Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Disability Retirement Benefits: Preservation

The pendulum of history swings between the two concepts — the other being one of replacement, embracing that which is new and discarding the old.

Preservation involves the decision and act of keeping and maintaining the old.  Most of what is old are replaced and discarded; for, that which is old is often in a state of disrepair, dilapidated and not worthy of upkeep or preservation.

Sentimentality, of course, is often involved — of keeping something merely because it has remained with us for quite a bit of time, or refusing to let go of a past even when that past embraced ugliness and embarrassing antiquities of outdated conceptual constructs.

Preservation can, too, involve human beings — of wanting to safeguard relationships, mementoes, memories, etc., and even careers.  Can a career be “preserved”?  How about employee benefits?

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 all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, preservation of one’s rights, benefits and future security is a crucial necessity going forward with one’s life involving the debilitating medical condition incurred and suffered.

Contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Law and consider the benefit of preserving the salvageable benefits you have worked so hard for, and deserve to preserve.

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: Troubled Life

Is it a redundancy and a tautology to put the two words together?  For, one may assume that every life is “troubled”, and everything in the universe that is troubled involves a “life”.  So, if one concept necessarily entails another, why do we even have to bother to explicitly point out the co-dependent concept?  Thus would one say if you hear the word, “Life”.  Oh, then it must be troubled.  Or, if you heard someone mention that there was “trouble” in such and such a place, you would merely add, “Oh, yes, there must be a live person there, then.”

Of course, one could argue that the reason why we must clarify one concept with another is because (A) A different and separate concept can also be attached to the other word and (B) It is not necessarily so that an if-then conditional exists — meaning thereby that there are, arguably, “untroubled” lives as well, as least for brief moments in the life of an individual.  As one pastor was heard to say long ago, however: “Where there are people, there are problems.”  True enough.

To live a life for any length of time is by necessity to encounter problems and troubles; for, that is the nature of human existence.

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, “trouble” becomes exponentially pronounced because of the impact upon one’s life that a medical condition necessarily brings.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, of course, can often mitigate the trouble and help one live a life that is less troubled, by allowing the Federal or Postal employee to focus more upon one’s health and less upon the adversarial nature and friction which arises from one’s inability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Attorney to discuss the possibility of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, and see whether or not “trouble” does not necessarily have to entail “life”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Government Employee Medical Retirement: Charting a Course

Will such a need vanish because of our dependence upon technology?

The concept itself is becoming stranger by the minute; for, there are GPS mechanisms which perform all such work for us.  We need no longer “chart a course”, because we merely have to input the information and the technology does it for us.  But does dependence upon technology interfere with the skills needed for development in a world which sometimes encounters error and break-downs?

Certainly, cars and other gadgets have become too complex for us to tinker with on a Saturday afternoon.  Have you recently looked under the hood of a new car?  Where do you even begin?

Children of modernity can’t even find their way home without relying upon a GPS system, leaving aside trying to even change the oil on a car.  “Charting a Course” is likely an outdated system, as well.

But for Federal and Postal employees who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement, charting the correct course in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS is a crucial first step.  For, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is in existence to try and derail the charted course, and that is why consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is an important first step in charting a course which will lead to a successful result.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Typical Day

For some, it is a monotonous conversation which can be engaged in while being on mental autopilot: “How was your day?”  “Good.  Just another typical day.  And yours?”  “The same.”

It is that repetitive pablum of pointless conversations engaged in throughout households the world over — pointless, but necessary, in order to establish the comfort of monotony, which is what we all seek; we just don’t know it.  We think we desire excitement — though not too much of it; or of an atypical day — so long as we can rely upon a typical day following; or perhaps, for some, of a fresh relationship — so long as it does not infringe upon the ones we already have.

The “typical day” is one which is challenging — but not so much that we cannot meet the challenge; a day which may have some surprises — but not ones we could not have predicted; and, perhaps, a day which can be talked about without reverting back to the pablum of autopilot — so long as we can relax and not put too much energy into the conversation of the day.

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, there is no such thing as a “typical day”.  Each day is fraught with pain, anguish, unpredictable behavior on the part of supervisors and coworkers; unending harassment from one’s own agency; and the fear of a future yet to be decided.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin to consider whether or not Federal Disability Retirement might return you from the atypical days of today, to those boring, typical days you once knew.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Attorney

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Systematic Preparation

Can a project be well-prepared if there is no “system” in place?  Do we trust, for example, a construction firm who goes about their business without a blueprint?  If you ask of the firm, “Well, can we see some examples?” or “Can you provide a rendition of what kind of a house you plan on building?” — what would you think if the answer came back with: “Oh, don’t worry, it will have a roof, a couple of bedrooms and a kitchen.” Is that a satisfactory answer? Or, would you want to see that a firm foundation is first built, and that a systematic methodology of preparing, then initiating the building project will proceed in accordance with a previously agreed-upon blueprint of the archetype of the product proposed?

To that end, shouldn’t you be able to speak to the lead architect, at some point, and not merely be sloughed off to salesmen, administrative support staff and other office workers who may be very helpful, but are not the ones who will “head” the project?

Similarly, if you call a law firm, shouldn’t you be speaking with the lawyer him/herself, instead of a secretary, paralegal or some other “disability specialist” whom you believe you are hiring, but you never seem to get a hold of?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition has come to a point where it/they prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the necessity in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is often an option which is unavoidable.  That being said, do you want to proceed down the administratively complex process of Federal Disability Retirement without a systematized methodology of preparation?

Consulting with an attorney who specializes in obtaining Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a good first step in gaining a blueprint on how to proceed; just be careful that you don’t hire a law firm that merely has all of its “underlings” do the important work of the systematic preparation, and moreover, it is important to inquire as to what kind of approach the attorney has in moving forward to win a Federal Disability Retirement benefit, for you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Persuasion

What does it mean to “persuade”?  Is it an outcome-based event?  Can one be “persuasive”, yet never persuade anyone to act upon a commitment made, perhaps verbally or with a nod of the head?  What of a person who everyone agrees makes the most persuasive arguments, turns everyone’s heads with accolades of “wow” and “boy!”, yet no one can find a single person who has been persuaded to change one’s mind or follow?

How about in battle – of that skinny little runt of a captain who nervously spoke, but who charged the troops up with great words and ideas and said, “Let’s go!”  But no one really was convinced to follow him because of his diminutive appearance and lack-of-self-confidence demeanor.  Contrast that to the big, hulking leader who never spoke much but, when he said something, people believed and followed him to the death – it wasn’t words that persuaded, but his very air of reliance, dependability and self-assurance of being right.

Thus, does “being persuasive” always have to do with logical thought processes, relationships between words, ideas and the reality of being – or, can it also include one’s tonality of voice, air of confidence and seeming self-righteousness?  Can one be persuaded by fear alone, or must there be a conceptual connection – a “belief” in something – that must accompany in order to be validly persuaded?

Can an army that is comprised of a loose connection of mercenaries persuaded only by money, looting potential and promises of riches be as fearsome (or more so) than one that believes in a “cause”, is rooted in discipline and love of country?  At what point does persuasion even come into play?  In other words, can a person be completely unpersuaded throughout the course of an argument, say, and then at the very end declare, “Okay, I’m convinced”, when no part of the final five minutes of the argument contained any basis for such a change of mind?  Is “being persuaded” merely a logical connection of rational argumentation, or is there some emotional element mixed therein?

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, the question of persuasion is an important one.

First, the Federal and Postal employee must be persuaded that filing for Federal Disability Retirement is a necessary next step.  Then, doctors must be persuaded to be supportive.  Further, legal and medical documentation must be provided which must contain persuasive evidence.  And finally, the evidence submitted must be compelling enough to persuade the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Thus, whether fully logical, or containing some elements of the emotional, persuasion is an essential component of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Imprisoned souls

Do we immediately know of the figurative sense of such a concept?  As the Medieval times of dark, dank and dire dungeons no longer house the tortured detritus of human excrement cast aside upon the nod of displeasure noted by a King, a Prince or a scorned Court of Royal Courtier, so the immediate presumption is that such a term must encompass some cognitive obstacle or encircling of a mind otherwise in agony.  And what of the second term in the concept – does it denote something separate and apart from the whole of a human figure – that essence of a person that tells us that there is something beyond an amalgamation of neurotransmitters and physical presence such that the entity is distinguishable from an amoeba, a flower or those closest of cousins, the chimpanzee?

When a person is looked upon with empathetic concern, is it the image of the individual that gives rise to the sensitivity, or the soul that is embattled within the confines of the exoskeleton that defines the profile like the shadow of an image one sees of a person standing against the lamplight in the dark of night?

When a scream is emitted from the depths of a human uttering, of the physical intonation and shrill cries reverberating through the caverns of a mouth widened in anguished turmoil, do we reach out to provide comfort merely to the physical shape and form of a human being because we can relate to an entity so closely recognizable as that which is reflected in the mirror of our daily lives, or is there that “something” which theologians continue to haunt us with, that transcends the superficial appearance of sense impressions that is discussed from ages foregone, from Plato’s Forms that constitute the “real” reality beyond the appearance of things, and the clinically antiseptic explanations of Hume’s Empiricism that provides a foundation of separation and divide that laid the groundwork for the future of Existentialism a century or more hence?

We are, all, in a general sense, imprisoned souls anguishing in the turmoil of daily angst, but for the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who must also contend with a medical condition, such that the medical condition is about to cut short a promising career, the future is often viewed from a bleak perspective, and the daily harassment from Supervisors and Managers only exacerbates the troubled lives we must all manipulate and maneuver through.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is not an easy process; it may be, however, the only option left and available for the Federal or Postal worker who can no longer perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.

In that sense, the Federal or Postal worker who is left with the best option available – of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM – is considered an imprisoned soul, for it is not only the medical condition that impacts upon the choices left in life’s trials and challenges, but the constraints and curtailments one self-imposes by agonizing over one’s future as he or she steps forward in trying to maneuver through a complex administrative process.

How to free one’s self?  By simply acting; by moving forward, even if the future is somewhat unknown and uncertain; for, in the end, it is movement itself that distinguishes the difference between life, imprisoned souls, and deadened entities that merely survive.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire