CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Cumulative Impact

In economics, the concept of cumulative growth is important in understanding the progressive and incremental increase, no matter how minimal in the short term, over decades and centuries upon an individual’s and the greater society’s wealth accumulation.  It is based upon the theoretical construct of cumulative growth that fortunes are created and retirement wealth is amassed.

Repetitive type of injuries are common when working with Flat Sorting Machines at USPS distribution centers

As a hypothetical parallelism, what consequence would such incremental but cumulative impact have upon one’s health and well-being?  If repetitive physical stress of a seemingly insignificant quantity were to impact a wrist, a knee, a shoulder, etc., would such de minimis physical pressure acquire a different result years and decades down the road?

Is it not tantamount to radioactive exposure, where the human tissue or organ can have effective resistance to contained amounts, but over time, can begin to deteriorate and cause tumors and mutated cells resulting in cancer? Or like the prisoner who digs his way out of prison with a pen knife — one scrape at a time until a hole large enough to accommodate one’s head and body is created over months and years? Or of stresses resulting in anxiety and panic attacks; perhaps at first a twinge of needle pricks, then after months and years, an overwhelming inability to breathe properly, until reactions of the need to take sudden flight, or paralysis of muscle movements and an inability to speak or move?

Maintaining poor sitting postures for long periods of time may increase the risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)

For Federal and Postal employees who have had a long and productive career with the Federal Government or the U.S. Postal Service, the mystery of cumulative impact upon one’s health, through repetitive, incremental, and insidious influences withstood over time, often results in self-denial and a sense of failure.  But there is a limit as to what the human body and psyche can take on.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits are simply an employment component offered to all Federal and Postal employees, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, filed ultimately with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and is merely an intelligent recognition by the Federal Government that the limitations of human invincibility can be addressed by allowing for a change of careers, by providing for a foundational security to one’s livelihood. Federal Disability Retirement — a viable option in recognition of the age-old concept of cumulative impact, both in economics and in the complex world we occupy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Semblance of Joy

Happiness is but a fleeting moment; satisfaction is but the natural result of completion; but joy, that is a tincture derived from the depths of one’s soul.  Perhaps there is an element of word-play; how we define levels of emotional states of being can depend upon the contextual usage of each conceptual construct, and in the end it is how we have described a given set of circumstances, based upon our personal experiential encounters and what sense of being we perceived at the time.

Beyond the veil of words, casting aside the layers of callouses which we have carefully built up over the years in order to survive the daily onslaught of venom in this world lacking of empathy or cooperative caring for one’s fellow human being, it is when a traumatic event suddenly befalls us that the true state of our souls becomes apparent.

Medical conditions have a tendency to magnify the reality of our state of existence.  Suddenly, perspectives become skewed; realities once depended upon appear suspicious; and we begin to lie to ourselves and take on a semblance of joy.  Why is that?  Is it because we fear the truth of human cruelty?  That despite all of the allegedly cultural advancements and technological innovations we pride ourselves about, the truth of our evolutionary baseness has never changed:  the vulnerable are merely meals for the predator in waiting.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such a state of affairs is nothing new.  Agencies begin to pile on; coworkers shun; supervisors increase the level of vitriol and punish through administrative sanctions and progressive pressures through threats and intimidating language; and, all the while, the dedicated Federal or Postal worker must suffer through with limited options and constricted avenues slowly being blocked and cordoned off as restricted zones no longer open, where once the brightness of tomorrow promised the world.

For Federal and Postal employees finding themselves in the untenable position of having a medical condition, such that the medical condition is preventing him or her from performing one or more of the basic elements of one’s job, it may be time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

When once the Federal or Postal worker comes to a realization that the bet upon happiness cannot be placed upon one’s employment or career, and where satisfaction is no longer a possibility with the mission of an agency; when the exhaustion and fatigue of hiding behind the semblance of joy begins to constrict and close in, like the human figure behind a Noh mask covering the claustrophobia of existence; then, it is time to consider taking on the long road of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether you as the Federal or Postal employee are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Coming Year

Calendric rhythms constitute artificial attempts at becoming partnered with time; like the music to which the dancer dances, there is nothing uglier than being out of step with the aura of a beat.

Eternity of time marches in a continuum without notice or constraint; our bifurcated days are broken down into days, hours, minutes and fractions thereof, as ordered slices like slabs of beef prepared for delectable consumption.  But whether the artificial imposition of our subjective categories have an impact upon the rhythmic tone of a cold and impervious world, is gleaned in rare moments of sudden insights, when a tremor shakes the foundations of tranquility, and we are awakened from the slumber of our own inventions.

Medical conditions tend to do that.  Suddenly, priorities of life must be reordered, calendric impositions of tasks to be accomplished seem to pale in weight of sufficiency, and leisure activities no longer constitute a viable avenue of escape from the drudgery of daily monotony.  Medical conditions bring to the fore the importance of that which is the essence of relevance:  not possessions, not contraptions nor toys of distractions; but of human connections.

For Federal and Postal employees who put so much of their time, effort, lives and worth of energy into the performance of daily work, a medical condition that prevents one from performing the essential elements of one’s positional duties becomes a trauma of sorts, and a shifting of tectonic plates.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is an option one should take when once the notion of value, time, priorities and the interruption of calendric rhythms has been evaluated.

In the coming year, there will be moments of clarity and insight, when it becomes obvious that one’s body is attempting to convey a warning, or where the cognitive deluge of despair blares a clarion call for the quietude of yesteryear, when the chains of time were but a hollow echo whistling in the cavernous dark of unknown depths.  The coming year will tell when it is time to file for Federal Disability Retirement.

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

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

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: The Balance Tipper

Life requires a series of fine tuning and adjustments; of the balance between work and leisure; when children arrive, of determining priorities, of managing time and recognizing that the things which seemed important to us previously, need to take on a lesser role; of allowing for enough flexibility in order to maintain an equilibrium within a fast-paced world.  But the substantive content which requires controlling the balance of one’s life is not always that which is asked for; it is only the choosing in order to maintain the balance, which is within one’s control.

Sometimes, such choices involve an admixture of good and bad; other times, the options may be severely limited to only negative ones.  For Federal and Postal employees who are beset with a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s job, there comes a critical point of making hard choices.

The balance has already been influenced negatively; the greater amount of one’s time is already being spent on managing the imposition of one’s medical condition; whether in avoiding pain, in going to doctor’s visits, in sleeping excessively, etc.  The proper balance between X and Y has already been “tipped” because of one’s medical condition.

Some other avenue of choice must be gotten, in order to re-balance the content of one’s life.

For Federal and Postal Workers, there is always the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS.  It is the ultimate balance tipper — in order to allow for the Federal or Postal Worker to have the restorative quietude to attend to one’s medical condition, and yet have a semblance of economic security in order to survive.

Federal Disability Retirement — a balance tipper in a world which often imposes upon our lives, where choices are limited and options narrow the substantive content of what can be done in order to maintain the proper balance in our lives.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Worker Disability Retirement: Banners and Slogans

It is indicative of a society, its values and ethical underpinnings, reflected in accepted public slogans and banners.  Habits are formed by repetitive acts performed first with some thought, then subsequently on automatic pilot.

Each of us walks around with a complex web of intricate belief systems developed over many years; rarely can we penetrate beyond the veil of slogans and banners, for they make up the majority of our consciousness.  That is why it is rarely fruitful to engage in debate; our preset ideas are intractable and unable to be altered; we remain who we are, what we believe, and why we stand for things as they are.

When was the last time you witnessed a debate or discussion resulting in the admission of one or the other of the participants with a declaration of a changed outlook?  To hold fast to an opinion is somehow a virtue, even if one is frightfully wrong.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition may necessitate filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the obstacle preventing one from initiating the necessary steps will often be the very psychological barrier which is deemed to be a virtue.

Hard work and sacrifice at the expense of one’s health is held up to be a virtue to applaud; but at some point, such an intractable outlook becomes merely nothing more than stubbornness, and even the grandest slogan of bureaucratic thoughtlessness would admit that stubbornness is not an attractive character trait to retain.  At some point, the world of sloganeering and banners tooted about the “mission of the agency” must be overcome with the self-understanding that one’s mental and physical health is paramount; otherwise, automatic piloting will negate the need for human control.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, is a necessary component for self-preservation for those Federal and Postal employees who are suffering from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal job.

Setting aside the societal banners and slogans which impede good judgment may be the first step in the process, and is often the greatest obstacle to overcome.  For, one’s education is often comprised of being soiled with the residues of social experimentation, and in that sense, we are mere guinea pigs in service to others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The title reference, of course, is to the old Spielberg film concerning contact with an alien being; but such a remote, rare and unique experience need not be with an entity from another galaxy or planet, but can be closer to home.

Most people will never need to experience engagement with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, OPM Division of Disability, Reconsiderations and Appeals, in order to apply for Federal Disability Retirement benefits (whether under FERS or CSRS), leaving aside having to file an appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

But when the Federal or Postal employee finds him/herself in such a unique situation such that contact with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management or the MSPB becomes necessary, such an experience will be as peculiar and strange an an encounter of the “third kind”.  Moreover, the experience itself may be an unwanted and unpleasant one, because it is something accomplished and pursued while experiencing a personal crisis involving a medical condition.

The encounter itself — however strange, unpleasant or unwanted — nevertheless is a reality which must be dealt with, and in so doing, it should be done in as efficient a manner as possible.

In an initial encounter with an alien being, one would assume that there might be some trepidation and reluctance, mixed with a great amount of suspicion.  That would be natural.  In a similar encounter with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is best to also have a healthy dose of skepticism; better yet, you might want to contact an expert who has had some past experience in dealing with the entity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire