Federal Disability Retirement: The “Get-Through” Day

Everyone recognizes that Mondays are such a day — of a “get-through” day: Of survival; attending to each issue or problem without freaking out completely; of knowing that the day will be relentless, but that an end will also arrive, with hopes that minimization of residuals into the next day will allow for a better tomorrow.

The world has become, in many ways, more complex, of greater difficulties, encompassing a morass of problems to be solved.  It has become more difficult for many to “make a living”.  Once, a few generations ago, a single-income household could support a fairly comfortable living.  Today, a dual-income household is a necessity, and even that is often insufficient to attain the minimal accouterments of middle-class living.

Is it because more “stuff” is required?  All of those electronic devices and mechanical necessities — are we tacking on greater expenses in an endless cycle of consumption?

And so the Monday may pass, but it is when that “get-through” day becomes an endless summation of days after days after days such that the weekend merely becomes a short respite in order to recuperate for the next round of endless “get-through” days — when that happens, it may be time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

The human body — and mind — can only withstand a certain level of stress and turmoil, and when life become a mere haberdashery of endless get-through days where each get-through day cannot anymore be gotten-through, then it is time for a change.  For Federal Government employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who can no longer get through another “get-through” day, consideration should be given to Federal Disability Retirement.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Employee Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not you can continue to get through anymore “get-through” days, when each day has become an unending cycle of such days where you can no longer get through them.

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 Law: Unknown and Forgotten

Most people are unknown, but not necessarily forgotten — at least not to spouses, parents, children and other relations.  Many were “known” but today forgotten; few, known and remembered (which is presumably the antonym of “forgotten”).

In this modern age of media frenzy, where it is apparently important to be recognized, to count the number of “followers”, to achieve a love of fame where the volume of “likes” is announced, and of course the ultimate crown of glory — to have one’s “whatever” go “viral”.

Yet, despite the lack of achievement of most individuals, the fact remains that, statistically, most of us will remain in the category of “unknown and forgotten” — of a status where no great achievement was recognized and, by the sheer reality of relatives and relations dying, our identities result in the category of the forgotten.

We play games with ourselves where we try and imagine what it will be like after our absence, but such an imaginative prelude to the reality of our non-existence is an exercise in absurdity.

Perhaps that is why even Federal or Postal employees who suffer from chronic medical conditions still continue to desperately hang on to what is left of their careers — despite the onset of chronic medical conditions which prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of his or her job; because, the fear of becoming unknown and forgotten is greater than the pain of leaving.  But in the end, there is nothing worthwhile in clinging to a phantom of the opera we choose to play.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and enjoy a retirement which allows you to focus on priorities, like your own health, and not become embroiled in today’s values of fearing to be unknown and forgotten.

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 Disability Retirement under FERS: A Thousand Cuts

It is the classic question which allegedly reveals something about a person’s inner psyche: Of whether you would rather die from a thousand cuts, or quickly and instantaneously?  Of course, the third option is never allowed within the hypothetical, because to include it would defeat the whole purpose of the question: Of continuing to live, or even of a “middle” ground, where it is not quite a thousand cuts and not nearly immediately.

But implicit in the “thousand cuts” alternative contains the hope of surviving, anyway, doesn’t it?  For, presumably to inflict a thousand slashes implies that it would take a considerable amount of time, as well as agony, torturous pain and unimaginable cruelty imposed; but it is time of which we seek in order to have any chance of survival, isn’t it?

Time is what we seek; that tomorrow may be different from today; that a future beyond the apparent corner may be a destiny yet unknown; that, without tomorrow, there would be no flame of hope, and it is that flame — however weak, flickering or susceptible to extinguishment at any moment — that we guard because the looming shadows await to overwhelm and dominate, like the lurking stranger behind the facade patiently awaiting to pounce once the flame dies.

We can endure much, and the time of agony can be withstood so long as there is some hope for tomorrow; and it is when tomorrow offers no hope that then we might ruefully mourn the choices we made in suffering through the thousand cuts.

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 job, the endurance suffered can be liked to the torturous spectacle of being cut a thousand times.  Perhaps Federal Disability Retirement is that very flame of hope that will keep you going.

Consult with a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and seek that goal of maintaining the flicker; for, without it, the tomorrow we live for may be extinguished by the other alternatives unimagined.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Employee Disability Retirement: The inner voice

It is always the private conversation that is the most dangerous and unpredictable; for, the voices within are unknown to the surrounding conversations without amidst the public domain, and are most persuasive precisely because the multiple participants come down to a single voice: The “I” or “me” of the inner ego.

The soliloquy is a theatrical device which allows for the audience in a play to hear the “inner” thoughts of a character on stage; sometimes, the actor will stand aside while other characters on stage act “as if” they do not notice the separate thoughts being conveyed to the audience, and both the audience and the stage players engage in a suspension of disbelief while the soliloquy is deliberated; and at other times, the private thoughts are given over to the audience in a lengthy speech — a monologue of sorts, revealing the inner turmoil of a given character.

In real life, such oratory mechanisms are unnecessary, precisely because the voices within remain in a constant monologue of insularity, unimpeded by overzealous listeners who may hear the gossips within.  What voices are spoken within the mind of the wandering individual?  In a crowd, where the cacophony of multiple voices dominate and criss-cross, how many other voices are loudly vying for position within each of the minds that remain silent to one another?

Often, it is the very voices within which are the most dangerous, if only because there are no others countering the logic — or illogic — of the arguments made, and it is precisely because of the singular voice without a countering perspective that makes for greater danger of persuasiveness.

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 employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position within the Federal government, the voices within must often remain private and hidden precisely because the voices without lurk about as potential hazards to be avoided and carefully sequestered.

The mere “asking” about filing for Federal Disability Retirement may trigger reactions that are unwanted from the Agency; the questions that begin to be asked, the administrative actions that could be imposed, and the harassment that often follows — these will often force the voices within to remain within.

Consulting with an attorney who specializes in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is often the first and most important step that a Federal or Postal worker who needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits can take; for, the voices within more often than not needs a counter-perspective and guidance beyond the singularly lonely voice of a soliloquy that has no audience but one’s self.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: “Where is it written?”

When rights are asserted, community dissipates.  When, once in years of yore, before modernity complicated the simplicity of human interaction and integrity of society’s binding ties, a handshake was all that was necessary to ensure the continuity of words spoken and promises committed.  Of course, con men and worthless statements of vacuity unfettered in boundless dishonesty have always existed, especially when such events quickly spread word within a cohesive community such that reputations rapidly disseminated and trust deteriorated to where no one would do business with “this or that” person, and he or she had to move someplace else.

“Where is it written?” is the query of a person who inquires either because of an inquisitive motive or of a dishonest heart; the former, compelled by a sincere desire to know and to pursue knowledge perpetuated by the answer provided, and the latter as a challenge to anyone declaring that a prior commitment had been made.  But before the question was asked, most of us already knew that the promise was never going to be kept; the combative nature of the context already manifested tells us already that the words previously spoken, the condition precedents not performed, remained as chasms of vacuity never to be told, less worthy of a promise and likely never intended to be fulfilled.

Fortunately, there are laws, statutes, regulations and written commitments which are “on the books”, and while the administrative process of a Federal Disability Retirement may take forever to complete, and the waiting period with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may seem to take an eternity and a day, the positive side of the proverbial ledger is that it is a benefit accorded to all Federal and Postal employees under FERS or CSRS, and so long as you have the basic eligibility components in place (18 months of Federal Service for Federal and Postal employees under FERS; 5 years for CSRS employees, a dying and rare breed, to be sure); and filed while an active employee or within one (1) year of being separated from Federal Service; then, the Federal or Postal employee is free from that challenge of dishonest dissipation: “Where is it written?” In the Code of Federal Regulations, Statues and case-law precedents pertaining to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, of course.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The pendulum swing

Time used to “march on”, and the pendulum swing was a metaphor which everyone understood.  No more.  The digital age of technological superiority has made such inane profundities left stacked upon the history of obsolescence.  But for cherished grandfather clocks in hallways of mansions forgotten, or in the mysteries of worn novels where the tick-tock represented the anticipation of the sudden death scream; the slow, mechanical device which moves to and fro, left to right, right to left, and into the eternal progression of marked time, is but an irritant for the noise it makes.

Have we outlasted the utility of mechanical complexity?  Does the software program in which we see nothing but an algorithm of undecipherable content ever transcend the fascination we glean from springs, weights and mechanisms of human innovation?

The time piece too heavy to carry about, yet never replaced the pocket watch transferred with generational delight, and reflected the craftsman’s care in perfecting the soul of a person’s worth.  Somehow, the digital face of a blinking light flashing when the electrical surge fails to protect, is not the same as the quiet peace of an undisturbed house when the pendulum ceases to swing because the owner forgot to adjust the weights.  And history now forgets, too, doesn’t it?

Are we at the far side of the extreme, never to swing back, because there is no pendulum to remind us?  Can the death of the clockmaker mean the end of reason and compromise, because there is no metaphor to realize, anymore?  We tend to believe that such metaphors follow upon a literary device of recognizing something more than the mere fodder of mechanical devices; but what if the opposite were true – that the cadence of history required the invention of the pendulum itself, and the stoppage of such back-and-forth, to-and-fro means that only the extremes of disproportionate swings will remain frozen as the epicenter of man’s egregious faults?

We assume much; and when we presume to follow history’s dialectical progression without considering the actions within our own willpower, Nietzsche’s eternal return to the bosom of our follies will surely unravel and reveal itself in the face of our reflected foolishness.  And so, as the proverbial pendulum has stopped, stuck in the timeless middle of muddled quietude, so the failure to make any progress in our own personal lives will be another lost metaphor in the eternal dustbin of forgotten concerns.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers who want to break the cycle of being stuck perennially in the quicksand of mediocrity, it may be the ripened time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  For, as time fails to move without the movement of objects surrounding, so the human frailty of non-movement and inertia is a broken mechanism deep in the recesses of the human heart.

Taking the next step – any step – in filing for Federal Employee Disability Retirement benefits with OPM, is at least a slight movement, a reverberation, of that time harkening for the pendulum to swing back to its proper place of origin.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employment Early Medical Retirement: That state of cognitive dissonance

For all other species, even a momentary state of unawareness can mean death.  Predators seek the narrow window of advantage; that is the evolutionary determinism which propagates death, and shows mercy of life for those who close all such seams of opportunities; or so the Darwinian theory goes.  Man possesses a peculiar capacity to become lost in thought; whether in daydreaming, deep in slumber; contemplation amidst conceptual constructs of word pictures dancing before one’s eyes; we can walk in a funk or a daze, and drive long distances on super highways and at the end of the trip, not recall a single moment of how we got there.

Do words promulgate action?  Does instinct necessitate reaction?  Does the plethora of informational datum result in the intermediary of thoughts, first, then of engaging with the objective world?  Most of us have periods of cognitive dissonance — that aggregate of formless thought not having a consistency of connections between mindfulness, decisions, actions and judgments; it is only when there arises a lobotomy of capacity to care for one’s self from the daily necessities of life, that suddenly it becomes important enough for people to notice.

How such a species of that of a human being can survive these centuries while increasingly expanding into cognitive dissonance is a mystery to behold.  Whether by loss of awareness through technology; of staring vacantly at computer and smartphone screens, or merely enjoying the fantasy of daydreaming; perhaps the disappearance of open predatory behavior has dulled the once-sharpened edge of instinctive survival mechanisms.  But, in fact, there are wolves around, and they abound in plenitudes of concealment.  They just don’t advertise themselves in that way.  Just ask the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s productivity and capacity to show up for work, whether or not predators exist in a the workplace.

Preparing, formulating and 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, can be a form of escapism for many who are threatened by the modern carnivore wandering through civil society.  The ruthless exploitation upon the preys of modernity are not necessarily limited to the impervious universe of wildlife in Nature; it can all occur before our very eyes, in those rare states of clarity and sagacity when our normal state of cognitive dissonance becomes momentarily suspended in order to see the reality of a circumstance which necessitates the proper preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement Benefits: Reality T.V.

That we would have the imaginative capacity to invent such a medium and attract countless millions to sit and passively view the saga on a picture screen tells much about our species.  To be persuaded to suspend disbelief and discuss it as if it reflects a reality and can be designated as such, unmasks the myth of representing the pinnacle of the highest order.

Perhaps it is pure escapism which propagates the widespread popularity of such shows; or our desire to believe, which is that essence of being that caricature encapsulated by the quote often misattributed to P.T. Barnum, the greatest “showman” that ever was, who allegedly said that there is “a sucker born every minute.”  That the quote itself is associated to a fellow showman — a precursor to the television shows of modernity purportedly engaging in the make-up world of a reality no one has ever witnessed nor seen but through the dumbing influence of the idiot box, is appropriate and predictable.

What countless hours of wasteful time spent voluntarily barraged by datum destructive of digitally devoid dalliances; and yet we continue to add to their popularity.  No other species has the time, inclination or patience to sit for hours each day, tens of hours each week, in engaging an activity where the prerequisite is to suspend disbelief and become inert objects in a universe alive with activity.

Environmentalists often argue that the food we consume no longer provides the nutritional value once inherent, precisely because the biological dynamism once part of the soil of the earth no longer contains the living contingencies now depleted.

Inertness is everywhere around, and like the dystopian stories which have more recently become popular, the deadening of souls has been but a reflection of our own actions.  We invite most harmful things voluntarily — even reality which is unreal.  The one element we never “invite” into our lives, of course, is a medical condition; yet, when it appears and attacks, it often leaves us unable to face the very real reality of its debilitating and progressively deteriorating effects.

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 positional duties, the 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, requires a suspension of disbelief, as well.  For, there is often that period of not quite believing that “you” will not be able to return to work, continue on in the career, or overcome this “temporary” setback.

Real reality is often rather uninteresting, especially in a world which provides entertainment that excites a deadened soul; but when that real reality becomes a reality such that the inertness of life’s reality must contend against the entertainment of Reality T.V., then it is time to push the “off” button of that technology which invades the hurting soul, and begin the hard road of real reality by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM, in order to save some semblance of a future reality hopefully not dystopian in its surreal reality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire