OPM Medical Retirement: The Cackle around Us

Often, the noise emanating and pervading is nothing more than the raucous shrieks and glass-shattering sounds like the cackle of birds; neither intelligible nor pleasant to the ear, it fails to inform, engender pleasure, nor spur substantive advancement for the intellect or one’s emotional well-being.

People talk; talk is limitless; and the louder one talks (or so the theory goes) and endures past all others, the last voice establishes the truth of the matter.  The problem in modernity is not so much the boisterousness and overpowering continuum of noise; rather, it is the inability to recognize the lesser argument, the weaker factual basis, and the mesmerizing conduit of enjoying the sound of one’s own voice.

There is, indeed, much information “out there”; the question is not one of volume, but rather of quality in the vast overload of content dissemination. When one seeks  information, how does veracity get established?  When one chooses representation, what criteria is applied?  And when one receives answers to queries put forth, where does the confirmation begin to concretize?  The world is replete with information; what parcel of it is useful; how much of it is relevant; and to what use or pragmatic application can it be devised?  In the practical world of living, the cackle of information must be sifted through in order to survive any given ordeal.

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, the preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management must by necessity encapsulate the issue of relevant, pertinent and substantive information.

Gathering the proper medical document; formulating an effective Statement of Disability on Standard Form 3112A; presenting updated and relevant legal argumentation in order to persuade OPM into approving one’s Federal Disability Retirement application; these are the criteria in the pragmatic application for sifting through the cacophony of information clutter, and it matters not whether the cackle avoided represents that originating from crows or vultures; the point is to keep from being the meal of prey, and instead to prepare one’s meal of information in the quietude of thoughtful reflection, away from the disturbances of those who seek merely to hear the sound of their own voice, as opposed to the satisfying sonata of substantive and helpful information that will actually help the Federal or Postal employee secure one’s future in the preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The Pruning Mechanism

It is one of life’s anomalies that plants flourish and thrive with targeted pruning; too much dismembering, and the sap of life can wither; too little, and the nutrients required for new growth will be diverted to wasted areas of decay, thereby allowing for greater susceptibility to disease. As animals cannot regenerate new appendages (with some variable exceptions), so pruning of limbs is not recommended. But the term itself can imply metaphorical contents — of leaving behind and cutting off ties which harm; of terminating associations which contribute to the decline of one’s health.

The complexity of medical conditions will often bring to the fore questions of causation and exacerbations; and while stress is an inherent factor in almost every employment arena, and further, is not normally recommended in a Federal Disability Retirement application to be focused upon (see previous articles on work-place stress resulting in “situational disabilities“, which can defeat a Federal Disability Retirement application), nevertheless, it is an issue which any Federal or Postal employee contemplating preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, should consider carefully, seriously, and with deliberate intent.

It is ultimately the U.S. Office of Personnel Management which reviews, approves or denies all Federal Disability Retirement applications for Federal and Postal employees under FERS or CSRS; thus, unless one works for OPM, it is an agency separate from one’s own employing agency.

It is that agency — one’s own — which always must be considered for “pruning”. For, while the central issue in all Federal Disability Retirement applications is the nexus, or “bridge”, between one’s medical condition and the essential elements of one’s job; still, it is often a prudent thought to consider that “burning” one’s bridge is the penultimate act leading to a fruitful “pruning” — a mechanism sought in a metaphorical manner, to redirect life’s nutrients into more productive tissues for the future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: Worth and the Sanctified Process

To hold sacred and to consecrate; it is a recognition that a period, an event, an article or symbol is worthy of being set aside for reverential sequestration.  When one once recognizes that the body which one occupies, is being attacked by a medical condition, it is time to care for it.

Life cannot go on as days of yore; as guilt precedes sentencing, so the manner in which we act will determine the length of days for which we must account.  And so the cycle of humanity wrapped in empathy, of souls anguishing over spent days of youth, and whether we wasted our finite activities of superficial social interactions; as we tended to our dying parents, or merely showed concern for a sick relative, the age old question sometimes haunts us:  Are we our brother’s keeper, and to what extent do we owe an obligation?  But it is different with one’s own health; its ownership and obligation cannot be avoided; as health deteriorates, so the days grow longer and require greater exertion and arduous efforts. In the end, how we treat our own bodies reflects the depth and extent of who we are.

For Federal and Postal employees 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 job, the avoidance of the issue and the struggle to simply “hold on” to that which is familiar, is a way to delay the penultimate realization that there are priorities in life, and the worth of a life is intricately entangled in the choices we make, and how we treat the process, whether with sanctified reverence, or of a lasting imprint of stigmata.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit accorded to all Federal and Postal employees, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS.   It is ultimately a process which ends up at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; and while it is merely a mundane administrative process, it is the accessibility of time, reflection and future alternatives which, if approved, allows for the Federal and Postal employee to tap into, where the worth of tomorrow, and the sanctification of memories once held but lost in the turmoil of daily living, can again be attained through the restorative reflection of time and quietude of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: The Noise of our Lives

Is noisiness determined solely by the physical vibrations and reverberations impacting upon the mechanism of our ears? Can one be overwhelmed by internal noises, shouting and clamor despite sitting in the quietude of a noiseless room? Is it noisier when there are visual activities which seemingly occur simultaneously, such that the combined stimuli of the visual coinciding with the clatter of the surrounding world sprays us with such sensation-overload, like a meteor shower upon a lifeless planet? And do the things we engage in life seem like a hollow shout for help in the middle of the night, when in the still of twilight we fear awakening our loved ones but at the same time provoking the imaginary intruder hiding in wait in the dark recesses of our fearful imaginations?

Often, it is calamities and intercepting issues in life which jolt our consciousness into realizing that much of life is mere clamor, and the majority of movement is meaningless activity upon a treadmill to nowhere. When chronic pain, psychiatric conditions, and medical conditions which impact one’s mind, body and soul, interrupt the flow of mindless activity like a cauldron of shattered pieces from one’s life, there comes a realization that work at the expense of health is simply not worth it.

When that moment of realization arrives, consideration by the Federal and Postal Worker needs to be made, to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal Worker is under FERS or CSRS. It is an employment benefit existing to address those very issues of the impact of a medical condition upon one’s capacity and ability to continue to perform the essential elements of one’s job or profession.

It allows for a respite from the cauldron-filled clamor which is stirred and brewed by the witch’s hand of knowledge; and upon a successful attainment of Federal Disability Retirement, it is one’s hope that the Federal or Postal employee hears merely the click of heels, and not the harsh, echoing laughter of an agency which once stood over the stirring pot of one’s life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire