FERS Disability Retirement Law: The Call Not Made

The call not made is the one regretted; for, it was the proverbial fork in the road, the turning point, the next corner, the event which could have unfolded unexpectedly to change one’s life.  Perhaps it was the follow-up not followed after a chance meeting with someone who might have become your life partner; a potential employer; a message left by a friend-of-a-friend; a distant relation whom you barely knew, but reached out for a reason left unclear.

The call not made is the one which you thought you could avoid, brush off, ignore, leave aside; but it is often the one which could have made a difference — if not in your own life, but in some other’s.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have been delaying the call not made — to a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, under FERS — it is often because the potential caller knows, in one’s “heart-of-hearts”, that it is an inevitable call, and the one which is being delayed for fear of the change itself.  But change should never be feared, and ultimately the decision of change itself is an option that only you can determine.

The call itself will merely open up the possibility for future change, whereas the call not made forecloses it, sometimes forever.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and make that call not made — yet.

Sincerely,

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

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Parting the Waters

It is a Biblical reference which was part of a common culture, at one time.  Perhaps the reference is no longer understood by many, or even by most.  It is in the Book of Exodus, Chapter 14 — and whether taken literally or metaphorically, it is meant to convey the story of a journey which meets an obstacle — as all journeys of life must by necessity engage in some form of conflict.

That is the crucial and inevitable symbole of life: Of how we meet the challenge of obstacles which are sure to arise.

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, the obstacles are essentially twofold: The medical condition itself (which the Federal or Postal employee will likely have to contend with for the rest of his or her life), and getting an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

The treating doctors are hopefully capable of attending to the first obstacle.  For the second obstacle, contact a Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of healing and overcoming the obstacles tantamount to Moses’ parting the waters.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employees with Disabilities: The History of Our Lives

Few of use consider the history of our lives — its place, relevance, context and significance.  There are those who are historical beings — of politicians; those involved in major crimes; a singular, spectacular event; or of a blip in history which may deserve a footnote in a biography or narrative which is soon forgotten upon becoming delisted from the New York Times Bestseller columns.

Whether of an integral paragraph or a side note, we have a place in the minds of relatives, friends, some acquaintances and even, sometimes, strangers we encounter but forget.  In a self-centered society like ours, many more have puffed themselves up to such an extent that they actually worry about their “legacy” — of what some will say about them after they are departed and what will they think when all is said and done?

The history of our lives is a complex one — told at dinner tables, at Thanksgiving and other gatherings where conversations begin and taper off, tidbits of questions and answers begin and falter — “What ever happened to Uncle X?”  “Do you remember the time when…?”  And then, of course, there is the haunting memory of one’s self about one’s self, and the fear of mortality combined with a desire to be remembered.  Perhaps it is memory alone which allows for the eternal; and so long as there are those who remain who recall a vestige of a life mostly forgotten, we continue to live on in our own misbegotten sense of immortality.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job or career, the history of one’s life must often be narrated in response to SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability.  How much of one’s life must be revealed; to what extent; of what details and how far back — these will sometimes play a crucial role in determining the validity, viability and efficacy of a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Consult with a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and discuss the viability of a Federal Disability Retirement application, including the history of lives which otherwise are left to the unmarked tombstones overgrown with wildflowers left unattended.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: The facade

We all do it; but the fact that all engage in it does not mean that the quality of what occurs behind the mask is equal in kind.  What betrays the workings of that which lurks behind the Noh mask?  Does the backstabber ever recognize the evil that is perpetrated any more than the Wizard behind the curtain believed that something untoward was being accomplished?

In architecture, a facade is the outward appearance or frontage that represents the initial encounter, entrance or first impression when approaching or entering; it is a neutral term in that it doesn’t connote or denote anything beyond that which it is — the first impression of the outward appearance.  But when that same term is applied to human beings or other contexts, it takes on a secondary implication of doubt, motive, underlying processes or even evil intent that is deliberately being concealed for the nefarious winds that need cover.

We all wear them; some are more adept at maintaining it in order to conceal and veil; while others can only establish it for a short period, then confess to all that nothing beneath was meant to harm.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who carry a facade in order to conceal the medical condition that continues to debilitate, deteriorate and prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the strain upon one’s psyche can be enormous and trying.

Over time, the facade must by necessity begin to crumble, to fade, to unravel and reveal; it is the inevitability that is often so fatiguing.  When the critical point of intersection occurs — where the priority of the medical condition surpasses the need to maintain appearances — it may be time to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

At some point, we all have to become “real”, and the facade that hides the face of a building does so without concealing anything precisely because there is no “there” behind the face; but the human being that puts on the Noh mask cannot for long maintain the facade that conceals the human suffering within.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: Capturing youth

Advertising agencies know well their targeted audience; one need only sit and watch the news, flip through the various channels and recognize that yes, someone has more information about one’s particular household than one would like to share; otherwise, why does the age-group, the likely medical conditions being suffered and the problems statistically encountered seem to fit you?

Then, you search on the computer for a specific product, and suddenly ads appear throughout in the margins of the screen trying to entice you to similar genres of product lines.

Someone is “watching” you; information is being gathered throughout; and all along, it never was the onerous manner in which Orwell’s depiction in his famous novel, 1984 tried to describe and delineate.  No, in that novel, the totalitarian nature of the State imposed and prescribed television screens that had a 2-way capacity to watch and observe, and there were microphones planted in strategically-placed areas to listen in on conversations.  No such events were needed in modernity.

Instead, we go out and voluntarily buy the devices and bring them into our homes without any State or Regime ordering us to do so.  And all in the name of capturing youth.  Youth, by the looks of television and Internet ads, seems to be the prevailing impetus for all that everyone does in life.  Even the old people look young, younger, or seem to only want to be so.  Dating websites are no longer for the young and hopeful; no, they are for the old and retired, and capturing youth is the mainstay of today’s cultural focus.

Perhaps there is nothing wrong with the compulsion of striving towards capturing youth; and whether the cosmetic products advertised or the need to “stay young” in order to enjoy life to its “fullest” (whatever that means), capturing youth is the favorite pastime of everyone everywhere nowadays.

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 job, the desire to “capture youth” has a slight twist – for, it is not just the want or motivation to harken back to a “time before” when one was young and carefree; rather, it is a need to capture those days when health was taken for granted and movement free of pain or inner turmoil was the daily routine that needed no greater thought.

Health is a blessing, but we don’t know it until it deteriorates; and medical conditions are a curse, and we just don’t think about it until the time is upon us to consider the future.

Filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may not ultimately accomplish the goal of capturing youth, and thus may not be of much concern to those “watching you”, but for the unique individual that is the “you” in the privacy of your home and inner reflections, it may be a first step towards securing a future that has become the darker secrets of fear and loathing.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Hardship Retirement under FERS or CSRS: Life’s Patchwork

Repetition and regularity provides a semblance of orderliness; somehow, patterns in life remain relevant to sanity and stability, and it is the disordered patchwork which creates havoc for want of consistency.  There are those who seek regularity, and are criticized for embracing boredom; then, the one who constantly lives on the edge, where being fired and not knowing the future of tomorrow is handled with a mere shrug and an attitude of libertine disregard.

Most of us live in the middle of extremes; that is why, in reading Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, no extent of profundity is discovered; the median between two extremes is what most of us naturally seek, anyway.  And we appropriate a sense of comfort and security by presuming that others are somewhat like us; to that extent, Kant is probably right in his philosophical belief that we impose structure and order into a universe which is essentially chaotic, in an effort to maintain an internal phenomenology of coherence and comprehension.

Every now and again, however, interrupting forces disrupt the quietude of life’s fortune, and misgivings begin to define those territories we thought had already been conquered, where the savages had been beaten down and the goblins had all been captured.  How we manage crisis; what manner of internal fortitude becomes tested; and what mettle of essence to which we may succumb; these are all questions which we would rather avoid.

It is the contending dialectical forces that are represented by the “Peter Principle” as opposed to the “Dilbert Principle“, by which most of us must endure; where, the former is quickly dampened by cynicism of actual experience, and the latter is always confirmed daily by encounters with a surrealism called “life”.  Life is, indeed, a patchwork of sorts; of different people, coming from a variety of experiences — and yet boringly similar and predictable.  Eccentricities have already been tested and stamped out, contained, restrained and trained into oblivion through the system called, “the public schools” — where uniqueness of thought is curtailed via the pecking order of peer pressure and standardized testing.

Then, of course, there is the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker — caught in a bureaucracy in which competency and creativity are rarely acknowledged as the avenue for advancement in an administratively hostile universe.  When the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker suddenly finds himself or herself facing the dilemma of a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from continuing in a chosen career because it prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties — then, it is time to consider 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.

For, in the end, life’s patchwork must by necessity and self-definition reflect the complexity of the world around us; yes, we seek out the “middle ground” — that boring stability of repetitive humdrum of life — while recognizing that the extremes are there for a reason; and while it may not be for us, it exists and always presents a threat.  The key is to avoid it, or even depart from it; as escapism allows only for momentary gratification, and the pattern of life’s patchwork must be sought in the future discourse of our collective sighs.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Peripheral Centrality

We often think that, by pushing the core importance of those matters out into the periphery, whether in our minds or in the practical application of daily living, by merely touching upon them we have attended to a relative extent in satisfaction for the time being.  Another way to put it is encompassed in the reference of kicking the proverbial can down the road into that distant and obscure future.

Centrality of necessities can only be pushed aside for so long; before you know it, they come back with a roar to crowd out those insignificant interests which are easier to focus upon, become pleasurable distractions, and tend to become magnified as representing greater significance and relevance than what their revealed status should deserve.

Distractions of daily living — perhaps a hobby, or following a sports team with greater exuberance than deserved; then, of course, there are the modes of virtual reality in modernity, of internet, video games and spawning friendships via Facebook, Twitter, etc.  At some point, however, the core of that which was pushed aside must come back and become the centrality of purpose it was always shouting out to be.

Pain, and the avoidance of pain, is somewhat akin to that.  For how long can a medical condition be disregarded, before the periphery to which we relegate it makes an end-run and becomes the central focus of one’s life?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, whether considering the impact of the medical condition upon one’s greater health and well-being has been ignored, pushed aside and relegated to the peripheral concerns of daily living — the centrality of its consequential residue must be considered at some point, and the remaining decisions about filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, must become the option to entertain.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is never an easy decision to make, and thus do we relegate such considerations into the outer periphery of one’s thoughts — until that day when reality cannot be escaped, distractions can no longer be delayed, and the centrality of our lives must come first.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is a major decision which cannot remain in the peripheral accoutrements of a life; at some point, it must become the peripheral centrality of one’s decision-making process if you are a Federal or Postal employee whose medical condition has begun to prevent you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal positional duties.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Beyond the Pablum of Life

Once a cereal brand, a glob of mush whose nutritional content was suspect at best, and the bland taste of which represented the monotony of modernity; now, it is mere pap, where the lack of substantive content belies the true nature of harm, insipid and incremental, creeping daily and slowly deteriorating.

Isn’t that how a medical condition destroys?  Yes, there are traumatic events — where loss of limb and even of life suddenly cuts short the vibrancy of a human narrative; but, mostly, it is that chronic, slow deterioration which eats away and the luster of living loses its sheen where being free of pain or anguish is the highlight of one’s linear form.  That is when life becomes a daily pablum of concocted innuendoes, where euphemisms prevail and the hidden struggle of daily toil results in the blandness of hourly refuting the refrain, “So, how is life?”

When trepidation and hesitation rules the day the ruing the day becomes the pablum of living, like the tablet and chalkboard which has been overused and the residue of erasures remains no matter how hard we try and scuff them out, then it is time to consider a change of venue, of volatility, and of value.

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 positional duties, it may be time to try and get beyond the pablum of life’s misgivings.

Yes, 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, may be a difficult path to take, especially in light of leaving behind a list of accomplishments, awards and accolades; but if the choice of staying and being harassed, intimidated, constantly put down and shoved aside are no longer clear indicators of a future unwelcome and unwelcoming, then there can be no better alternative to embrace.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM can be an administrative and bureaucratic nightmare; but where the flashpoint of one’s Federal or Postal career has long passed, it is time to consider getting beyond the pablum of life, and to formulate a strategy where the vibrancy of a once-promising future takes on the sheen now lost, the energy long depleted, and the recovery of which guides one towards a better tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
FERS Disability Attorney

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The tapestry of modernity

Every age has its feel of fabric of the times; in ages past, the woven loom of quiet hamlets with curls of smoke slowly rising from the warmth of the hearth; in others, the tension wrought at the dawn of the industrial revolution, where the ways of old and the textiles of handiworks would soon be replaced by the machines of progress.

In modernity, there is the tactile sense of restlessness, of communities splintered, where we are told that the inevitable march of progress is but for the dawn of an age of leisure, as each technological innovation will afford us greater time with out families.  Somehow, however, we are busier than ever.  Not more productive; not even happier; just a frenzy of activity to plug the holes of the dam which continually creaks with new fissures.  That is the tapestry of modernity; of a world which fits man into a cauldron of machines beyond the want of age.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who, in this day of demands beyond human capacity and tolerance, suffer from a progressively debilitating 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, there dawns a time when filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes a necessity.

Often, the upcoming fight seems like the “same old” repetition of confronting the inevitability of the progressive decline reflected in the age of technology, as bureaucracy and administrative obstacles form a conspiracy of stopping every avenue of attempted accommodations.  Life is tough; life in modernity is tougher, still.  The tapestry of modernity belies the times of yore when communities cared and banded together, replaced by the coldness of rights, benefits and entitlements.

OPM Disability Retirement benefits are there to compensate for the Federal or Postal employee who “paid the price” and now has a disability which prevents one from continuing in his or her chosen field; and the tapestry of modernity allows for that very attainment of necessity, in order for the Federal or Postal employee to move on into the next phase of civilization’s promise of hope for a future of uncertainty.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Government Employment: The Beat of Life

Have you ever had a dream (or nightmare) where you are the only one out of sync?  Whether in a choir or perhaps playing an instrument, and everyone around stares with irritation or dismay, and no matter what efforts you expend, nothing seems to allow for a synchronization of movements, sounds or stylistic applications?

Or in other similar circumstances, whether in sports, dance, or other events requiring coordination of efforts and timing of actions, the personification of self reflects a complete lack of capacity to become a quiet pendulum of rhythmic beats.  And much of life is like that; there is a rhythm and a beat, and one day we wake up and everything seems out of sync, out of kilter, and no matter what we do, how hard we try, the beat of life seems to go on without us.

The phrase itself, “The beat of life”, of course, has a sense of double entendre; the first implying the rhythmic march of one’s existence, and the other denoting the thrashing inflicted through the existential encounters experienced daily.  Both, in either form, connote the consequences of the spectrum felt and the degree effectuated upon the soul of an individual.  Medical conditions tend to do that independently of any control we attempt to exert upon the environment surrounding us.  Control and our ability and capacity to determine one’s fate, is not confined or unique to the proverbial “Type-A” personality.

We all desire to be the master of our defined universe.  To lose control is to relinquish the beat and rhythm of life.   It is to be banished from the comity and security of the fiefdom we have ascribed and announced our liege to, and for which we have dedicated out lives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the discovery of a medical condition which impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, is tantamount to a moment in a dream when the beat of life begins and ends.  The old rhythmic consonance of mellifluous comity terminates, and the new and adversarial relationship, both against the medical condition itself and the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service which fails to accommodate and refuses to cooperate, must be endured and confronted.

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, must be considered, precisely because a new beat must be found, and the band which played the tunes before can no longer comprehend the stylistic differentiation which you have now experienced, like a religious awakening expanding beyond the horizon one may have expected at the beginning of the journey.

But whether one lives a life in a small town and never leaves the security of the neighborhood born, or one travels through and traverses the cultural divides of the world, the beat of life one carries is somewhat like the backpack of the pilgrim, and for the Federal and Postal worker who must move on to the next phase of life, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with OPM becomes a necessary step to allow for the beat of life to continue, lest you allow life itself to beat you down.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire