Federal Medical Retirement: Resisting the Scatter Approach

Preparing a Federal Retirement application under the FERS system naturally lends itself to a “scatter” approach because it requires multiple facets in order to complete the complex bureaucratic process.  Like the tentacles on an unruly octopus, some facets must be correlated in sequential order, while others must be attended to simultaneously.

And because some portions must be completed by your Federal Agency (which is too often uncooperative and/or uncaring, and also it is sometimes downright antagonistic to the process as a whole) — and all the while being under pressure of an unreasonable timeline imposed by OPM, it is easy to despair and give up on the process entirely.

Perhaps that is how the system has been deliberately created — to make the process as difficult as possible in order to discourage as many Federal employees and Postal workers as possible.  To counter this, it is important to begin with a guiding principle — of the statutory criteria and case-law formulations which provide the overarching foundational premise — a legal cover letter which creates a successful roadmap for arguing your case.

Otherwise, the only alternative remaining is to succumb to the “scatter” approach — which is precisely what the U.S. Office of Personnel Management wants you to do so that they can deny the case based upon the incomplete aspect of any one of the unruly tentacles required.

Contact an Federal Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in preparing, formulating, and filing a coherent, cogent, and effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement case, and resist the “scatter approach”.

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 Medical Retirement under FERS: Moral Probity

We don’t talk in those terms, anymore.  As “morality” has failed to survive without a religious context, so “probity” becomes a vacuous concept precisely because — without the former — there is no need for the latter.  It is a concept from a former age; and the loss of it is profound not because “religion” itself — in and of itself — is a necessary condition for moral probity, but because the ancillary benefit of its inherent value itself was of some cohesive worth.

Kant, of course, attempted to universalize a moral basis without regard to established religion, but the societal context which accepted without question the moral laws proposed was already “religious”, in the sense that the dominant culture existed within the context of accepted moral norms.

Today, “moral probity” is at best an outdated concept, and at worst, completely irrelevant.  To probe is to seriously analyze and judge; moral probity is to take that concept of analysis and apply it to the innermost sanctity of our core values.  Moral probity, in the end, is gone because morality has become a concept of the past, and probity — alas, if only it were not so — requires a seriousness which is generally no longer acknowledged of worth in engaged effort.

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 having the moral probity to consider what is important in life, what is not; what should be prioritized; what excesses and ancillary components need to be discarded, etc. — consider that the parallel concept to moral probity is to shed yourself of that which impedes your maturity and growth.

Dealing with a medical condition is difficult enough; the total focus upon your career has been an all-encompassing activity, but when a medical condition enters the picture, you have to come to the realization that health comes first and everything else is secondary.  Moral probity requires you to recognize the sequence of priorities in life, and getting your health back should be foremost on your list.

Contact a Federal Attorney to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as that is the next step beyond having already engaged in the moral probity necessary in coming to that conclusion: That life is short; health is paramount; and all else is secondary.

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 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 & Postal Disability Retirement: The Noise of Apparent Relevance

Noise is all around us.  The question too often unasked, is: Is the noise relevant, or of mere apparent relevance?

A newborn lacks the capacity to filter out noises.  The din of the world around hammers the fresh ears, and the cacophony is sometimes overwhelming.  Survival is often at the heart of being able to discern and decipher; to compartmentalize and differentiate; for, if you are lost in thought and a car warns with a loud honking, it is often a noise of relevance which should be heeded.

Radio and television news cycles depend upon making you believe that the next “breaking news” is of relevance; and advertisements which seem funny or tell an interesting story are meant to appear relevant, only to try and sell you a service or commodity which you neither need nor asked for.

We all want to be relevant.  Everyone else, in turn, wants to assert their relevance.  There is a need in the human heart to become, and then to remain, relevant in a world full of irrelevance.  Work and career often define what “relevance” even means, and for Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, there is often a hollow, foreboding feeling that you are, or are becoming, irrelevant because you can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of your job.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit which allows you to retire from the Federal government and then move on into the private sector in order to become productive — and relevant — in another way.  Distinguish between the noise of apparent relevance and the falsehood of alleged irrelevance, and consult with a Retirement Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, thereby putting an earplug into the noise of apparent relevance.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Attorney

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Race to Weekend

When younger, we vowed never to view it that way.  Every day was one to cherish, to tackle, to energetically pursue. “Living life to the fullest”; “Seize the day — if not the hour, the moment, the present existential moment”; “Whether Monday or Saturday, it matters not” — and other pablums of personified penchant for pacifying problems.

The reality is the race to weekend; for, with the stresses of modernity, it is the weekend which provides the relief needed from the stresses and concerns of the week.

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 race to weekend means that the 2 days of truce — actually, more like a day and a half, for most of Saturday is spent on doing the chores neglected during the week — are for rest, respite and restoration.  “What a way to live”, we tell ourselves.

If your medical conditions do not even allow for restoration on weekends, it may be time to consider Federal Disability Retirement.

Contact an Federal Disability Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and consider the options where the race to weekend is not the only — or primary — focus of your life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Other Places, Other Times

People study history for various reasons: the interest of other times, the peculiarity of other places — and yet the similarity of people no matter what the historical context.  Other places, other times, reveal to us the pattern of behaviors engaged in across time, cultures, historical contexts and prevailing dogmas which dominated a particular society, civilization or epoch of noted influence.  It gives us a perspective and, often for the good, a sense of knowledge that other places, other times are not too dissimilar from the one we are currently experiencing.

Do we repetitively make the same mistakes as generations past?  Likely.  Are we wont to repeat them in the future?  Yes.  Do we ever learn from our mistakes?  Unlikely.  Human beings, for the most part, do what they want to do, and then scramble to gather the justifying reasons for having done them.

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, know that in other places and at other times, Federal and Postal employees have successful fought with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and have won their Federal Disability Retirement benefits despite the unfair advantage which OPM holds over you.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer and know that an experienced Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer has the experience that in many other places, at multiple other times, success has been achieved in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Future Dreaded

We often avoid the subject; of futures yet to be contemplated and images triggered by fears; of questions pertaining to old age, retirements, early onset of dementia and the fearful “A” word — Alzheimer’s.

Are such fates certainties?  Or, do we just shrug them off with a flippant side-step, like the partner dancing with a clumsy other who is nimble enough to avoid being stepped on, making dancing with the stars seemingly like a cakewalk.  “We can always get hit by a truck tomorrow, so why worry about the day after?”  Is that a philosophy of life which can long endure, or a truism which guarantees our fated dread, anyway?

Medical conditions of any form and type remind us of the future dreaded; it points to our mortality, our vulnerabilities and our lack of security in this world where communities are non-existent, empathy remains in short supply and families break apart as easily as the crumbling crust upon an overcooked apple pie.

Future dreaded — it is a feeling felt at the pit of one’s stomach, and nightmares which shake one from the slumber of midnight terrors; and, in the end, we feel sorrow for ourselves in an echo of soliloquies where a singular voice calls for help and no one is there to listen.  The bleakest of ends does not need to be one where the worst fears are realized.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition necessitates consideration of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the future dreaded is the one around the corner, triggered by the increasing hostility of an agency or the postal facility which sees no future in your contribution or membership in that community of workers which once provided a sense of security.

When your medical condition has come to a point where you can no longer perform all of the essential elements of your job, call a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  For, in the end, the future dreaded is often one based upon lack of understanding, and it is knowledge of the process of Federal Disability Retirement which can feed the information necessary to prepare for a future brightened, and not a future dreaded.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Refutation of Stefan Zweig’s Essay

FERS OPM Medical Retirement: Refutation of Stefan Zweig’s Essay, “Books are the Gateway to the World”.

Not quite a refutation, but merely a protest — and perhaps a defense of illiteracy.  Zweig writes beautifully; persuasively; in colorful prose that captivates; in convincing form — if not in logical argumentation, but more as a poet who is convinced that words, books, literacy and the spread of the written word is indispensable to life itself.

He ends with this poetic flourish: “The more intimately the man associates with books the more profoundly he experiences the unity of life, for his personality is multiplied; he sees not only with his own eyes but with the countless eyes of the soul, and by their sublime help he travels with loving sympathy through the whole world.”

Who can argue with that?  Who can so poetically refute and rebut a sentence of such insightful beauty?  Yet, it is not with the argument for books and literacy that is objectionable, but rather, the notion that the man with whom he met and befriended but who is later found to be illiterate — that this rampage of sorrow and defense of literacy is at the expense of this unfortunate man.

Consider how he describes such a person: “He is walled in by himself, because he knows nothing of books; his life is dull, troglodytic (Definition: a “member of any of various peoples (as in antiquity) who lived or were reputed to live chiefly in caves” — i.e., “cavemen” or “cavewomen”).  And: “I was shocked to think how narrow the world must seem to the man who has no books.”

True, Zweig may have felt pity for his new-found friend, whom he previously described as a person who possessed a “genius for mimicry and caricatured everybody”, and whom he found fascinating and of enjoyable company — until, it turns out, that he discovered his illiteracy.

The essay ends without a conclusion; perhaps he took the time (without writing about it) with the friend and taught him how to read.  More likely, they went their separate ways — the other fellow pitied for the remainder of Zweig’s days, the author convinced that he was an individual to be pitied.  But that is the criticism to be posited, isn’t it?  That we make judgments without judging ourselves, and unjustifiably when we have the power to do something about the ills we encounter.

For Federal and Postal employees who have encountered that very circumstance — of facing judgments by others while nothing is being done — of a Federal Agency or the Postal Service that has determined that you are not worth “saving” because of a medical condition that now prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job; it is then time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Don’t wait around for help from your Agency or the Postal Service; it is likely that you will not receive it.  Instead, consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  For, in the end, the decision to take the next step to “help yourself” will be up to you, and you should not consider the Federal Agency or the Postal Service to help you as your “friend” — leaving aside whether they will even feel a scintilla of pity for you; they won’t.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from the Office of Personnel Management: Proteus

In Greek mythology, he is considered as a god of the oceans.  Homer refers to him as the “Old Man of the Sea” and is known for change, adaptation and alteration.  He can alter his shape and appearance, depending upon the circumstances surrounding.  Changing of forms, of course, becomes the essence of Plato’s philosophy, and Aristotle’s later search for that substratum which allows for continuity and stability.

Perhaps the malleability of Proteus is in response to the tumultuous nature of the oceans; one day beset with the calm of quiet tides, and in the next instance, rising and falling with fury by the storms of unpredictability.  To be able to change, adapt and become chameleon-like is to be able to withstand the vicissitudes of life’s misgivings.

That is what we have to do when a medical condition hits us, and impacts one’s career and circumstances — to be like Proteus and have the capacity to adapt and modify the pathways we have followed.  Stability is always a necessary prerequisite for success.  While wide spectrums of change may be called for in the early days of a “start-up” or initiation of a new project, at some point, a calming effect must come about in order for daily living to occur.

Similarly, while youth may allow for the exuberant embracing of daily excitement in change, middle age and beyond yearns for a greater serenity of redundancy.  When a medical condition suddenly and unexpectedly reminds us of our vulnerability and mortality, it is to stability that we cling and not for the inconstancy of the ocean’s fury.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prompts one to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, it becomes necessity to act and think like Proteus — the “Old Man of the Sea” — and to consider a change of careers precisely because an incommensurability has arisen: No longer are the medical conditions compatible with the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, and that is the proof that one must provide to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in order to fight for, and win, a Federal Disability Retirement claim.

To find out more about the further particulars of winning the Protean battle against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is best to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The mouse in the night

They are heard and often unseen; a scratch somewhere from the far corner of the room; a blur along the space between the couch and the wall; and the mouse in the night scurries along, making some amount of noise more greatly enhanced when the quietude of a late evening descends upon us.

Should we put out a mouse trap?  The problem with that is that the dogs might come down in the middle of the night, smell the cheese and get his nose trapped and yowl with pain, waking everyone up.  Or, hope that the mouse in the night minds his own business, scurries about without anyone noticing, and we can all pretend “as if” he doesn’t live in the same house as you do.

Like spiders, centipedes and other crawlers, the mouse in the night is there, has been, and perhaps always will be; we only try and rid the home of it when we hear it and it becomes bothersome.  That’s how we often treat medical conditions, kids who are nuisances, and neighbors who are irritants – we attend to them only when they reach beyond a level of tolerance or a spectrum of acceptability, and then it is often too late.

When does “not yet” and “too late”, or almost too late meet on the spectrum of provocation?  Does the mouse in the night become the provocateur merely because we hear him and imagine the slow but steady destruction he imposes, or the danger of the wife or daughter in the house who may scream suddenly (or is that being sexist to think that only the female gender will react in such a way)?

The mouse in the night is very much like a medical condition, where it comes and slowly steals one’s energy, eats away at the energy one has stored, and scurries along the contours of the walls in a blur of running confusion.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to now consider preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the sudden realization that there is a connection between the medical condition and the slow deterioration of one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of the job can be likened to the mouse in the night – you always knew it was there and that it was slowly eating away, if not by the noise, then by ignoring its presence; you just kept putting it out of your mind because of those “other reasons”, like the trouble it takes, the fact of facing up to it, the avoidance, and maybe even the hope that it would just go away.

But neither mice nor medical conditions go away, but remain as problems that keep gnawing until the hole in the wall becomes too large to ignore.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire