Federal Disability Retirement Law: Obstacles

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

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

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may be a necessity, and if so, two obstacles immediately come to the fore: First — the one you already know — is the medical condition itself, which impacts every aspects of your life and is becoming progressively debilitating, and Second: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, who looks at every Federal Disability Retirement application as a bank robbery which must be prevented.

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

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Yesterday’s sorrow

Yesterday’s sorrow may not be able to be put aside today, or even tomorrow; but yesterday’s sorrow may be today’s, or of the morrow if left unattended to.

Sorrow can take many forms; of the weight of anxiety and worry; of a traumatic event or occurrence; of news of a tragedy that touches one’s soul to the core; and if left unattended, or ignored or otherwise bifurcated, truncated or misplaced in the everyday hullabaloo of life’s travails that become lost in desiccated splices of yesterday’s memories, they can nevertheless remain with us in the subconscious arenas that become tomorrow’s paralysis.

Life is tough; loneliness in life becomes the daily routine of daily sorrow; and even when surrounded by family, so-called friends and acquaintances and even of spouse and children, the sense of being alone in the world can be overwhelming.  Who can understand, let alone sympathize, with one’s sorrows of yesterday when today’s trials cannot be conquered?  And who can fathom the contests yet to be met when we can barely handle the residue and crumbs of yesterday’s sorrow?

Yet, we all recognize that yesterday’s sorrow will be today’s shadow of haunting victuals, and even of tomorrows feast for beasts who prey upon the meals left unfinished; and yet we must persevere, with each day leaving some leftovers and allowing for the garbage heap to become more and more full, until one day the garbage we left in our lives spills over into a raging delirium of uncontrollable fright.

Yesterday’s sorrow is today’s mirror of what tomorrow may bring if left unreflected in the image of how we view ourselves.

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 duties, yesterday’s sorrows may be the medical conditions themselves which have become a chronic and unrelenting obstacles to today’s victory, and of the morrow’s fulfillment.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted ultimately to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may be the best course of action in attending to yesterday’s sorrows, lest they become today’s burden and tomorrow’s nightmare.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: The house next door

It is the one that follows the same comfortable convention for all these many years — of never knowing the intimate details; a wave of the hand every now and again; of fleeting appearances on various days, such as recycling, garbage and the occasional Saturday when the in-laws from out-of-state come to visit on Thanksgiving, or a birthday, or perhaps when a tragedy occurs and the sudden appearance in the driveway that is filled with cars never before seen.

The house next door, or across the street —the neighbor who you do not know, and somehow never got around to knowing, whether because they were latecomers or you were, and the “other” didn’t seem all that willing, friendly or “neighborly” to begin with, and so a settled truce became the daily routine that never altered, never became a problem, and forever became entrenched in the mundaneness of deliberate social avoidance.

We imagine what occurs in the house next door; or, perhaps not at all, except to complain when they’ve made too much noise, let their grass grow beyond the acceptable conventions of normative beliefs (or otherwise in violation of strict codes imposed by the “lawn police” of the local Home-Owner’s Association), or parked one of their cars in front of your house (yes, it is true — that street section in front of your house is actually not your property, and though it may be obnoxious, the house next door has every right to park the car on your side of the street, right in front of your house).

We never know what occurs to the house next door until one day we read about the tragedy in the pages of the obituary in the local paper.  There is a sadness in that very fact; or, perhaps that is the way we have set up this disinterested and alienated society?  Do we prefer to remain ignorant of the goings-on of the house next door?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition forces the preparation and filing of a 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, it often feels like living in the house next door — for, suddenly, you find yourself looking at familiar surroundings from across the street, or from beyond the fence that separates, and you begin to wonder whether you ever knew your neighbor, and what they are up to.

There is an alienation involved, and you must always remain suspicious as a “new” car is suddenly seen parked across the street, and the Supervisor or coworker seemed to be sharing information and gossiping with furtive eyes averted from your view; and yes, the Federal Agency or the Postal Service may be getting ready to initiate an adverse action of some sort — like the house next door that you never knew and now would rather not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement: Distant lights dimming

How can distant lights dim when they are mere specks upon a blanketed panorama of darkness?

One looks up at the stars and we are told, of course, that the sparkling tapestry may contain those which are already vanished, and what we “see”are merely the residue of a dead or dying star.  In a universe based upon a visual-centered arena, the reliance upon sight to establish facts and verify truth-statements cannot be avoided.

That was Berkeley’s problem, as well — and one which he deftly avoided by re-defining the definition of existence by tying it inextricably with “perception”, including visual, auditory and tactile means.  Much later, and after a series of devastating criticisms launched at the entirety of empiricist tendencies that some would counter artificially manufactured unnecessary philosophical problems (but isn’t that the “fun” of philosophy — to always be left with more problems to solve than the day before?) which haunts us to this very day, Wittgenstein came along and waved aside such conundrums by relegating all such issues to mere problems of linguistic confusion.

Thus was reality divorced from the language we use to describe the phenomena that surrounds us, leaving science left standing as the Last Man and the primacy of philosophy relegated to the dusty shelves of Medieval Times.  Distant lights dimming?  No more a problem than the campfire dilemma — for, do we say that because we cannot precisely pinpoint the demarcation between light and darkness at the periphery of a glowing campfire, that therefore no campfire exists at all?  Of course not!

It is thus not the result of the physical objectivity of the world around us that confuses, but the inadequacy of language that confounds.  Yet, as Man must communicate by means of language and operate effectively within the objective world, so the development of various “language games” must by necessity evolve into greater heights of absurdity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts upon the reality of the “objective” world — entrance and introduction into the binary universe of language games and the greater world at large must also, by necessity, come together in the form of preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application.

You have the medical condition; the medical condition is impacting your ability and capacity to continue in your present position as a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker.  Such a medical condition may necessitate filing for Federal Disability Retirement — but understand that submitting a “paper presentation” to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you as the Federal or Postal employee under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, requires an adequacy of language that must go beyond the reality of the medical condition itself.

And like the distant lights dimming, what actually “is” may be divorced from the language which must be carefully chosen and transcribed, lest such inadequacy fails to describe and delineate the reality of the medical condition from which you suffer.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Past wrongs obsessed over

We cognitively compartmentalize, despite the fact that life doesn’t quite work that way.  Yet, if we do not categorize, relegate by priority of issues, the mirroring of the objective universe in a parallelism of societal constructs can result in the same messiness that life itself reveals.  We certainly do not want to manage and operate a household in the same way that nature works – where events can suddenly dictate emergencies, and when life and death decisions sound alarms whenever predators lurk about.

Reaction to the immediacy of necessity is how nature must operate; such an approach, however, is not always the best way for the office worker, the architect or the laborer to engage the projects of the day.  Yet, life sometimes requires reactive discourse and engagements; we cannot always be contemplative, distant, removed from the concerns which the objective world imposes upon us.

What is the “middle ground” – that proverbial height of mediocrity which all men and women pride themselves for:  the center between the two extremes, the “compromise” position that reflects rationality and reason, where vice is never to be completely refused and virtue too alien a concept such that we relegate it to angels, madmen and those who have lost their souls for a celibate fantasy of isolation.

Then, of course, human beings have the strange capacity to obsess over past wrongs committed – either by ourselves upon others, but more likely of those which have been perpetrated upon ourselves.  Hurts and wrongs penetrated leave room for vengeance and premeditation; we are admonished and given the tools to forgive, but harboring carefully concealed slights is a delicious means of fantasizing upon wreaking revenge upon those we secretly abhor.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, part of the key to writing an effective SF 3112A – Applicant’s Statement of Disability – is to refrain from engaging past wrongs obsessed over.

Yes, the Agency or the U.S. Postal Service has “done you wrong”; yes, they have gotten away with this, that and the other things; and, yes, in a perfect world, the individuals involved and the entity perpetrating the wrongs should pay a price and justice should prevail.  But the messiness reflected in the objective world reflects an imperfect human pathology, and trying to attain a Platonic Form of Justice otherwise nonexistent, will not help you “move on” with your own life.

Better to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application and move on so that you can focus upon your health and future, than to constantly become entrenched in past wrongs obsessed over; for, in the end, the smile of self-satisfaction should be when one’s OPM Disability Retirement application is approved, and you can wave goodbye to the messy cauldron of human detritus you are leaving behind.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement: A Return to Basics

Every few decades, there is a “new” movement which upholds the divinity of returning to the foundational core of one’s existence:  of going back to being a farmer; living a life of an ascetic; stripping away all “unnecessary” accretions and accoutrements deemed as vestries of comfort and “bourgeois” by definition (whatever that means); or, in common parlance and language more amenable to the ordinary person, living more “simply”.

The perspective that such a “movement” is somehow “new” is of itself rather an anomaly; but then, each generation believes that they have discovered and invented the proverbial wheel, and all such past epochs were mere ages of primitive imbecility.   And, perhaps, we are once more in that familiar circle of life, and such a movement has beset the quietude of modernity, again.  As such, let us return to the basics:

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the Federal or Postal employee may need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the “foundational” eligibility criteria needs to be met:  For those under FERS (Federal Employees Retirement System — or the “new” system sometime around 1986 and thereafter), the Federal or Postal employee must have a minimum of 18 months of Federal Service in order to apply.  For those under CSRS, the accrual time is 5 years — and, as such, anyone under CSRS would presumably have met that basic requirement, although a CSRS employee with a long “break in service” could potentially fall short, but that would involve a unique set of circumstances rarely seen.

Further, the Federal or Postal employee who sets about to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits must either be (A) a current employee (in which case he or she would file first through the agency’s Human Resource Office, then to be forwarded to OPM, (B) if not a current employee, then separated from service not more than 1 year (as the Statute of Limitations in filing for Federal Disability Retirement requires that a former Federal or Postal employee file directly with OPM within 1 year of being separated from service), (C) if separated from the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, but not for more than 31 days, then to file with one’s former Agency, and (D) if separated for more than 31 days, but less than 1 year, then refer to (B) and file directly with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in Boyers, Pennsylvania.

These are some of the “basics” in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  There is much, much more to the entire process, but then again, if one were to expand too far astray from the foundational core of the “back to basics” movement, one would be a hypocrite for allowing the complications of life to accrue beyond the essential elements of life — of water, food and shelter or, for the Federal and Postal employee filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the bridge between one’s position and the medical conditions one suffers from.  Go figure.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement Law: The Carousels of Summer

The mounts littered throughout the roundabout can be diverse and captivating; in the swirl of the rotating platform, the child in us wants to sit upon every creature, from unicorns to zebras, the traditional horse and the mythological creatures of one’s limitless imagination.

As we grow older, we come to realize that the spinning sensation itself remains static; the difference between climbing into the bosom of one creature as opposed to another, is indistinct and ultimately irrelevant; when one’s childlike imagination and excitement wrought in ignorance of the cruel world becomes extinguished, the fun of being naive and clueless is no longer an option.  Cynicism comes with maturity; the older we get, the less likely are we to allow ourselves to travel into the realm of the unreal.  Life tends to do that to us.

The road of hard knocks is littered with tales of turmoil and turbulence; storms come and go, and while the devastation left behind can be somewhat repaired, the psyche and soul of damaged people can rarely be glued back together, as fragile porcelain leaving behind fissures wide and gaping as the childlike wonderment we once knew.

Federal and Postal employees know the experiences of life:  the internal battles, the power struggles and the herd-like mentality of agencies and departments.  Then, when a medical condition hits, and the Federal or Postal employee is no longer the golden-boy of past cliques, one is cast aside like the child who is left outside of the teams picked in linear sequence, until the silence of being ignored becomes a reality as shame and embarrassment shouts in muted suffering.  Sometimes, the wisest move is to move on.

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, is the best and only option remaining.  To attempt to stay is like the biblical admonition of “kicking against the goads“; to walk away and do nothing is merely to spite one’s self; and so the Federal or Postal employee who has a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, should always opt for the best remaining alternative.

To prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is ultimately not an admission of defeat.  Rather, it is to enliven that imagination once grasped, but since forgotten; of the child who discovered that changing from the seat of a dragon on a carousel to the bosom of a resplendent unicorn makes all the difference not in the change itself, but within the comfort of the limitless imagination of one’s mind.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire