Federal Disability Retirement: The State of Affairs

It can possess a multitude of connotations and meanings; some, rather clever; others, of a mundane nature.  In a specific sense, it may involve a country’s economic and domestic standing; or, in a general sense, concerning the circumstances and situation of an individual or family.  A clever connotation evokes the consequences following infidelity in a marriage; and in every sense of the phrase, context is important in order to clarify the centrality of meaning, significance and relevance.

Thus does the phrase begin with a general sense, which we approach with a quizzical perspective because of the multitude of possible meanings within the limitations of a universe of linguistic possibilities.  That is the beauty of language; unless it is a stagnant one on its way to extinction, the richness of potentialities allows it to expand and trigger curiosities beyond a child’s imagination.

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 basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the state of affairs may specifically hinder and prevent one’s ability and capacity to continue in one’s career.

If that is the case, contact a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and don’t let the present state of affairs remain as the pinnacle of your dreams and hopes; rather, build from the state of despair so that the future will evoke and connote a more positive state of affairs by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 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.

 

Federal Disability Retirement Legal Assistance: Arrangements

We do it to flowers and files; to desks and decor; to books and bad hair days.  We make arrangements.  Our lives may have begun in disarray, but we have the rest of it to arrange.  In our own minds, we reposition various memories; we selectively choose which ones to tell those whom we encounter; the rest, we stash away.

Sometimes such arrangements work; at other times, they come back to haunt us.  PTSD is like that.  Depression and Anxiety, panic attacks which paralyze — they are like the poisonous snake which we thought we had securely locked away in some glass casing, but somehow it had found a way to escape.

Memories of childhood traumas; of terrible events which once happened, had imprinted an indelible memory, but which we thought we could “handle” by arrangements later in our lives.  But like flowers and files which need constant tending to; of desks and decor that require further personal touches; and books which catalogue things and lives or bad hair days requiring a long comb, the arrangements of our lives constitute a forever-struggle, especially when new challenges crop up.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, whether of a psychiatric nature or of a debilitating physical kind, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS), to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may be the arrangement required in order to move to the next productive phase of your life.

Contact a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the arrangement which will allow you to focus upon the highest priority in any arrangement — your health.

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.

 

FERS Disability Retirement: That Fleeting Feeling

Camus thought that our lives are based upon an absurdity — Of Happiness being the constant goal, and yet of so much of the population living in abject misery.  If happiness is merely an emotion, then it is indeed a fleeting feeling which can change like the weather, like changing seasons, as the direction of the winds and what we have eaten.

He studied the Greek Classics and determined that the absurdity of the human condition had arrived at a crisis point, much to be attributed to the fact that we had lost our sense of humanity, as well as that fleeting feeling.  He was not a pure idealist; he had witnessed the cruelty of humanity during WWII; and when others were ready to “move on” as if the crisis had been resolved, he recognized early on that the crisis was just beginning.

Compassion and empathy — those human qualities which could be cultivated as unique characteristics of a species — could be nurtured.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts one’s career as a Federal or Postal employee, the time to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS may have arrived.

Do not, however, expect your agency to display those unique characteristics of compassion and empathy — or even understanding. That fleeting feeling that your agency cares — put that aside.  Instead, contact a FERS attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of protecting your rights under the Federal Disability Retirement laws and regulations.

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.

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Understanding, Comprehending, Applying

Is there a definitional distinction between the first two?  And, must one of the two first be satisfied before the third can be employed?  Should the sequence of the first two words be switched?  In other words, does “comprehending” come before “understanding”?  Can you comprehend something without understanding it?  Or, conversely, can you understand something without comprehending it?

The semantic debate can focus upon different aspects of the words.  For example, the term “comprehend” implies a more expansive concept than the word “understand” — and thus the related term, “comprehensive”, which encapsulates a greater bubble of knowledge.  On the other hand, the word “understand” implies a finality — the end result — as in, “Yes, now I understand”, whereas “comprehend” may infer the “process” of reaching that understanding, as in, “Yes, I comprehend it, now, and finally understand what you are saying.”

And the term “applying”?  That is the act of showing that you both comprehend and understand the concept, by actively engaging it with the objective world.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to apply for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, the need to comprehend and understand at least part of the process of Federal Disability Retirement is a “must”; to apply it, however, you should contact an OPM Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest you fail to understand or only partially comprehend the complexities of the application of the laws governing Federal Disability Retirement.

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 Medical Retirement: Performance Levels

They vary.  What are the indications of reduced, lesser or insufficient performance levels?  Perhaps for a professional race car mechanic, the mere sound of a NASCAR team’s engine, its vibrations, its volume, its purr, the sounds at high RPM or at idle — the performance level can be intuitively known from experience.

For the rest of us, it is a subjective drive, a feeling known day in and day out; we can push ourselves, but some days our performance levels are merely adequate; on other days, they surpass even our own expectations.  There are factors that impact upon our performance levels — the weather; whether we are sick or in good health; our moods; our energy and stamina levels for the day, the week, the month, etc.

Most of us are driven — whether by hope for the future, fear of what may come about if we do not meet expectation levels, or perhaps even by a mere desire to please.  When medical conditions hit, the inevitable decline of our performance levels follow soon thereafter.  There is a direct and inextricable correlation between our performance levels and the health that we find ourselves in, at any given point in our lives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts our ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of our job, you may want to consider preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and consider whether your health is more important than your performance level.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Employee Retirement Attorney

  

FERS Disability Retirement: Choices and Regrets

The two go hand-in-hand, although we may not necessarily see them as unalterable couplets forever ensconced and inseparable. Instead, we often make choices, then afterwards, express our regrets without having learned from the process of “choice-making”.

Choices available are often unanalyzed and nebulous; left to appear, remain inert and ignored; the “active” part of a “choice” is when we engage in the act of “choice-making” — of engaging our minds with an inactive but available “something” — a choice there, but lifeless until the activation of our choosing invigorates the inertia of indecision.

Regrets, on the other hand, are comprised by the dust of past choices made. Once settled, they remain in the hidden caverns of forgotten memories until, one day or hour, or moment of quietude when we have the time to reflect back, the unsettling of the dust collected is stirred and rises from the ashes, like the mythological Phoenix that appears with wings spread and ready for flight into our imagination and stabbing at the vulnerabilities of our inner soul.

We regret that which we have chosen; and like the past that haunts, such regrets are ever so painful when once we recall the choices available and the ones we made.

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 and position, the next steps taken — of choices being made in whether and how to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits — are important in determining whether regrets will follow.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the choices to be made will result in regrets later recalled; for in the end, it is the choices that determine the future course of success, and not the regrets that harken back the past of lost opportunities.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Psychiatric or Physical Incapacity: One among many

Does it tell us anything that we recognize that we are merely one among many?  Does such an awareness actually add anything to one’s conscious life, or is it just another one of those pithy egotistical “self-realization” statements that purports to sound profound but adds little, if anything, to any existential intuition beyond the words themselves?

Does a lone dog pampered by its owner have a similar awareness when it is taken for a walk, encounters other dogs or sees rabbits scurrying across the suburban landscape?  Does it pause and reflect: I am merely one among many?  Is language a prerequisite to conscious awareness of one’s place in the universe, or is the mere fact of existence enough to bring about an instinctive realization of the same relevance?

To be “one among many” certainly brings about a certain perspective, does it not — perhaps of one’s significance or irrelevance; that each has a burden or part to play, but is not necessarily responsible for the entirety of the problems encountered; and perhaps even of a sense of community or sharing-ness, that one is merely one cog in a complex multitude of wheels spinning about in a universe that is often impervious and uncaring?

Medical conditions, however, have a way of destroying even that perspective, in that it makes loners of us all.  When a medical condition hits, it leaves one with a profound sense of isolation, where one begins to think and believe that no one else in the universe experiences the pain, tumult, angst and loss of joy, and that the one suffering from the medical condition is all alone in the universe.  To that extent, the statement that one is “one among many” helps to remind one that, No, others too have gone through similar trials and circumstances, and such suffering is not unique in this world.

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, it is important to recognize that while each person’s condition is unique, it is also shared by many others.

Federal Disability Retirement itself is a recognition that the frailty of the human condition must sometimes allow for an end to a career, but that further, productivity in some other career or vocation is still possible.

Federal employees and Postal workers are one among many, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is to share the burden of self-realization that while your medical condition may indeed be unique to you, you are not alone in the need to change direction and move on into another and more promising future where the one among many may be many more than you first thought.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: The human drama

There are other dramas, of course — of lions and similar predators; of insects beneath leaves dripping in the steam of rainforests deep within the jungles of equatorial regions rarely visited; of dogs chasing cats and cats chasing mice; of rabbits scurrying to avoid the claws of a hawk or an eagle; and then, of the human drama encompassing life, living, pain, sorrow, happiness, joy, hope and failure, all bundled up into communities where strangers walk about with smiles no longer reflecting joy or a frown implying sadness, but just an empty stage echoing from the scene that was acted out the day before.

The human drama is distinct and distinguishable from other species’ discourses of acting that may embrace the spectrum of emotions, for it is played out not merely by facial expressions, roaring of voices or whimpering of cries, but through the medium of language.  Language is the manner in which the drama is played, viewed, acted and depicted; and that makes for all of the difference in the world.  It is, as Shakespeare’s character surmised, as if all the world is a stage where each bit plays his or her part; and it is by language alone that the human drama is played.

What entrance fee is charged; how much we are willing to pay in order to witness the playing out of a specific act or drama unfolding; and in what private living rooms or bedrooms we would select for a premier viewing, we all have our preferences.  What is comprised of in other species’ dramas, perhaps we will never know, and care not about; for it is the peculiarity of the intra-species comity of needs, wants, desires and clung-to hopes for the future that link us all within the drama of the human kind.

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, the human drama has been magnified by the pain and anxiety compounded by the medical condition itself — of the daily fight against the pain or inner anguish; of the increasing pressures at work, complicated by threats of adverse actions, placing you or threatening to put you on a PIP; of possible termination looming on the horizon; and all the while, the struggle to maintain your health and equilibrium.

Filing 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 an option that should be considered by all Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition is preventing the Federal or Postal employee from performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; and however one views the unfolding drama of the next scene or act, consulting with an experienced attorney who specializes in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits for Federal and Postal employees may be the best way of beginning the next Act of that human drama called “life beyond a Federal or Postal job”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation OPM Disability: Analogies and life

Life is lived by analogies.  It is how we understand, comprehend and make sense of a world in turmoil.  By identifying a resemblance between two or more particulars while perhaps remaining somewhat different in other aspects, we are able to relate things, understand them, comprehend the isolation of differentiation between X and Y and yet embrace those differences despite the lack of commonality in all other respects.

Without the tool and transporting impact of an analogy, most of the objective world would remain isolated, irrelevant and separated from the subjective coherence that we bring to the world.  Explanations and argumentation would often lack any comprehensible understanding; scientists would simply speak in technical languages that non-scientists (i.e., laymen like most of us) would fail to appreciate; and life would continually remain a series of isolated islands of conceptual conundrums that would be separated from civilization as a whole.

That is essentially why the administrative laws governing Federal Disability Retirement must by necessity be spoken of in analogic terms – precisely because, in order to make sense in the greater context of life, everything in particular can only be “explained” and “made sense of” through analogies that we can relate to.  Without relational contexts and reference points, life’s various complexities would remain in isolation from one another.

Thus, analogies, life and Federal Disability Retirement benefits all share a common perspective – that of human beings who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, and that a particular “condition” or life shares with all other conditions of life the reference points that we can all understand: Law, Complexity, Human suffering, Pain, The fear of change, The need for change; Confusion; Trauma; Medical conditions, etc.

Analogies allow for understanding; life, left in isolation, is confusing as it is, and even after a lifetime of trying to understand and simplify, still remains a mystery.

And for the Federal or Postal employee who is at a point in one’s career where a medical condition impacts the ability to continue in that career, the reference point that needs to be kept in mind is that there are lawyers who specialize in getting Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and we are here to help.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer for OPM Disability Claims: The interrupted signature

The signature is the great identifier of a person.  It is, in some countries and cultures more than others, and even here in the United States, a feature that distinguishes, a type of rite of passage into adulthood, and in many ways a revealing characteristic.

It allows for the voluntary identification of a feature emanating from one’s own free will; an act which seals a compact; a stamp that distinguishes the person who completes the signature, from that of another; and declares to the world that this act, the signature stamp, with all of its unique swirls, crosses, dots and turnabouts, like some spinning basketball move that tells everyone else that you have arrived, is different, distinctive and peculiar to only the very individual who has picked up the pen at that moment in time and inked the singular characteristic upon a piece of paper.

Consistency in the written signature is important in establishing the uniqueness and distinctive feature; that, in and of itself, is a kind of oxymoron, is it not, when one pauses to reflect upon it?  For, to be “unique” and “singular” is to be a “one-time” event and a distinguishing peculiarity that cannot be reenacted or copied beyond the soliloquy of the act itself; and yet, for a signature to be effective, one must be able to repeat the same curves, the mimic again and again of the lines, crosses, dots, etc. of the signature hundreds of times over and thousands over a lifetime of signing one’s signature.

And then, once one has mastered the ability to sign one’s name in a unique, singular form, and be able to repeat it over and over again – have you ever notice how difficult it is to complete the interrupted signature?  It is as if the body itself is separated from the mind, and it is the hand and fingers that hold the pen that “remembers”, and not the eyes that guide or the brain that follows.  When once the flow of the signature has been interrupted, the uniqueness remember is suddenly forgotten.

It is likened to a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.  The medical condition intervenes and begins to interrupt, “preventing” one from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position that the person has been so uniquely qualified to do for so many years.

That is the insidiousness of a medical condition.  Such an interruption, however, is much more serious – for it doesn’t merely interrupt or impede the completion of a signature, but of a career, of goals, of family financial support, and every other aspect of a person’s life.

Preparing, formulating and filing a 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, is an important next step in taking up the proverbial pen and completing one’s signature.  And like the signature itself, the Federal or Postal employee need not fret about the uniqueness lost; you are still the same person, singular in every respect, whether your health has forced you to move on in life, no less than the signature that distinguishes you from all others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire