OPM Medical Retirement: The Cousin: The Stifled Yawn

The more you try, the harder it is to keep it concealed.  You may not even be tired.  You may have had a good night’s sleep; but “the yawn” is interpreted in one of two ways: Either you are tired, or you are bored.

And in the situation you are in, either interpretation would not be acceptable.

And so you attempt to stifle it; sit up straighter; widen your eyes; take a deep breath; act as if you are stretching your neck, first to the left, then to the right.  But the more you try and stifle the yawn, the greater the hardship and it is as if there is an involuntary force emanating from within.

Life itself is like that.  You struggle, you try, you do everything to “stifle” the problem; but instead of going away, “it” keeps looming larger.  Medical issues tend to work that way; for, whether you actively go and get treatment for the health condition, the chronic and progressive nature of the medical condition seems to loom larger.

For Federal Gov. 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 basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal Service job, the vicious cycle of the “catch-22” keeps coming back: the more you attempt to work, the greater the stress upon your medical condition and the exacerbating side effects.

When you have come to a critical juncture in your chronic medical condition where it becomes like the stifled yawn which will not be suppressed or repressed, contact an disability lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and let not the stifled yawn turn into a sudden crisis where life’s dominance of difficulties begins to loom to large.

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 Government & USPS Disability Retirement: The Volume Appearance

It cuts both ways; and we all do it.  The “substance” of X can be either qualitative or quantitative, but rarely both.  If it lacks in substance, we believe that it can be made to look good by increasing its volume — i.e., heftiness = substantive relevance.  If it possesses inherent substance, on the other hand, it rarely requires greater volume.

The disjunctive rule is often applied here: Things rarely contain both.  Modern novels are a testament to the rule: Hundreds of pages with little to say.  Then, look at Hemingway’s greatest work — The Old Man and the Sea.  A short book; a masterpiece.  Shakespeare is the best example of containing both — quality of work, quantity of work.

In modernity, volume gives the appearance of substance, even when there is very little of it.  In a FERS Disability Retirement case, don’t think that gathering your decades-long medical records is sufficient to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  A qualitative medical report is often necessary.  The converse is true, as well: OPM will write a long and meandering denial letter which has no logical or substantive input.

It is, again, the “Volume Appearance” — of trying to make it appear as though the volume of their denial letter accounts for its validity.  It does not.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law in order to counteract the volume appearance — both for yourself in preparing the Federal Disability Retirement case, as well as in preempting OPM’s attempt to bamboozle you with a Volume Appearance Denial Letter — and no, the term “bamboozle” is not a legal/technical term, but it is what it is, as the modern colloquialism goes.

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: The Promising Beginning

We look upon with sadness that which once was, and remorsefully retro-fit what could have been despite that which never was meant to be.

The promising beginning is the one that originated with fullness of hope and expectations; then, there is a “middle ground” — a point where paths diverge and perhaps the critical juncture where success, failure, or something in-between presents itself; and then the journey continues for some time until a point is reached where retrospective regrets may begin to develop, and we think to ourselves: Ah, what a promising beginning, but….  It is, of course, the “but” that pauses and the silence which follows that tells us all the rest of the story; of the wrong path taken, the promise left unfulfilled and the caravan of decisions left undiminished.  But from whose perspective?

Perhaps there were interruptions — of relational interests that took some focus away, or a boredom which set in to detract from the singularity of focus which was required; but such decisions may have merely moderated that “promising beginning” that was never meant to be.  And of those issues where one had no control over — such as a medical condition that reminded one that, while careers are important for a time, one’s health should always be a priority, no matter the time or circumstances.

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, and where the once “promising beginning” seemingly has stalled or stopped completely because of the medical condition, it may be time to shed one’s self of false expectations and unrealistic values, and to look to the future by preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Not all beginnings are meant to have an ending as promised, and in any event, remember that the only promise that needs keeping is the one that allows for an ending of hope, where expectations include the priority of one’s health and the necessity for change when change is required.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The respite

It is a time away; perhaps, a momentary lapse; that fifteen minutes of drinking one’s coffee while daydreaming, or lost in the saucer of one’s teacup in a vintage reflection where the slight crack in the china allows for memories to reclusively drift into never-ending smiles of forlorn embraces.

The respite is that time of getting away, of a break from this maddening world; of forgetting troubles for a moment; of not considering the financial and economic turmoils both of a personal nature and of a macro-sensibility that tends to haunt; and of a period of peace when we can just forget.  Maybe it is the 3-day weekend; or, perhaps just a memory of that time years ago, before screaming kids came upon us, prior to responsibilities and obligations squeezing the air out of pleasure and peace; or even a distance of yesterday or the day before.

Then, there are those who never have a respite; medical conditions tend to do that to us all.  They remind us of our mortality, our frailty, our inability to cope with the reality of a harshness when an isolated island echoes from dark caverns within.  Reality is a cruel thing; it quashes all dreams and hopes, and leaves one with a pit that is bottomless and without a sense of a future.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are unable to find that moment of respite because of a medical condition that prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is time to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, to begin the process of formulating and preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S.Office of Personnel Management.

Time is of the essence; time is precious; a time of respite is deserved by us all, and the turmoil of remaining at a job where the Federal or Postal employee can no longer perform is often the obstacle to the needed respite, and that is why filing for Federal Disability Retirement is so important.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability: The constant struggle

It does appear never-ending, doesn’t it?  And what of that dream – of some windfall, or perhaps the lottery pick of numbers that somehow keeps people coming back to the corner Mart and purchasing tickets despite the astronomical chances that defy the odds of probability?  Why is it that people are more apt to believe in conspiracy theories that the moon landing or aliens from Mars have been concocted and coopted by some nefarious government, but no one believes that those “winners” of multi-million dollar lotteries have been a “set-up” to keep people enticed into buying more and more worthless tickets?

Is it because life is a constant struggle, and so long as there is some fantasy to believe in, some pie-in-the-sky probability to reach for and dream about, the misery of today’s misfortune can be borne with aplomb “so long as” … so long as there is some hope for tomorrow?  And even if the lottery were to be won, by some unforeseen whim of a chance begotten, would life no longer be that constant struggle, and does financial freedom guarantee happiness, joy, freedom from the struggle and liberty from the daily fetters of life?  Why is it that we believe that winning a treasury trove of sudden infusion of financial depth will suddenly resolve all ills of life?

And then, of course, there is the medical condition.

What most people would not trade for good health – and, for some, even a day’s worth, an hour’s splice of that day, or even a few minutes free from the pain, the anxiety, the worry of ill-health?  It is one of those statements of proverbial “throwaways” that we all pay lip-service to, isn’t it?  That one that goes something like: “Oh, I would trade in all of my wealth, status and everything I own to get my health back.”

We hear other people say it, and nod with quiet agreement, but somehow, we don’t quite believe it – until our own health begins to deteriorate.

The key to wisdom in life’s journey is to come to a point of recognition that the constant struggle never ends; and by such recognition, to savor the moments of beauty and those “little joys” of life.  Yes, yes, that is the basis of another “conspiracy” or sorts – of the wealthy and powerful to make the “little people” believe in such joys as flowers, children and puppy dogs, while they go out and sun themselves on the extravagant yachts of life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers whose health has been deteriorating, who recognize that one’s career is more than just the constant struggle of daily living, it may be time to consider filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Yes, you cannot any longer do all of the essential elements of your job; yes, life is a constant struggle, and your medical condition makes it all the more so; no, you are not going to win the lottery; and finally, even if you did, it won’t make the pain or depression go away, and winning the lottery, in the end, won’t make the constant struggle disappear, and probably won’t even make it any more bearable; and thus the need to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: The Kokeshi doll

They are wooden dolls that are colorful, with expressions painted upon that remain frozen except for the change that naturally occurs when viewed from differing angles of sight, reflecting altered perspectives and modified vantage points depending upon one’s own emotions.  They sit on tabletops, shelves and can be a child’s playmate, though parents often view them more valuably as display items rather than taking the chance that the little brother may play them as reenactments of a prior war imagined to be fought by banging pieces of wood and throwing them against the yet-undamaged wall.

The heads are often disproportionately larger than the remainder of the body; and the rest and remainder, often just a block of smoothed wood with hands painted in a one-dimensional pattern, revealing no motion but straddling limply alongside the rectangular shape, like a submissive figure shuffling down life’s difficult trials in the daily struggles we all face.

The Kokeshi doll never complains, but always delights; never talks back, but eternally agrees; and never fails to bring light into a dark corner, but forever allows for a reminder that it is the trivial joys of life that make for worthwhile endurance in times of misgivings.  We are all, in many ways, expected to be like these inanimate objects that we have projected our own emotional well-being upon.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal employee’s job, the fact that you are no longer able to remain impassive, implacable, disaffected and unmoved by the manner in which the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service has begun to treat you, is not an extraordinary insight to possess and be suddenly enlightened by.

Though we may enjoy the delightful colorfulness of a Kokeshi doll, we cannot expect to be nor act like one.  It was always the productivity released, the competence revealed and the level of contribution inputted that made the Federal or Postal employee “valuable” to a Federal agency or a Postal facility; but when a medical condition hits a person, it is simply “not right” that the Federal agency or U.S. Postal Service should treat the Federal or Postal employee as merely another Kokeshi doll who should remain quiet and unperturbed standing in a corner.

Thus, when the Federal agency or Postal facility fails to treat the Federal or Postal employee as something more than the inanimate object a Kokeshi doll ultimately is, it may be time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, before that rough-and-tumble younger brother comes along and really begins to mistreat that block of wood.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The mere asking of a question

In modernity, the asking of the question in itself raises a suspicion.  Being curious no longer kills the cat in some obscure, proverbial manner; to inquire immediately brands the individual and categorizes the questioner based upon the query of conventional consciousness.  Thus is debate of any kind quelled; for, to engage in a dialectical process requires a prefatory landscape of imaginative fertility; but in an atmosphere of poison and shallow interests already consecrated, there can be no classic form of “give-and-take”, of a level of intellectual inquiry required for the pursuance of excellence, improvement or uncanonized thought processes.

Can society ever escape from this cycle of self-immolation, where intellectual integrity is questioned, when speakers are shouted down at quiet lecture halls of solicitations for a teleology of thought, and at a level of purposive questioning, as in the days of yore when the pestering Socrates questioned every convention of the powerful and influential?

It will be difficult, if only because the widespread de-coupling of thought from information, separated by the force of modern technology, where deviation from identity is difficult to maintain, has made drones of us all.  Fortunately, law is, and remains somewhat in a sacrosanct manner, an arena which allows the simple query to survive, if only within the compound of argumentation for a cause.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who becomes the victim of one’s own bureaucracy, where a medical condition requires an accommodation but the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service is unable, or unwilling, to pursue avenues to allow for the continuation of one’s chosen career, preparing an effective 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, is often the best and only alternative to pursue.

The battle of inquiry and improvement — for, if you think about it, they go hand in hand in that the only way to “improve” anything is by questioning the status quo — may have to come to an end; and as it takes effort to expend to question and contend for greater heights and levels of excellence, so the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for the Federal or Postal employee to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service — the energy expended in other areas must now be preserved to attend to one’s medical condition and the deteriorating health of the employee’s body, mind and soul.

Sometimes, the mere asking of a question must be left alone, where silence is the golden ray of future radiance, and where youth may be the proper province to leave behind a generation of upstarts who never had the opportunity to ask that ever-childhood query, “Why?”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Medical Separation and Retirement under FERS or CSRS: The nose beyond which

The human animal has reached a point of evolutionary pedigree where constant vigilance with the outside world is generally thought to be unnecessary; although, still when an individual walks through an unlit parking lot in the dead of night, the hairs which straighten and stand at attention on the nape of one’s neck would belie such an expression of civility amongst the savagery of newsworthy crimes printed daily.

Most of us live and walk about completely immersed within our own thoughts and reflections; and when encounters with the “outside” world suddenly jolt into an awareness just beyond, to focus upon the individual, event or incident which indicated a need for such engagement, the capacity to readjust and comprehend the alien nature imposed by a cacophony of sight, sound and a compound admixture of both, often confuses and torments.

Kant and Wittgenstein were correct in questioning the conventional views of a philosophical approach which wedded language to reality (to even combine both names into a single sentence is blasphemy, and an oxymoron of conceptual contradiction); the former, by proposing that there were human dimensions and constructs imposed upon an impervious universe of objectivity where the “thing-in-itself” bore little relation to how we perceive them; and the latter, by deconstructing the link between language and reality.

How we engage the world; what level of comprehension and understanding we bring to the fore; whether and what “success” we achieve in tackling the problems we face in a society that neither cares nor thinks about empathy and comity of human endeavor and suffering; the volume of questions posed and queried always surpasses the answers derived.  The nose beyond which we recognize is rarely embraced.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such a statement of truism is rarely denied.  Others fail to notice; the chasm between knowing that a medical condition is impacting a fellow worker, leaving aside the greater and universal perspective of a “fellow human being”, expands exponentially in a proportional widening defined by the intersection between title and pay grade, and the level of empathy lacking and sympathy non-existent.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who think that having a medical condition, after years and decades of loyal and dedicated service to the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, will automatically inspire a return of such vaunted conduct of responsive grace, become quickly and sorely disappointed and disillusioned.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the best option to take, if only for the sake of preserving one’s health, whether psychological, emotional or physical.

For, in the end, the nose beyond which a person may suddenly see, is that neighbor waving across the street, the lost child crying on the corner of the next block, the homeless person wandering the inner city desolation past the invisible lines of suburban sterility, and the infirm dilapidation of rotting humanity abandoned in old people’s homes which we euphemistically deem as “retirement communities“; and that which circles back to the Federal or Postal employee who remains unaccommodated by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal worker, who must prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits because the shame of humanity has dissipated into an uncaring universe of ethereal space defined by an unperturbed imaginary deity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Employee Medical Separation: The abstract concept of “the other”

Existentialism could only have arisen from the ashes of nihilism; Western Philosophy, spanning the spectrum of metaphysics, epistemology, Rationalism, Empiricism and the tradition of questioning origins, essences and the compendium of who we are and what it all means, does not lead to the natural annihilation of intellectual curiosity.  But Existentialism, does.  Why?  Because Existentialism is an emotional reaction, rather than a rational rebuttal.

From the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and the denigration of human dignity reduced to mere abstractions, the philosophy of negation of which it is characterized, is more of a “sense” approach than a logical methodology of comprehension and understanding.  Thus, while traditional philosophy was always denoted by a curiosity towards abstraction, Existentialism was pulled back by a retractive revulsion because of the alienating impact of conceptualization.

That is why the most powerful explication of the philosophy of Existentialism is found in a novel by Camus (reference, The Stranger or The Plague), and not in reading Sartre’s meandering explanation (Being and Nothingness) of a confused attempt to systematize the emotive side of man.  Thus, in reading Camus, one gets the “sense” of separation, abandonment, distance and alienation of man from the community of others; whereas, in reading the traditional philosophical works — take any page from Plato, Aristotle or the Medievals — one enters an universe of order, systematized approach, and methodological rationalization emanating from curiosity and questioning.

The two approaches, however, are not unrelated; for, it is precisely because of the traditional training of discussing concepts in abstract form (and thereby separating the thought-process from human touch and interaction) that disregarding the humanity of a living being could be achieved.  In more provincial terms, it is easier to be cruel to a concept, than to one’s own child or spouse.  And, indeed, that is how we survive in advancing our purposive actions of harassment and sheer meanness; by objectifying “the other”, we can bifurcate our minds and categorize the subject into something less.

Supervisors do it to workers and underlings; no longer is the worker a fellow human being, but “that ## % !!”.

For Federal Government employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who are contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the lessons learned and gleaned from the reactive lens of Existentialism may be twofold:  First, don’t expect sympathy from the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service because you have a medical condition (that, unfortunately, is probably self-evident and a “given” already), and Second, do not expect cooperation or efficiency to suddenly prevail when engaging the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, merely because the need to obtain Federal OPM Disability Retirement should in and of itself touch a sense of empathy.

In neither case will a positive response be evoked.

Ultimately, the bureaucratic process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under the FERS or CSRS retirement system, is a surreal experience, and one in which the sense of alienation felt by Existentialism is encountered throughout.  That is because, in the end, the Federal or Postal applicant in a Federal Disability Retirement case is none other than a mere “other”, and no more than an abstraction to be gotten rid of, like the distraction you became when once you were no longer fully productive on the assembly line of life’s refuse of illegitimacy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire