draw in the reader’s attention?

Granted, the SF 3112A is answered in response to questions required to be formulated by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for the Federal or Postal employee to provide, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset; but the limitations imposed by space and the relevance of the answers given to questions queried should not detract from the importance and significance of preparing the “Statement” well, in a preconceived and well-prepared manner.

What is the sequence?  When should it be prepared?  What content must it possess?  Should direct quotes from the medical records and narrative reports be included?  How carefully should it be annotated?  Must the Applicant’s Statement of Disability on SF 3112A be confined to the spaces provided?

These, and many other questions besides, should be carefully considered, and to do so, the best way to be well-prepared is to consult with an attorney who specializes in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement Application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Civil Service: By what measure?

Does a formula, a paradigm or a standard instill in us the direction we so desire?  How is it that we compare X to something, and is the contrast a necessary prerequisite to achieving and accomplishing, or is that some artificial, societal construct that we have manufactured in order to sell ourselves a “bill of goods”?

Yes, yes – Western Civilization (remember that middle-school subject taught under the general aegis of that title?) always begins with the philosophical precept of Aristotle’s, of “First Principles” and the “causes” of events and occurrences, but where is it stated that we must have a “measure” by which to compare and contrast?  By what measure do we apply ourselves, or is not the evolutionary will to survive and the genetic predisposition to propagate a sufficient factor in the drive to excel?  Like peacocks during mating season and robins that reveal a ferocity of savagery in the spring months, is there a measure by which we are deemed a success or failure, and by a standard where comparisons are made, conclusions are reached and judgments are rendered?

Rare is the solitary figure who abandons all implements of societal judgments and goes it alone without the condoning nod of an authority figure.  Lone wolves are figments of mythological fables; the rest of us follow the herd by the measure set by others in a society of gossipers and watchdogs set upon us without warning or consistency.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the standard of measure has always been some unstated and unfairly predetermined set of rules that are governed by a bunch of words we never agreed to – i.e., “productivity at the cost of health”; “loyalty to the mission of the Federal Agency without regard to medical conditions”; “repetitive work leading to stress injuries where proving causation is nigh impossible”, and other such silent statements of accord – but where the last bastion of hope often resides in 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.

All of these many years, the Federal or Postal worker has toiled under tremendous pressure by the measures set by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal facility; fortunately, the standard by which OPM Disability Retirement benefits are granted is predetermined by statutory authority, and not by arbitrary fiat by a supervisor, manager or some other head of the department or agency by will of authority or changeable character of an individual.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM must follow certain eligibility guidelines and statutory confinements, as with most other set standards; but by what measure you may live your life after winning an OPM Disability Retirement annuity – that is set by you, the lone wolf.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: A mote in society’s dustbin

What is the greatest fear?  Is it to be forgotten, cast aside, without a mere footnote in the linear history of societal acknowledgments?  Must society now adjust to the credited observation of Warhol’s dictum, that fame’s span of 15 minutes is too lengthy, given the fast-paced nature of modern technology?  Is watching one’s self in a public forum the satisfying conduit for vicarious living, such that it makes content the populous who would otherwise revolt in the disparity of despairing livelihoods?

The Biblical reference of comparing the mote in someone else’s eye, as opposed to the beam in one’s own, is of interest beyond the failure to recognize the reflection of insincerity displayed by lack of self-awareness; more than that, it is the comparative disparity which fails to prod.  While the mote itself is the foreign substance which irritates and prompts the pointing finger, it also represents the insignificance of life’s judgments in general, to the way in which we all live.  It is the tiniest piece of substance, and yet the finger-pointing it prompts reveals a readiness to judge, and is reflective of a character defect in us all.

And when that mote is extracted and flicked away, it floats unnoticed into the greater dustbin of society, where morning mists evaporate in the rising sun of daily tumult, and where giants of men with promise and potentiality fall with a thud and a shudder for all to hear.

It is irrelevancy of which we fear; that no one will have noticed, and the imprint of our lives will matter not against the rising tides of artifices constructed in the imagination of our own awakenings.  How many nameless tombs echo the mournful solitude of an estranged life in a world devoid of warmth and snuggles?  Why are teddy bears, stuffed animals and lifeless companions purchased with purrs of gleeful delight?  We are but mere motes in the dustbin of society; moreover, we fear being extracted, even from that status of being an insignificant irritant, and flicked away where even the shadows remain unnoticed and when mice scurry away with but barely an ear’s twitch.

That is why Heidegger’s comment that we engage in projects to avoid the ultimate meaning of our lives — the extinguishment of one’s conscious soul — reverberates with haunting excess.  Of course, some would scoff at that philosopher and retort that his shame in participating in the Third Reich revealed the true nature of his philosophy; but that is for another day to reflect upon.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who believe — nay, “feel” — that their work is not “done” with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, and therefore must endure the humiliation piled upon the progressively worsening medical condition despite the self-immolative process of remaining, the real fear is the underlying, subterranean seething of man’s refusal to be cast aside as a mere irrelevancy, like a mote in society’s dustbin.

In the end, however, does it really matter whether the “mission of the agency” has been accomplished (remember that bureaucracies and their foundational rationale for existence never comes to a terminus; a new one is always adopted as perpetual replacements in the linear eternity of a behemoth’s lifespan), or the last truckload of mail has been delivered?

Federal and Postal employees are known for their “dedication” and conscientious resolve; but when 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, becomes a hindrance because of an unfounded and unjustified adherence to a principle which does harm to one’s own health, then the mote in the eye of one’s brother becomes more than an simple comparison to the beam in one’s own eye; it becomes itself a mote which should be flicked aside into the dustbin of society’s joke, where the laughter is directed upon all who have fallen for the epic comedy of life itself.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire