Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Life Choices

We all have to make them; and though we may alternatively want to curl up into a fetal position and wish the blunt world to stop bothering us, the decisions we make, and take responsibility for, reflect the state of maturity which binds us to age, experience and level of moral maturity.  It is, to a great extent, a superficial and shallow connotation and reference point; for, as the inevitability of choices to be made result from living in circumstances of our own making, so to imply that there is anything “substantive” in speaking about them undermines the very relevance of implication itself.

To live is to be confronted with daily choices; only the dead remain silent and require not the paths to pick.  Thus do mundane and pithy sayings originate.  Life is full of choices; the choices we make in life determine the future course of events yet indeterminate, but somewhat foreseen and predictable. Often, we avoid them not because of consequences untold, but for knowing the folly of our decisions.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition foretells of impending signs which the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service have, or will, impose and initiate, the time to begin preparing one’s Federal Disability Retirement application is “now”.  Yes, the Federal and Postal employee has up to one (1) year to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to meet the Statute of Limitations for filing an OPM Disability Retirement; but as it often takes many, many months to prepare, submit and get an approval from OPM, so the decisions we make today will have future consequences untold but foreseen if choices are not embraced in a timely manner.

Life presents many choices, alternatives, and lists of items like entrees on a menu; but in the end, the choice made means that when the plate of food arrives, a check for payment will follow soon afterwards, and it is the expectation of the price to be satisfied which should prompt and motivate any decisions of delay for the Federal or Postal Worker who intends on procrastinating in the preparation, formulation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS, or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Paradigm Shifts and the Federal Employee Disability Retirement System, an Option That Was Always There

Paradigms are meant to shift.  A non-shifting paradigm means that there is an inherent and entrenched belief system which refuses to accommodate changes.  Certain principles can retain such intractable resistance; deeply-held systems based upon historical convention, customs and cultural foundations should never be discarded without a rational basis; but to hold on to a set of beliefs without a foundational methodology of defending the very core of a system, is to merely do something out of habit.  And that is the point, isn’t it?  Actions based upon habit for habit’s sake, are mere thoughtless and unjustified movements.

Work often becomes such an unprovoked endeavor; for, to engage in mindless, repetitive modalities, provides a semblance of security and safeguards.  Then, when a medical condition interrupts one’s life, you begin to miss the mundane.  For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s job, the yearning for that time before when the monotony of repetitive work provided the assurance of routine and repose, begins to magnify with exponential significance.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, should always be an option.  If one pauses because the paradigm which one operates under has become intractable and entrenched, it is time to consider a paradigm shift.  It is not only in science that paradigm shifts are necessary; and, indeed, Thomas Kuhn’s contribution to the historical perspective of scientific progression has taught us much, both as to disciplines, as well as for individuals.

The shifting of one’s own paradigm may be the first important shift in making a proper decision concerning the preparatory steps in filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement; and that is the key, both in science, and in one’s own personal life and endeavors.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The Sound of Tired

Sounds have a distinctive revelatory characteristic; but because ours is primarily a visually-centered society, the other senses are less relied upon, and therefore only secondarily validated in our everyday considerations.

One can see the limping woman; “pain” can be observed by the facial expression of the man; a doctor can validate the correspondence between MRI results and radiating pain sensations, as well as spasms resulting from bending and flexion tests.  But the sound of tired is a more subtle indicator. It defies a quick correspondence between visual ascertainment and objective determination. Instead, it is the profound weight of a man or woman defeated, or on the road to defeat, from conditions beyond one’s control, shrouded between the pitches and reverberations of subcutaneous sound waves touching upon that “other” sense.

Medical conditions have a way of doing that; of slowly, steadily, and in subtle semblance of noiseless shrieks, crumbling away at the walls of resistance.  For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether one is under FERS or CSRS (and the latter — CSRS — is becoming more and more that rare animal, almost to the point of extinction in the wide and expansive preserve of the Federal retirement system), should always be a consideration when the sound of tired begins to rumble in low groans of daily toil.

It is not just exhaustion; it is a profound sense of fatigue upon the body and soul, where the physical, mental and emotional turmoil of fighting against a tripartite battle involving one’s medical condition, concerns for the future, and against one’s very own agency, comes to a flashpoint where one considers surrender as an option of preference. It is thus important to keep one’s ear sensitive and attuned to the sound of tired, and consider that Federal OPM Disability Retirement is an option to discover that plateau of rehabilitative peace.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management: A Choice of One

A choice of one is not a choice at all, except in comparative contrast to the state of affairs one is left with. In life, however, that is often the only viable option offered: Either to remain in an unchanged state of being, or to adopt another set of circumstances which may offer only a limited attraction of availability.

But in choosing the alternative option in comparison to one’s present state of affairs, the evaluative process should not be frozen in present-time analysis; rather, if the given option allows for greater future promise and flexibility, as opposed to the current situation which may retain little to no hope for the future, then the qualitative attractiveness of the “other” may be of exponentially greater value.

One must always take care that one is comparing the valuation of items within a set of choices in terms of qualitative comparability; thus, the old adage and admonition of “comparing apples to apples, and not to oranges”, applies both in terms of substance, as well as future potentialities.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the “choice of one” is often what one must confront. For, not filing for Federal Employee Medical Retirement will ultimately lead to separation and administrative termination. Or, one may simply resign from one’s Federal or Postal job, and walk away with nothing. Neither of the two previously-stated “options” are viable or rationally sound ones.

Thus, for the Federal and Postal employee who is suffering from a medical condition which impacts one’s ability/inability to perform the essential elements of one’s job, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes the “choice of one”. But it can still be considered a viable and fruitful choice, precisely because it accords a relative state of stability for one’s financial future, and further, it allows for the Federal and Postal employee to seek other employment in the private sector, and make up to 80% of what one’s former Federal or Postal position currently pays, and still retain the Federal Disability Retirement annuity.

Not all options offered are equal. An ice-cream stand which offers only one flavor makes a limited presentation of attraction; but if the inner core of the singular flavor contains a mystery of hidden bursts of multiple sensory explosions which enhance the salivary delights of the customer, then you suddenly have a greater choice than merely a choice of one.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: Frameworks

To be successful in any endeavor, one must identify the relevant issues, sift through and discard the peripheral contents, and maintain a thematic thread throughout in order to keep the focus upon the essence of the project. Anyone who has attended a meeting which lacks a subject-matter focus, and where a free-for-all is allowed, without a circumscribed set of agendas, can attest to the importance of setting priorities and understanding the difference between points of significance and irrelevant detractions.

Frames are important, and sometimes as much as the painting itself.  For, art is merely a slice of the greater exposure to life, and it is the frame which distinguishes that parcel of perspective and allows the viewer to participate in a moment of time and a pause for reflection.  For the Federal or Postal Worker who is contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it is important to provide a “roadmap” to OPM, and thus circumscribe the framework of the relevant attachments, medical and legal issues to be evaluated, and the pathway to resolutions preemptively proposed.

Thus, the three tiers of an effective framework should include: (1) A clear and concise Statement of Disability (here, one must be careful because of the legal consequences of failing to include and fully describe the medical conditions), (2) A reference to the relevancy of the attached documents which support the statement, and (3) the pertinent legal foundations which are satisfied by the first two tiers.

He who frames the picture has the power to direct the viewer’s perspective; for, it is the frame which enhances the content of the artistry, and directs the appreciation to an irrelevant empty sky in a schematically unimportant corner of the painting, or to the central theme where the brilliance of bursting colors explode forth in magnificent reflections of a masterpiece’s slice of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM FERS/CSRS Disability Retirement: The Temptation of More

It is similar to the proverbial truth of the “straw that broke the camel’s back”; or of the wise commoner who saved the king’s daughter from drowning, and who was offered a bounty of rice, to which he proposed the following: on each square of the chessboard, a doubling of the number from the previous square.  The temptation of the exponential factor is almost always unable to be resisted; that is the converse principle by which we live: by adding one (we are told), it will make our lives less complicated (so we believed).

Technology and the addition of each innovation would buy us more leisure time; work and stress would be lessened, because the salesman persuaded us that it would be so.  And so we have become accustomed, attuned, and trained to think in a linear, progressively upward trend; that the more we accumulate, the happier we will become, until one day the economics of aggregation become so burdensome that the weight of all of those additional threads of straw pile upon us with ever-growing pressures of daily living, and the salesman who sold that last gadget has walked away with the sack full of rice, content to have saved our lives (or laughing all the way to the bank with a knowing grin).

It is the conditioning of a cumulative-based society.  And, of course, when the burden is further exacerbated by a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts one’s ability to remain at the same purchasing power of economic viability, we are willing to sacrifice our health for the sake of more stuff.  For the Federal and Postal Workers who have dedicated their collective lives to furthering the mission of one’s agency, it is often a little more complex and complicated than just the economic issue; it is entangled with a sense of self-sacrifice, and a loyalty tending towards irrational discourse.  Perhaps this is a natural course for things; perhaps it is “the mission” which first tempted and attracted the Federal or Postal Worker to begin with.

In any event, Federal and Postal Workers fight to the end before contemplating filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, and often to the detriment of one’s own health.  Federal Disability Retirement benefits are there, however, for the Federal or Postal Worker 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 job. Whether under FERS or CSRS, it is ultimately filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

While it is an annuity which will reduce the purchasing power of the Federal or Postal employee, the question which all Federal or Postal employees must ask is the following: What is the priority of one’s life, and at what point in our lives did we come to believe that acquiring things were more important than life itself?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement Benefits for US Government Employees: The Unchosen

It is a term and concept which denotes a negation of what once was; like an unfinished paragraph or a torn page in a novel, the act of undermining and incompleteness is implied; and so the reader will never know the full story or the thoughts once surfaced but buried forever in the settled dust of time.  A career cut short; quiet whispers of, “and he was such a promising young man…”

Federal and Postal Workers who file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, fit nicely into that category of the unchosen.  Once part of the workforce, the need to detach, separate, and move on to another and different phase of life, career, vocation and stage — all are aggregately bundled into the entire process of separation from an organization which once chose, but because of circumstances beyond one’s immediate control, ascribed with the prefatory negation of that which once was.

When a medical condition impacts one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, the Federal employee has few choices.  Continue on as one of the chosen; walk away with nothing to show for it; allow the agency to determine the time and place of becoming one of the unchosen; or file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and have some semblance and control of being the master of one’s destiny and future.

Becoming the unchosen may begin with a preface of negation; it is up to the Federal and Postal Worker to replace the torn page, and complete the unfinished paragraph.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Cognitive Dualism & the Two Incommensurable Paths

Cognitive dualism is the concept that one cannot hold onto two competing and contradictory beliefs while maintaining a life of integrity and consistency. It is tantamount to suffering from a form of intellectual schizophrenia, potentially resulting in dire consequences and paying the price for attempting to force the cohesiveness of two incommensurable paths.

The anxieties which exponentially magnify; the undue stresses which naturally result from attempting to retain the impossible; at some point, the natural divergence of both will force the split, or in modern domestic parlance, determine the “uncoupling” in a nasty divorce of ideas.

For Federal and Postal employees who must contend with the inconsistency of attempting to address a medical condition while at the same time keeping control over one’s employment, such cognitive dualism becomes a harsh reality which is confronted daily. How does one deal with the serious medical issues, which should always be the priority, while at the same time address the impact upon one’s inability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job?

The two incommensurable paths may come to a crisis point, where both cannot be adequately maintained.  It is at this point that the Federal or Postal Worker must consider the option of Federal Disability Retirement.  For, Federal Disability Retirement benefits are precisely those employment benefits available for the Federal or Postal Worker who finds him/herself in such a situation of cognitive dualism, where two incommensurable paths must necessarily be addressed, and one must be chosen.

The stark reality and the harshness of the choice would be: one’s health, or one’s job. But for Federal and Postal employees, there is a “third” path — that of Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS or CSRS, and filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Thus can cognitive dualism be reconciled where two incommensurable paths may seemingly diverge, and allow for a compromise of sorts, by fighting for an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement annuity through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Not all paths must split into two, where choices are bifurcated into an either/or; instead, sometimes one must find the hidden path through the grassy knolls less traveled.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The Bucket List

The notion itself has gained a level of popularity which defies the dignity of established social norms; somehow, there is underlying a suspicion that generations of staid individuals secretly desire for things they never acquired. A life of quietude is no longer acceptable; one must now traverse the Himalayan mountains and meditate in the far reaches of unexplored valleys in order to achieve a complete life; and as the virtual world of video sensations require an ever-heightened magnitude of excitement and accelerated testosterone levels, growing up and making a mere living in one’s own town constitutes a wasted life.

Bucket lists represent a proportionality of quiet desperation; for, the longer the list, the greater exponential symbolism of one’s failure to have accomplished a desired completion of life.  Aristotle’s contemplative perspective of a worthwhile life is no longer the paradigm; quantity, magnification, and romantic notions of adventure and comic book-like excitements represent the pinnacle of value.  Until, of course, the reality of human frailty and the mortality of finitude brings one back to the starkness of daily living.

Medical conditions have a peculiar way of bringing one back to reality, and humbling one into realizing that, bucket lists aside, there are mundane levels of priorities which override such artificial conceptual constructs of self-fulfilling interests. Being pain-free; having one’s short-term memory remain intact; the mere ability to walk from one’s car to the office, etc.  Medical conditions tend to force upon us the true priorities of one’s life.

For Federal and Postal employees who have come to a point in their careers where a medical condition prevents them from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, the “bucket list” is satisfied with one item on the list:  How best to attend to one’s medical condition.  OPM Disability Retirement is an option which must always be considered by the Federal or Postal employee, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, in order to satisfy the checkmark. Filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is a long, bureaucratic process which must be waded through in order to attain the desired end.

While an arduous administrative process, it is not quite as physically difficult as climbing a mountain, nor as exciting as diving from a cliff’s edge down a ravine into the deep blue of a cavernous lake;no, Federal Disability Retirement is a mundane process which may allow for a time to attend to the needs of one’s medical conditions, and perhaps to go on to engage a second, alternate vocation.

It is perhaps not on the top of most people’s bucket list. But then, such lists were always just another creation of Hollywood, meant to be completed in storybook fashion by those whose teeth are perfectly straight, white beyond nature’s coloring, and viewed in panoramic settings with a cup of steamed latte.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Gov. and USPS Disability Retirement: Causes

They can involve actions which result in intended results, or otherwise unintended consequences; or, used in a different way, it may involve a belief or principle, deeply held and fervently committed to, as the impetus and foundation for social or political action.  Focus upon “the cause” can be taken to mean a number of things; as in, “Does it benefit the cause?” or, “What was the cause of X?” Used in the former sense, it can lead to blind loyalty to the detriment of one’s own well-being; in the latter, undue focus upon the origin of X can lead one astray, as well.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has impacted one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, the issue of “the cause” should be a limited one.

If used in the sense of a principle or deeply-held belief, it can result in an irrational obstacle by pursuing “the cause” as in a need to stay the course, to blindly commit to a false sense of loyalty in order to further the mission of the Federal agency or U.S. Postal Service, at the expense of one’s own health and well-being.

If applied in the more prominent sense of the term — one of causality, fault, origin or resulting-consequences, etc., then it becomes an irrelevant issue. For, unlike Federal Worker’s Comp cases, causality of a medical condition, injury, or medical disability, does not play a role in determining one’s eligibility status in a Federal Disability Retirement application.

For all Federal and Postal Workers, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, must always contend with the former sense of the term, and never the latter.

It is that false sense of being “committed to the cause” which is often the greatest obstacle in considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, and not the inapplicable usage of “cause” as in the origin of one’s medical condition, which remains the pervasive stumbling block for Federal and Postal employees.  For, in the end, it is not merely a matter of a linguistic exercise; it is not just whether a person uses or applies a given word properly in the grammatical sense, which has a lasting impact upon individual lives and greater social orders.

We have spouses to correct us if we misuse a word; but when it comes to having a medical condition impacting our ability to continue on in our chosen vocations, a misuse of a word here and there is an inconsequential blunder; what really matters is to have a true and balanced perspective on the important priorities in our lives.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire