Federal Disability Retirement Law: The face in the mirror

Some avoid it; others run to it like an obsession that cannot be abandoned; and for most, it is merely a daily habit that must be tolerated.

The face in the mirror that we view in order to “present” ourselves to the world is the one we are born with, attempt to alter in multiple ways throughout different stages of life – perhaps by artificial means ranging in spectral thunders of surgical alterations, color-dying, parting the hair on the left side instead of the right; trying to cover that growing bald plate that shines like a heavenly orb not needing the assistance of the Hubbell Telescope from afar in galaxies far and wide; of make-up, lipstick colors and hair-style alterations; and yet, somehow, it is those eyes that stare back that seem to pierce within.

And what of that image we hold; was it the imprint from our youth that forever became frozen in the timeless synergies of our inner consciousness?  Does the reflection in the mirror last, for some, for only a second, such that we have to run back to it – whether by the closely-held compact in the purse, the reflection in the store window, or even that oblong shape of a car’s side contraptions – and reassure ourselves that it has not changed much since the last encounter?

Or is it the image we continue to hold onto as that innocent child of long ago who forever swore that neither time, old age nor ravages of bygone years would ever defeat the compliments received and which we hold so dearly?

It is, in the end, the eyes – what Plato described as the windows to one’s soul – that tell the tale of a person’s past.  Does it haunt?  Does it enliven?  Will it glitter and sparkle like the moon’s reflection upon a summer’s pond in its tranquility of calm?  Or does life bring such sorrow within the chasms in between, where the haggard look befalls and betrays the unhappiness residing within?

We need not look in the mirror to gather much that we already know, and yet we keep going back and speaking to that ghostly appearance reversed in proportionality as the negative photograph that smiles when we smile, cries when we cry, but feels not the inner pain that grows with each day.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are at a point in their lives that filing for Federal Disability Retirement must be considered, it is a critical point to consider when you look at the face in the mirror – for, the reflection seen is often not the “real” person that stands in front of the mirror, and the “appearance” is never the essence of the inner soul concealed.  That is the sad truth when dealing with the Federal agency or the Postal facility; they all see “you” as “that person who has a medical condition and is no longer as productive as he/she used to be”.

That is why filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits often becomes a necessity, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset – because the face in the mirror is just that – a reflection of unreality – that doesn’t ever reveal the truth of one’s potentiality in a universe that barely cares beyond the appearance of reality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Necessary steps to take in an unserious age

Adding the prefix implies that, beyond altering the root word, its conceptual opposite existed in a time prior to modernity and the present discourse of silliness.  The addition denotes a moment of opposition, where lack of substance occurred and the negation of irrelevance prevailed; and now we are left with a word which connotes a denial of that for which we yearn.

Every age has its follies; some epochs of upheavals are mere potholes in the history of revolutions and uneventful hiccups barely mentioned in those thick books which purportedly analyze decades, centuries and civilizations risen and fallen; and we must always look askance at grand designs and declarations which claim to have captured the essence of any given era.  But there is little doubt, and any shadows casting beyond the twilight of our own laughter and self-deprecating humor will only confirm the boundless limitations of such a statement of self-denial:  this is an unserious age.  There.  It has been stated.

Unequivocally, and with aplomb of non-judgmental claim to authority; how one would attempt to deny the truth of the matter, when the majority of the population spends eternal and endless time staring vacuously at a flat screen of fluorescent lighting, viewing, reviewing and re-reviewing videos of virtual reality unconnected to the objective world surrounding; where the reality of daily living has been subsumed by the politics of cult following and personalities designed more for advertising than for leadership; and so it goes.

There are, however, realities in such silliness that must still be faced, whether voluntarily or through force of encounter unavoidably demanded by the collision of life itself.  Medical conditions tend to do that to us — they demand our attention, and refuse to compromise our efforts at avoidance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition impacts his or her ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of the Federal position or U.S. Postal job, the next steps necessary in order to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, must be taken with a deliberative purpose in order to attain that level of plateau in life, where attending to the medical condition itself becomes prioritized.

In an unserious age, it is easy to get distracted and sidetracked, when the world around doesn’t take as weighty the cries for help or the means to achieve.  In a world of relative worth, where everyone has been arguing for decades that everything is “equal” and that “fairness” is defined by everyone looking, being and acting the same as everyone else, it is difficult to shake out of the deep stupor that society has wrought; but when the reality of circumstances hits us, as a medical condition surely does and will, it is time to shed one’s self from the prefix of “un”, and seriously consider the proper and effective preparation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, forthwith and with efficient pinpointing of accuracy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employees Disability Retirement Systems (FERS/CSRS): Of the parsimonious panderer

Somehow, merely doing your work just isn’t good enough; allies must be accumulated; alliances must be forged; outsiders, enemies and loners must be harassed, intimidated and crucified; suspicion is always cast upon the forces of neutrality, and homage paid is the quid pro quo of worldly advantage.

We tend to think that the manner in which prison systems naturally tend towards animalistic behavior of fiefdoms, savagery and community of gangs merely reflects a sociological consequence of a passing academic interest, without recognizing that the same applies in our daily lives.  One cannot merely go to work, do an excellent job and mind one’s own business; there are always dark forces beyond, awaiting and lurking, conniving to entrap and ensnare.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who begins to suffer from a medical condition, such that the Federal or Postal employee must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the magnification and exponential pressure of prior failures in becoming “one of us” begins to manifest itself in so many ways.

For the Federal or Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition where the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the U.S. Postal Service or the Federal agency, two problems begin to surface:  First, dealing with the medical condition itself; and Second, dealing with management, supervisors, and even fellow coworkers.

It is an unfortunate truism that pandering not only works, but works too well; and if, in the course of one’s career, one has been parsimonious in the arena of pandering to others, the price to be paid is often the harshness of refusing to join and pay the membership of the panderer’s club.

But, then, the price for possessing integrity has always been the wounded pride of the lying predator, and when the parsimonious panderer awakens the abyss of human conscience by having a need for sympathy or empathy, the herd mentality of the world around will surely respond in ways predictable, by devouring the likes of a wounded prey such as the Federal or Postal employee who needs to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Peripatetic Nature

But for a rarity, we seek its very opposite; consistency, stability, and the duration of longevity; these, we believe, provide for that which we didn’t have ourselves, yearn for, or seek to give to our own offspring.  In domestic legal proceedings, we hear tell of incongruent arguments where, in the midst of separation, the parties delineate what is in the “best interests of the children” — of remaining in the family home, maintaining a stability of regularity, etc.

From our limited micro-perspective, the loss of constancy when contrasted with the length of one’s own mortality from birth to death, is but a linear insignificance in comparison with the age of the universe.  Conceptually, we recognize this; and yet we constantly fight against it.  Our forefathers maintained a single job from youth to death; then, someone thought of the idea of “retirement”, and suddenly there were mandatory age requirements and proposals floating about concerning the “golden years”, all the while keeping pace with mass constructions of nursing homes and home healthcare services.

The incongruity and self-contradictions are palpable, but somehow we get away with it all.  Is man a seeker of stability, or does he possess a peripatetic nature?  Beyond such a question is the tendency to reject and resist being “forced out”.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the persistent harassment, the hostile work environment created, and the progressive insistence of pernicious pettiness invoked to make life unpleasant — these are all signs to acknowledge that one must “move on” with life.

It is difficult enough to deal with a medical condition; harder still to attend to it in conjunction with work-related pressures.

Stability of purpose is often what we thought we wanted; and for the peripatetic traveler, perhaps moving to another phase of life is an easy thing; but for the rest of us, change — even recognizing the necessity and inevitability, especially for the Federal or Postal employee who must file for Federal 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 something that is hard to accept, given the true nature of man, even if we all think of ourselves as Aristotelian philosophers.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Leaving without a Blip

Remember those old films, of silence, submarines and sonars (an acronym we have forgotten from the combination of terms, SOund, Navigation And Radar)?

There were those tense moments of complete silence, where heartbeats and perspiration could be palpably heard when life and death depended upon it, and the moment when someone coughed or dropped an object at the crucial moment; then, the sudden entrance of old Navy footage of depth charges being flung like spitballs from a rubber band, splashing into the ocean, then the angst of awaiting the slow sinking until the violent detonation of that camera-shaking explosion.

Was it close enough to have caused damage?  Can the heavy metal doors be shut in time to prevent deadly flooding?  Can the engineer fix the dent in the tin can just enough to chug along to the nearest base for further repair?  In the end, it all depended upon the blip on the screen, as the clockwork motion of the round screen revealed the positioning of the enemy vessel as the ghostly residue of existence left behind one’s presence, if only for a brief moment in time.

It is, in many ways, a metaphor for all lives; as merely a blip on a screen, and whether we are noticed, to what extent, by whom, and if one’s location deserves the catapult of a depth charge, or to be ignored as not warranting an adversarial response.

That is often how Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers contend with a medical or health condition which threatens to cut short one’s career with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service:  Has enough of a blip been made?  Will a greater blip, or a longer presence of that ghostly residue on the clock-like screen, make up for the difference of extinguishment of existence?

There are those who enter a room quietly, and leave without notice; others, who must make a splash with each entrance, and falter in the exit because they have extended their welcome beyond polite niceties; and still others, who refuse to leave until formal recognition has been wrought from gated societies of diminished returns.  Which is preferable —  a blip which returns with a detonating device, or barely a yawn with the resulting quietude of an unnoticed exit?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates a filing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal Worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, a OPM Disability Retirement application — the question of being noticed or leaving a lasting mark is often a subconscious pull which unknowingly damages or delays.

But like the submarine in those old films, it is always the capacity and ability to control that moment of anxiety and fear which propels the successful endeavor of formulating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with OPM; and lest we forget, avoidance of the depth charge is just an indicator of how much of a blip we really were, and not a precursor of what ghostly residues the Federal or Postal worker may become on the clockwork screen for the future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Selling one’s soul

During the Holiday Season, there are always thoughts pervading concerning redemption, salvation, the “true meaning” of X, and whether we are living by the principles of which we espouse.  It is a natural phenomena, precisely because the rush and exhilaration of preparatory work suddenly subsides, and in a flash, the day of reckoning dawns upon us, and the quietude reverberates, resulting in untenable moments of reflective profundity.

The narrative of the kindly old man who drops presents for souls yearning for something more; or of redemptive confessions and regenerative promises declared on faith; these all make up the essence of Western Civilization’s essence of pride, prosperity and the progressive paucity of philosophical punditry.  They are the historical metaphors of past meanings, present meanderings and future outpourings.  Throughout, it is the essence of one’s soul which we are avoiding, and the vestibules of our reaching out to the future promises we have kept hidden.

Can a person sell his or her soul?  There are ways beyond mere transactions which transfer money for goods and services; there is compromise, submission, the word not spoken, and the moment forsaken.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who feel lost in such a downtrodden negation of heart, it is often understandable when a medical condition interrupts the delicate flow of life and living.  Federal and Postal employees 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 positional duties, will often feel that their life has been put on pause, and that others are progressing forward while theirs is but a lapse in time.

To file for Federal Disability Retirement (they feel, or are implicitly told) through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is likened to “selling one’s soul” because, by doing so, one is abandoning one’s duty and fealty to the idea of the “good of the mission”.

Beware, however, to always clarify whose soul one is speaking about.  For, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, for the Federal or Postal worker who is under FERS or CSRS, is to merely govern one’s own life, and to look out for the best interests of one’s own future.  It may be that when agencies, coworkers, or even one’s own family talks persuasively about how having that “good” job is more important than one’s health and well-being, that the soul that is being compromised is for the sake of another, and not your own.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire