FERS Medical Retirement: The Dissolution of the Monasteries

One is puzzled as to why it is being read, why it continues to fascinate; and why continue to plod through a work comprised of 500+ pages with hundreds of footnotes and meticulously annotated and “sourced” — of life in 16th Century England as the religious monasteries will be dissolved under the mandate of King Henry VIII.  Perhaps it is because, in reading all of the minutiae of life in the 1500s, one realizes that it was a different world, no less alien than a spaceship from Mars or from some other solar system.

We live in a world which is the culmination of absurdity — of school shootings being an accepted part of our psyche; of an ever-growing explosion of teen depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders where psychotropic medication regimens have become the norm; and where all of the traditional institutions we once trusted and depended upon have failed us: The schools; the churches; the government; the local community.

Other worlds, other times; reading about an era centuries ago reminds us that change is inevitable; that history is never static; that there are trade-offs in every dimension of life.  One is struck by the limitations imposed upon a person’s life — where options in making a living were essentially predetermined, both by station and status upon birth, or by the restrictions of one’s abilities; that religious orders offered a vibrant accommodation for intellectual engagement and a steady, if somewhat limited, standard of living.

But times were changing; the monastic dissolution was just around the corner; and as this stupendous work annotates well, nothing is ever static.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are facing the dissolution of a career with the Federal Government or the U.S. Postal Service as a result of a chronic medical condition, consider the option of an OPM Medical Retirement.

For, like the dissolution of the Monasteries in 1540, when there was no other option but to accept the change, the Federal or Postal worker who must face the prospect of change because of a medical condition which is no less restrictive, at least an OPM Medical Retirement is an available option of last resort, when you are no longer able to perform one or more of the essential functions of your job.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of bypassing the potential dissolution of you job by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the FERS system.

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 Application: Dignity

What is it?  Is it something bestowed upon others, or that which is possessed by oneself?  Is it earned, or naturally and inherently born with?  Is there anything we must do in order to retain it, or will it always remain regardless of our action, inaction or irreverence towards it?

Is dignity a natural state of being, or is it like a cloak — the outer covering of ourselves, somewhat like the skin we live in — which can be lost over a period of misuse, abuse or neglect?  Can we apportion it, give part to someone else, have too much of it, or can it even be quantified?  Do we, in modernity, even care about preserving it, or do we just barrel through life nowadays without a care in the world?

What does it even mean, anymore, to say of someone, “He/she is a very dignified person”?  Or: “She carries herself with great dignity.”

Concepts and meanings change over time; read a play by Shakespeare without an “updated” modernization of the language used, and you will be constantly reading the footnotes to even understand the dialogue of that time.  Over time, the meaning of words evolve; “dignity” is a word rarely used in modernity, as the public display of countless indignities are exponentially multiplied on social media, where that lost concept is likely unrecoverable.

For Federal employees and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, maintaining one’s dignity in the face of a progressively debilitating medical condition is often fraught with futility.

Contact a Federal attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and see whether or not preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application under FERS, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may extend that age-old concept of both a dignified exit, as well as a future filled with an intact semblance of dignity defined.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement Application: Appropriateness

Wives insist upon it; youth ignore it; the old display it without thought because that is the way they were brought up.

Often, people don’t even know that there is such a thing as “appropriateness”, thinking in this age of modernity that anything and everything is acceptable.  It used to be that foul language was appropriate only in bars and Sunday get-togethers for football games; nowadays, we think its cute when a toddler emits long dissertations of 4-letter words like a dog vomiting following a feast of eating leftover scraps from the garbage bin.

If you say to your spouse, “I put the scissors away,” the appropriate response to expect might be, “Thank you”, or even, “Where?”  But as spouses always confound, instead, the question might be, “When did you put it away?”  Now, the excitement of marriage is that one’s spouse should always keep you on your toes, and the inappropriateness of the question is only a reflection of that, so long as the context is misunderstood.  For, the question, “When did you put it away” is a puzzling one, and mystery is the foundation of excitement when it comes to a marriage.

However, if you query back with: “Why did you ask that, as opposed to the appropriate counter-question, ‘Where did you put it away?’”  And the answer back: “Because I looked for it an hour ago and it wasn’t there.”  Context is important in appropriateness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS must be filed by necessity through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, appropriateness is a factor which always must be considered — the appropriate tone to convey; the appropriate case-laws to cite; the appropriate arguments to make, etc.  For, the cousin of appropriateness is “effectiveness”, and that is the goal to focus upon, unlike the spouse who asks the mysterious question of “when” as opposed to “where”.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Horror Tales

Whether of Edgar Allan Poe’s many tales, like The Tell-Tale Heart or The Black Cat, or perhaps a taste that extends to more modern versions, of the Stephen King genre, people like to scare themselves silly, and then to be able to declare, “It was just a story”.  Whether reality reflects fiction, or that fiction can never truly recreate and mirror the sins of our own existence is a debate that will perpetually persist.

The horrors of genocidal mankind — from the Roman era of stadiums filled to capacity to witness cruelty as entertainment, to the Holocaust and Pol Pot’s mass killing fields; to the machete-wielding genocidal killings in Rwanda between the Hutus and the Tutsis; there never seems to be a lack of horror stories, whether by creative imaginations or in the reality of a universe gone berserk.

We read about them; experience nightmares of a reality so steeped in absurdity that they awaken us with a cold sweat; and some few of us have lived them, whether in wars, by being innocent bystanders, or somehow corollary victims otherwise referred to as “collateral” damage.  Each one of us walk about with horror stories; some of insignificant vintage narratives; others, of consequential victimhood to such an extent that we disbelieve our ears or refuse to listen to the whole story.

Then, there are the daily horror stories; maybe they don’t count as such and few would even bother to listen — like Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition and where the medical condition is about to end the once-promising career that has suddenly hit the “pause” button and ceases its once-ever-trajectory towards an upward trend.  Medical conditions at any age are “horror” stories that are often kept secret, stuffed in envelopes of silent lips unopened, and festering in the suffering inner minds of zombie-like peoples walking amidst the turmoil of a world gone berserk.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to prepare, formulate and file 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, the horror stories one carries about may not quite meet the plot or characters of an Edgar Allan Poe tale, or a Stephen King twist; but for the individual who must live and suffer through the process of ending one’s career and fight for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, the tale of horror is nevertheless real, and consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law may well blunt the ending of a tale which is fated to otherwise end in a fit of screams and mayhem.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early OPM Retirement for Medical Incapacity: The many tomorrows yet to come

Does hope lie fallow when the basket of tomorrows become numbered too few?  When endless tomorrows lay before one’s imagination, too numerous to count that one need not bother, does that purport to show that one has a great quantity of hope, or merely that youth’s folly allows for a carefree tomorrow where an eternity of tomorrows can never be reduced to a handful beyond a few todays?  Can time and incremental portions of divided moments be quantified in that manner?

That has always been an anomaly for the undersigned writer — the quantification of time, as in the manner that religious beliefs are scoffed at when it comes to the story of genesis.  For, those who hold to the strict construction and literal meaning of the timeline of how old the earth is, count the obscure generational extensions of people who lived in former times, and somehow declare that the world is X-amount of years old.  How one can calculate with precision that which is not explicitly stated is a conundrum in and of itself, leaving aside the issue of whether time can be quantified if the order of the planetary system and our specific galactic orbit had not yet been established.

Evolutionists, of course, contend that the world was clearly created billions of years ago.  To both, the question is:  Tell me the logical difference between the following 2 statements — 1. The world was created a long time ago, and 2. The world was created billions of years ago.  Do humans have the capacity to imagine time beyond the present moment, or perhaps yesterday or a couple of days ago?  What does it mean to say to a person, “A type of human being walked the earth 10 million years ago”?  One can barely remember where one has placed the screwdriver used last week, and yet people want to put some significance upon a belief-system that purports to quantify time.

Ultimately, the question of whether one believes that the earth is a mere 10,000 years old, or billions of years in the making, is not a factual or scientific one; it is, a political condemnation that categorizes a person’s religious belief into a bifurcated system of: Is he/she “scientific” or “religious”?  In the end, time cannot be so easily quantified; rather, it is a basis of hope and an anticipation of a future yet to be resolved.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal and Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal position, time often becomes paralyzed, much like our imagined world of dinosaurs and prehistoric images of those Pleistocene eras and beyond; and as time is unable to be made meaningful except in the here and now — by imagining the many tomorrows yet to come — preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application that lets you project a life beyond the present-day circumstances of pain, medical conditions and deteriorating health, is the singular differentiating way that humans can separate themselves from other species: with hope.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability: Casting caution aside

Does it count if you didn’t mean it that way, but others perceive that you did?  If you do X but intend Y, but others think that your X was intended as X, is it still valid?  And how does validity work, here — is it only if you declare to the world what your intentions were in the first place, or if you smile slyly and keep your inner intentions a secret, does it still count as “valid”?

Isn’t that ultimately what we are afraid of when we act upon something — that someone will think one way and we want them to think another, or otherwise there is some lack of correspondence between truth and the thoughts within?

When we are casting caution aside and others warn us of our impetuosity, do we pause and care to “correct the record” because we worry about what others might think?  Isn’t that one of the underlying reasons why Federal and Postal workers fail to initiate the process 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?

We avoid that “tag” that everyone abhors — of a “malingerer” within the ranks.  Too much sick leave taken; not quite at the productive levels we once had a reputation for; excessive LWOP; constantly having appointments at the doctor’s office; and, suddenly, we believe that others are “staring” at us, judging us, whispering behind our backs.  Are they?  Or is it just my imagination running amok and creating a surreal universe of misperceived paranoia?

We become cautious, tentative, unsure of ourselves, wondering what our coworkers and supervisors are thinking.

Casting caution aside is not always an act of unthinking impetuosity or even of a gambler’s mindset. For, when a medical condition is involved, the only issue that matters is one of prioritizing one’s health, and preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application is often the best option available, and while others may consider the process as another pathway in casting caution aside, they simply do not know what you have endured, suffered and gone through before coming to such an important decision.

In the end, the universe of the subjective can never be judged by the mere appearances of the objective, and one’s opinion concerning the health of another cannot be valid without first experiencing the medical condition of the person suffering.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Was it all worth it?

It is that penultimate question – the one that has multiple cousins and unwanted siblings, illegitimate off-springs and uninvited guests, like:  What is the meaning of my life (refer to previous posts concerning Russell’s quip that such pedantic queries are often the result of indigestion)?  Did I do the right thing (such lines of interrogatories often emerge from a guilty conscience, so you might not want to ask that one)?  Did I spend enough time with my kids (almost always, “no”)?  Did I remain true to my marriage vows (sadly, according the statistical analysis, most people would have to answer in the negative)?  Have I behaved honorably throughout (it would depend upon the definition of the term, and of by-the-way, we tend to have private dictionaries defining words these days in a subjective, self-serving manner)?

“Was it all worth it” goes in so many directions, it is like the catch-all phrase or the “general aegis” over which all other questions and queries reside.  To whom?  By what measure?  In contrast to what other “it”?  And the more important one: Can we clarify and “flesh out” what the “it” refers to?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prompts a need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the interrogatory itself often means that the point of “worthiness” refers to the delay and loyalty shown by the suffering Federal or Postal employee before taking the next needed steps in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Often, to the detriment of the Federal Disability Retirement applicant, such a query means that you have already pushed yourself well beyond that which is actually for your own good, and while loyalty, faithfulness, hard work and such similar attributes are laudable and “example-setting” characteristics reflecting well upon the one who asks the question, the answer may be – at least from a medical perspective – formed in the negative.

For, isn’t part of the point in filing a Federal Disability Retirement application to do so before the medical condition gets to such a severe crisis point of deterioration so that there is actually a retirement to enjoy?

Remember that the standard of proof in obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement is not to reach a state of “total disability” (which is the standard in a Social Security case); rather, it is to show that the Federal or Postal employee cannot perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s position.

Thus, when you ask the question, “Was it all worth it?” – it is indeed important to know what the “it” refers to, both in the second word of the question as well as the fifth and last.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Casuistry and Sophistry

It is often used to described “applied” ethics — that branch of moral questioning which evaluates and analyzes an actual case, as opposed to a theoretical artifice constructed for purely pedagogic purposes, devoid of flesh and substantive import.  No longer constrained by the ivory tower of hypothetical unversality, and thus vacuous of feeling, real empathy and true relationships, casuistry naturally devolves into sophistry, where self-interested motives become ensconced.

Devolution denotes a denigration of sorts; such a statement is not deliberate in its alliterative force, but an antidotal utterance in contrast to the Dawinian consort of progressive genetic advancement; and it is precisely because self-interest betrays itself in such instances, by attempting to justify the very basis of its validity in a flawed methodological argumentation.

Sophistry, of course, connotes bad logic; moreover, it often implies a deliberate self-knowledge of utilization of such flawed rationale, despite “knowing better”, precisely because the debater wants to conceal the self-interested motive by engaging in a cover-up by effusive elongations of elaborate textiles of tactless show-boating housed in linguistic gymnastics of confounding conundrums.

Russell was good at this; Wittgenstein, better; and Heidegger the ever superior in concealment of his underlying Third Reich connections.  It is, indeed, difficult to demarcate the two; for it is casuistry which necessarily devolves into sophistry, and sophistry forming the foundational basis of casuistry; but as to which came first, the chicken or the egg, one can only guess at.

When self-interested motivations are involved, where justification of actions cannot be bifurcated from the involvement of the personal pronoun, the devolution of antagonism by self-preservation into anarchy for protective reasons will naturally follow.  Can an individual separate the underlying insinuation of self-interestedness from a discussion involving one’s self, if the outcome will impact the life, livelihood and living circumstances involved?  Perhaps.  But unlikely, and rare in its substantive occurrence.  For, the very conceptual constructs involved are oxymoronic at best, and blatantly self-contradictory, at worst.

To maintain integrity where self-interested motivations follow, and then to engage in valid logical argumentation devoid of a devolved sense of self, is a high price to pay, and a higher standard to bear.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must prepare, formulate and 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, this conundrum is indeed the flashpoint of being able to prepare such an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.  For, it is precisely the “self” which must be discussed, the “I” which by necessity be inserted, into the discussion of attempting to justify the nexus between one’s medical condition and the inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties.

In doing so, an expansive delineation must be posited on SF 3112A, where by a preponderance of the evidence, the Federal or Postal employee must prove the formulated connection between the medical condition and the inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of the job.  In doing so, take care to guard against a casuistic argument devolving into a sophistry of incalculable innuendo of self-interested flaws.  It is the hubris of man, as Shakespeare always reveals throughout his tragedies.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Insular Delusions

The advantages of holding one’s own counsel are multiple:  little internal strife; dictatorial rule; decision by fiat; complete control and dominance; no blame can accrue to others.  The downside, of course, are just as numerous:  no input from others; the limitation of new ideas, constrained by the perspective of one’s own thoughts and concerns; the fool’s impropriety of listening and following one’s own judgment; little to no brainstorming.

Judgement and decision-making by singular counsel has worked well in countries, corners and civilizations which respond subserviently to dominance and domineering.  But when the populace begins to realize that the emperor is not as wise as once thought (or declared by fiat to be by the dictates of the royal palace, issued in blaring tones and trumpeted daily in printed leaflets used by the peasantry for bookmarks and beddings), then the rumblings of a hunger beyond mere need and wants begins to pervade.

Insular delusions occur because the holding of one’s own counsel ultimately results in a circularity of logic and judgment, and unless new and fresh perspectives are allowed in, self-immolation is the resulting loss of vigor and vitality.  Further, when a deteriorating force begins to gnaw away, such as an unexpected medical condition, then sound judgment and rational perspectives give way to exaggerated and exponential quantification of fear and paranoia.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need 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, the decision-making process should always include counsel outside, above, beyond, and objectively-attained, in making decisions about one’s future and security from the ravages pending by one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Federal Disability Retirement is not just about securing one’s future; it is, moreover, a matter of establishing a capacity of reaffirming one’s potential in becoming employed, without penalty, beyond the Federal sector; of making sure that one’s accrued Federal time in-service is not for nothing; and to ensure that one’s rights have been protected in order to move forward into the future.

Insular delusions occur when an individual retains the sole counsel of one’s own accumulated wisdom; but as wisdom is not merely the aggregate of one’s own opinions and perspective, the delusions which follow are like the windmills of old where knighted grandeur resulted in the myth of Sisyphus, where the toil of rolling a boulder up the hill of agony left one depleted in the soul of the absurd.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Attorney: The Cauldron of One’s Past

The oversized iron pot hangs over the open fire, and the gurgling of ingredients steams and burps the lid in predictable sequences of rhythmic timing; the aroma is an admixture of sweet and mysterious combinations of one knows-not-what; perhaps of bones, marrow and herbs, here a whiff of something which touches upon the dark recesses of one’s memory, and there a hint of harboring horrors, reminding us of past deeds and loathsome reminiscences.

The figure who stands hunched over the source of pervading uprisings, is covered in a dark shawl; a bony hand gripping the large wooden ladle, mixing, turning, crouching over to sniff and taste; and from the chasm of the figure’s hollow mouth, toothless and echoing a chamber of snorting chafes, the sigh of satisfaction emits, as the cauldron of one’s past is ready to be served.  And so the story goes.

Who among us would want the fullness of one’s past and history of deeds to be revealed?  What pot would hold the full taste of one’s misdeeds, private concerns and actions engaged?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, the process itself sometimes feels like one is forced to partake of a witch’s brew — who will be in the mix?  What private information will have to be revealed?  When will the pot of information be ready?  Who will mix the ingredients?  The mysteries contained within the mixture of the witch’s brew is indeed terrifying.  Every process which is unknown and, moreover, unknowable, is one fraught with concerns and trepidation of purpose.

For Federal and Postal employees under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the decision to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is like the witch’s cauldron — it must bring to the fore one’s current circumstances (the medical condition), the impact upon the future (finances, future job prospects, etc.), and potentially the confrontation with one’s past (agencies love to do that).

The key is to understand the complexities of the administrative process, and to maneuver through the bureaucracy of the witch’s brew.  In doing that, one must always be cognizant of the cauldron of one’s past, and keep out of the reach and grasp of those bony fingers which reach out to encircle one’s throat, lest you become an ingredient in the admixture of the skeletons found at the bottom of the pot.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire