OPM Medical Disability Benefits: When Boring Becomes a Burden

It is an indicator as to how serious the problem has become.  For, when the boring becomes a burden, it means that those things you have taken for granted — walking the dog; logging on to the computer; remembering where you last left your keys; driving to the corner store, etc. — have become a concern.

Are you having to “re-learn” the basic components of life?  Are the things you once did with aplomb — of effortless and seamless completion in order to get to the more challenging tasks in line — becoming an “issue” in and of themselves?

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, when boring becomes a burden, it is an indicator that it is time to consider filing for Federal Disability retirement benefits under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Contact an OPM/MSPB Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of changing when boring becomes a burden — by re-focusing priorities and bringing your health back into the boring category instead of the beast of burden it has become.

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 & Postal Disability Retirement: The developing case

Some things need time to develop; “news stories” are often those animals — of events that are “still developing”; or of relationships and stories, ideas and categories of things still in stages yet of potentiality and not of actualized inertia. Children develop; medical conditions, as well, are always in stages of potentiality — whether of a worsening condition or even of getting better.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are in that “netherworld” of a developing case, where a medical condition is beginning to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, there is often nothing more frustrating than the feeling of being in a state of suspended animation — “suspended” because you know not what your status will be tomorrow or the next day; in “animation” because, although everything is still moving about and around, it is your career, your health and your life which is questioned and considered as questionable.

The developing case often involves multiple issues — of whether you have a doctor who will be supportive of your case; of whether you have the necessary time in service in order to be eligible; of whether you have given it enough time — and multiple other issues that, perhaps, cannot be affirmatively answered.  In such an event, guidance by an experienced attorney is needed in order to direct the Federal or postal employee through the maze of complex legal obstacles in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Employee Disability Retirement application.

Like most of life’s struggles, the developing case needs to be planned and prepared well, and consultation with an attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law is crucial to the successful outcome of a goal which is known, but cannot quite be reached because the path towards that goal is yet developing.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: The last line of a poem

How important is the last line of a poem?  Can there be a poem that disappoints because of the last line, or can the finality that ends with a period (or not, depending upon the structure followed) be a so-so metaphor that evokes a yawn and a grimace?

If the rest of the poem, stanza after stanza, contains images by mysterious metaphors which provoke the mind’s imagination to heights previously untouched, but then finishes with a final line that makes one puzzled and doubting, do we say of it, “Well, it was a great poem up until that very last line”?  What if the poet meant it to be so — that the intent of the poem itself was to contrast the fickle manner in which images can form into pinnacles of fancy, only to be disappointed by a singular phrase of mundane commonness?

If the generally-accepted definition of poetry, as opposed to prose, is the focus upon the unit of a sentence aghast with metaphorical flourishes which evoke and provoke images, scents and cacophony of voices haunting throughout the hallways of a mind’s eye, then each line must of greater necessity remain reliably un-pedestrian.  Yet — why is it that the last line of a poem remains so important?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition necessitates preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, the last line of a poem can be likened to the final touches of an effective Federal Disability Retirement packet.

Does it have an extensive legal memorandum accompanying it — to make the persuasive push for an approval?  Have the sentences making up the Applicant’s Statement of Disability (SF 3112A) been made to evoke and provoke images of an inevitable approval?

It is, after all, not poetry but prose; yet, just like the last line of a poem, a Federal Disability Retirement application should be formulated with thoughtfulness and care, lest the last line of the poem provoke a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: King for a day

There are, then, those highs and lows which everyone experiences; of days when one has successfully maneuvered through the pitfalls of the day, and where troubles, problems and difficulties have been either overcome or avoided — both of which amounts to the same thing in most instances.  To be King for a Day — is it a mere feeling that obfuscates the reality of one’s situation, or a reality based upon a metaphor hanging on a cliff of a proverb?

The world for the most part leaves the rest of us the crumbs off of the tables of the wealthy and powerful; the sense that we have any real control over our own destinies is tested when something goes wrong, and we try and correct it.  The rest of the time — of being King for a Day — is to just make us feel like we have any such control on any given day.

Take the Federal or Postal employee who struggles with 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 — some days, when the medical condition subsides or it is merely one of those “good” days, it may feel that destiny is within the palm of your hand and that the day’s brightness allows for a future with the Federal Agency or the Postal Service.

But then the inevitable “setback” occurs, and the cycle of the “bad day” comes along.  Then, one day the Federal Agency, with its co-conspirators of supervisors, managers and some coworkers, or the Postal Service with the same cabal of backstabbers, begins to initiate adverse actions with steady and incremental deliberation — of leave restrictions; unreasonable and baseless denials for extended leave or FMLA; letters of “warnings” and even placement on a PIP; and then one asks, Whatever happened to that feeling of being King for a Day?

Life is full of struggles and difficulties; we rarely are able to get a full handle on the future course of unanticipated troubles, and that is why preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is so important to get started early and well on the right track.

Being King for a Day is never the solution to the lengthy process of life’s misgivings; for, in the end, it is the Court Jester who hears all and counsels well, just like the lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  If only King Lear had listened to the Fool — what disasters he would have avoided!

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: Remorseless solitude

How often is there a cry to be “left alone”?  By how many people, in what quantifiable slice of life and order of living despite obligations and responsibilities that may be abandoned, do we embrace those periods of remorseless solitude?

We are commanded to be “social animals”, by way of anthropologists who devise intricate paradigms of cultural historicity and ancestral heritage from mere fossils of partial bone fragments; via condemnation by psychologists who warn of the danger of those who are “loners” and become lost in the deviation of secluded thoughts and fantasies of vengeful imaginations; and by Mom and Dad who worry that the teenager who locks the door and surfs the enticements of the Internet undermines the very fabric of societal cohesion, and allows for deviancy to determine the dice of droll durations.

And so the guilt resides with a negation; for, when we do not interact, socialize and remain in the company of others, we are considered as rogues, antisocial occultists who harbor resentments like hermits who climb into caverns of caustic catacombs to care only of remorseless solitude.

Yet, in this din of modernity, where the endless cacophony of drumbeats, raised voices and electronic media bombardment ceaselessly invading, interrupting and interceding, where has the delicacy of inviolable solitude gone to?  At what point does self-reflection, thought, the play writer’s  “aside” and the soliloquy that contemplates the role of one’s self in the expansive universe become a self-possessing journey of mere selfish egoism?

Instead, we allow that being constantly “connected” with one another – through social media, Texting, Facebook, Instagram, Skyping and all of the other multitudinous methodologies of electronic communication and “connectivity” have become normalized, such that that which used to be a productive use of the proverbial “down time”  – enjoying the remorseless solitude by writing, or reading, or just reflecting —  is now considered strange and dangerous, while its opposite – of becoming obsessed with the persistent din of socialized life – is considered the normative ordinariness of daily living.

Remorseless solitude is the delicious walk in the woods alone; of meditating upon the quietude of a morning’s red dawn; and of communing with nature, whether in one’s backyard or in the outbacks of nature’s delight.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are forced and compelled into a status of remorseless solitude – not by choice, but by reason of a medical condition which targets the Federal or Postal employee into being “that person” who is considered the outcast, almost as if diagnosed with leprosy or some other horrible communicable disease – the isolation and separation by being identified with a person with a disability will have its negative effects.

Preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, will not make things at the Federal agency or the Postal facility any better, until an approval is received from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Then, once the Federal or Postal employee becomes a Federal Disability Retiree, perhaps you can enjoy that period of remorseless solitude that previously had been involuntarily imposed upon you by casting you as that deviant occultist no longer part of the mythical “team”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The advantageous disadvantage

In life, we often fight over things even when the goal has already lost its meaning, or the resources expended far outweigh the benefit to be gained.  We take advantage of things, people, and other concerns, despite knowing the consequences of harm to the very essence of our being.  It is as if the evolutionary core of our DNA determines our actions, like addiction upon the dawn of broken promises and childhood wisps of tearful mournings left behind.

Determination of actions despite knowing, and despite the constant drum of billboards, radio advertisements declaratively preaching against, and the distant voice of one’s nagging mother — ineffective reminders like shadow boxing before the perfect storm.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who struggle daily with 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 positional duties with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, the daily fights and taking advantage of the slow process of justice in remaining in the Federal job or the Postal position, is a toil of principle; but of what gain is there if one’s soul is being destroyed?

The Leviathan of Legendary Lore bespoke of creatures who destroyed without care or compassion; and today’s metaphor of such monsters are represented by gargantuan bureaucracies which crush without blinking an eye, unaware of just another number in a long line of conquests like unnamed tombstones in an abandoned graveyard.

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 a step towards taking advantageous advantage over a situation which has become untenable; the procrastination and delay in order to fight the Goliath of modernity, is to remain in a rut where one may continue to take advantage of a disadvantageous situation, and remain in the clutches of a slow torture, like the frog who sits comfortably in a pot of warm water, unaware that it sits on a stove set for boil.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Calculus of Change

The title itself is somewhat of a tautology, for the branch of mathematics is defined as a study of change, divided into differential calculus and integral calculus; both, concerning the function and limits of mathematical constancy and potential quantum leaps for purposes of analyzing quantitative future applications.

We all assume some amount of change; if there is a differential to be considered, the rate of such change can be significant over an extended period of time, whereas the initial analysis can be a minimal irrelevancy.  It is the exponential rate of change applied over a lengthy period, which can produce change significant enough to enter into the calculus of future indicators.

Change is a recognized inevitability, though human expectation is often one of dependency upon the constancy of habituation and permanence.  We expect, when we open a door into a familiar room, for the interior decoration to have remained the same as the last time we entered; but who is to say that a spouse or family member did not, in the meantime, rearrange the furniture or put up new curtains?

Change has an inherent character of disquietude; it is the constancy of repetitive permanence which allows for solitary reflection and comfort.

Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating 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, the disruption posed by the change in one’s circumstances — of fiscal, professional, social, cognitive and physical (i.e., the mere act of going to work each day, etc.) — can be tremendous and traumatic.

In preparing and formulating one’s Federal Disability Retirement application, it is always a positive engagement of efforts to consider the calculus of change, and to not leave the alterations in one’s life in dismissive form as mere statistical irrelevance.

For, in the end, the biggest change of all has already occurred, in the form of an impacting medical condition which has prevented the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties in the Federal or Postal sector; the rest is mere window dressing to the very essence of a changed life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Stolen Soul

Superstitions often have a grain of truth in them; otherwise, they would not have endured the test of culture, time and governance of actions in ensuring their longevity and pervasive countenance.

Aboriginal tribes and remote communities far removed from the technological modernity of this growing world; pockets of secluded peoples and those who simply shy away from the spotlight of drones like druids of yore; once, there was a belief that having a photograph taken or an image drawn constituted the stealing of a soul.  We don’t believe that.  We no longer believe such nonsense.

Such belief systems constitute an anomaly tantamount to insanity, or at the very least a level of eccentricity bordering upon an unacceptable level of non-conformity.  Indeed, instead, we have gone in the opposite direction of the extreme: many no longer visit ancient and sacred sights with a view by the naked eye, but through the lens of a video camera never to be detached from the “on” button; and we deplete and exhaust the personal “I” within the sanctity of our selves by posting the most personal of information on Facebook and other public forums for full view and entertainment, reserving nothing of a private nature.

For, in the end, the technology of the internet is merely an advanced form of the singular photograph of yore; and as the daguerreotype of yesteryear represented the technological advancement of securing frozen images in a given time, of a place cemented within the historicity of events and contexts of human occurrences, so the voluntary dissemination of information about ourselves is merely a logical extension of that loss of privacy and depletion of the soul.

The soul is not inexhaustible; and is that not why there is so much emptiness and loss of value in the world?  Of the content of information which we consider “personal” and “private”, that which concerns our medical condition tops the list.  Yet, in the context of Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, agencies and the U.S. Postal Service will inquire, demand of, and insist upon, release of medical information beyond that which constitutes allowable breach of confidentiality, leaving aside the issue of good taste.

Of course, when the Federal or Postal employee decides 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, then the onus of proof (by the legal standard of “preponderance of the evidence”) is entirely upon the Federal or Postal employee, and in that event, such submission of medical information is voluntary and must be done in order to secure the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  But before that, Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service will often demand medical information without limits or respecting of privacy.

A response by the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker should be carefully considered, lest there be a later conflict when filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  For, often, during a time and circumstance prior to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, the issue is one of wanting to continue to work; and, in any event, unconstrained dissemination of information of the most private nature — that of medical information — should always be carefully guarded.

In the end, releasing of medical information is like that superstitious sense held sacredly by those aboriginal tribes now lost in the deep forests of forgotten time; once, we believed that a single photograph would steal our soul, to be forever tortured in the chasms of an enemy’s grip; today, such a suspicion has been replaced with the foolhardy belief that we can give of ourselves indiscriminately, without the stolen soul suffering the agony of public scorn.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Postal Workers & other Federal Civilian Government Employees: The Ronin

The Bushido Code of Honor and OPM Disability Retirement

The ronin is a masterless samurai; he is one who was released from any obligations from the daimyo, or feudal lord, who retained the samurai for protection and was paid a stipend.  The literal translation of the term is often ascribed as a “wave man”, or one who is let go to travel adrift amidst the turbulence of the ocean waves.

In modern usage, it refers to an individual who is between jobs, but can still imply vagrancy or unstable character.  For the injured/ill Federal and Postal employee, filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement through one’s agency (if still on the rolls of the Federal agency or otherwise not separated for more than 31 days, as the law stipulates) in intermediate transit to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, or directly with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management if separated from Federal Service for more than 31 days, the pervasive sense of being like a ronin can be overwhelming.

When once the samurai was retained by a feudal lord of known standing and reputation within a geographical definition, the stature and status of the samurai was unquestioned; it was a bilateral benefit — the samurai walked with the name of the retainer’s aura about him, protecting him from slights and serious confrontations because an attack upon him would be considered as an assault upon the name of the daimyo; and, conversely, the feudal lord benefited from the fear engendered by the presence of the two-sworded protector, the warrior who follo.

With stated purpose and deliberateness, the samurai applied himself to protect and expand the vast holdings of the daimyo.  Like the Federal and Postal employee who has worked these many years for a specific agency or the U.S. Postal Service, whether under FERS, CSRS, or CSRS Offset, the samurai who suddenly loses the favor of his retainer, is set adrift.  The Federal and Postal worker often holds on to the last vestiges of favor, even when the tie and connection have been severed, precisely because to be set adrift amid the waves of life is a scary thought.

But filing for OPM Disability Retirement for the Federal or Postal worker should be considered an opportunity, and not a loss; it allows for the Federal or Postal employee the time to regain one’s health, and then to seek the retainer of choice in the private sector and make a stipend up to 80% of what one’s former position currently pays.

Federal Disability Retirement does not retain the stigma of being masterless; rather, unlike the ronin of old, it does the very opposite, and allows the Federal Government employee or Postal worker to become the master of one’s own destiny.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Loss of Meaning

What it is that motivates a person to achieve greatness; whether the factor of that which does, or purports to be, and to what extent the outward articulation of the elements of a driving force corresponds with the esoterically objective truth underlying the learned and expected statements for public consumption; these, we may never know.

Most of us engage in repetitive monotony of actions; whether by fear of societal retribution, the judgment of peers, a sense of responsibility and obligation; or, perhaps even by sheer ignorance and stupidity, where the instinctive drive is merely based upon the base hunger for accumulation of material objects; as self-reflection is rarely a consideration of serious intent, so the onset of what some deem a mid-life crisis is often nothing more than a pause in unthinking acts of greater thoughtless chasms in void and vacuity.

Medical conditions, and the impact of a debilitating injury or disease, can be the prompting nudge for change and upheaval. Whether because a medical condition forces one to consider a redistribution of life’s priorities, or merely because they interrupt the capacity and ability to continue in an unthinking manner; regardless of the motive, change becomes an inevitable consequence of an unexpected medical condition.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal Worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is an option of limited choice.

For, as the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, so the dependency upon the agency to provide a “reasonable accommodation” is ultimately an act of futility.  “Reasonable accommodation” is merely that which is accorded in order to perform all of the essential elements of the job; it does not do away with any of the elements, and thus is rarely conceivable, and practically impossible to implement.

Federal and Postal workers who are prevented from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, at least have the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits. Many in the private sector have no such benefit, and are thus left to disparate means and desperate devices.  Often, the onset of a health condition becomes a crisis of meaning, where the medical condition itself compels the Federal or Postal worker to question the meaning and value of one’s work and accomplishments.  But the loss of meaning need not occur as a necessary or inevitable consequence.

Federal Disability Retirement accords an opportunity of a second bite at the proverbial apple; there is life after Federal Medical Retirement for those who get beyond the long and arduous bureaucratic process, and the meaning of one’s existence need not be the harbinger of fate, but merely a door opened for future endeavors of thoughtful exercises and prioritizing of values.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire