OPM Disability Retirement Application: Beyond Excess

This country has always espoused the virtue of excess — in terms of wealth; of debt; of individuality; of exercise; of work; of different forms of diet; of opinions; of laws.  The laws of logic and of life generally dictate that if there are no constraints to excess, then it will exponentially continue to go beyond — beyond excess.

Is there a definition for such a phenomena?  Or, as the concept of excess is precisely that which is the “extra” beyond the normative constraints, already, is there any point in being redundant by placing the pretextual addendum of “beyond”?   Of course, “excess” can only have any meaning within the context of some restrictive norm; otherwise, without a comparative contrast to X, how would we determined if Y “exceeds” X in any way?

Thus do we compare the present-day national debt against the GDP, what amount of debt the nation held previously (as in the total cost expended in the effort to defeat Nazism in WWII), the subsequent impact of the ratio, etc.  Or, in terms of wealth, what it means to amass “billions”, own 20 different properties, purchase a yacht as large as a cargo ship, have 50 luxury cars in a garage the size of a football field, etc. — and then compare it to a person who works two jobs but is unable to afford enough food to get by.

Is the amassing of such wealth “beyond excess”?  Or, does it perpetuate the myth of this country, that “anyone” can become wealthy, the President of the United States, or begin a “start up” company in one’s garage and make it into an internationally-dominating company?  And what about the price which must be paid for going beyond excess?  Does it impact the health of the individual?

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 any longer extending one’s career in the Federal Government, the concept of “beyond excess” takes on a new meaning: of the comparison between one’s health and the excess of a demanding job.  And while the concept may not have much to do with wealth or the national debt, it does share a metaphorical synchronicity with the general concept: That there now exists an incompatibility between your deteriorating health and the excessive demands of a stressful job.

Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of reigning in the demands which have taken a toll, and which have become beyond excess.

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 Medical Retirement from the OPM: The Intersection of Hostility

Is the cart before the horse?  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  Such idioms have their appropriate meaningfulness — as asking the question of sequence and priority in a given circumstance.

For a Federal or Postal employee who suffers from stress leading to other conditions — perhaps of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, etc. — the question involving the intersection of workplace hostility, or what is often termed as a “Hostile Workplace” — comes into the picture.  It is an issues which must be carefully addressed when the intersection involves preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Why?  Because a further legal issue — that of “situational disability” — can defeat a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Certainly, the intersection of hostility can and often does play a part in a Federal Disability Retirement application, but it should be characterized merely as a “trigger point”, and not the sole and exclusive basis of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the OPM.

How one formulates a Federal Disability Retirement case; the description of the intersection of hostility; whether one’s medical condition is “situational” or “all pervasive” — these should be considered by an OPM attorney who represents the Federal or Postal worker in a Federal Disability Retirement case under FERS.

Contact an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and do not put the cart before the horse, or argue that the egg came before the chicken, before consulting with a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

FERS Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: Pegged

It normally has a negative connotation; rarely, a positive one.  One is not found to be “pegged” as a brilliant X or as a gentleman (or woman); rather, the “pegging” that occurs is more often than not of a reputation of denunciation.  X is pegged as lazy; Y as a shirker; and once identified as such, you are the outsider, the non-member, the one who becomes ostracized and tagged with suspicion and contempt.

Funny, how empathy may have preceded it; but then, empathy only lasts for so long in human beings, as patience is indeed a virtue which cannot withstand the test of endurance.

Federal and Postal workers who have a medical condition may have evoked some sympathy from coworkers, supervisors and the Federal Agency’s managers — for a time.  But after a short period of an empathetic response, you are expected to “rejoin the team”, as the saying goes, and get back to “accomplishing the mission” (as another saying similarly goes).  Otherwise, you are pegged as “that one” — the one who creates a burden for the rest of the Agency because your work must be taken up by others.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS because you have been pegged as “that one”, consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  Being pegged is one thing; being terminated or placed on a PIP is quite another; and if either are in danger of occurring, you will need to take the next step and take the chance that you might be pegged as a Federal Disability Retirement annuitant.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: Failures

When they come, we tend to overemphasize them.  When they become a rarity, we believe far too grandly in our own abilities.  It is always important to maintain a balanced perspective — what Aristotle would have termed the “middle way” or the Golden mean.  To avoid the extremes is a difficult path to follow.

Failures come into our lives within a context of a society which is intolerant of them.  We root for the winning team and barely recognize the fabulous plays of the defeated one; an individual can perform exceptionally well throughout, but if in the last minute, the final few moments, or in the very last second of that performance, the prize is overtaken by another — all of that effort is deemed a failure and for naught.

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, OPM Disability Retirement might have to be considered.

Perhaps you had a long and extended career or, maybe you have barely met the minimum time-in-service requirement of 18 months of Federal Service.  In either event, you have met the threshold for filing a FERS Disability Retirement application, and whether of a long and fruitful career or of a short impact within a specified timeframe, filing a Federal Disability Retirement application is not an indication of a failure to be distraught over, but merely a recognition that it is time to move on to the next phase of a future yet bright and hopeful.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Present Priorities

Present priorities differ from past ones, if only they have now passed as being present and thus are no longer priorities, as it is often the circumstances as presented in the “now” which matter most to us, as past priorities have lessened in terms of impact, significance, relevance and current importance.

The present priorities that were in existence a decade ago may no longer be the same priorities of the present of today; for, today’s present priorities have changed with the alterations of time, the focus of growth and maturity and their impact upon one another; and it is the context of today, the circumstances of the current period, that matter most to us.

Yesterday, the present priorities may have been the dinner or social function for that evening, or the open vacancy for this or that opportunity.  Then, a major “other” event occurs — perhaps the birth of a child or the death of a friend or relative — and suddenly, the priorities that seemed of such importance and consequence just yesterday, may seem trivial and insignificant today.

Medical conditions, too, seemingly have such an impact — of putting upon us a “reality check” that fades everything else into mere background noise.  What does it matter how one’s career is going, if you come home each night exhausted and unable to enjoy even the opening sonata of a symphonic masterpiece? Or if all of one’s weekend is merely to recover from the week’s fog of endless work, or of vacations and sick leave exhausted to endure constant and incessant testing and treatment regimens that leave no time for pleasure?

Whatever the present priorities and how they differ from past present priorities, one thing is clear: One’s health remains constant throughout, and preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted ultimately to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, reveals that the present priorities of the most important priorities always endure, and that must always include one’s health and well-being, as the application for an OPM Medical Retirement is more evidence that the focus upon past priorities must be re-thought in order to accommodate the present priorities which are of greater importance and significance now that one’s health is at stake.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Lack of time

It takes time in order to be “nice” and “considerate”.  We don’t have such a luxury, anymore.  We have been sold a bill of goods; that technology, Smart phones, computers, laptops, tablets; of the actual engagement in texting, emailing, and all of the multitudes of communicating by delight of button-pushing, will allow for man to pursue the creativity within, and to forego the toil of an otherwise working world. Then, we would reach the pinnacle of human ecstasy, of “time” enough to do that which we  were destined for.

And, yet…  Somehow, the promises made became empty vessels of contractual vacuity, and the social contracts so construed with ponderous delights, never reach a moment of fruition, and instead left us all with an emptiness of soul.

When a society begins to trumpet blares of social “rights”, and to utilize the political process and the courtrooms to assert the ability and capacity to force changes, then it is the step beyond moment of neighborly cohesiveness.  There have always been disputes within organizations, townships, blocks, etc., which have required mediation and third-party intervention; but, for the most part, the working order of a society depends upon common courtesy, decorum, and accepted conduits of conventional behavior governing personal conduct and public displays of geniality resulting in the glue which cements societal functionality.

But, that takes time.

It takes time to say “hello” and “good-day”; it takes time to know that The Stinsons down the way, or the Zachariahs or Abdullahs two houses away and four blocks to the left of the Smiths, respectively, have a child with pneumonia (as opposed to being fearful that such revelation of illness will be interpreted somehow as weakness of character), and the discourse of living should immediately invoke a response of care, concern and a grant of extended help.

But we don’t have time for all of that nonsense.

That mushy-gushy-goo of human relationships, where actual contact has to be engaged, and when picnics were once the commonality of congregation when children dressed in Sunday bests with butterfly nets in hand, flushed cheeks from the midday sun of dancing waves in the delight of a summer’s breeze, and neighbors actually stood face-to-face and reflected upon the concerns of others, and not faceless stoicism and the staid numbness within the cocoon of selfish wants and virtual realities of Pokemon and timeless pursuits of distractions unleashed but for the loss of connection with human contact, and thus of humanity itself.

But, that is because we lack the time.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who feel the loss of time and the lack of time, and where time seems to be “running out” like a spigot left unintentionally open and connected to a finite source of reserve – it may be “time” to prepare, formulate and file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits.

When the agency has no time for one’s medical condition; when the U.S. Postal Service cares not for one’s health; then, the only “time” which matters is that moment when health deteriorates and progressively debilitates, and then it is surely time to consider “moving on” and leaving those with such ties to the currency of time behind, in order to reach that pinnacle of timeless timing when an effective Federal Disability Retirement application may be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where lack of time is more akin to the timing of lack which certainly takes time to prepare, formulate and file in a timely timelessness.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Life as a frown

Is most of life a frown, with a few smiles which make it all worthwhile?  Or is it perceived as its opposite – of predominantly smiles, with some frowns interspersed throughout?  Is that like the test-question for psychological health, of whether the glass is seen as half empty, or half filled?  Does the answer to the question depend upon the mood of the moment, the ethereal pattern of the day, or the fabric of that which is woven into our DNA by a matrix of unassailable conventions?  There is, to be sure, a weight of paradigms and an interwoven context which cumulatively aggregates into a “personality” of who one is; but can a Rorschach test unravel the depths of a psyche, or does it determine the course of one’s future actions because of the embedded nature of an anguished soul?

One wonders, ultimately, whether language is the conduit of the perception we possess, and that is why the Hindu guru or the Zen monk admonishes to seek silence, and to quell the obstacle of words and voices.  For, does an animal engage in unspeakable atrocities?  Of self-harm or self-immolation, or worse, of mass executions?  Is it not because of the conveyance of language, in communicating thoughts created and linguistic strings of previously-unimagined evils, that we reach the pinnacle of banality (to borrow a phrase from the Philosopher, Hannah Arendt)?  Would a man of such mediocrity as Eichmann have concocted the horrors of mass extermination, but for felicities directed by a conspiracy of greater evils?

Life as a frown; it is to approach the world with a certain perspective.  Life as a smile; it is to reproach the universe for being too downtrodden.  Is there a difference, or merely a play upon words where the distinction is lost once we wipe away the blur from our morning eyes and begin to engage in the work of the day?

Leisure is needed for the miscreant to employ the folly of a wasted day.  Time was that we all had to survive by physical toil, and worry involved how to eat in order to survive.  That is what consumes all of the rest of the Animal Kingdom; to survive, one must eat; to eat, one must toil; and the rest and residue leaves one too exhausted to consider, but for the technology of leisure where thoughts may invade and pervade, in order to create malevolent constructs of linguistic artifices.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers 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 one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the “approach of life” is an easy matter to conceive of:  the medical condition itself has made the determination for you.  Life becomes a frown, with nary a smile to intercede, when the work of each day is beset with anguish, pain and sorrow.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, actually has a constructive goal and purpose:  To alter the course of a future yet undetermined, and make life as a basket of smiles, to the extent possible in this universe of frowns.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire