OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Knowing What We Do

Human beings are the only species who pause and reflects upon whether or not what he is doing is done knowingly.

Self reflection; the ability to learn from past mistakes; the capacity to improve; the capability of admitting that we know not what we are doing, and to seek advice in order to fill the void from lack of knowledge — these are all qualities shared.

On the other hand, recent cultural and social upheavals in this country might test that concept.

Knowing what we do is important beyond doing what we do, because — if we are to still adhere to the Aristotelian concept in Western Philosophy that we are “rational” animals (and this may be a questionable presumption, these days) — knowledge, self-awareness and the capacity to comprehend the world around us are the very characteristics which lift us above the beasts abreast and allow us a glimpse of the angels above.

The primary prerequisite in knowing what we do, however, is to (A) Know when we do not know, and (B) have the humility to admit when we do not know what we are doing.

To that end, 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, knowing what we are doing in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the Office of Personnel Management is a crucial step in winning the fight against OPM.

Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who actually knows what he is doing, and begin the process of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

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.

 

Permanent Disability Retirement from Federal Employment: Time for a Change

Often, the mind lags behind the body.  The body may have been indicating to you the need for some time; but “time” and “change” are conceptual paradigms which require thought — the mechanism of the mind which listens to the body.  Or, if one is beset with a psychiatric condition, what often happens is that one part of the brain becomes ill and cannot quite communicate to the other part of the brain which prompts the decision-making process.

Whatever the problem, there comes a time for a moment of realization — that it is time for a change.

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 position, the time for a change is now.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and listen to your body — or the part of your mind which screams for that change — and make the first move in responding to the need: Time for a Change.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Workers: The Messes We Make

We make many of them.  By “make”, too often implies that it is our fault; and yet, some greater number of messes we make are merely the consequence of unknown factors, thoughtless actions and unintended reservoirs of youthful behavior.  Our parents often clean up after the messes we make; and, for a time, at least, such parental love allows for the children to mature and grow up until the messes become less and the successes replace them.

Some parents take the harsher road: “You have to clean up your own mess”; while others take too lenient a role and never allow their children to learn from their mistakes.  Most parents take a middle-of-the-road approach and try and guide their children through life’s learning process of making messes.  Some messes, like acquiring a medical condition, simply come upon us and we have no control over them.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are beset with the “mess” of a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of his or her Federal or Postal job, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is the “cleaning up” of the mess we have acquired.

Contact a FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Filing for FERS Disability Retirement: The Time to Decide

The process of decision-making comes in all forms: Of procrastination until one is forced into making one; of deliberative thoughtfulness until all logical possibilities are exhaustively analyzed and a default judgment is entered through rational elimination of available options; of basing it all upon an “instinct” or a desire; of randomly choosing based upon the belief that — as the universe itself is arbitrary and capricious, so should all matters be decided in a parallel fashion; of considering the alternatives and eliminating them based upon a gut-feeling; and multiple other nonconformist manners, often combining a multitude of various methodologies — if in fact one can even refer to “madness” as a method.

Regardless — whether of one method or another — there comes a “time” to decide, and that time is often relevant based upon additional factors to take into consideration: Others are dependent upon your decision; there is a time-limit on making a decision; certain contingencies have occurred which require a decision to be made; or, to simply let outside circumstances dictate the decision by deciding to engage in the act of a non-decision.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are struggling with the decision of whether to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the question of “timing” is often decided by the extent and severity of the ongoing medical condition itself.  The anomaly of when is the “right time” is often offset by circumstances beyond one’s control: of actions perpetrated by the Agency; of the worsening of one’s medical condition; of the exhaustion of FMLA, SL and AL and the denial of extending one’s LWOP status; and the combination of any or all of the complex interaction of pressures and stresses which impact perfect timing.

Time is an artifice of relative events; often, there is no such thing as “perfect timing”; but what we do know is that there is a time to decide, and that time is when a Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Of words and deeds

Does a personal pronoun necessarily attach itself to a deed?  If an opinion is expressed as a formal, generic pronoun, and not in the first person, nominative case, is it still the declaration of the author?  If, following upon the words written or spoken, the individual expressing the viewpoint follows it up with a deed or act, does the one follow from the other?  Is there a causal connection between the two?  Does it matter who says the utterance, as opposed to the content of the pronouncement?

Take the following hypothetical:  say a known liar — one who has been convicted of perjury and has a widespread reputation for spreading falsehoods, gives a speech about the importance of telling the truth, and the content, substance and every which manner of what he says cannot be disputed — do we say we “believe him”, or merely the speech given?

Take the same example, but exchange the individual for a saintly person whom everyone agrees is incapable of lying — but in the course of giving his expressed remarks on the subject at hand, misspeaks.  Does the “lying” suddenly attach itself to the individual, and does the misdeed forever mark the reputation of he who speaks with a badge of dishonor, like unwanted barnacles upon the underside of a boat?

The test of sincerity following upon words, is not more words, but an act which validates the declarative utterance spoken.  It is precisely because of the chasm which exists between words and deeds, that the necessary connection (that elusive element which Hume so brilliantly batted away in destroying the certainty of causation) which brings the two together must be in the retroactive affirmation of the latter to the former; otherwise, hypocrisy would abound (as it does) and words would remain meaningless (as they are).

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who intend to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the added burden of the medical condition itself allows for procrastination to extend the widening chasm between words, intentions and deeds.  Life is a daily struggle where the complexities inure to the aggregation of confusion in prioritizing.  That which is important, may not seem so today, when the stark realities which impact and impede in the immediacy of time can turn theory into distant conjugations, left within the turmoil of thoughts and silent words unspoken.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM requires an affirmative act following upon an intention growing within an expanse of needs. Thus, of words and deeds — the former merely initiates the latter, but may never attach itself unless the actual steps are taken in the preparation of an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, remaining hidden and obscured by the quietude of thoughts and the hidden screams of pain.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Comfort Zones

For animals, they are often designated as “arc of flight” — that invisible periphery where violation results in immediate retreat or thoughtless stampede.  For humans, it is identified as one’s “space”, or “privacy bubble”, and while self-control and societal norms have curtailed and somewhat dulled the thousands of years of evolutionary refinements to reactive instincts, the palpable discomfort manifested, the shifting unease of taboos violated, and for some, an onset of panic and heightened anxiety are the resulting characteristics of Darwinian antecedents.

Comfort zones apply to the generic aegis of such unseen safety nets.  For most of us, it is comprised of predictability and the security which comes from repetitive monotony.  That is why, even to one’s detriment, one will cling to the known quantity, even if the attraction of the unknown outweighs with obvious benefits and accruals.  Like the frog which sits calmly in a pot of water ever increasingly rising in temperature, the person who walks about within the confines of one’s comfort zone is in danger always of violative harm.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the question of the flashpoint — the intersection of continuing in one’s capacity and the harm it inflicts by doing so — is a complex admixture of needs, wants, comfort zones and the desire to persist.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are a hard-working bunch who, in their collective stubbornness, refuse to give up.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset matters not; it is not the system, the benefits nor the years of service; rather, it is often the career itself and the involvement with the “mission of the agency”.  It is a sense of belonging, of being part of a group of individuals, an agency, a department, and always with a sense of purpose and sometimes with a clarity of future endeavors.

Having gone to work for these many years, the value of daily routine cannot be underestimated, and therein lies the essence of one’s comfort zone:  life and the foreseeable future.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a violation of one’s comfort zone.  It is tantamount to entering the arc of flight for a flock of sheep, or the privacy bubble at a social gathering.  But when a medical condition mandates the necessity of a step for self-preservation, any consideration for one’s comfort zone should be set aside, as the road to attaining the purposive end of an OPM Disability Retirement annuity may test the very fabric of invisible characteristics yet to be revealed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Affirmative Steps

Procrastination is the bane of progress; by delaying and kicking the proverbial can down the road, the chances of decreasing one’s odds of accomplishment become magnified exponentially.  What is the reasoning behind inaction and inertia?

Human life must by necessity involve movement and progress; for, unlike other species who find the immediacy of satisfaction and gratification to be the basis of existential justification, we bring to the fore the coalescence of one’s memory of where we came from; a future hope of where we want to go; and in combing the two, a greater purpose of teleological rationality within the context of the here and now.  But that which provides the foundation of uniqueness, can conversely be the lynchpin of destruction.

Self-justifying language games of self-immolation; we can construct strings of logically valid reasonings based upon convoluted cacophonies of orchestrated mutterings.  But that which appears reasonable is not always valid; and as validity constitutes the systemic structure of logic, so that which may reveal itself as sound uttering may merely be a whining whisper of a mad man’s meanderings.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who can no longer perform all of the essential elements of one’s position, the reasons for not filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits are wide, varied, and often complex.  “This job has been my life for so long” (understandable, but change is often an inevitable feature of life); “Maybe my agency can accommodate me” (unlikely); “I am hoping to get better” (yes, but in the meantime, what is your agency planning to do?).

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a big and dramatic step.  But for the Federal and Postal worker who cannot perform at least one, if not more than one, of the essential elements of one’s positionally-determined duties, it is time to consider taking some affirmative steps in a direction which one often knows to be true, but where procrastination is the path of least resistance.

And, yes, to err is human, but at what cost, and where does human history reveal that delay results in a successful outcome?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire