FERS Disability Retirement Law: Of Future Events

Are we the only species which imagines, worries, obsesses over — of future events as yet unfulfilled?  Do we create scenarios from “whole cloth” of events which might occur but which often never come to fruition?

Of course, the past is a good indicator of future events — a harbinger and foreboding of storms to come; the present, of predictors based upon current trends; and of the future, whether seen in the coiling bundles of anxious imaginations or steeped within solid predicates that cannot be ignored; and in the end, it is this species called “human beings” who engage in such folly.  But for such insanities, we would not have stock markets and commodities “futures” to bet upon.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who worry about their futures because of a health crisis which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of his or her job, worries and anxieties about the future can be daunting, overwhelming, and obsessively of concern.

The future must be planned for; the present circumstances need to be dealt with in order to plan for that future; and the past actions of your agency are probably a good indicator of future events.

Contact an OPM Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin planning for your future by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS; for, in the end, it is up to the greater predictor of future events to embrace the inevitabilities of life’s misfortunes, taking the past into account, facing the present circumstances with a direct and serious assessment, and thus correlating the past and present to prepare for future eventualities.

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 Government Employees: Lying

It is a peculiarly human endeavor, not known to be prevalent — if in existence, at all — in other species of the animal kingdom.  Shakespeare references it often; criminal behavior is detected within the web of it; and in everyday life, half of the population in courtrooms across the world engage in it; or, is that fair?  Can it be that there are “differing perspectives” or “alternative truths” (the lexicon of modernity)?

For instance, when an eye witness to an event swears under penalty of perjury that “I saw X stab Y” when, in a closed-circuit video replay, it clearly shows that it was Y who stabbed X — is the “eye witness” lying?  Is being mistaken the same as lying?  Or is it good enough that the prefatory qualifier of “I saw” enough to justify the mistaken encapsulation of an event having occurred?

Does intention matter?  Does it make a difference if, prior to making the statement under oath, revenge was a factor in one’s motive?  What if the eye-witness said to her/himself prior to taking the stand, “I’ll get X back for being mean to me by testifying that he stabbed Y first before getting stabbed himself”?

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 often the case that — unfortunately — lying abounds when it comes to others in the agency filling out the Agency’s portion of a Federal Disability Retirement application.  Whether in stating that the Agency tried everything they could do in their power to “accommodate” a person — when the truth is, they did nothing and didn’t care to do anything — it is unfortunately a pervasive fact of life in the kingdom of man.

We are a species with a proclivity for lying, and the best we can do is to counter our own proclivities by trying to present the truth in as strong a light as possible.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Gov. Employees: Something Less

This is a country that has preached abundance for multiple decades, a couple of centuries, and certainly for a lengthy run on the concept: Expect more, not something less.  It has been touted as the flagship of opportunity, a place where dreams come true and hope abounds.  There has never been a view towards something less, for something less is an unacceptable concept to endure.

Commercials and television ads tout that we can “have it all”; that with a pill, things will be better; that if you buy a certain product, magic occurs; and if you whiten your teeth, everyone will like you better.  But what if life occurs where something less must be accepted?

Federal Disability Retirement pays 60% of the average of one’s highest 3 consecutive years of service for the first year, then 40% every year thereafter.  It is something less than what a Federal or Postal employee makes, but certainly something more than “nothing”.  It then actually does allow you to make something more — for, on top of the 60% the first year and 40% every year thereafter, you are allowed to go out into the private sector and make up to 80% of what your former Federal or Postal position currently pays.

Of course, your medical condition has already made you realize that life has to be adapted to with something less — something less than your full health; but Federal Disability Retirement does allow for something more, as well: Of a career beyond the Federal government.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and obtain the counsel and guidance of something more in dealing with a medical condition which has already resulted in something less — in terms of health and your ability to perform all of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

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

 

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement: Life on Hold

There are periods in our lives when life is seemingly “on hold”.  Of times when we know not what to do; of careers that have hit a brick wall; of unhappiness over present circumstances; perhaps even of deteriorating family relationships that fail to reveal a glimmer of hope for improvement; and of a medical condition that becomes chronic with the realization that we must accept it, live with it, and endure the accompanying symptoms for a life-long struggle.

Filing for a Federal Disability Retirement benefit under FERS or CSRS, or even CSRS Offset (though rare are the latter two these days) is often a movement forward to break out of the mold of life being on hold.

When a Federal or Postal worker realizes that the medical condition suffered will simply not go away, and it prevents and continues to deteriorate in that aspect of preventing the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, that sense of being stuck in a “no-man’s land” is understandable.

From the Agency’s viewpoint, it is often a period where they are unsure of what to do with you.  They act with a timid sense of empathy (or perhaps none at all); they will sometimes be somewhat “supportive” of your plight; but in the end, you know that they will replace you with someone who can perform all of the essential elements of the position.

Life on hold is a time of uncertainty and trepidation; preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset is a movement forward; it allows for some certainty to be adjudicated in a world where everyone else seems to be in a mode of “fast-forward” while you are stuck in the timelessness of a deteriorating medical condition.

Life on Hold — it is a time when decisions need to be made, and for the Federal or Postal employee who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of his or her Federal or Postal job because of a medical condition, a time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Strategy

Without one, military operations are doomed at the outset; with one, one can retain a false sense of security within the relative insularity of a conceptual paradigm.

Strategies need to be malleable and adaptable; otherwise, when the hypothetical hits the practical, the seams of a well-knit sweater can quickly begin to come apart.  That is why the best chess players have already considered not only ten moves ahead, but an exponential number of alternative reactions based upon each move’s counteraction; and the Master Go player, likewise, has already foreseen the pattern of a full board before placing the first piece upon the criss-crossing lines that bring about the pattern of completion.

A strategy is never the final plan; it is not even an intermediate one; it is, instead, the preplanning of a plan that must develop as one encounters reality within the universe of a mental construct already imposing upon the future foretelling of a past yet unknown and unknowable.  As a noun, it may remain fallow and inert, ineffective to the vicissitudes of realty’s modifications; but as an active verb, to “strategize” is merely to foretell of an initial action, always ready to abide by the encounters which reality forces, and be willing to react to unpredictable modifications that compel a correlative counterpoint.

Perhaps one’s life did not unfold in a pattern expected, predicted, or otherwise desired; no matter, for there are other strategies to pursue when life forces change and modification upon us.

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 may be time to “strategize” a 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.

Life-choices need a strategy; the strategy for the Federal employee or Postal worker, when injured or otherwise unable to perform the full duties of one’s job, is to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement, and the first step in strategizing is to contact an attorney who specializes in the Law of Federal Disability Retirement and to begin initiating the steps necessary for a strategy of efficacy and success.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

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

 

Medical Retirement from Civil Service: The Clock

It is an interesting device.  We can try and project back to a time of its non-existence, or at least when not every household owned one.  What could it have been like?  Where the hour was guessed at by the position of the sun – or was that not even part of the thought process?  Did the sun, dawn, dusk and twilight merely present a foreboding for a different paradigm?

Certainly, minutes and seconds likely had conceptual meaninglessness, and everyone worked, played and lived for the “moment”, without great regard or concern for the next day, the following season, or a decade hence.  Ship’s captains had a greater sense of future foreboding, though not necessarily of time, but of oncoming storms or changes in the currents; farmers lived season to season, and fretted as they still do about droughts or floods that might destroy crops; but as we entered into modernity, it was the grind of the clock that set the day for the city dweller, where payment for labor earned was remitted not by the rising and setting of the sun, but by increments of hours, minutes and labor beyond the darkness of a day ended.

At what point did time entrap us into a thought-process of expectancy that destroys the joy of a living moment?

If Friday provides a needed anticipation for a weekend of rest and repose, we immediately destroy and capacity to enjoy it by looking at the clock and realizing how many hours and minutes have passed by, and further denigrate our ability to appreciate by calculating the remainder of time.  We can become obsessed with the clock – its ticking diminution by projecting the decrease; the foreboding of what is yet to come, though it is merely within our minds; and the constant checking of incremental living of a life as against the clock that rules.

Medical conditions tend to remind us of the clock; or, perhaps it is the opposite, where the clock reminds us of our mortality when we suffer from a medical condition.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application may become a necessity, the clock can serve as both a reminder as well as an obsession of foreboding thought processes.

Yes, the clock is likely ticking in a proverbial sense in terms of the Agency or the U.S. Postal Service having the patience (does such an animal exist for either?) in trying to “work with” the medical condition (a euphemism often interpreted as, “You better become fully productive soon, or else”), but in a more real sense, the Federal or Postal employee must make a decision at some point as to the prioritizing of one’s health as opposed to the positional elements of the job which is increasingly becoming more and more difficult to fulfill.

By law, the Federal or Postal employee who is released, separated or terminated (yes, there is a distinction between the three, but for the Federal employee of Postal worker, not enough of significance to define them here), the Federal or Postal employee can file for Federal Disability Retirement within one (1) year of such separation from service.  Certainly, in that instance, the clock begins to tick, and not just in a proverbial sense but in real legal terms.  One need not, however, wait for such an event to realize the clock’s significance; watching the clock as the medical condition continues to deteriorate, is reminder enough that time rules us each day whether or not we succumb to it, or not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Life as a frown

Is most of life a frown, with a few smiles which make it all worthwhile?  Or is it perceived as its opposite – of predominantly smiles, with some frowns interspersed throughout?  Is that like the test-question for psychological health, of whether the glass is seen as half empty, or half filled?  Does the answer to the question depend upon the mood of the moment, the ethereal pattern of the day, or the fabric of that which is woven into our DNA by a matrix of unassailable conventions?  There is, to be sure, a weight of paradigms and an interwoven context which cumulatively aggregates into a “personality” of who one is; but can a Rorschach test unravel the depths of a psyche, or does it determine the course of one’s future actions because of the embedded nature of an anguished soul?

One wonders, ultimately, whether language is the conduit of the perception we possess, and that is why the Hindu guru or the Zen monk admonishes to seek silence, and to quell the obstacle of words and voices.  For, does an animal engage in unspeakable atrocities?  Of self-harm or self-immolation, or worse, of mass executions?  Is it not because of the conveyance of language, in communicating thoughts created and linguistic strings of previously-unimagined evils, that we reach the pinnacle of banality (to borrow a phrase from the Philosopher, Hannah Arendt)?  Would a man of such mediocrity as Eichmann have concocted the horrors of mass extermination, but for felicities directed by a conspiracy of greater evils?

Life as a frown; it is to approach the world with a certain perspective.  Life as a smile; it is to reproach the universe for being too downtrodden.  Is there a difference, or merely a play upon words where the distinction is lost once we wipe away the blur from our morning eyes and begin to engage in the work of the day?

Leisure is needed for the miscreant to employ the folly of a wasted day.  Time was that we all had to survive by physical toil, and worry involved how to eat in order to survive.  That is what consumes all of the rest of the Animal Kingdom; to survive, one must eat; to eat, one must toil; and the rest and residue leaves one too exhausted to consider, but for the technology of leisure where thoughts may invade and pervade, in order to create malevolent constructs of linguistic artifices.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers 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 one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the “approach of life” is an easy matter to conceive of:  the medical condition itself has made the determination for you.  Life becomes a frown, with nary a smile to intercede, when the work of each day is beset with anguish, pain and sorrow.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, actually has a constructive goal and purpose:  To alter the course of a future yet undetermined, and make life as a basket of smiles, to the extent possible in this universe of frowns.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Separation from Federal Employment due to Disabling Conditions: The Cost of Human Detritus

Whether used metaphorically or in stark linguistic pragmatism but described with a shroud of nicety cloaked by innuendo and oblique allusion, the aggregate of detritus produced and scattered is daunting when calculated by daily volume, multiplied by the current population, and exponentially projected in terms of a mere decade or two.  But waste or debris can take on many forms, including a reference to loss of potential, shattered emotional and psychological constructs destroyed by garbage left in the wounds of a child harmed.

Human detritus is the compilation of all of the garbage gathered by society, whether of abandoned towns and provinces left hollow and uninhabitable because of the ravages of war, or the production of things used and discarded for daily convenience; and in metaphorical terms, of the skeletons of men and women shed of the substance of form and character because of the treatment weathered on the shores of indecency.

Gather up the cumulative aggregate of human detritus having occupied this planet, both in terms of physical objects and the wounding shards of deliberating projectiles intent upon destruction and devastation, and we have a daunting sense of who we are, what we stand for, and where we are headed.  Waste and debris; in the end, will those two words describe the sum total of what we have contributed to the world around us?  What is the algorithm, or methodological approach, in determining that conclusion of accomplishments at the end of our lives?  Is it determined in terms of how many neighbors and friends we destroyed, or of whom we bamboozled?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who seek to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits out of necessity of circumstances, it often appears that the answer to the previous question is found in the extent and unlimited character of cruelty found in the essence of humankind.  Harassment, workplace stress and intolerance of less productivity discovered in the Federal or Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, are merely further indicia of the eternal bewilderment we discover concerning human invective.

Accommodation of one’s medical condition is rarely found; an exponential rise in human passivity and loss of empathetic response has become the norm; and because there is no other exit, 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 the alternative of choice, and understandably so.

For, in the end, the cost of human detritus resides not in the workplace which we left, or the placards promised but discarded in the hidden closets of dusty psyches; rather, the cost is counted by the scars hidden when actions known to benefit remain mere thoughts of procrastinated dreams, like the warm breath of gods and angel’s wings fluttering in the timeless eternity of last year’s wishes.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire