Columbus Day 2022

Whether as Columbus Day or as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it is an official day off for Federal and Postal employees.  Does it matter what and how we ascribe it?  It has been many centuries since the voyage of Columbus; each child born today, and for many centuries past, can hardly be blamed for the ill-deeds of past generations.

That being said — if we are blameless — is it merely in the beliefs to which we identify, which marks the differences between us?  Certainly, for a Native American, it is irritating to hear someone claim that “such and such discovered America”; for, by definition, a land already inhabited cannot claim to have been discovered except by the inhabitants themselves.

But the argument is that the present society into which people are currently born, cannot possibly be blamed for the genocidal extermination of its indigenous peoples; and so, what can it mean as to whether or not one calls it “Columbus Day” or “Indigenous Peoples’ Day”?

The counter to that, of course, is that the reservations into which Native Americans were forced to accept, still reverberates with current loss of water rights, mineral rights, etc., and is a constant reminder of what was lost.  And it may be of some restoration of dignity to insist upon historical accuracy, where insistent inaccuracy is the basis for acrimonious inter-cultural relationships.

Yet, in this Post-Factual Universe where the Western approach of the Correspondence Theory of Truth once prevailed but no longer dominates, is there even a difference with a distinction?

For most, where the meaningful divide is between those who are overworked, barely able to make a living, and are stressed to their limits — which constitute the greater majority of individuals — and those who live a fairly carefree life of leisure (the greater minority of people), the fact of a day off, whatever you want to call it, is what seems to mean anything.

And for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who can enjoy the day to spend with their families and loved ones, Happy Columbus Day and Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 2022.

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 Law: The Comparative Perspective

It is a game which is played throughout history — of comparing one’s own situation to a projected, often inaccurate portrayal of “the other”, whether that other is the neighbor across the street, the stranger whom you see sitting in a cafe drinking coffee, or some celebrity who is obsessively followed for their seemingly outrageous lifestyle and unpredictable tantrums of demands and pubic displays of extravagance.

There are the traditional responses, of course, of: “The grass always appears greener on the other side of your fence”, or that you can never know of another’s life unless you walk in his/her shoes, etc.  But such pablum responses never stop the game that is played — of providing a comparative perspective by judging, on a superficial level, the more appealing life of someone else.

But what if that “someone else” was comparing his or her life to yours?  What is it that they would “not know” but would make a great difference “if only they knew”?  How about a medical condition which you have been masking for many years, which has taken a tremendous toll upon your life?

Indeed, that is often how Federal and Postal workers continue to work despite a medical condition slowly and incrementally destroying the health and well-being of a Federal or Postal worker’s life.  The comparative perspective is often the wrong one, precisely because the comparison itself is made on the most superficial of levels.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement if your health has deteriorated to such an extent that any comparative perspective would open up the eyes of the person making that comparison — with the realization that it is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, 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.

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The Performance Appraisal

It is the system that we have created, a monster which cannot be slain, and the machine that cannot be turned off.  We learn it from an early age — good grades are the foundation for a successful future, and if a teacher has the audacity to give you a lesser grade than what you believe you deserve, call that teacher — harass him or her; file a complaint; heck, file a lawsuit.

In the Federal employment system, performance reviews are often given out like candies — and such reviews can come back to make it appear as if there is nothing wrong.  Managers and supervisors are reluctant to give a “less than fully successful” rating, lest a grievance be filed or a headache ensues; but for the person whose performance has been suffering because of a medical condition which has begun to impact a person’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the reflection upon the record when a Federal Disability Retirement application has been filed may have to be dealt with.

The Office of Personnel Management tends to rely heavily — and unfairly — upon performance appraisals, but there is another legal standard which can be applied — that of incompatibility between one’s medical conditions and the positional elements of one’s job.

Consult with a Federal Disability Lawyer who specializes in FERS Medical Retirement Law and discuss the impact of one’s performance appraisal within the complex administrative procedure of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Medical Disability Attorney

 

Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement claims: Impediments

There is always something in the way, isn’t there?  That’s one of life’s paramount rules, a presumptive nuisance, an annoyance that hinders and obstructs.  It is one of those “laws” that we all laugh about, whether Murphy’s or some uncle who visits and has the talent to always put a damper on things; or maybe it is just a trite truism of life that cannot ever be avoided.

You can come up with the greatest idea in the universe, and best of dreams that are about to come true — and then the “it” comes upon the scene.  Impediments represent the spoiler that dampens the soul, treads upon the glory of an anticipated morning’s future, and follows us with the proverbial dark clouds or like pig-pen’s constant swirl of dirt and grime.

You excitedly share your dreams and hopes, speaking quickly and with urgency of youth, enthusiasm or an admixture of both; and you get the tepid response of, “Aw, it’ll never work.”  Or, you believe you have uncovered the key to life’s success, come running home — to parents who have endured a lifetime of disappointments or to a spouse who has just been taking care of 3 boisterous children — open the door with a stupid smile, start to relate your great insight, and you are told: “Great. Now, will you please take out the garbage?”

Impediments are the lifeline to reality’s check upon our own foolhardiness; or, for the eternal optimist, they reflect the greater challenge that tests our skills in gauging our sincerity, endurance, integrity and reliability.

Medical conditions constitute such an impediment.  We take such things as health and the daily ability to get up in the morning, take a shower and go to work — those ordinary things in life that we all presume everyone the world over does in a similar fashion — for granted.  But then that horrid and feared “medical condition” creeps up on us, and suddenly we cannot do those things we once never even thought about, and it is that impediment that begins to gnaw away at one’s soul.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who has experienced not only the impediment of the medical condition itself, but the greater hindrance from the manner in which the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service has begun in their campaign of harassment and intimidation, preparing an effective 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, is often the best pathway around the impediment.

No, it may not be a brilliant idea, and nor even a greater insight than what the ordinary ho-hum person may come up with when confronted with the same or similar situation.  But maybe it was never meant to be — and that those brilliant ideas can come about after the approval received from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, when the Federal or Postal employee has less worries about one’s future, and then you can expend your energies coming up with ideas to save the planet, become the next Einstein, or just plainly have the time to take out the garbage.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Skewed Perspectives

Static constancy is never a certainty; even those things which we would bet our lives upon, change with the cultural winds of time.

Sports phenomena we once marveled at, now considered to be “immoral” to view as entertainment, as voluntary brutality and concussions resulting therefrom reflect our relative lack of empathy and humanity; the ravages of time and the images of heroes in old age who totter between dementia and decrepit shadows of a hollow former self; do we see in them the future of ourselves, and fear that if we applaud such former feats of gymnastic fluidity and beauty of ballet, we may end up like them in nursing homes smelling of formaldehyde?

Or is it that the disharmony between what we remember of their once-favored status conflicts with our image of civility and symphony of time?  Football and boxing, like the old Roman coliseums of yesteryear, will they fade into the passing glories as gladiators and spectacles of public hangings once foreshadowed?  Or, is it that cultural values change, are malleable, and shift with the tides of opinions and public shame?

That is the macro scale of life in America; on the micro scale of things, medical conditions tend to do the same thing:  the change in one’s personal universe, the outlook upon perspectives once maintained, they all bend like the proverbial willows of rustling prairies, where the arctic blast which pushes the rogue bison to seek the protection of the wandering herd bellows from harkened cries of alarm to survive.

Life is rarely as bad as we feel, and never as good as we imagine; that is a truism which allows for the maintenance of the balanced perspective.  Loss of constancy and stability often follows from a trauma unwanted and unasked for; the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition must suddenly suffer the fool for society’s uncaring ways.  The potential loss of job; the ostracized Federal or Postal worker — not through fault or inaction, but merely because one has been hit with the misfortune of a medical condition.

Again, is the treatment rendered because the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service sees such an individual as a threat, as acceptance and embracing of such a condition would mean that everyone affirms the future of one’s own fragile and delicate universe?

For the Federal and Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, the solution remaining is often to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

It is not that, given half-a-chance, you wouldn’t be able to continue performing in the career of your choice; you would.  It is that, if the agency or the U.S. Postal Service were to attempt to accommodate you, or to provide leeway and reveal a level of compassion and empathy, then it would mean an admission of the deep-seated fears and open the proverbial floodgates of doubt and error.

To embrace the disabled work on the micro scale of life, would be to admit to the callous nature of one’s being on the macro level of culture; football, boxing, gladiators of yore, and the shunning of disabled workers are all likened to the populous who once suffered the ostracizing disease of leprosy.  Skewed perspectives, indeed, as culture never follows the linear path of legitimacy, but drags people screaming and kicking despite themselves.

In the end, one must act beyond mere perspectives, and for the Federal and 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 positional duties, the pragmatic step in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is the singular act of courage to step beyond the macro-skewed perspective of cultural malleability, and to assert one’s right to attain that level of security on the micro path of viability, as those gladiators of yesteryear failed to conquer.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Epochal Dawns

There are those momentous events in life which we mark and memorialize; and, in the end, whether the cumulative bag of goodies amounts to a positive aggregate, or a negation of sorrows, we determine in the quietude of private thoughts.  Avoidance of future uncertainty is a talent wrought only by humans; for animals of other species, they cannot afford such luxuries, as survival in the here and now constitutes reality of future causality.

For us, there is today; tomorrow will take care of itself within the constructs of fear, angst and uncertainty; and as Heidegger would have it, the projects we savor are the ones which delay thoughts of tomorrow, death, and the certainty of extinction.

What are those epochal dawns?  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it can include the advent of a medical condition.  In the beginning, in retrospect, perhaps it was of minor consequence; left as merely an afterthought, a nagging pain, or perhaps a singular moment of sudden urgency.  But the chronicity of life often parallels the longevity of a condition, and what was once a mere quibble may have turned into that momentous event.

Medical conditions belong in the bag of goodies set aside as “negatives”; and it may well lead to the necessity of considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Avoidance of the issue will not switch the bag of goodies from the negative to the positive; but once that decision is made to file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, it is up to each Federal and Postal employee to determine whether the future course of events — that “hereafter” and “post-disability retirement life” — will mean that there is yet a future of positives, and not merely a reverberation of past negatives.

And what of that “epochal dawn”?  It remains so only if the event itself stays in a motionless rut of stagnation, like those old films of a dying carcass stuck in the mud of a scorching desert sky, where the vultures of a future abyss fly above, waiting for their pick of tenderloin.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Intrusion upon the inviolable refuge

We all hold, savor and protect them; and whether they are physical escapes, relational interludes or mere cognitive distractions, they are the corners of secluded quietudes which serenely exist in the abandoned crossroads of time, like unbeaten dirt paths down lonely prairies of uncut grass wavering in the morning breeze of timeless passivity.

Perhaps it is watching a favorite television show; or of morning jogs leading to a little-used, covered bridge which tells of whispered pasts, history untold, and marvels unwitnessed but for the overhanging tress which record speechless events; or even the moments throwing a ball with one’s dog, where boundless energy is witnessed and with awe of language bonded by facial licks and warmth of hugs, that timeless memory is captured within the framework of human needs and wants.

The inviolable refuge is the shack we have built, and to which we escape and recede from the problems and complexities of civilization too weighty to bear without.  Those distracting hobbies, of collecting when amassing becomes a fetish, or when childhood dreams never amounted to much but where echoes of angry voices haunting us for innocence extinguished and promises unkept; those are the times when we close the door and lock it from inside, in order to regain the equilibrium lost in the maze of daily clatter.

Medical conditions have an invasive nature to them, where escape can never be completely pursued or accomplished.  Further, when medical conditions begin to invade the capacity of one to escape from the daily toils of the world, and where the universe of struggles becomes too much to bear and the crossing of lines held separate and apart by sheer force of willpower can no longer be rectified, then it is time to take steps to ameliorate the intrusive consequences.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers whose lives become consumed by the tripartite evils of work, medical conditions and the inability to fine refuge away from the creeping tides of problematic struggles, consideration needs to be given to advancing towards another horizon.

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 a “next-step” reflection for any Federal or Postal worker who has recognized that where a 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, and work therefore begins to intrude upon one’s personal concerns and struggles, then the demarcation between pleasure and pain becomes so confounded that all pathways for the requisite escape begin to close.

Each of us needs a refuge of quietude; and whether such haunts of escapism is satisfied by a quarter placed in a juke box, or travels to exotic destinations whether in physical flight or mental dreams, when life intrudes upon the inviolable refuge of our own creations, it is time to take affirmative steps to proceed and advance, in order to protect those hollow reeds of wavering wants waiting to whisper the sounds of silence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Setting up the Parameter of an Argument

What we argue depends upon identifying the criteria already established, which is why arguments will often become prolonged engagements of meandering shouting matches, thrown at cross purposes, never agreeing to disagree upon the elements which represent an actual conflict.

How many wars have been fought because of a simple failure in identifying the issues; how many costly divorces originating from misunderstanding and loss of communication, and who suffers but the collateral damage issued to non-combatants who must witness the devastation wrought more by ego than by elevated principles worth contesting?

The parameters themselves can be manipulated, such that we can “require” things unnecessary, and “mandate” prerequisites never called for.  That is how individuals can perform the proverbial act of “kicking the can” down the endless road, by talking about issues which rarely matter, but somehow confuse the mind without rational forethought.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating 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, there are many ways to delay or cease the necessary starting points even before you begin, because of the many difficulties and roadblocks which must be faced — the least of which is certainly not the medical condition itself.

In the end, such mechanisms of procrastination can be understood in light of fear, angst and foreboding dread; the fear of the unknown, the angst of change, and the foreboding dread of losing one’s place in society, the work force, and the belonging to a community of Federal or Postal workers.  We can always dredge up a reason for not; it is in doing that our acts justify our unmatched words.

In the end, the parameters we set for ourselves are merely window dressings for delaying the inevitable, and so when next the excuse to not engage comes to mind, simply replace it with a more mundane reason, like when Meursault referred to the bright sun as the justification for his acts, as well as the prosecutor who denounced it because of his lack of empathy for his dead mother.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Byzantine Iconoclasm & Compromise

It was a period in history when religious images and icons were considered heretical.  It resulted not merely in the rejection of new such images, but in the active and aggressive destruction of venerated art, sculptures, etc., and the persecution of those who created or owned them.  The term itself has come to represent an unyielding, irrational stance, unmoved by rational discourse, and even more to the point, aggressive in stamping out all opposition.

“Compromise”, on the other hand, has come to represent the ability and capacity to accept something other than the original starting points of two or more conflicting views, victims or vantage vats; for some, it reflects weakness and meekness in the willingness to capitulate beyond principles, setting aside cherished beliefs for the sake of concession and agreement.

What happens when an individual possesses the personality characteristics of an iconoclast, but circumstances dictate flexibility for compromise? Beliefs are great to have; that, and a dime, won’t even buy a cup of coffee, anymore, and it is this conflict which often arises which tempers the spirit of human pursuit and happiness of infernal contentment.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition impacts one’s capacity and ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the internal conflict between enduring the pain and turmoil of one’s medical condition, and the need to keep one’s commitment to family, employment and self-sacrifice, come to the fore, and is often reflective of the historical clash and intersecting conflict between Byzantine Iconoclasm and Compromise.

We often think that our own situation, in its microcosmic relevance, has never been known, unlikely to have been experienced, and stranger than fiction of verse.  But as Aristotle often notes in observing the physical universe, there is a “substratum” concealed by the elements merely seen by the observing eye, which continues on imperceptibly whether we know it or not; and for humans, that underlying unchangeableness falls under the generic aegis of the “human condition“.

Often, changing circumstances require a fresh perspective and a willingness to re-prioritize our lives.  For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who must face the very-real prospect of a change in career and future goals because of a medical condition, the first order of priority must be one’s health and attending to his or her ongoing medical condition.

Once that has been established, then one must ask, Is continuing on in the same way — like the Byzantine iconoclast of yesteryear — impacting my health?  If the answer is a truthful, “Yes”, then one must consider preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to attain a state of circumstances where one’s health is not progressively being destroyed by one’s employment.  For, in the end, compromise from a prior set of circumstances is not indicative of weakness or concession of principles; it is merely to embrace the wisdom of ages long ago lost, and to recognize that those images destroyed in the fervor of Byzantine Iconoclasm never extinguished the true essence of religious belief, but merely the product of human creativity in service to the principles of beauty and art.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Indomitable Spirit of Pursuit

Preparation in pursuit of an endeavor should always embrace an uncompromising resolve to see it through to the end.  Such an attitude is quite different, and distinguishable, from mere stubbornness when the facts faced or the odds stacked clearly and convincingly manifest an inevitable defeat.  The former attitude prepares one to refuse succumbing to the innate fear and weakness inherently existent in us all; the latter, a failure of recognition beyond rational discourse and comprised of an obsessive impulse contrary to good form.

People often think that rationality encompasses merely the capacity to acknowledge a superior logical discourse, when it fact it must by necessity involve two further steps:  (A) the ability to recognize the weaker argument of the two, and (B) a willingness to accept that one’s own voice may not be the source of utterance of the stronger argument, and to accept and exchange the weaker for the stronger.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the disadvantage is of the weakened state, either physically or psychologically, that the Federal or Postal employee is in, throughout the process.

The calculus of the medical condition itself in factoring in one’s resolve, should never be underestimated.  The change of circumstances, the fall from grace in the eyes of one’s own Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, and the need to maintain health insurance, financial stability, etc. — all play to weaken the resolve of the Federal or Postal employee who pursues Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  And, of course, OPM also knows this, and plays upon the knowledge that they hold all of the cards in a metaphorical poker game, and by waiting, may outlast the stubborn and the strong alike.

It is because of this that the Federal and Postal employee who decides that applying for a Federal Disability Retirement annuity through OPM is the best course of action, must retain throughout an indomitable spirit of pursuit, in order to counter the Leviathan-like capacity for oppositional dominance possessed by the adversary.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire