OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Trapped

Have you ever seen a trapped animal?  The fear in its eyes; the uncertainty of its movement; the scent of fear mixed with the heightened anxiety for survival.  For Man, in a society uncalled for, in a world into which he or she enters unasked, and often unwelcome; what does that say about a greater population which feels this way?

The pandemic exacerbated and exponentially magnified all of the ills of modern society.  Social isolation; the greater distance — not just of enforced separation of standing 6-feet apart, but the admonishment not to hug or touch; of facial coverings hiding a friendly smile; of mere virtual encounters replacing the human touch, even if it was a short handshake or a pat on the back.

Divorce rates and separations suddenly skyrocketed because couples found that — when all of the busy-ness of life suddenly became reoriented and concentrated within the confined space of one’s own home — they didn’t actually get along with each other very well.  The kids suffered from not going to school; everyone suddenly began questioning the value of the work they were doing.  The stress of life became quantified; medical conditions suddenly magnified.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows you to continue in your Federal or Postal career, contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and see whether or not your medical condition — that deteriorating condition which keeps you trapped in the endless cycle of pain and debilitating depression and anxiety — might qualify you for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

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 Employees Retirement System (FERS) Disability Retirement: The Vanishing Point

If you are old enough, you know the reference to the 1971 “cult” movie.  It had a strange ending, and allowed for lengthy discussions which meandered into the apparent profundity of pure pablum.  In the end, it was just a “fun” movie.

In reality, the vanishing point occurs daily.  As one grows older, you come across people you once knew but who have “passed on”.  We antiseptically and euphemistically apply the careful language of avoidance, but the blunt truth is that people die or move out of our frame of reference every day.

The vanishing point includes many aspects of one’s daily life: The family dog that dies; the elderly parents who pass on; the coworker who suddenly quits and is never heard from again; the guy across the office who becomes hospitalized and never comes back, etc.

It is the “etc.” which is the reality of life — we all move on; it’s always the other person who is somehow left behind.  That was another one of those movies, wasn’t it?  “Left Behind” — a movie and series about the biblical concept of the apocalypse and people being left behind.  The fact is, the “vanishing point” begins long before a person is left behind; we just don’t know the private struggles which are being faced throughout.

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 “vanishing point” has already begun.  It began with the medical condition.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and begin the process of validating the vanishing point from your job by initiating the administrative process of filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

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

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Pretzels of Arguments

Anyone with a thought can argue; of a voice which is louder, more aggressive; of incoherence in an age where logic has been abandoned and rationality of methodological proof is unnecessary, but where one’s “feelings” or whether one belongs to this or that victimized class in and of itself validates the propriety of an argument’s perspective.

“Pretzels of arguments” is a concept which evokes an image — a metaphor of sorts — where one has had to engage in a series of linguistic contortions in order to get from Idea-A to Conclusion-Z.  In modernity, however, the metaphor fails to define the illogical structure of an argument, for methodological soundness is no longer applicable: That is, one need not worry about the missing “middle term” in a syllogism or a necessary nexus between sentences in propositional logic precisely because in today’s methodology (if one can identify it as such) of logical discourse, there are no rules which apply.

Yet, pretzels of arguments still confuse us.  There are those who intentionally aggregate the conflate multiple arguments in order to confound; or, others who simply cannot restrict one’s thoughts into a coherent conciseness and therefore must speak in paragraphs where a couple of sentences will do quite nicely.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer 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 job, a necessary condition in preparing, formulating and filing a FERS Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is completion of SF 3112A — Applicant’s Statement of Disability.

Some applicants provide an abbreviated annotation to the questions on SF 3112A (which is probably not a great idea), while others provide a voluminous account in response to the questions, going on for pages upon pages in pretzels of arguments that can confuse and lead one into a morass, lost in a forest of language (also not a great idea). SF 3112A should be completed with thoughtful precision — of providing enough information for an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application, while leaving out unnecessary and confusing information.

Leave the pretzels of arguments for friends and family when holiday gatherings need some confusing diatribes in order to avoid the two rules of pleasantries: leaving politics and religion — those two subjects where pretzels of arguments are most needed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Night wanderings

Ever open your eyes in the middle of the night and, instead of falling quickly back to sleep, allow for the eyes to wander across the silent room where others are still and asleep — the dog on the floor (or perhaps curled at the foot of the bed where human warmth has gathered for the pure comfort serving the creature) and the partner beside; the quiet glow of the digital numbers in bold red reflection; the pictures on the walls — though you “know” what they depict, the shadows hide them, and yet you believe you “see” them because familiarity arouses the imagination even in darkness; and the squeezing sense of silence so overpowering that you wonder about the universe at large and who, like yourself, is awakened by silence itself?

It is in those moments that, just before the panic of realization sets in that tomorrow is just a few hours away, we realize that mortality is a condition we must face; that the child’s imagination cannot revisit yesterday’s remorse; and the saddest of all truisms: For the most part, this is a cruel and uncaring universe.  Where do such thoughts originate?  Is it just the dream-world when sleep battles with sanity and one’s night wanderings will not suppress the bustle of the day’s meanderings?

Perhaps clarity comes in the wake of slumber’s twilight; whatever the phenomenon, night wanderings bring one into the netherworld of the “in-between”, where reality is not quite recognized and a dream is not ever fulfilled.  That is the type of experience that the Federal and Postal worker experiences when confronted with a medical condition that impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position: not quite in the reality of the world’s harshness, not yet tested by the Agency’s or Postal Service’s full force of cruelty and uncaring.

Will they put me on a PIP?  Will they require a “Fitness for Duty” evaluation?  What happens when my FMLA is exhausted?  Will the agency just cut me off?

It becomes clear at some point that the Federal Agency and the Postal Service are not there as a friend or colleague looking out for your bests interests, and that you must initiate the process of looking out for yourself by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Those night wanderings often have the advantage of giving clarity to a reality beset with the quietude of pure silence, but then morning arrives and the clash of the day’s reality awakens within us the cruelty of the world around.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Holidays and weekends

It is often a difficult time for many, if not impossible for most.  Holidays represent the heightened requirement of gaiety and relaxedness (is that even a word?), where people get together, families gather and children run while without knowing the underlying reason, if only to reinforce the belief that had already been in place from the previous year – that holidays and weekends are a stressful time.

There is the familiar refrain: “Oh, the weekend is coming up!”  To which the afterthought by the grump always reminds: “And Monday always follows.”  Similarly, with holidays, the anticipation is often better than the reality: “Oh, the joyous holidays!”  And yet…  For many, if not most, it is a time of greater stress, of needing to get together with obligatory family members, and especially with those whom one doesn’t even care for.  Exacerbating the situation is often an underlying medical condition.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the vicious cycle may be the weekends that are used to merely recuperate in order to survive during the work week.  Thus, instead of enjoying, relaxing, “doing things”, tinkering, etc., the weekend becomes a haven and refuge to regain just enough strength or rest the aching body in order to get through the grueling week of work.  Similarly, holidays become merely an extension of a weekend, and a 3-day weekend is just a longer excuse to hide away and lick one’s wounds.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a psychiatric condition, including Major Depression, Anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks, agoraphobia, Bipolar Disorder, etc., holidays and weekends can further deepen the heightened reality of anxiety and depression, as the stress of the holidays themselves and the anticipation of what follows after a weekend can become magnified beyond comprehension and tolerance.

Consider preparing and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; for, if holidays and weekends have become a tumultuous time of overwhelming pain and despondency, and not the interlude to be enjoyed and become excited about, then it may be time to consider that the impact of the medical condition upon one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job is the underlying reason why the medical condition itself is worsening.

Holidays and weekends are not meant to be exclusively lived for; they are supposed to be mere intermissions where the rest of the week as well is looked forward to.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation Federal Disability Retirement: Struggles

It is a law of life, is it not?  To struggle; to always have to thrash about just to survive, whether in the world of employment, the world of self-control, the universe of just maintaining a semblance of sanity within a greater complex of madness we face each day?

And, indeed, that is the basis of most philosophical systems that have been posited – from the Ancients who posited permanence as opposed to constant flux (Parmenides and Heraclitus); of the tension between Forms and the world of appearances; of the universe of perspectives empowered between one’s spatial imposition of human categories as opposed to an objective reality that one can never reach (Kant); or merely reducing all philosophical problems to one of linguistic inconvenience (the British Empiricists); and on and on, the struggle to learn, to maintain, to survive.

Life is a constant struggle, and when once peace is attained, we then die, or at least retire to an old person’s home for the forgotten and the ignored.  Even the fairytales we read to our children begin with the struggle, then end with a world of make-believe; only, those types of endings don’t occur in “real life”, and so we have to explain to our children when they get older that, well…heh, heh, heh…it was all a lie – that, unlike the stories told, mom and I hate to tell you this, but the struggles in life never end.  There is no “happily-ever-after” after all.

Then, life brings about a medical condition – those pesky irritants that hopefully can be controlled or maintained with a pill or a stiff drink, but otherwise an indicator that either we are growing old or something in our bodies are trying to forewarn us of the future.  Then, the medical condition begins to magnify, exacerbate, and turn into that state of being “chronic”, and slowly, it begins to deteriorate and progressively impact how we feel, who we are, and what we can do.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers 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 job, the recognition that life is a constancy of struggles is nothing new; but, what is new is the realization that such a struggle now can become worsened by entering into arenas previously held inviolable – of work and the productivity that was once taken for granted.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is not a surrender to that constant struggle, but merely a change of direction and planning.  We all know that life is a constant struggle; sometimes, the struggle must be circumvented by moving onto the next phase of an ever-struggling life, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to be filed with OPM is that next phase of the constant struggle.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability: Demythologization of the Process

Beyond being an ugly word, Spinoza attempted it, but closer to the heart of a flawed hermeneutical approach, the theologian, Rudolf Bultmann spent his career attempting to separate the conceptually inseparable narratives encapsulating historical content, context and the meaning behind miracles and metaphor.

All processes are mysterious, until detachedly analyzed, devalued or debunked.  Some merely throw up their hands and reject a subject in its entirety; others spend a lifetime in trying to understand it, and thus do cottage industries emerge.  The peril of pursuing a discipline of futility is that, in the end, the process of one’s own actions may be just as inexorably a conundrum as that which one attempts to unravel; read a single, random paragraph from Heidegger, and one immediately understands such a declaration of frustration.

Often, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the prefatory statements of confusion abound:  ” I’ve heard that…”; “OPM always …”; “Is it even worth it to…”  But there is indeed a practical difference between the bureaucracy itself, and the bureaucratic process; the former is merely a juggernaut of an agency which is impenetrable because of the nature of the Federal system; the latter is an administrative process replete with multiple layers of statutory and regulatory devices which are complex in their compendium of requirements.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits by the lay person, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a complex, puzzling and often overwhelming process.  It can be likened to handing a complex transactional law case involving multiple Fortune 500 companies attempting to merge for purposes of avoiding specific legal entanglements to a first-year associate; mistakes are bound to be made, as one fails to recognize the inherent complexities or the need to draft preventative safeguards.

Further, when a medical condition already weakens the physical stamina of the Federal or Postal employee, and tests the limits of one’s cognitive acuity, the ability and capacity to engage a large and complex bureaucracy can be, at best, a challenge.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is analogous to the hermeneutical approach of attempt to demythologize a sacrosanct text of unyielding historical import; the difference from theology, however, is in the pragmatic need and practical residual consequences foretelling; and as they say in the fine-print warning of some advertisements, you should probably not try this on your own.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Disability Benefits: The Wind-Up Man

Before the age of batteries and electronic sophisticates, there were wind-up toys.  Mere mechanical wonders involving hidden spring actions and tightly wound coils for deliberative unwinding to propel movement, they betrayed a sense of wonder for their independence once released by the child’s hand.  But the movement stopped; the unwinding of spring actions released to their full extent; and further human involvement was necessary.

In stage plays of yore, what amounts to a “deus ex machina” required intervention; and so the thumb and forefinger would grasp the flat key inserted in the back of the toy, and wind it up all over again.  Many of us feel a kinship to such a descriptive process; the “winding up” may involve an unseen hand, but the rest feels eerily similar.

Medical conditions tend to magnify such a state of feeling; for, like the wind-up toy of childhood joys, the need for an intervening hand is required of both.  But for the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who needs to go home for that restorative sleep, or that 3-day weekend in order to regain a semblance of stamina for the week ahead, whatever winding up process may occur, is never enough.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, often find that — as each time the “winding up” process takes place, it becomes less and less effective, and more and more necessary to keep going back to the source of intervention — and so the vicious cycle ensues.

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 never the “total solution” to one’s medical problems; but, at the very least, it allows for one to reach that plateau of restorative rest, in order to recuperate.  As the wind-up toy must come to the end of its uncoiling mechanical actions, so the Federal or Postal worker who can no longer continue in the same manner, must consider options available to him or her, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is certainly an alternative to consider.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire