Medical Retirement Benefits for Federal & Postal Workers: The Endless Chaos

Human beings need some semblance of order; that is why, in Genesis, order was created out of endless chaos.  It could have been left alone; the universe might have just continued without any structural changes; but for some reason (and perhaps that is the key, operative word — “reason” — which prompts and necessitates logical restructuring) modification of the chaotic circumstances needed to be imposed.

Then, of course, there is a bifurcation between the internal order of things and the external, objective world.  Look at a person’s desk — it may look disorganized, chaotic and an area which withstands rationality.  But for the “owner” of that desk, there may be an internal order of rationality, where certain files are placed in specific areas of the desk; and even the sequence of such files can be rationally justified, etc.

Or, it may be the other way around: A neat desk, but in the mind of the user of that desk, a chaotic, undisciplined inner universe where nothing can ever get done because the thoughts can never get to a point of integration, initiation and implementation.  How does one attend to endless chaos?

Medical conditions, likewise, can be the basis of such endless chaos — of being unable to balance work, private life, family, various obligations, etc.  If you are a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition — whether external or internal — and need to consider the option of Federal Disability Retirement, contact an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

It may be time to modify the endless chaos and begin to impose some semblance of order out of the endless chaos.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Postal & Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Forced Choice

One may, of course, counter that a choice which is “forced” is actually no choice at all, and such a rebuttal possesses some merit.  However, the rebuttal to the rebuttal is to say that it all depends upon what one means by “forced” — as in, was one’s liberty to choose otherwise restricted, or is it used in a looser sense, as in, “I just felt that I didn’t have any other choice, so I did X”?

Thus, if a person walks into an ice cream shop and there is only one flavor of the creamy product, one may say dejectedly, “I didn’t have any other choice, so I bought a gallon of ice cream.”  There was, of course, the silent other option — of not buying any at all — to which a person might respond, “Yes, if the original contingency was encapsulated by the thought that ‘I want some ice cream’, then based upon that paradigm, the narrow choice-making was limited to purchasing whatever ice cream that is available.”

Further, can one argue that the “sub-choice” was the amount of ice cream purchased — for, was there not a choice of a greater or lesser amount, as in a pint instead of a gallon, or 5 gallons instead of one?

Countering that issue, of course, is to go back to the “primary” paradigm of the choice — for, if the contingency was the issue of having-X or Not-X, then the secondary choice-making of the quantity or volume of the purchase is a collateral, inconsequential matter.  Thus, what is important to glean from such a discussion is to recognize and identify what remains as the essential contingency of a choice-making process before one complains that a person was “forced” into a choice.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows the Federal or Postal employee to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is important to begin the process of considering whether or not to prepare, formulate and file a Federal Employee Disability Retirement application.

What are my choices?  Can I continue to work while I await the long process of a FERS Disability Retirement application?  Must I resign from the Federal Agency or the Postal Service?  Must I accept any and all reassignments offered, if offered at all?

These, and many other questions should be considered before one concludes that there were no options at all and that the only choice was a “forced” choice, which is no choice at all.  For, in the end, even the person who had no choice but to buy a gallon of vanilla ice cream had other options — like traveling to the next block or another town to go to another ice cream store.

For the Federal employee or Postal worker considering Federal Disability Retirement, consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to understand the options available.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: The house next door

It is the one that follows the same comfortable convention for all these many years — of never knowing the intimate details; a wave of the hand every now and again; of fleeting appearances on various days, such as recycling, garbage and the occasional Saturday when the in-laws from out-of-state come to visit on Thanksgiving, or a birthday, or perhaps when a tragedy occurs and the sudden appearance in the driveway that is filled with cars never before seen.

The house next door, or across the street —the neighbor who you do not know, and somehow never got around to knowing, whether because they were latecomers or you were, and the “other” didn’t seem all that willing, friendly or “neighborly” to begin with, and so a settled truce became the daily routine that never altered, never became a problem, and forever became entrenched in the mundaneness of deliberate social avoidance.

We imagine what occurs in the house next door; or, perhaps not at all, except to complain when they’ve made too much noise, let their grass grow beyond the acceptable conventions of normative beliefs (or otherwise in violation of strict codes imposed by the “lawn police” of the local Home-Owner’s Association), or parked one of their cars in front of your house (yes, it is true — that street section in front of your house is actually not your property, and though it may be obnoxious, the house next door has every right to park the car on your side of the street, right in front of your house).

We never know what occurs to the house next door until one day we read about the tragedy in the pages of the obituary in the local paper.  There is a sadness in that very fact; or, perhaps that is the way we have set up this disinterested and alienated society?  Do we prefer to remain ignorant of the goings-on of the house next door?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition forces the preparation and filing of 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, it often feels like living in the house next door — for, suddenly, you find yourself looking at familiar surroundings from across the street, or from beyond the fence that separates, and you begin to wonder whether you ever knew your neighbor, and what they are up to.

There is an alienation involved, and you must always remain suspicious as a “new” car is suddenly seen parked across the street, and the Supervisor or coworker seemed to be sharing information and gossiping with furtive eyes averted from your view; and yes, the Federal Agency or the Postal Service may be getting ready to initiate an adverse action of some sort — like the house next door that you never knew and now would rather not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: Coordination

Lack of it brings out the awkwardness of disjointedness; sometimes, it can be compensated by height or other attributes, but even then, it results in lack of efficiency, at best, and a danger to self or others at its worst.  Coordination is necessary not only for efficiency, but for effectiveness, as well.

Try and remember when you first began learning how to operate a motor vehicle: the need to coordinate one’s panorama of visual stimuli from all directions; judging the speed, distance and predictable behavior of other vehicles surrounding; of “putting it all together” in steering the vehicle, maintaining the proper speed, of determining the distance between yourself and other vehicles, how much pressure to exert upon the gas pedal and the brake pedal; and thank the stars that in modernity the “clutch” is no longer a common device on most vehicles, lest trying to get the car moving on a steep hill after the engine has stalled should again become the test of adulthood as it was for everyone in past generations.

Coordinating varying efforts, elements, components and the “thousand little things” that we now take for granted, was not such an insignificant encounter when we first learned to drive.  The simple task of adjusting the mirrors in coordination and in conjunction with the position of one’s seat was an exercise that once required thought and foresight, as one found it a bit more trying if you found out that you couldn’t see the other cars while traveling on a highway where speed limits were considered mere ornaments with irrelevant numbers on wooden posts to be summarily ignored.

Now, of course, everything is easy — coordination of all of the elements becomes a thoughtless exercise of taking things for granted.  For, with a push of a button, you can “reset” the previous coordinates already stored in the car’s computer memory bank.

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, it may become necessary to begin preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application for filing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

It may, for many, seem like trying to learn how to drive all over again — of the need to coordinate all of the elements, including the medical reports, treatment records, office notes; of preparing a legal memorandum that is persuasive to OPM by pointing out how the medical evidence is supported by the legal precedents which have previously determined a successful outcome; of formulating the Applicant’s Statement of Disability in conjunction and in coordination with the medical evidence and legal argumentation following; and of coordinating all of the various evidentiary components that comprise the “Federal Disability Retirement Packet” that is to be submitted.

And like the driver who avoids the vehicle on the road that has the big-lettered sign saying, “Student Driver”, we all know that the reason why we steer clear of such vehicles is not because of the teacher accompanying the novice driver, but because of the lack of coordination that might ensue.

That is why consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is an important component in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement case, because like the student driver just learning, it is the expert who teaches how to arrive safely from beginning-point A to destination B that coordinates the necessary operatic touch between stage and reality.

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

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Damascus Depiction

The story of Saul of Tarsus was the only true depiction of conversion, of the contrasting alteration of extremes on a spectrum of change; all others following, including Augustine’s Confessions, are mere exaggerations in order to rise to the level of profound comparison between the ‘before’ and the ‘after’.  Such a generalization may be disputed, obviously; but isn’t it interesting how, in the tradition of that telling of the metamorphosis, so many religious leaders seem to feel that their own ‘personal story‘ of conversion needs to somehow compete with the original?

Thus, it is not enough to merely ‘have a conversion’; instead, one must have been the meanest, lowest, downtrodden ne’er-do-well who suddenly saw some figure or heard a voice and was struck by some unexplainable bolt of lightening, and it is in that tradition on the proverbial road to Damascus where the unparalleled universe of clashing phenomena must be described in greater details of incommensurate proportions which have seemingly competed for the attention of ages.

Why, instead, can it not be that a person simply reads The Good Book, mulls it over, and decides to change?  Similarly, why must we always feel compelled to tell a ‘greater story’, as if the one that reflects reality is never enough to be persuasive in catching the attention of the reader?

In some cases, as in the one for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the proper understanding of the legal criteria must first be considered, before beginning the process of preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application.

For, if the Federal or Postal employee, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, mistakenly believes that the legal criteria is identical to the one required to obtain Federal OWCP benefits (it is not) or of Social Security Disability benefits (clearly not the same), then the very approach in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS may well reflect that misunderstanding.

Like the Road to Damascus, the true telling by Saul of Tarsus in the conversion experience which resulted in the Apostle Paul, the Federal and Postal employee who must experience the bureaucratic nightmare of changing from a Federal or Postal employee into a Federal Disability Retirement annuitant must tell the proper story which persuades OPM of the validity and viability of one’s case.

But in the telling, one should make sure that the contrast and comparison embraced is not like that of all of the subsequent historical copycats which misunderstood the point of the telling, but rather, the sufficiency of the true life experience of the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties.

For, in the end, one’s own personal story of challenge and triumph is the only one worth telling on that Road to Damascus, or in the case of the Federal or Postal employee filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, on the pathway to Washington, D.C., with a waylay to Boyers, Pennsylvania, and before that, through the Human Resource Department, and before that…

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Medical Retirement: Life’s Scarring

It builds through repetition of wounding, or because it is deep, jagged, or otherwise unable to repair through normal processes of cellular regeneration.  It remains a mark of a person; over time, fading through exposure to sunlight, disappearance of discoloration, and the slow erasure of the damage done through the healing process of the linear course of a lifetime, may allow for one to forget.

Traumas, medical conditions and chronic maladies takes time to heal, and time is the commodity which society relishes, values, and measures by the worth of productivity.  It is that segment of immeasurable continuity which determines the markings of a lifetime’s work; like prehistoric epochs which we name in order to neatly fit in the existence of dinosaurs and their disappearance through volcanic and meteoric catastrophes, we bifurcate the unconquerable continuum with significations of memorable moments in time.

Medical conditions and their disruptions to lives require time for healing; and whether it is the impact of psychiatric conditions upon one’s psyche and soul, or the physical manifestation of a chronic illness or injury, that commodity of value in the world of economics remains unsympathetically beyond the reach of most.

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 the Federal or Postal job, the acquisition of time becomes ever more important and critical as one awaits the winding morass of a Federal Disability Retirement application through the bureaucratic maze of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Bureaucracies grind forward as if time is nonexistent; but all the while, life must continue to flow, as rivers unfettered by dams and natural obstacles, the course of life cannot be interrupted by mere tragedies of fate.  The problem is, of course, that the rest of the Federal bureaucracy — agencies, coworkers, supervisors, managers, etc. — does not have the patience to wait upon Federal and Postal employees during a daunting administrative process in which it is already known that, if successful, the Federal or Postal employee will be leaving the agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

So, what is the reaction during this administrative process?  Sometimes, it results in an administrative separation; more often than not, to simply allow the Federal or Postal employee to remain on LWOP and remain forgotten, lost in the maze of time immemorial.

In the end, it is life’s scarring which remains; how one has been treated; whether the burns of fate scorched upon flesh or memory were deliberate or through an uncaring indifference. No matter; as life’s scarring is like an organic monument of one’s test of endurance, so the manner in which one approaches the wound will determine the character of an individual.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire