Federal Disability Attorney Help: Compartmentalizing

Human beings have a unique talent in performing such mental gymnastics; of placing certain issues in a psychological box for later reference; of limiting time and thought, bifurcating different hats to wear, variegated umbrellas to open up, etc.

It is often said that gender plays a role in this methodology of thought, and that the female species is less adaptable in performing such mental activities of compartmentalizing; but one can never be certain.  There are more than a good share of men who are unable to compartmentalize, and an even greater share of women who can.

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 one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the art of compartmentalizing one’s life becomes impossible, because medical conditions are the one unique variant which prevents such mental gymnastics.

Medical conditions pervade and overwhelm; because of their impact, it cannot easily be “boxed up” or placed in a special drawer for later reference.  Rather, it is an insidious, indiscriminate purveyor of pain, grief and turmoil which refuses to be bifurcated or categorized.

When this becomes evident to the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from the “un-box-able” entity which refuses compartmentalization, contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in this field of law known as Federal Disability Retirement, and allow that disability attorney to be the one who takes the process of Federal Disability Retirement Law and compartmentalizes it for the proper and efficient preparation, formulating and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 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 Medical Retirement: To Begin With…

Every endeavor begins with that.  Go to a class, a seminar, a “How to” video, and while the words may vary in form, the basic content of each must by necessity introduce the newcomer with, “To begin with, you must take the …”.

We are all beginners at some point in our lives; then, when a project, activity or some form of vocation begins to become “second nature”, we forget that we once struggled with the assignment, felt lost in the complexities of the endeavor and often sensed that competence in the field would never come about.  There is often that “aha!” moment which we have long forgotten, where the transcendence from ignorance to knowledge occurs in a subtle, almost imperceptible manner, and when that happens, we take on the amnesiac’s role of those first words, “To begin with…”

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, it is important to understand that the laws governing Federal Disability Retirement begins with some initial but crucial steps in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Don’t be intimidated by the complexities inherent in the bureaucratic morass involved; rather, consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, and start with the admonition that all such complexities must begin with: “To Begin with…”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Federal OPM Disability Attorney

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Pure fun

Are we the only species who does that?  Do other species engage in the sheer pleasure of its purity, without regard to any instructional end or substantive gain resulting therefrom?

Of course, anthropomorphism often presides when issues of interpretive psychology is involved; and thus do we say when the lioness and her cubs are engaging in playful wrestling, that she is “teaching” them how to interact within acceptable boundaries; or when dogs race around with abandonment, that they are letting go their pent-up energy, etc.

Whether with purposive resolve or not, the purity of engaging in pleasurable activities is a necessary component of life; it is for those pleasurable moments, however few, far-between and of whatever nature, for which the remainder of human drudgery becomes worthwhile to endure.  The ratio between “work” and “pleasure” may be different for each individual — i.e., for some, it may be an acceptable threshold to maintain a balance between 80% work and 20% pleasure; or, perhaps, of 2% versus 98%, or thereabouts.

When the recipe bifurcating the two goes askew — where leisurely activities without seemingly purposive intent outweighs one over the other, we then begin to suspect and allege hedonism, wastefulness and wanton loss of self-worth.  Why is that?  Can one not have pure fun each and every day, for every waking moment, without being looked down upon with judgmental eyes of damning disdain?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the question of a ratio between “work” and “pleasure” has already been resolved and answered: For, with a medical condition, there is no acceptable level of balance between the two.

Medical conditions by their very definition conflate and confuse the two; no longer is it possible to escape the vicious cycle of work-and-no-pleasure, precisely because the pain of the medical condition disrupts both.

When that threshold of balance between work and leisure becomes so out-of-whack that life’s pleasurable moments, however small and limited, can no longer be enjoyed, then it is time to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, so that the ratio between work and play can be regained to the extent that “pure fun” can attain its semblance of purity, and where “fun” can again be enjoyed without the interruption of life’s drudgery.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Retirement for Federal Workers with Disabilities: Progress

Whether as a noun or a verb, the definition remains a mirror-image of one another.  Moreover, it is the implication that always makes one pause — of a juggernaut forward, always advancing, and where societal norms and interpretations forever seem to cast a judgment upon the lack thereof.

In other societies, the status quo or clinging on to traditions, what has “always been”, or even just to maintain a semblance of what was done yesterday, is enough and sufficient for contentment and happiness.  Here, in modernity, “progress” is always about the new, the innovative, and yesterday’s accolades are merely today’s lesser applause.

Progress as a noun indicates a noticeable jump in comparison to today, and a quantum leap by standards of yesterday; and as a verb, it is the action of always advancing, like an army that never sleeps and a navy whose ships never cease amidst the waves of twilight engines churning ever forward.  Are we never allowed to rest for a moment?  Do vacations count, or naps to refresh and recollect our thoughts?

Modern life is always seemingly one of movement with never an allowance for reflection as to whether the direction we are moving towards is the right one, leaving aside whether we even desire to be drawn within the compass of spectrums undecided.

And what about a chronic medical condition — when it develops, arises and begins to impede, do we look upon it merely as a nuisance as opposed to a priority, and is it because it blocks this pathway of the mythology that “progress” must always be maintained?  Do others see it as an impediment, as well, where “slowing down” the team means that you must be sacrificed and cast aside, left behind like so much human detritus no longer of value or worth?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the disabling medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job and position, it is often this ingrained sense of “progress” (or lack thereof) that begins to insidiously overwhelm.  For, we in the West have a warped sense of time, value, priorities and perspectives when it comes to what constitutes and reflects progress.

Preparing a Federal Disability Retirement can be viewed as a form of “progress”, if only because it allows for a different turn, another option and a perspective taken in another form of what it means to “progress” (emphasis on the last syllable).

Sometimes in life, one’s priorities have to be evaluated and reconstituted; just “moving forward” is not necessarily progress for everyone at all times, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application when everyone else seems to be leaving you behind may merely indicate progress away from the pack of lies that you have been fed throughout your life, that mere movement means that you are going anywhere, and the needle of the compass tells of which direction.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: The charade

We have all enjoyed playing the game – of the silent act in order for our team to come up with the name of the book, a famous saying, identification of a country or place; and with some inebriation as a helpful assistant to even greater pathways of outrageous laughter, the game is enjoyed in homes and neighborhoods when gatherings aggregate in times of holidays or special occasions.

It is the silent opera for the actor; the guessing laughter and thoughtful pose for the other members of one’s team.  How did that game come about?  Is it because games reflect a reality of a slice of life?  It reminds one of the “perfect lie” – you know, the one that always retains a kernel of truth, and thus is believable.

The imperfect lie is the one that is made up out of whole cloth – the one’s that a kid who is not yet a master of the believable lie tells to the parents, thinking that a make-believe world is distinguishable from the objective universe of reality, but that you can simply insert an imaginary event into the day-to-day workings of this parallel universe.

No, the perfect lie is like the charade of life – it is acting, but always retaining and containing a slice of reality and truth.  And of other games – of monopoly, cross-word puzzles, trivial pursuit, etc.; are they merely distractions to escape the harshness of life, or do they contain a sufficient amount of that slice to make it all the more interesting?

And of the charade of life – to what extent do we engage it daily, and if someone catches you in the act, can you simply respond with, “Well, I will just playing charades with you all.”  To which the audience (or the police) might say, “But no one else was playing, and you have no team.”  To which the Shakespearean actor would say, “Ah, but all the world is a stage!”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it often seems like you have been playing at the game of charades for quite some time.  The only problem is, your own “team members” haven’t been trying to guess at what is wrong, but rather, have been trying to ignore or otherwise act as if they don’t know.  Or, perhaps you, too, have been trying to hide the medical condition, in somewhat of a “reverse charades play”.

But the time ultimately comes, where you have to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  At that point, the game of charades is over – for you have been finally realized and recognized as “the man who is filing for Federal Disability Retirement” and the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition.

Yes, real life is a reflection of the games we play, and charades is truly a mirror of who we are.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The legacy

It is something that we leave behind.  Yet, unlike a wallet, a watch, a piece of jewelry or a troublesome child better left forgotten, we don’t have an opportunity to go back and get it.  We say of that laundry list, “Oh, I need to go back and get it” (except maybe of the last in the list, whom we hope will be adopted into a kindly family and simultaneously also leave the parents behind); but not of the legacy.

No one ever says of that, “Oh, I left my legacy behind, and I need to go back and get it.”  Instead, it is intimately bound up with mortality, our sense of the future minus our own presence, and a dominant desire and urge to “leave a legacy” behind, as if to do otherwise will diminish the memory of one who has now departed, will soon be forgotten and will populate the mass of unknown graves without tombstones littering the earth beneath ivy and weeds that overwhelm.

It is often money itself, which is soon spent and forgotten; or a special “something” that one remembers another by, which is placed in a drawer and also quickly, easily and without conscience soon forgotten; or, perhaps a more lasting imprint of some residual effect – a poem, an antique car (otherwise referred to as a “junk heap”), or the family farm.

Whatever the legacy left leaving lasting latitudes of lost loneliness lacking love’s longing for lengthy locutions (sorry for the alliteration, but it cannot be helped), it is something that is left behind, cannot ever be retrieved, and may or may not have a lasting impact upon the person or groups of people for whom it is intended.

Then, one can stretch the meaning to include a more modern interpretation of the concept of a legacy – of one’s own.  That is a paradigm of a “legacy” in the more common usage – of a memory of one’s life, of what kind of a legacy will one leave that will be remembers by others – that you worked yourself to death and didn’t spend the time with your kids (refer to the above, first sentence herein, where that may be a blessing), your wife or friends?  What is the point of an empty legacy of that sort?

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who begins to think of one’s life, health, future and legacy, especially because a medical condition has begun to impact one’s ability and capacity to continue in the Federal or Postal career of one’s choice, the consideration of preparing, formulating and filing 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, is often and intimately tied and bound to the fragile nature of a medical condition and its impact upon one’s life.

Struggling daily with a medical condition while trying to contend with a contentious Federal Agency or Postal Facility is not only “not fun” – it is, moreover, a futile exercise that diminishes the legacy of one’s life as a greater whole.

The “legacy” one leaves behind, indeed, is not like a wallet, a watch, or a piece of jewelry; but it is like a child left behind, where regrets for the future may yet be corrected, and for the Federal or Postal employee who needs to focus upon one’s health and future orientation that can no longer include the current job one occupies, preparation of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to OPM, may be the next best thing to a legacy yet to be considered.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Mastery of Life

It is what we all strive for; as depicted in cult followings and media outlets, it is a state of representation attained through travels to the Himalayas, or after years of struggling in a Zen monastery (and engaging in Tai chi battles with inept masked ninjas) and gaining unexplainable enlightenment (why couldn’t the same happen in the living room of one’s own home?).  The truth is, the mastery of life is merely a mundane affair.

It is where one finds a rhythm within the daily obstacles of life, when recognition of distinguishing between a real “crisis” and an irritating problem is quickly resolved; and how bumbling through problems encountered in youth is replaced by smooth sailing with unruffled feathers in meeting obligations, confronting difficulties and engaging the monotony of daily living.

In the West, just when such a state of quietude is reached, society discards it all and favors youth over the aging, incompetence over experience, and slow but steady progress over fresh “new ideas” (which never are, but the discovery of which young people think they have been the first to encounter, as if the wheel on one’s car is an invention recently revealed).  This disregard and (ultimately) disrespect is magnified when a person is beset with a medical condition — precisely because being hit with a medical condition mirrors how treatment of the aged facilitates, but only at an exponentially quickened pace.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical conditions, such that the medical condition begins to impact the performance of one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties within the Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, this phenomena becomes a daily occurrence.

For years, we accumulate and derive the experience of plenitude and glean through trial and error, attaining a state of wisdom aggregated within the confines of one’s skull, with a loci traveling from home to desk, then back home again.  When a medical condition impacts the Federal or Postal employee, one would think that a race would be on to preserve that body of knowledge, to contain it (as in futuristic movies) with aldehyde fixation in gentrified forms of cryonics in order to reserve unseen answers to unforeseen circumstances, all for the benefit of the “mission of the agency“.  But no — that is not what occurs.  Instead, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts one or more of the essential elements of one’s job (but normally not all), the tired routine is of commonplace doldrums of ineptitude and incompetence:  “get the bum out”.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, and further suffers the fool resulting from that medical condition, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the best avenue away from the madness of disregard.  But, then, perhaps we all have it wrong; perhaps filing for Medical Retirement through OPM shows and reveals that “mastery of life” we all seek, like the Shaolin Monk of yore who sought enlightenment elsewhere, and attained it within.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Life’s Work

There is, then, the job or career we undertake (the distinction between the two is often lost, and depends in large part upon a multiplicity of factors, including length of commitment, opportunity within a given field for growth and advancement; whether any qualifications, certifications or professional degrees are required, etc.); and then, the conditions and context of participating in a greater culture of our choosing, including where we live, with whom we live, what social circles we expand into; as well as how we interact with the extended community surrounding us, and whether we even decide to abide by the rules, laws and limitations imposed by society.

The former constitutes the work we engage during our lifetimes; the latter, the macro-aspect of the work generally confronted during a lifetime.  We often confuse the two.  The conundrum and internal turmoil comes about because so much of the latter often depends upon the success of the former.  Without the wealth amassed through the work of labor, we become limited in the choices we have in the work of living; thus do some choose a life of crime or cheating, as a means of shortcutting and supplementing the former for the latter.  And when the work of labor is cut short, or somehow interrupted, one realizes the impact upon the greater work of life, and must adjust accordingly.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s work or career, the choice to leave the Federal sector is a difficult one, and not just because of the financial considerations which reverberate upon the greater work of living.  Often, the choice to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is paused for reflection, procrastination and further delay, because the two concentric circles of life have overlapped to such an exponential degree that one cannot easily be bifurcated from the other.

One’s work of labor involved the social circle; it intersected with the greater percentage of daily living; the meaning and teleological motivation was commingled; even some of the neighbors work in the same neighborhood, just down the street, in our town (yes, it is an unabashed reference to Thornton Wilder’s famous play), or perhaps even next door; so, how can I face a change from the work of labor, without confronting the greater vicissitude in the work of life? But then, there is that medical condition, and it is always the interrupting reality of the medical condition which must, by necessity, be focused upon.

Better to make decisions now, when one has the option to do so concerning the work of labor, lest the limitations are imposed by others, which then can have irreparable consequential reverberations upon the greater work of living.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement and the Price of Loyalty

Salinger’s character, Holden Caulfield, recognized the influence of movies, and the media in general.  When used as a tool for political purposes, they mold and direct the issues to be discussed, the pathways of thoughts to be taken, and the passions to be experienced.

Though we think we are libertarians within the secluded confines of our own minds, what actually occurs is that we fail to recognize the subtle influences of those forces which we rely upon so much for our daily focus and guidance.  Where did we learn such high-minded concepts such as “loyalty“, “commitment” and “dedication”?  And who taught us to apply such vaunted paradigms upon the stereotypes of our lives?

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, often the one stop-gap measure preventing the Federal or Postal employee from taking the necessary and pragmatic steps in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is in clinging to a false sense of misdirected loyalty.

Loyalty requires a bilateralism which simply does not exist, or exists so rarely as to be inconsequential, but which pervades with Federal and Postal Workers under the guise of “mission of the agency”.  Such false pretentiousness (and pretending) quickly dissipates when that mission of the agency becomes a proposal to remove based upon the mission’s “other” sidebar — for the “efficiency” of the service — and then it becomes an emergency and a time of enlightenment.

Throughout all of those years, loyalty was lauded, but existed as a one-way street — from the Federal employee to the Federal agency, and not the other way around.  But when a medical condition hits, it is of paramount importance to focus upon the singular entity of significance:  the health and well-being of one’s self.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may be one of those necessary steps required as part of that process of self-care, and one should be wary of paying too high a price for that overinflated commodity listed under the category of “L”, which also includes “Lies” and “Lip-service”, as well as “Loyalty”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire