OPM Federal Disability Retirement: Not Unhappy

There is the state of “being happy”; conversely, of “being unhappy”; but what of the neutral sense?  Can you be in a state of “being not unhappy” and, if so, what could it mean?  Is it a neutral mood — sort of like an emotional purgatory where you are neither happy nor unhappy, but of a state of measured deliberation, where most of us are throughout the greater slice of our lives?

Modernity demands the first; to experience episodes of the second state of emotional constitution is to somehow have something “wrong” going on; for, the cottage industry of “be happy” is devised to manipulate and commercialize a state of natural being which has been artificially characterized as a “negative”, and given the greater multitude of herd instincts and the inculcated belief that there is something wrong if you are either “not happy” or “unhappy”, it goes without saying that any “neutral” state of being is likewise unacceptable.

Yet, most of life is of a state of medium; and the archaic, arcane Western Tradition of the Aristotelian “middle way” — where neither extremes of emotions are the preferred stage, but rather, a governance of the appetitive nature by the intellect and reason constitute the near-perfect character — has long been abandoned, and now deemed unattractive.  But reality, in the end, has a way of creeping back into our lives, and the state of being “not unhappy” is where most of us remain, cottage industries of “being happy” notwithstanding.

For Federal and Postal employees who are unhappy, and wish to get back to the purgatory of humanity by being not unhappy because of a medical condition which impedes and interferes with his or her life, both professionally and personally, it may be necessary to consider filing for Federal Employee Disability benefits under the current Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Neither chronic happiness nor persistent unhappiness are the natural states of Man; rather, the goal is to reach that purgatory of emotions — of being not unhappy — and it may be that, to reach that state of being, Federal Disability Retirement is an option to consider.

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.

 

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: A Slice of Paradise

Hank Worden played Moses Harper as the irritating sidekick alongside John Wayne in The Searchers.  At the end, he merely wanted a rocking chair to sit in, and rock the days and dusks away in view of the landscape’s beauty which told the story of the human narrative: of struggle, life and death; of wars and massacres; of the history of human inhumanity.

Perhaps that was his idea of a slice of paradise.  Everyone possesses a concept of it; for some, it is simple and fundamental; for others, complex and encapsulating endless greed.  Maybe it is just a place of your own on a mountaintop; a house in a quiet neighborhood; a family, or not; or a multi-million dollar mansion with wide and endless swaths of acreage.

Whatever constitutes one’s idea of a slice of paradise, that is what we live for.  For some, also, it is the negation of something.  We take for granted our health, and when we lose it, our idea of a slice of paradise is altered profoundly: For those in chronic pain, it is the negation or lessening of that pain; for those with anxieties and panic attacks and depression, just to get through the day without a breakdown.

For Federal employees and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS may come closest to a realistic conception of a slice of paradise: For an opportunity to have some respite from the daily stresses of the workplace and attend to the priorities which envelope one’s daily life — the medical condition itself, which reveals that the fall of Adam and Eve, indeed, sliced paradise forever and a day.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The Expression of Man

Work is the expression of Man; whether as an explosion of creativity or a grimace from overdoing it, it is an extension of that which is inherent and natural.  Whether in building or deconstructing; of newness or of a renovation; perhaps as part-time or beyond a full-time schedule; the expression of men and women is to work.

We often make up sub-categories of it — of a “career” as opposed to a “job”; a “professional” or an amateur; of a “white collar” position in contradistinction to a “blue collar” worker; but in the generic aggregate, it is all “work”.  Look all around us; the product of work, of Man — men, women, old and young — engaging in the building of a society in bits and pieces, expressing themselves by manner of an activity that takes various forms, multiple hands and countless ideas.  To cease to work is tantamount to stopping that which is the natural expression of Man.

That is why, when a medical condition begins to prevent and impact a person’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements his or her Federal or Postal job, it may be time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Consult with an OPM Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of extending the natural expression of Man — by allowing for such creativity and expression to present itself in another vocation outside of the Federal government.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Simulated Life

We all engage in it, to some extent; it is all in the “extent”, however, that matters.  The manufacturing of something which approaches the original; of pretending “as if”; they all constitute a simulation of sorts.  Whether of an expensive handbag that is made in another country where labor is cheap and copy-catting is the norm; or merely a smile when you actually want to cry; or of the rote response to, “Hi. How are you doing?” — where we reflexively declare, “Fine, and how about you?” — when in fact you are not doing “fine” but instead are forced to simulate the required rhythm of normalcy.

Society requires the simulated life until life itself becomes too real such that it must crawl out from the cocoon of artificial existence.  It is as if the metamorphosis from one form of existence into another must by force erupt, and that is the point when reality must by necessity force its being into existence.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where, each day, a simulated existence must be lived because to do otherwise might mean that you may lose your job, consideration should be given to possibly filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, especially when the real life being lived — the pain and anguish from a medical condition — can no longer remain contained within the cocoon of a simulated life.

Federal Disability Retirement allows for a lifetime annuity that lets you focus upon your health, and thus circumvents the simulated life and instead allows you to be the “real” you, and not some manufactured form of a fake smile, a forced joy or an artificial existence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early OPM Retirement for Medical Incapacity: The many tomorrows yet to come

Does hope lie fallow when the basket of tomorrows become numbered too few?  When endless tomorrows lay before one’s imagination, too numerous to count that one need not bother, does that purport to show that one has a great quantity of hope, or merely that youth’s folly allows for a carefree tomorrow where an eternity of tomorrows can never be reduced to a handful beyond a few todays?  Can time and incremental portions of divided moments be quantified in that manner?

That has always been an anomaly for the undersigned writer — the quantification of time, as in the manner that religious beliefs are scoffed at when it comes to the story of genesis.  For, those who hold to the strict construction and literal meaning of the timeline of how old the earth is, count the obscure generational extensions of people who lived in former times, and somehow declare that the world is X-amount of years old.  How one can calculate with precision that which is not explicitly stated is a conundrum in and of itself, leaving aside the issue of whether time can be quantified if the order of the planetary system and our specific galactic orbit had not yet been established.

Evolutionists, of course, contend that the world was clearly created billions of years ago.  To both, the question is:  Tell me the logical difference between the following 2 statements — 1. The world was created a long time ago, and 2. The world was created billions of years ago.  Do humans have the capacity to imagine time beyond the present moment, or perhaps yesterday or a couple of days ago?  What does it mean to say to a person, “A type of human being walked the earth 10 million years ago”?  One can barely remember where one has placed the screwdriver used last week, and yet people want to put some significance upon a belief-system that purports to quantify time.

Ultimately, the question of whether one believes that the earth is a mere 10,000 years old, or billions of years in the making, is not a factual or scientific one; it is, a political condemnation that categorizes a person’s religious belief into a bifurcated system of: Is he/she “scientific” or “religious”?  In the end, time cannot be so easily quantified; rather, it is a basis of hope and an anticipation of a future yet to be resolved.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal and Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal position, time often becomes paralyzed, much like our imagined world of dinosaurs and prehistoric images of those Pleistocene eras and beyond; and as time is unable to be made meaningful except in the here and now — by imagining the many tomorrows yet to come — preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application that lets you project a life beyond the present-day circumstances of pain, medical conditions and deteriorating health, is the singular differentiating way that humans can separate themselves from other species: with hope.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability: Casting caution aside

Does it count if you didn’t mean it that way, but others perceive that you did?  If you do X but intend Y, but others think that your X was intended as X, is it still valid?  And how does validity work, here — is it only if you declare to the world what your intentions were in the first place, or if you smile slyly and keep your inner intentions a secret, does it still count as “valid”?

Isn’t that ultimately what we are afraid of when we act upon something — that someone will think one way and we want them to think another, or otherwise there is some lack of correspondence between truth and the thoughts within?

When we are casting caution aside and others warn us of our impetuosity, do we pause and care to “correct the record” because we worry about what others might think?  Isn’t that one of the underlying reasons why Federal and Postal workers fail to initiate the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset?

We avoid that “tag” that everyone abhors — of a “malingerer” within the ranks.  Too much sick leave taken; not quite at the productive levels we once had a reputation for; excessive LWOP; constantly having appointments at the doctor’s office; and, suddenly, we believe that others are “staring” at us, judging us, whispering behind our backs.  Are they?  Or is it just my imagination running amok and creating a surreal universe of misperceived paranoia?

We become cautious, tentative, unsure of ourselves, wondering what our coworkers and supervisors are thinking.

Casting caution aside is not always an act of unthinking impetuosity or even of a gambler’s mindset. For, when a medical condition is involved, the only issue that matters is one of prioritizing one’s health, and preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application is often the best option available, and while others may consider the process as another pathway in casting caution aside, they simply do not know what you have endured, suffered and gone through before coming to such an important decision.

In the end, the universe of the subjective can never be judged by the mere appearances of the objective, and one’s opinion concerning the health of another cannot be valid without first experiencing the medical condition of the person suffering.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: Paradoxes

Quine, probably the greatest logician since Bertrand Russell, notes that paradoxes often occur as a result of presumed beliefs otherwise left unstated, and once they are “fleshed out” through query and made explicit via closer scrutiny and analysis, the portion which befuddles often disappears.  Confusion within a language game, of course, is often a large part of it, and certain unstated preconditions and assumed facts otherwise implicit and hidden will leave the stated portion incomplete such that others must come along and unravel the mystery.

In a similar vein, statements made as “necessarily” so also retain unstated presumptions.  Thus, if we claim that “the sun will rise tomorrow”, we are asserting that it is “necessarily so”.  If a child asks, “Why is that so”, we will often revert to nothing more than Hume’s response that because it has always risen in the past, and the revolution of planets and rotation of the earth around the sun has been a reliable compass upon which we can depend, it is the regularity of events in the past that determine the necessary expectation of repetition for the future.

It is, then, those unstated or “hidden” presumptions that made certain statements and claims unclear, and the job of an attorney is to clarify that which is left in a muddle.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where it becomes necessary to file 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, the questions surrounding paradoxes and necessity can be important.

Medical conditions can certainly be paradoxes.  Without explanation, they can debilitate, progressively deteriorate and impact a person’s ability and capacity to continue on as before.  Even with a medical diagnosis, prescribed course of treatment and sometimes surgical intervention, they may remain a befuddlement because of a lack of knowledge or explanation.

Having such a medical condition may nevertheless require that the Federal or Postal employee file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits because the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job.  The filing itself becomes a “necessity”.

The gap between the paradox of the medical condition and the necessity of filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes quite clear: Necessity does not equal entitlement, and the paradox must be proven.  In doing so, implicit facts must be explained and explicated, and more than an argument of “because it has always been so” will have to be put forward to persuade OPM of the viability of one’s case.

To that extent, do not allow for concealed and presumed “facts” to defeat your Federal Disability Retirement application, and never allow your statement of facts to remain a paradox, lest it become “necessary” to engage further steps of appealing the Federal Disability Retirement process in pursuance of an approval from OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Complexity to Defeat

Simplicity of former times is what we all seek; in the end, it is never as “good” as we all like to make-believe it was, and never as “bad” as we may feel at the moment.  But within a world which sees technology advancing not in incremental, thoughtful stages of periodic progress, but in exponential warp-speed unseen in the epochal movements of past generations, it is difficult to keep pace with the dizzying speed of innovation.  And that’s just in trying to choose a lightbulb at the local grocery store.

For must of us, the complexity which confronts and challenges are those within.  The viewpoints we bring; the skewed thought-processes from the baggages of childhood; and the enmity we harbor in secret compartments of resentment and shame.  Further, what exacerbates and complicates, is a medical condition, whether physical or psychiatric, and too often an intersection of both feeding one upon another.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s livelihood, the ability to even go into work, and prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the complexity to defeat is the very same one that haunts and hinders from the residues of self-doubt:  making wrong choices when the right ones will save.  Hesitation; fear; anxiety and angst from not seeing clearly an unknown future; these will all continue to magnify beyond the panic of sleepless nights.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is never an “easy” engagement; in fact, it is merely one more complexity of life.  But the bureaucracy will always be there; the procedures, methodologies and sheer volume of substantive and procedural hurdles will always remain like an obstacle unmovable likened to Aristotle’s proverbial Unmoved Mover.

In the end, taking that significant step in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will be determined not by fate or misfortune, but in recognizing that the complexity to defeat remains hidden within our very souls, to be identified, tackled and wrestled with, in order to move on with our lives.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Life’s Work

There is, then, the job or career we undertake (the distinction between the two is often lost, and depends in large part upon a multiplicity of factors, including length of commitment, opportunity within a given field for growth and advancement; whether any qualifications, certifications or professional degrees are required, etc.); and then, the conditions and context of participating in a greater culture of our choosing, including where we live, with whom we live, what social circles we expand into; as well as how we interact with the extended community surrounding us, and whether we even decide to abide by the rules, laws and limitations imposed by society.

The former constitutes the work we engage during our lifetimes; the latter, the macro-aspect of the work generally confronted during a lifetime.  We often confuse the two.  The conundrum and internal turmoil comes about because so much of the latter often depends upon the success of the former.  Without the wealth amassed through the work of labor, we become limited in the choices we have in the work of living; thus do some choose a life of crime or cheating, as a means of shortcutting and supplementing the former for the latter.  And when the work of labor is cut short, or somehow interrupted, one realizes the impact upon the greater work of life, and must adjust accordingly.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s work or career, the choice to leave the Federal sector is a difficult one, and not just because of the financial considerations which reverberate upon the greater work of living.  Often, the choice 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, is paused for reflection, procrastination and further delay, because the two concentric circles of life have overlapped to such an exponential degree that one cannot easily be bifurcated from the other.

One’s work of labor involved the social circle; it intersected with the greater percentage of daily living; the meaning and teleological motivation was commingled; even some of the neighbors work in the same neighborhood, just down the street, in our town (yes, it is an unabashed reference to Thornton Wilder’s famous play), or perhaps even next door; so, how can I face a change from the work of labor, without confronting the greater vicissitude in the work of life? But then, there is that medical condition, and it is always the interrupting reality of the medical condition which must, by necessity, be focused upon.

Better to make decisions now, when one has the option to do so concerning the work of labor, lest the limitations are imposed by others, which then can have irreparable consequential reverberations upon the greater work of living.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Attorney: Incremental Destruction

It is the slow, destructive force of incrementalism which presents the greater danger in life.  Most people can respond to a full-blown crisis; those are events where the human chemistry of adrenaline flow and reactive thoughtlessness results in heroic acts as told in epic narratives.  But what of the slow and deliberate acts of daily sniping?  How well do we respond, and in civil discourse where physical challenge to such cowardly encounters is no longer acceptable, what does one do?

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who must contend daily with supervisors, co-workers, managers, etc., in the deliberative incrementalism of destructive criticism, heightened hostility, and the slow churning of pressure by the drip-drip method of administrative sanctions, actions and reprimands, the cost of remaining in an atmosphere of toxicity is high, indeed.

When the medical condition begins to impact the capacity and ability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service engages in a fairly routine manner of acting — of ostracizing, impeding and obstructing.

One would think that, with all of the laws and public awareness concerning disability discrimination, that society — and especially the Federal sector — would be sensitive in the treatment of Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition; but, alas, civilization rarely progresses in response to genteel laws reflecting intellectual advancement; rather, they remain within the constraints of the origin of one’s species (hint:  the reference is to the Darwinian paradigm of evolutionary determinism).

Filing for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the best choice remaining for Federal or Postal workers who must contend with the incrementalism of sure destruction.  For, in the end, one must always reflect upon the priority of values — of health, continuation in a toxic environment, and whether it is worth it in the end.

It may be years before the adverse effects surface, or mere months; but that is the legend of the age-old torture methods which are most effective; the ones who administer the pain have all the time in the world; it is the victim who must live with the consequences.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire