FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: A Bang or a Whimper

We live in a universe of extremes.  People cannot have “reasonable beliefs” for, you are then deemed lacking, and in such a state, somehow a person without the passionate character who is a “true believer”.

The “middle point” which was espoused by Aristotle and the Stoics — of having the calm demeanor and not reactively excitable; of a reasoned approach to every issue; of maintaining a demeanor of the Zen Monk; this approach is now considered dead and irrelevant.

We must all be extremists.  Whatever cause we take up, whichever banner we decide to flagrantly exhibit (on our cars or with signs and banners ugli-fying our homes and front yards), we must go out with either a bang or a whimper.  If with a whimper, at least we tried.  If with a bang, then we have succeeded.

In modernity, it matters not what the substance of the issue is; only as to whether we are “passionate” in our feelings.  For, after decades of focusing upon the validation of our feelings (as opposed to cultivating the rational faculty of our souls), we have now succeeded in upending the importance of governing the feelings.

Yet, in the field of law, there is still a need for a rational, reasoned approach, and for Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, it is necessary to contact a lawyer who approaches the issue of Federal/Postal Disability Retirement as a matter of legal and medical necessity, and one who sees each case as not a matter of a Bang or a Whimper, but as a legal issue which needs to be approached in a calm, stoic matter — in applying “the Law”.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who will not engage in the Social Media and modern approach of great fanfare, but instead, relies still on the stodgy old way of doing things — of actually speaking with the client, explaining the process, and doing the work himself.  Neither with a Bang or a Whimper, but with a straightforward approach of applying the damn law.

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: Of Grief

Chekhov was a medical doctor and knew about death, human suffering and the plight of spectrums involving emotional turmoil.  His profession as a doctor resulted in encounters with human suffering; his love for writing often reflected the experiences gained from his medical profession.

He possessed a profound comprehension of grief, and his short story, simply named, “Grief”, conveys the two-tiered phenomena involving that very fundamental human emotion: The feeling or sense of grief, to begin with; but further, the need for the grieving person to tell his or her story fully, and in so doing, coming to terms with the loss which is the basis of grief.

Every loss, to a greater or lesser degree, results in some sense of grief, and death is not the only basis of that most brutal of emotions.

For Federal Government employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the health condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, part of the grief felt is the loss of one’s career, of a diminishment of finances, of reduced circumstances and the severing of that collegial sense of working at an agency.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management can be a difficult choice. To do it effectively and properly, contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and allow that emotional turmoil of grief be somewhat blunted by having an experienced advocate do much of the groundwork on your behalf.

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 from OPM: Delaying the Inevitable

A fascinating historical period involved, in the 17th Century, the controversy between Jansenism, Pelagianism and multiple other “isms” concerning predestination, grace, effectual grace as opposed to prevenient grace, and whether our efforts for moral behavior make any difference at all, and Pascal’s response to such issues.

For, if something is inevitable, is there any point in expending the effort in attempting to “influence” the outcome if the outcome is predetermined, anyway?  If the Calvinist theology of a limited number of “the elect” is true, and X is not of the class of “the elect”, what would be the point of acting in a morally upright manner if it makes no difference?

Instead, wouldn’t human beings likely try everything to delay the inevitable — of clawing onto this life merely to survive at all costs, including murdering and enjoying every sensual pleasure, knowing that the inevitable was the pain of eternal damnation?

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, “delaying the inevitable” — of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — may seem somewhat akin to the 17th Century theological controversy described above — if merely because continuing in one’s career is preferable to ending that career and going into early medical retirement.

However, there is one crucial difference: The “inevitable” will allow you to work at another job in the private sector or for the state and local government, and still allow you to make up to 80% of what your former (Federal or Postal) position currently pays.  Thus, unlike the inevitability of hellfire and damnation, you can actually move forward into a second career.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Medical Retirement under FERS and stop worrying about delaying the inevitable; for, the inevitable is not as negative a state of being as you might think.

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 Benefits: The Balance Between

There is a balance between the extremes; and that is precisely the whole point of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics — of maintaining the balance between.

Life is full of extremes — of individuals who do nothing, or do too much; of authoritarianism or anarchy; of excessive spending or self-defeating restraint; the key is to find the median, the “middle ground”.

Some would argue, of course, that the mid-point is merely the compromise between the two extremes and thus achieves only a watered-down state of affairs; but that depends upon each individual circumstance.  Is the only option available to succumb to either extreme?

In a Federal Disability Retirement case, the balance between is to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  For, the extremes are: Stay in the job and continue to struggle and to harm yourself by working in a position which continues to be destructive to your health; or, to resign and walk away with nothing.

The balance between is to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits and seek a different kind of job in the private sector or state government.

Contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and begin thinking in terms of the balance between.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer specializing exclusively in FERS Disability Retirement Law

 

Help with Disability Retirement from a Federal Agency or the USPS: The Task at Hand

It is the task at hand which must be focused upon — not the “other” things which continue to distract and impede.  Prioritizing in life is a necessity; and if it is difficult to make the judgmental decision of which is sequentially important as opposed to other issues of relative unimportance, then begin by completing the task at hand — whatever it may be — then moving on to the next one, and the next one after that.

Life has become complicated in this brave new world of technology, multi-tasking and electronic universe of virtual realities.  How do we counter the stresses of modernity?  By attending first to the task at hand.

For FERS Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows you to even complete the task at hand — of an essential element in your work — then it is time to contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement under FERS, filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Such an attorney, if an expert exclusively in Federal Disability Retirement Law, will get the singular task at hand completed and accomplished, by getting an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and getting you on your way with a Federal Disability Retirement annuity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Art of the Story

There is the subject itself, and then there is the art of the subject thus identified.  At some point in every civilization, the academic study of a subject becomes pedantically necessary, and a “cottage” industry developed.

Once upon a time, the “story” was an important and inseparable component of a culture; the storyteller was the keeper of the village’s identity, the protector of its essence where mythology and folklore provided meaning, relevance and its self-knowledge of who one was, where one came from, and what the whole purpose of existence meant.  Without The Story, people wandered off despondent, lost, and without a teleological force to hold the unit of peoples together within a coherent whole.

Then, writing came along and as the technological tools of the craft disseminated to other and wider cultural arenas, the shared ideas and adventures of each culture became better known, and assimilated by each over and within others.  The “Art” of the story became the study of it — of what constituted an effective story; what made people laugh, cry, and the erudite articles that explained that which was once obvious and self-evident.  Categorization and specialization soon follows; whether as it becomes more sophisticated or intellectually advanced as a reflection of it, or merely because complexity follows upon a self-satisfaction of what we deem as “progress”, who will ever know?

The “Art” of the story somehow came into being — of the study of a once human need began around a campfire where a village told of its origins, now relegated to the halls of academic “science” where dissection, analysis and discussions ensue.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have a “story” about a medical condition that is beginning to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the Art of the Story becomes a necessary form of application, because SF 3112A —Applicant’s Statement of Disability — requires not only the telling of one’s story about the medical condition, the impact upon one’s ability and capacity to perform one’s job duties, and how it has dominated all aspects of one’s professional and personal life, but beyond: it must comply with and meet the legal eligibility criteria by a preponderance of the evidence, thus forcing the Federal and Postal employee to go beyond the story itself, and to be fully aware that the Art of the Story has more to do with the proper and effective presentation of it, than the story itself.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: Private Hells

Wouldn’t a “hell” by definition encompass privacy and insularity?  For, isn’t one of the benefits of commiserating and “sharing” (in the modern parlance) that one expiates the pains and troubles one experiences?  Thus, if a hell is to be a hell, wouldn’t it be in seclusion and in solitary confinement for all eternity; otherwise, the hell described would be less than hell because it would be a lessened state of agony and torture and thus would not be the intended deterrent that such descriptive conclusions would be?

Private hells are the worse kinds of hells, if one were to place them on a spectrum of graduated scales.  It is the hell that cannot be shared with others; cannot be complained about; cannot be dissipated by describing, telling, delineating or implicitly requesting comforting words about; such constitute the worst of torture chambers left in the chaos of one’s mind.  The social animal — the “human being” — is one who derives strength, courage, determination and the will to live by engaging in the very thing that social animals do: talk; tell stories; share troubles; commiserate.

That is often the exponentially exacerbating effect of a medical condition being suffered by a Federal employee — of having to keep it a secret; not being able to be open about it; not sharing because he or she is unable to talk about it for fear of retaliation and the evils of bad intentions.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from such a state of private hell, it is time to begin to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, to be submitted and ultimately decided by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The private hell of one’s fears and anxieties concerning the entire administrative process of Federal Disability Retirement is often partly due to the strangeness of it all, and consulting with a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is often the first best step in extinguishing those flames of agony that are described in ancient scrolls, lest the private hells become public dungeons that flog the soul beyond what the law allows, which can clearly be explained and contained with a private consultation with legal counsel who can guide you out of that private hell by explaining the process of OPM Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: This upside down world

How many whistleblowers would do it all over again?  How many regrets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  The answer: Few as to the first question, and at least a dozen in response to the second.  For, as to the second query, while one person engages in the mechanical act of lighting up the room, it takes all of the others to fail to assuage the regrets of a person who has tried to do the rights thing, and has lived to suffer the consequences.

We grow up being taught all sorts of empty adages — how “truth reveals all”, or that “justice prevails in the end”; and though the old hero of simplicity has now been replaced by more “complex” characters of mixed good/bad/neutral, still the naïveté of childhood upbringings tend to haunt beyond the loss of innocence delayed.

This is an upside down world where the clear-cut demarcations that once were inviolable have now become obscured, and where leaders can argue with a straight face any and all positions, whether self-contradictory, hypocritical or just plain nonsense, and can get away with it without any regrets or loss of sleep.  Perhaps it has always been like that and we just didn’t realize it.  The wealthy have always been able to get away with more; the powerful, without much consequences; and when the combination of wealth and power become aggregated, there is little to impose any checks and balances that might have tempered the onslaught of injustice.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, where 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 fact that we live in an upside down world becomes exponentially the case because of the medical condition itself.

Progressive deterioration and chronic debilitation are often the rule of a medical condition, and just to survive another day without pain, without emotional or mental anguish — these are the hallmarks of needing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The world is about as topsy-turvy as it can get; but when the private world of one’s health begins to deteriorate, that upside down world becomes a tumultuous maze of a conundrum wrapped within an insanity that cannot be escaped from, and that is when you know that preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application becomes a necessity in a universe that requires some wisdom, and turning to the advice of an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement is often the first step in providing a balanced perspective within this upside down world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Happiness Goal

Whether human happiness is the goal to strive for, or as a byproduct to savor in those moments of sudden revelation, is for each individual to ascertain and abide by.  One can study the sages and philosophers and realize that there is a distinction to be made between joy and happiness, of contentment and satisfaction, and from a sense of peace as opposed to the turmoil of anxious foreboding.

Life is full of moments; but is it for those moments we live, or do such ethereal segments compel us to greater achievements?  From Aristotle’s Eudaemonism to Confucius’ focus upon maintaining the balance between family and normative behavior, or the extreme nihilism of Nietzsche and the existentialist’s embrace of the absurd, the modern approach has been to ensconce happiness as the principle of highest regard.  But life has a way of interrupting every neat packaging of human endeavor.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, whether of physical pain, the chronicity of progressive deterioration, or the overwhelming psychiatric conditions which impact mental acuity, cognition, with symptoms of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, etc., the desire for the “happiness principle” is sometimes merely to have a day without the symptoms of one’s medical condition.

Filing for Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal workers is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, can be an intermediate goal, and not an “ultimate” one.  For, in the end, if the Federal or Postal employee can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the loss of job satisfaction will be exponentially heightened either by the agency (through disciplinary procedures or termination of employment) or by one’s self (through frustration of purpose, increasing recognition and acknowledgment of one’s inability and incapacity, etc.).

In the end, the “happiness goal” is often defined by who controls what; and in taking the first steps toward preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, one asserts control over one’s present and future endeavors, and fights against the winds of time and mortality by controlling the undetermined destiny of a period of life yet to be deciphered in this complex world of mysteries wrapped in a chasm of conundrums.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Structural Problem

It is what we never want to hear, and fear most:  that statement from an “expert” who informs us that it is a “structural problem“.  Not cosmetic; not superficial; not unessential; but that word, concept and image which goes to the very heart and foundation of the damage:  the center of the universe.  When the damage occurs there, and the rotting vein of progressive deterioration touches upon that central nervous system, then it becomes “structural”, and all of the rest may come falling down in a sudden dustheap of crumpled carcasses.

So long as it involves only the peripheral concerns, we keep telling ourselves that it doesn’t matter, that the foundation is still solid and they are mere extremities of lesser concern.  We do that with pain and other irritants of life.  And with medical conditions that don’t double us over or completely debilitate us.  So long as there remains a semblance of structural integrity left, one can go on and continue without regard to the symptoms which become telltale signs of impending doom.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who has arrived at the point of finality where one can no longer just venture forward, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes the best remaining option.

We wait because it is in the very nature and essence of procrastination that the inevitability of ignorance, neglect, disregard and sidestepping can delay the confrontation with that which we fear to know, refuse to acknowledge, and take comfort in detracting from the encounter with the truth of established verifiability.  As with science, the flat earth, and the view from a geocentric universe, no one wants to be told that there is a structural problem.

Too often, the Federal and Postal employee who finally comes to a point of needing to admit that preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is and has become a necessity because he or she has worked until the last straw was placed on the back of the proverbial camel.

Medical conditions announce harbingers of events to come, by symptoms calling for attention and attentiveness.  While the news from the architect that the problem is a “structural” one may not be welcome, it was always an indicator that the inevitable was on the fast-track of necessity and predictability; we just turned our heads aside in hopes of another day.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire