FERS Disability Retirement: Glimpses of Slices

That is about all we get from other people’s lives.  Yes, we make grand judgments and determinations based upon the scintilla of evidence we have.  It is even worse, in modernity; for, in past ages, people actually got to see one another, spending perhaps an evening over a meal, a get-together, an afternoon picnic, etc.

Now, we look at a flat screen, whether on the Smart Phone or a computer monitor, and cast judgments and aspersions based upon quick texts and posts prepared with minimal thought or consideration.  Superficiality is the modern equivalent of shallow minds in past eras.

Glimpses of slices are what we base our relationships upon, these days, because we have no time to spend in trying to understand or empathize.  Life is too busy; and while past ages and epochs also had little time beyond survival, at least much of it involved human interactions.

It is no different at the various Federal agencies, who know not the trials of their own employees and never take the time to try and understand what an employee is going through when a medical condition begins to impact his or her ability and capacity to continue in their career of choice.

That is why this lawyer’s standard advice is, to the following question: Should I tell my agency now, of my intent to file for Federal Disability Retirement?  The answer: Let’s hold off for as long as possible, because once they find out you are no longer going to be part of “the team”, all of a sudden, you will become a pariah.

Yes, glimpses of slices — that is what people now take with them to the graves which adorn the lifeless souls of people without empathy.  Contact a lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and let not the glimpses of slices defeat the worthwhile endeavors of tomorrow’s hope.

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 Disability Retirement Benefits: Always Within the Never

It is a phrase borrowed from the book, the Elegance of the Hedgehog.  The movie version follows the novel quite scrupulously, with the former utilizing certain visual applications (example — of Paloma using the video camera; the image of the death and resurrection of the goldfish, and other metaphorical tools more easily adapted to the visual medium of a movie) while the latter goes into greater detail on the background and conversations engaged, especially on Art, Music, Philosophy, etc.

Both are beautifully done in discussing the issues of class structure in France — of the value of education; how we treat one another based upon wealth and background; of what constitutes beauty; and the relevance of one life as opposed to another — of the always within the never.

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 “always” concerns the worth of the Federal or Postal employee whether you can do your job or not, and the “never” is the concept that, just because you are no longer able to perform your job anymore, it does not diminish the value of your worth to society.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit accorded to you when you signed up as a Federal or Postal employee.  It is a recognition that human “worth” is partly based upon your past contribution in this world, and that you still have much to contribute beyond the Federal or Postal sector.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and assert yourself always within the never.

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.

 

Disability Retirement from the USPS and other Federal Gov. Agencies: Loyalty in Our Time

As a member of The Band, Levon Helm was a fiercely loyal member who was extremely critical of his fellow musician, Robbie Robertson.  The issue which centered upon the bitter feud involved royalties (as all feuds throughout time immemorial involve money) — of who should receive it; what constitutes “writing” a song; who should get credit for it, etc.

There are many adages which our grandparents used to offer — of sayings beginning with, “There are two types of people in the world”, etc.  One such saying might begin with: “There are two types of people in the world — the Levon Helm type, and the Robbie Robertson type…”

The controversy involved the bifurcation of the following: How is a song written: by the origin of the idea, or by the end product involving a collaborative effort?  Levon Helm believed in the latter approach; Robbie Robertson, in the former.  In the end, what was considered as one of the greatest rock bands in the history of music — a group merely called, “The Band” — disintegrated into a bitter end because of a feud over money and loyalty.

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 question of loyalty in our time will test the Federal Agency and the Postal Service.

Should you inform them immediately about your intention to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits?  How will your past loyalty to your Federal Agency or the Postal Service be “repaid” when they find out that you are filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management?  Will the Federal Agency or the Postal Service act like Levon Helm — fiercely loyal — or like Robbie Robertson?

To protect yourself and learn the lesson of loyalty in our time, contact a disability attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law.

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: Today (pause), and Tomorrow

The parenthetical insertion creates a “real-time” interlude, and the addendum of the grammatical mandate, the unnecessary comma, extends the strained quietude of wanting to engage the sequential utterance.  There is the reality of “now”, which we occupy, fill and exist within, and the expectation of a tomorrow which never exists as a wholeness contained within a specified time period, but merely in anticipated form within the imagination of our cognitive universe.  To this, we can always add “yesterday”, as well, but that is merely of memories passed, reflected in the neurocognitive cellars of stored images.

It is of today and tomorrow which matters for the survival of a species, with yesterday reserved for learned experiences allowing for avoidance of mistakes in order to enhance one’s probability for remaining today and advancing into tomorrow.

Of yesterday, there is nothing that we can do, other than to learn from it and squeeze out the corners of lessons presented.

Of today, there are the problems known, the concerns we have to deal with and the stresses we are forced to tolerate.

And of tomorrow, we have to place into bifurcated boxes of manageable sizes, lest the overwhelming contents spill over to make us all go mad.

For, without the ability and capacity to filter, store and set aside, the extent of problems encountered, stresses envisioned or the troubles tormenting, would be of such quantitative overload as to leave us paralyzed daily.  Of chores left undone, relationships needing tethering, obligations still remaining and work much wanting; where will it all end except in the tombstones of unfinished business?

We are thus stuck in the rut of negation; some, in memories reflected over time enhancing in magnitude and perfection as duration allows for the fissures, wrinkles and ugliness of that once “today” to disappear, such that the retrospective life becomes the paradigm of lost souls.  Or, of those tomorrows yet to come, where we ruminate over troubles that have not yet occurred but we imagine them to become, and crisis that have yet to rear its horrific head, or so the expectations grounded in fear and loathing would have us believe.  Of the before and after, we spend so much time worrying about, and lose sight of the ambiance of today.

Today is what matters; today is the time to plan for tomorrow; today is the moment of applying principles failed by yesterday’s lack of discernment.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the focus upon “today” is the parachute that will catch the wind stream for tomorrow’s security. And of the past?  Let it remain with memories foretold of positive thoughts and lessons learned for tomorrow, and not of haunting nightmares forgotten but for awakenings in the middle of the night.

Prepare well a Federal Disability Retirement application, and formulate it effectively, and file it today – not tomorrow, and certainly do not ruminate upon yesterday’s failings, as that has already passed without fruition of a future left unseen.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Civil Service: Erasing imprints

We spend half of our lives trying to accomplish that which may never be done; go to others to obtain guidance; take medications in order to stamp out the cacophony of voices from a past regenerated in mindful moments when reflection is not what we want but quietude away from the cackle of memories.

Imprints are those stamps that remain with us, like burn-marks seared indelibly into the far corners of body parts unreachable and unseen but by the telescopic lenses of our own souls.  Perhaps the memories have faded, or we simply cannot pinpoint that precise moment when the stamp was made, the mark of the devil was inked or the scorching stab wound rutted; but it remains upon the child, grows with the malignancy of the young one, and becomes magnified into adulthood like the burdensome satchel filled with rocks, each day adding another, never able to open it to lighten the load, except here and there when one accidentally falls through an unnoticed tear before it is quickly sewn up again to reinforce the nightmares of our lives.

Try as we might, through pharmacological modalities of treatment regimens or embroiled by years of therapeutic encounters, the monsters within from our childhood past of flashes when the mother turned her back upon a child in crisis, or of anger devolved when fury left the frustrated child in a chasm of loneliness unattended; it is the trembling of innocence that remains forever, and a day.

Erasing imprints is what we try to do the rest of our lives, when all that can really be done is to contain, bifurcate, box in and restrain.  Of course, there are “good” imprints, as well – those marks which developed the personality and characteristic traits considered “positive” to our lives; the trick is to recognize the difference between the negative and the positive, and that is not always easy to do.  Further, what if we erase the “good” imprints in the process of stamping out the “bad”?

Being human carries with it the compendium of complexities all wrapped into a conundrum of puzzling packages of personality quirks, and sometimes it is those imprints we attempt to erase which characterizes the very uniqueness of our being.  Then, as we grow older, the callouses form and the attempts to replace imprints become less effective; for, presumably we have learned to resist the influence of others, or at least found ways to limit them.

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, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, remember that the road to obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a long and arduous one, and it is likely that you will have to encounter many obstacles, many “mean” people who themselves have likely been harmed by a lifetime of imprints.

Focus upon erasing imprints that harm, and disregard the imprints exhibited by others; for, it is a lifetime endeavor identifying the negative ones in yourself, without worrying about needing to erase imprints manifested by others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Living versus being alive

There is a difference, is there not?  Of hummingbirds and cardinals bright against the backdrop of an evergreen; of a child running across the grassy knoll; then of aged men in nursing homes, shuttered away in corners where the drool of saliva unwiped reveals the tarnish of human unkindness; and of prisons rotting away with crowded cells for addicts whose sickness is considered a crime where, in ages past, opium dens and other vices merely preached in empty churches of the difference between mortal and venial sins unrehearsed.  Yet, we have somehow been duped into believing that “movement” is the basis of “living”, and its antonym, the lack thereof, constitutes something less than.

It is often when a medical condition overwhelms one with a debilitating illness, or a chronic state of pain; or, even of inconvenience in not being able to function as other “normal” people do, that it begins to “hit home”:  living is good; being alive, also, is worth it.  Perhaps the distinction is scoffed at by the healthy; as youth believes in the immortality and invincibility of foolhardiness, and often tests it to the detriment of failure and embarrassment, so wisdom may accompany an insight of some rather insignificant profundity – that we can boast well when everything is merely a hypothetical, as in ivory towers of university concepts, but we are all willing to compromise when the stark choices of life present themselves within limited contexts of concealed alternatives.

Being alive isn’t all that bad; living is preferable, but sometimes we have to accept the choices as presented by the reality of our unique and individualized circumstances.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates ending one’s career and shortening one’s desire for continuation in a chosen field, the recognition and admission as to the limitations imposed by one’s mortality, health and physical boundaries, as well as the impact of psychiatric conditions upon one’s ability to have the cognitive focus, concentration and attention to detail, will oftentimes require compromises that come close to the distinction noted – of living, versus being alive.

Perhaps the contrast has not swung in the pendulum of such extremes of options, but the feeling is certainly something that hits close to home.  For, continuation in the job will only further and progressively debilitate, such that you will come to a point of no return and end up simply being alive.  Living, as the preferable choice, is to take the steps in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, precisely in order to prevent that state of last option prior to the ultimate test of mortality’s humor – of merely being alive, as opposed to living.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Analogies

It is the greater concept often developed through metaphors and similes; but to the extent they are now of use depends largely upon the shared cultural context within which we live.  If Classical literature is no longer the common thread of meaningful discourse, can references to them in creating analogies work?  To share that a person’s tragedy is more Shakespeare than Milton, or that the individual’s circumstances remind one more akin to The Road to Wigan Pier than Brideshead Revisited, can such conversations take on a relevant pathway if the intellectual divide fails to be crossed?

You can, of course, always Google and quickly get the quick rundown of the literary reference through electronic Spark Notes, or some other venue of shortcutting the arduous endeavor reserved in former times; but even that may reveal an inadequacy that cannot be overcome.  For, of what part of the book or author is being referred to?  Is it any particular play or poem, or the entirety of the work itself?  Is it any specific character or scene?

Some philosophers have posited that, by and large, we comprehend and make sense of the objective world through the use of analogies, built upon by metaphors and similes; for, language itself is a conglomerate of such literary devices.  To face the universe purely for survival’s sake is to forego the need for imposing the ordering through language; animals do not require it, but in the most rudimentary of mechanisms that advance warning signs and preemptive communications; it is only in the arena of human constructs where categorical imperatives need to be assigned in order to filter the world into more palatable and circumscribed entities for processing the complexities we have created.

Analogies thus communicate through the medium of shared conceptual constructs, where we draw in the recipient and spectator, the audience of our targeted comparisons, by relating a shared, known and familiar encapsulation of linguistic constructs.  It is only when the strangeness of the metaphor, the unfamiliarity of the reference, creates further puzzlement and loss of connection, that problems occur and relationships become fissures of language games gone awry.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal employees 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 positional duties, the applicability of providing a foundational construct of relating one’s story to an “administrative specialist” at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will often involve – and require – analogies by default.

Use them sparingly; utilize discretion; and, in writing up one’s narrative in response to the questions posed on SF 3112A (Applicant’s Statement of Disability), remember that this is not the time, the context or the best place to try out radical, untested metaphors, similes or analogies.

Thus, while those who have read Orwell’s work, The Road to Wigan Pier, as well as Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, may find a clever and appropriate place in one’s Applicant’s Statement of Disability to make some brilliant literary reference, it may be more prudent to stick to the medical facts and incorporate those supportive documents in dealing with analogies of life, health, and the nexus between the latter and one’s Federal or Postal job duties.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The precarious self

Self-preservation is said to be high on the list of instinctive survival mechanisms – that which society cannot “un-learn” because of the inherent nature of such evolutionary entrenchment of DNA-coded characteristics.  It used to be that, whether in the mythical “State of Nature” as advanced and envisioned by Locke, Hobbes or Rousseau, or the more fossil-based models as posited by anthropologists, the individual who was widely considered as a precarious survivor was quickly extinguished from the gene pool either though acts of foolish daring or by neglectful carelessness.

Survival was, until recent times, always high on the list of priorities.

In modernity, we rarely even consider it, and that is why we cringe with disbelief at horror stories of sitting placidly in a café or restaurant when suddenly innocent bystanders are being shot at, or become the victims of an explosion where shrapnel and other ravaging debris aim at the human flesh – not for predatory hunger, but for mere destruction and devastation.  Laws become enacted and govern safety; mechanisms are put in place to prevent industrial accidents or massive catastrophes impacting a wide swath of population centers; these are all, in modernity, for the most part, avoided and of rare occurrence.

Thus, the precarious self has become an irrelevant concern, or not at all.  The incommensurate dilemma of an individual being lost in his or her own thoughts as he walks upon a den of wolves out to find and devour dinner, is not of a major concern; perhaps, the closest we may come to in considering the precarious self is of a person lost in thought who crosses the street without looking for oncoming traffic; but, even that, the new technology arming every vehicle with sensors which automatically prompts the braking systems are attending to that potentiality, as well.

It is, in the end, more in the arena of making mistakes, proceeding in ignorance and creating circumstances of irreconcilable self-destructiveness, that the concept even becomes applicable or comprehensible, in these days.  For example, in preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application by a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker, does the Federal employee or Postal worker know enough about “The Laws” governing Federal Disability Retirement in order to proceed successfully?  Have you spent enough time to familiarize yourself with the statute, the case-law and precedents of recent import in order to successfully maneuver your way through the administrative process?

This is, whether one likes it or not, a highly bureaucratized universe, and the ability to avoid the precarious self often requires a great amount of investment of one’s time, energy and concentrated focus upon the details of daily, unavoidable complexities.  Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee falls under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is something that requires avoidance of the precarious self, at a minimum; and, more than that, to maneuver around the precarious “others” as well – including the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The wish for erasure

Once, we used pencils because such implements are almost always accompanied by an eraser.  It was an acknowledgment of human imperfection, of the potentiality for making a mistake, and the realization that any extent of human activity should recognize the wish, the need and reality for erasure.  But that such corrections could similarly be made for lives lived, hurts fostered and damages perpetrated.  Yet, the historical requirement that has necessitated the wish for erasure has itself been erased, or significantly diminished – of a conscience instilled and allowed for maturation, where remorse, regret and readiness of heart for redemption touches upon the deeper essence of one’s soul.

Modernity has persuaded itself that guilt is but an anthropological myth created to make subservience a cauldron of psychological neediness.  Psychology is king; pharmacological stupor is the methodology for erasure, if not avoidance; and, what once we wished for in a guilt-ridden caravan of emotional remorse opening the door to forgiveness, regret and redemption, is now repressed to hide the once glorious sheen of the god in man, the elevated soul beyond the appetitive beastliness, and a lowering of that pinnacle of creation where we once walked leisurely beyond the garden of heavenly quietude, now banished from paradise into a constant flux of a state of war and cruelty.

Yet, despite attempting to destroy the wish for erasure, that goal to erase the wish for erasure has itself been an imperfect and unperfected initiation.  Somehow, the flame still remains, and like the eraser that never quite completely does the job, but allows for that faint image of writing to still remain, the wish for erasure leaves the humanity of man within grasp of redemption.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the analogy of the pencil with the eraser is akin to the circumstances the Federal and Postal employee finds him/herself in:  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is a means to start anew, by “erasing” the career one could not complete, but allowing for continuation in the private sector, perhaps another vocation, a second career, or a means to engage an activity for productivity in another realm.

The wish for erasure has always been a part of human desire, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is the closest one may get to reclaiming that redemptive opportunity to engage a future yet untold.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Retirement for Disabled Federal Gov. Employees: Noted durations

Don’t you hate those “Apps” that reveal how much time you have taken to engage Activity-X or mindless-video-game-Y?

To engage in an aside for pure enjoyment’s sake is to get lost in the moment of leisure, to become engrossed and without a mind to time, problems of the world, circumstances of the present or the irrelevancy of one’s own station in life.  To read a book – perhaps of no great consequence, neither a “classic” nor a best seller of sorts; to push buttons in responding to a mindless video game; to have a silly electronic conversation with a spouse, a friend, a daughter or son aside from the seriousness of wisdom, guiding principles and life’s meaning couched in pointless meanderings without a compass of direction; and then we look down and realize that the cumulative duration expended has taken up a greater slice of our lives.

Now, that is irritating.  Yet, we cannot always and forever discipline ourselves to engage in the strict teleological essence of that which we are called to do or be.  Perhaps, in some former times when leisure was not yet an invented necessity, where finding basic necessities on a daily basis meant survival for that day or perishing in the pangs of growing hunger; or when our moments were occupied in service to a tyrant, a Lord or the King or Queen, whose very displeased nod could mean taking away one’s freedom and being banished into the dungeons of a rat-infested abyss where typhoid and other excrements of human dystopia ran rampaging through the horrors of a powerless populace; and of those times, people could with singular focus engage the toil of monotonous service without any mirth or joy but for a drunken state of euphoria here and there.

Do durations of time noted, in their aggregate, mean anything in the end?  If we have “wasted” such-and-such hours, or perhaps days and weeks that amount to a full year at the end of one’s life, does that mean that we have failed in our need to reach, to accomplish and complete the lifelong project of – what?  How many unmarked graves evidencing lives unrepentant for time wasted will be remembered for projects not completed?  We wait upon life, and life rewards by giving back silence.  We now have algorithms to show ourselves the extent of our wasted activities, and believe that we can improve ourselves by pointing out that which we stare at in wasting further time being anxious over noted durations that stand time still within the conscience of our own making.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who know the feeling of “waiting”, and have realized that noted durations mean that time has come to a standstill because of a chronic medical condition that simply will not go away, it may be time 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.

Time does, indeed, stand still, and noted durations serve to reveal to us that time wasted is time never recovered, and remaining in a constant state of fear because the medical condition has “angered” or otherwise irritated members of that “team” you once served in your former and healthy capacity, will never get “better” by staying put.  Noted durations are for those who want to remain in a perpetual state of inactivity, and for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who needs to move onward to the next stage of life, such noted durations only serve to hold us back from throwing off the shackles of conventional and normative lives that whisper not the brightness of tomorrow’s future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire