OPM Disability Retirement: The Pause Button

But that we all had one, applied to life.  Weekends constitute a form of that — like in days of old, when Grand Armies fought battles, but everyone knew that Sunday — The “Lord’s” Day, the Sabbath time for Christians, etc. — the bombardments would pause, the shelling and firings would cease, if only for a day, out of respect for a tradition of pausing.

In modernity, weekends represents the pause button — or so they say.  Technology was supposed to allow for greater leisure time, when in fact it has made unwelcome incursions into the very precious time of being away from work.

Time was when one could close the office door on a Friday, and not have any encounters with one’s profession or job until Monday morning — except, perhaps, for the occasional emergency phone call which required a break in the pause.

Today, emails follow us everywhere; many people have a “home office”, and the eye of the computer tracks us wherever we go.  Vacations once sacrosanct are regularly interrupted; and it is interesting, isn’t it, that people often choose destinations deliberately where wi-fi reception is spotty, at best?

The Pause Button is now no more, except for those who intentionally create one.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a injury or disease such that the injury or disease prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, there never is a pause button, because medical conditions don’t respond to such devices.  Instead, they continue to haunt, debilitate and progressively eat away at any sense of life’s peacefulness.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Medical Retirement Law, and consider whether or not your own health is more important than the disconnected Pause Button.

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 for Federal & Postal Employees: Isolation

It is a state which many declare to be desired; but, in reality, human beings are social and political animals (the latter term applied in an Aristotelian sense), and a true state of it becomes an insular havoc of desperate insanity.

Isolation is used in penal institutions as a means of punishment.  Whether it has a rehabilitative effect is questionable, but the policy is generally to impart upon the prisoner a stripping and depriving of a needed human experience — that of contact with others — and by punishing the individual, to allegedly “motivate” the offending party into behaving in an orderly manner in the future.  However, human beings possess great forces of creativity.  Stories from the Guantanamo facilities reveal a wide range of ingenuities in communication methods employed when “solitary confinement” is imposed upon multiple individuals.

In the end, the policy of isolation is often ineffective, and merely serves as an extreme measure of punishment which motivates not the human appetitive sense of behavioral modification, but cuts deeply into a profound sense of resentment and hatred.

In the general population, we have come to fool ourselves into believing that a blinking screen can replace actual human contact.  The worldwide pandemic has revealed the fissures of such thinking, and has tested the extremes of isolation.

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 under FERS, the sense of isolation can be felt from not being able to engage in the multiple essential elements of the position — of participating in conferences; of engaging with other coworkers; of missing time from work because of doctor’s appointments, etc.

Further, actual isolation is often exaggerated in the mind, where the mental isolation becomes disproportionately viewed and exponentially harmful to a person’s self-image.

Contact a retirement attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider the option of filing a FERS Disability Retirement application.  As isolation is the harbinger of a future yet uncertain, FERS Disability Retirement may be the ray of hope which opens the jailhouse door to a mind which is willing to be motivated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Sun rise, son set

Can homonyms be mistakenly utilized in spoken language, or only if written?  When we speak, do we have a conceptualized entity of the sentence spoken within the mind’s eye, or is it all just the blather of our own voice which prevails upon the sensitive ears of others?  If we have a word misspelled in our own minds as we speak of it, does it count?

Or, what do you make of a person who says, “I believe that the son is about to set”, then apologizes profusely, saying, “Oh, I am so sorry for the mistake; I was thinking about my son just as the sun was about to set, and mistakenly inserted one for the other as I declared the sun about to set.”  Does it even make sense to apologize?  Yet, in his own mind, he has made an error that needed to be corrected, so the further question would be: Can an error be one if no one else but the person who made the error recognizes it?

Oh, but if only this were true in all sectors of life — take, as another example, a person who finds that his bank account has been deposited with an astronomical sum: instead of $200.00 deposited on Thursday, the bank records show a deposit of 2 millions dollars.  You go to the bank and inquire, and the bank manager treats you like royalty and says, “No, no, there was no error; it was definitely a deposit of 2 million dollars.”  You know that an error has been committed; no one else will acknowledge it, and feigns either ignorance or rebuts your presumptuousness that you are correct and all others are wrong.

Is such a case similar to the one about homonyms in one’s own private world?

Or how about its opposite — Son rise, sun set.  You say that to someone else — “Yes, the son will rise, and the sun will set.”  It appears to sound like one of those pithy statements that is meant to be profound: “Yes, the sun will rise, and the sun will set”, stated as a factual matter that cannot be disputed.  Was an error made?  Do you turn to the individual who made the declarative assessment and correct him — “Excuse me, but you misspelled the first ‘son’ and should have been ‘sun’”?  And to that, what if the speaker says, “No, I meant it as it is spelled; you see, my son gets up to go to work when the sun sets.”

Of course, how would we know unless the speaker were to spell the words out as he is speaking — you know, that annoying habit that people engage in when they think that everyone around is an idiot who cannot spell, as in: “Now, watch as the entourage — e-n-t-o-u-r-a-g-e for those who don’t know how to spell and who don’t know the meaning of the word — comes into view.”  To such people, we roll eyes and step a distance away.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are wondering what homonyms have to do with Federal Disability Retirement issues, the short answer is: Not much.  Instead, the point of it all is to have the Federal and Postal employee understand that 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, is much like having a private thought — the medical condition — which is suddenly revealed only after we choose to do so.

Medical conditions are extremely private and sensitive matters, and are often hidden by taking great extremes of cautionary steps.  Privacy is crucial, but when the decision is finally made to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, you must accept that others will come to know the reality of the privacy you have protected for so long — somewhat like the sun rising and the son setting, only with greater significance and painful reality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: A breach of instinct

What if? that fragile balance that exists in nature, seen when squirrels scrounge about in search of roots and nuts, moving within the tranquil space besides cardinals, woodpeckers, rabbits and robins abounding when, suddenly, birds attack the rabbits and squirrels, and in turn, the rabbits and squirrels chase one another and attempt to catch and devour the birds, and the mayhem that follows goes on for an unceasing eternity.

Of course, such a scene is not “nature” in its nakedness, but a scene from a suburban backyard, whereas in the true “state of nature”, in the distant woodlands not easily traversed by the human eye (are there such places, anymore?), such scenes of predatory confrontation held by a tentative and tacit agreement of abeyance may occur daily. Or, in those National Geographic scenes, where there is a quietude of implied ceasefire in birds standing atop the backs of hippos and rhinos pecking away calmly at whatever delectable insects abound, and their sturdy underlings happily go about their business – what if, suddenly, the hippo or rhino turns around and with a swift lunge of its massive neck, grabs that bird and devours it whole?

Was there a breach of an implied or tacit agreement, a breach of instinct, or both? When such “agreements” develop within a slow, steady and evolutionary process, over a period of time imperceptible but for the peace and tranquility it creates, and everyone is perfectly content with the circumstances ensconced by tradition and the state of current affairs, what leads to the breach, what are the consequences and is there blame to be spread about?

What if a rogue animal one day just declares to itself, “The hell with this; I was never a party to this agreement, and so I shall do as I please” – what then? Is it not true that no true “breach” has been committed, as the parties were never official signatories to the agreement, explicit, implicit, tacit or otherwise? Who determines that there ever existed such an agreement, anyway, and where is it written in the “rules of order” that certain sequence of decorum must be followed?

That is, of course, the crux of the matter; for, what is the retort of those who have no ethical or moral compass, but to sneer with the declarative, “Show me where it is written!”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits because of a medical condition that prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, the presumption is that tacit or implied standards of conduct is often tested at the outset, both by the Federal agency or Postal Service, and even by OPM.

You rely upon the rules, but the Agency may completely ignore them. If you are a Postal employee, this is to be expected.

Yes, there are laws, but so long as silence governs the assertion of rights denied, a breach of instinct becomes the rule of law and the depiction by Locke and Rousseau of that “State of Nature” devolving into a “State of War” can become a contentious state of affairs unless, in the very process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, the Federal or Postal Disability Retirement applicant asserts the legal precedents controlling and constraining the fragile balance that restrains a breach of instinct.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Medical Retirement Benefits: The Diary

Many begin the process at an early age, then abandon it with little remorse or afterthought, as a worthless project discarded for want of inherent value; and when, years and even decades later, it is discovered behind a bureau or a secret cubbyhole where trinkets and memorabilia retaining an eternal aura of privately precious remembrances are stored away, we shriek with joy as if the lottery had been won, a proposal has been declared, or a camouflaged vault containing the mysteries of gemstones and valuable cadavers had been pried open with but the wishes of gold pots at the end of a rainbow.

Then, as we turn the pages and delight in the innocence of bygone days, we regret that early abandonment turned away the gleeful idealism of a youth now a stranger, a mind intimately once known, but somehow forever a mirrored reflection of an identity of the same historicity in time and element, but yet in a parallel universe now non-existent but for memories kept securely in the destined vault of youthful summers.

Blank pages which abruptly reveal the terminal secrecy of thoughts and activities recorded once as sacred incantations of mysteries foreboding; whether of loves begotten or turmoils annotated in cloaked tears when others had retreated to the privacy of a house appearing in mirth, but ignoring the secret lives even in the midst of intimacy; now from the perspective of wisdom and maturity, do we laugh, or yearn for that innocence lost and the extinguished glow of naive eyes now dim with the experience of calloused beatings?

In more recent times, of course, we are told that one can actually lie to one’s self in a diary; but our own experiences tell us with greater certainty than the world can accord, that the tattered pages of bygone memories reveal truth as never before declared, and moreover, there is nothing more precious in life than the self-confessions of a heart once pure, only to be consecrated into the malignancy of a world which cares little.

It is, indeed, that transition from writing to the imaginary character of one’s own creation, to the intermediate level of testing the waters of reality, then to be pushed into the manifold chaos of the greater world, that constitutes the sin of destroying the human soul.  But that we could turn back the hands of time and reenter the hallways of innocence; but, no, that would mean that the womb of our essence would be revisited, and the soil of our own impurity would desecrate the purity of those precious memories we safely tucked away.  Then, one day, we open our eyes and we have “grown up”; and nowhere is there any room for such foolishness as hearts which once poured out for yearning of innocence betrayed.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer the inequities of workplace hostility, harassment — no, let’s just use the singular word which is simple, outdated, but still relevant — “meanness“, as in the child who has just had enough, screws up his face and cries out, “You are just plain mean!” — know of the experiential desecration of humanity, when a medical condition becomes revealed, and others who were perhaps identified “friends” and coworkers suddenly turn the proverbial “cold shoulder” upon the vulnerability opened, as a wound wrapped but now exposed.

Filing 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, is not unlike the youthful abandonment of the innocent diarist from bygone days.  For, like that abandoned project scoffed at for want of perseverance or perhaps plain boredom, it is the treasure found at the end of the process which resuscitates the goals once considered and the future to be embraced; and, in the end, there is a difference between regret for a childhood forever gone, and a later stage now delivered, but where broken promises are ignored with a twinkle of a child’s forlorn gaze.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The 1956 version of the film (the only one worth watching) was in black & white, and created a sensation among French Existentialists for the greatest horror committed upon a human being:  to strip one of all human emotion, and transform the person into a robotic automaton of sorts.

Camus’ novel, The Stranger, reveals a similar theme through the titular character, Meursault, where the absurdity of life, the indifference of humanity, all serve to compel him to commit a murder without reason or rationale, in a universe without emotion — until the very end when, faced with the certainty of the guillotine, he responds with rage at a chaplain who wants him to atone for his sins.

Life itself can be the slow drip-drip-drip of stripping one of emotions, somewhat like spores which fall and turn into seed pods, and slowly attaches, drains, and diminishes the uniqueness of the individual; or like the greater absurdity of performing apparently meaningless tasks, where a sense of separateness and division occurs as a chasm between worth and work, as when Sisyphus rolls the boulder up the hill, only to see it slither back down the other side.

Medical conditions sometimes awaken us from the slumber of absurdity.  It is in and of itself an anomaly of sorts, to have to face the mortality and fragility of one’s life, thereby unraveling thoughts of worthiness in a world devoid of care, empathy or concern.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, for the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, is a step taken to climb out of that chasm or void of dissipating meaningfulness.  For, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s capacity and ability to continue bringing meaning and purposefulness to a job, within a context of an agency which shows indifference and outright animosity, it is time to escape the alien pods and devise an escape route from the invasion of the body snatchers.

It is like Sartre’s quip that Hell “is other people” — of that moment when a person looks through a keyhole and views another as a mere object, then senses someone else behind, and realizes that you were being watched watching others as an object, only to be considered as an object as well.  Similarly, when a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service begins to treat the Federal or Postal employee as a fungible object of nominal worth, it is time to seek and monetize one’s worth at another location, another context, a different venue.

Medical conditions demean and diminish in multiple ways:  one’s own consciousness recognizes the devaluation of being “less than whole”; others begin to approach and treat with trepidation; and Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service fail to accommodate according to the laws already in place.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a means to an end.  The “means” requires an affirmative step by the Federal or Postal employee to traverse from the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service by beginning the preparation and formulation for filing of an OPM Disability Retirement application; the “exit” is the concerted effort to run afar from those spores from heaven, as the body snatchers who drain life and vitality through the keyhole of sanity where absurdity and meaning clash in a titanic battle for human worth.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Legal Language Game

Wittgenstein’s contribution to Western Philosophy was an extension of a line of English linguistic/analytical approach to unraveling substantive issues of confounding puzzlement.  Leave it to the British to resolve all problems through the correct usage of language — or, in his case, of Austrian-British conversion.

Within every context of societal constructs, there are unique conventions of linguistic acceptance.  Thus, the “language game” when engaging a Rapper will necessarily be different from that of having a polite dinner conversation with the Pope, and discussion with a computer geek will take on a different tone and content than speaking to a 2-year old.

Similarly, there is a specific language game when entering the legal arena — often characterized by aggression, subtle threats, compelling force and the Roman Centurion admixture with troubadourian  characteristics ready to paper-massacre the opponent.  Words like “liability”, “sue”, “court order”, “subpoena”, “deposition”, “money damages” — they comprise the extensive corpus of the language game of lawyers.  Administrative law is a sub-facet of that legal route, but involves a bureaucratic maneuver which involves just as a great a level of complexity and specialized knowledge.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is an administrative legal process which asserts the right to, and compels the attainment of, a Federal benefit from OPM for Federal and Postal employees under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  It is not simply “given away”, and must be secured through proof of a level rising to a preponderance of the evidence.  There are legal precedents to follow, statutory and regulatory components which must be adhered to, and laws both stated and implied which encapsulate the whole of the language game of OPM Disability Retirement.

As a subset of the greater language game of “The Law”, it is a winding route of mazes within precipitous promontories involving a complexity of conundrums — not quite as esoteric as the language game of mathematics or physics, but somewhat akin to computer geekery and macro-economics.  Add to that the sword of yore utilized by a Roman Centurion ready to attack, transformed into the mighty pen (or, in modern linguistic update, the laptop computer).

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Devising Escape Routes

What a person spends his or her time doing away from work, reveals much as to how one’s work will be accomplished.  If one attempts immediately to build protective walls around the core of a project in an effort to stave off potential marauders, as opposed to focusing upon the substantive essence of the idea itself, then perhaps the vulnerability of the project itself will begin to manifest.

Our own fears often overwhelm; but healthy fear can be a positive use of an evolutionary tool meant to apprise and alert.  It is only when it becomes an impediment and obstacle for progress and advancement that our own self-immolative actions begin to impact our capacity to grow.  There is a delicate balance between healthy fear and that which lends itself to self-destruction.  Proper evaluation and analysis of a circumstance or situation is required in order to establish the former; for the latter, a groundless allowance without facts or evaluative input.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, the question often becomes, At what point do I begin to consider escape routes?  Do I need to devise them, or are the mechanisms already in place?

Escape routes are devised in response to dangers present; and often it will appear as if the manifestation of a medical condition will bring out the worst in others.  Isn’t that an anomaly in and of itself — that one’s own deterioration of health will impact the behavior of others, in a derogatory manner?  But that is precisely what a “stress test” is for, is it not?  It is never in the best of circumstances that reveals the true nature of a thing; rather, it is under adverse conditions which unravel the artificial appendages with which we camouflage.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is somewhat like an “escape route”, in that it allows for the Federal or Postal employee to exit from the adversity of circumstances, and plan for one’s future.  One need not “devise” it, to the extent that it is “already there” — a benefit for all Federal and Postal employees who have a minimum number of years of Federal Service (18 months for those under FERS; 5 years for those under CSRS).

For the Federal or Postal employee considering such a route, the priorities of life should always prevail:  Focus upon one’s health in an effort to remain (for those who are beset with a medical condition which is “work-related”, filing for Federal Workers’ Compensation benefits may be the first option to consider); then, if it becomes clear that one’s medical condition is impacting the ability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, and that the medical condition will last a minimum of 1 year (and it should be emphasized that one does not need to wait for a year in order to determine this aspect; rather, it is merely a medical prognosis that the medical condition will likely last at least 12 months or more that is required), consideration should be given to preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement.

In the end, it is not a matter of devising escape routes, but rather of recognizing the limits of human endurance, evaluating one’s place within the context of growing adversity, then acting upon those exit points available and allowable — then to make a proper decision for one’s self, and for one’s family and future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire