FERS Disability Retirement Law: When Strange Became Normal

When it became so, one can never pinpoint with any accuracy, or even on a wide spectrum, with any certainty.  Time was, a person of some oddity would stand out; perhaps, at school, someone would come in with a daring, colorful shirt; or, if a girl wanted to be “really wild”, dyeing one’s hair a shade of green — but only on or near Saint Patrick’s Day.

Conformity was the norm; to be strange, to stand out, was a status of avoidance.  Nowadays, everyone feels free to be quirky, to be set apart, to allow for “self-expression” to conjure up pink hair one day, spiked orange the next, and walk backwards on Thursdays and sideways on Tuesdays.

When did strange become normal?  Is it a good thing?  Should there be any judgment at all, or should the loss of conformity be the set standard, thus becoming the rule of conformity by being a nonconformist?  What does it say about a society where “self-expression” holds such an important exactitude of regularity?

And when “strange” really is strange — as just before a rampage of killing and mayhem — but we fail to notice it and cannot stop it because when strange became normal, we have just accepted it; then, is there any sense in talking about “communities” or “standards”?  Can “abnormal” be distinguished from “normal” if strange became normal?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who comprehend becoming a stranger in an otherwise normal environment — because, in the end, a medical condition which impacts one’s career and ability/inability to perform one’s job, is akin to a “strangeness” viewed by others as an anomaly — you may want to consider preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

For, when strange continues to remain strange, and your agency doesn’t allow you to become “normal” because they treat you as an outcast because of your disabling medical condition — then, it is time to consider filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits.

Contact a FERS Disability Retirement attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and consider that, whether strange ever becomes normal, for you, it is time to prepare for a different career beyond the Federal Agency which considers you to be strange already.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Fear of Meaninglessness

Our relevance is determined by others; meaning, by ourselves.  Some fear irrelevance; almost all, meaninglessness.  Whether we are truly relevant in our communities, our careers, our personal and professional lives — that is a question which is dependent upon what others think and do about our interactions with them.

The fear of relevance is often felt to a lesser extent, for we can fool ourselves into thinking that we are more relevant than we actually are.  The fear of meaninglessness, however, is a different matter.  “Meaning” relates to our own inner lives; of how we think of ourselves; of what value we attribute; the interests we have undertaken; the purpose we have shown.  The fear of meaninglessness is what compels us to act.

For Federal 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 essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the medical condition itself — in relation to one’s job — will intersect with questions of meaning and relevance.

Consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits — for, the fear of meaninglessness will become evident once you consider the priorities of your life, including your time remaining; the impact of your medical condition; what you want to do for the rest of your life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Concurrent Issues

Rarely is there a single issue, whether in life generally or within the esoteric arena of legal battles.  There are sub-issues; corollary issues; issues that appear to be minor footnotes that may later present greater problems deserving wider attention; issues that seem to pervade but of which no one ever directly confronts.  The proverbial “elephant in the room” phenomena is the issue that people avoid and try to ignore.  Such issues can be averted and circumvented for a time, but they often come back to haunt and interfere.

We all selectively choose the universe we want to operate in; the problem comes about whenever we interact and interface with others (which is almost all of the time), and the “other person’s” chosen universe clashes and contradicts the one in which you want to reside.  Conflicts of interest in business settings or financial transactions; differing dreams, hopes and plans for the future when two or more people get together; contradictory expectations and incompatible roles which cannot be accommodated; these, and many more, involve concurrent issues that cannot be easily smoothed or resolved.

In Federal Disability Retirement Law, there are often parallel legal issues that the Federal Disability Retirement applicant brings to the fore — of workplace harassment issues; Performance Improvement Plans; Suspensions and Terminations; do these and other concurrent issues have an impact upon a FERS Disability Retirement application?  It all depends.

Consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and discuss the concurrent issues that might — or might not — intersect and interfere with a Federal Disability Retirement application.  It is best to go into the bureaucratic morass with open eyes and a good sense of one’s chances at obtaining a FERS Disability Retirement annuity, lest the elephant in the room suddenly rampages through the kitchen where the good china is kept.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: That Looping Music

It is somewhat bothersome and irritating, especially when you don’t even like the musical slice or would have gotten tired of the repetition of either the rhythmic beat or the chorus of words sung over and over again.  No matter the attempt — of trying to replace it with another tune or song, or simply concentrating upon banishing the repetition by sheer will — somehow, when the mind tires or the focus wavers, it comes back without any conscious attempt, and we find ourselves with the same words looping back into our minds.

No matter our attempts; it is only time which vanquishes and vanishes, until we realize that not only are we no longer looping the musical piece over and over again, but we cannot even remember how it went.  Or, if we do remember, we have done the very opposite of what we set out to do — for, by remembering, we begin again the looping of that tune or poetic ensemble all over again, only this time in a weaker version than the previous time.

Time does, over time, heal; that is a tautology of sorts, of course, but it is a truism that is only half-true.  For, beyond time itself — we also have to give it a chance to heal, and 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, the mistake that is often made is to simply think that the medical condition will go away and that time will heal all things. But unlike the looping music that keeps gnawing and nagging but eventually fades from our memories, a medical condition will often possess a persistence that is stubborn beyond time’s ability to heal.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin to allow for time to heal, and don’t expect the medical condition to go away in the same way that the looping music which hangs around for a time will fade away in its natural course of playing itself out.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Employee Retirement Attorney

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Foreboding Sense

Are such “feelings” valid?  Does it even make any sense to apply the criteria of validity to a “feeling”, or are there circumstances where a foreboding sense of things can be accepted as a confirmed truth?  Does an outcome-based application of the criteria determine the validity of a feeling?

Say, for example, an individual possesses a 100% success rate in confirming the truth of a foreboding sense — does it validate the feeling?  Or is it based upon the foreboding sense that is declared to others who can confirm it?

A foreboding sense of things to come can, indeed, be valid, both as an outcome-based, retrospective confirmation as well as a singular instance of validity based upon a person’s experience.  For, just as statistical analysis cannot refute the probability of something happening the next time (ask a person who was actually attacked by a shark, or hit by lightening, as to whether the statistical improbability of an event makes any sense), so a person’s foreboding sense of things to come can never be mollified until the passing of a non-occurrence.

Such foreboding, however, can sometimes be assuaged and tempered by greater knowledge gained, and for Federal and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition is beginning to impact one’s ability and capacity to continue remaining employed with the Federal Agency, it may be time to consult with an attorney to discuss the possibility of filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

A foreboding sense of an impending event may be validated by an outcome-based perspective; or, it may be a subconscious capacity to sense something that our conscious senses are unable to quantify.  But of whatever the source, it is often a good idea to confirm the validity of such a foreboding sense, and for Federal or Postal employees who have a foreboding sense of one’s circumstances because of a medical condition, the assuaging potion of choice is to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The last Edwardian

What does it mean to be an “Edwardian”?  The reign of Edward VII was brief, but its influence is often extended to periods both before and long after in an aggregation of understanding “trends” that were noted, and often idealized.

It is a period of little interest to most Americans, except perhaps when there is some vague reference during a period of a royal scandal or a royal wedding that somehow touches the fancy across the great ocean that divides.  And despite our English “roots”, scant attention is paid to the history of England in either schoolbooks or offered curricula, except in referring to those dastardly “redcoats” who quartered themselves uninvited and had the audacity to tax its colonies without proper representation in Parliament.  Or so the memory of one’s childhood history lessons are recalled.

That period — whether one extends it some decades before, or well into the “Roaring Twenties” — actually lasted only from 1901 – 1910, but left a romanticized memory of lazy summer days, prosperity, greater involvement of women and the “common man” into the political arena, and came to symbolize the dawn of the “modern era”.  Whether such an idealized recollection actually reflected any reality of the era is open to debate.  But, then, that is what we cling to when situations worsen, isn’t it — of an idealized “before” in contrast to the stark gloom of “after”?

For Federal 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 essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, that desperate “clinging on” to one’s job may in part be attributable to the need to be that last Edwardian — of a “before” (before the onset of the medical condition) when life seemed more rewarding, when pain, discomfort or overwhelming anxiety was not only unthought of, but never occurred as an issue of consideration — who “after” the onset of the medical condition can now only recall the romantic period that once was.

Filing a 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, may not solve every problem that besets the Federal or Postal employee who can no longer consistently get to work and accomplish all that is required by the position; but it does allow the Federal or Postal employee to prioritize and focus more upon the reality of one’s current situation — one’s health — and not become entrapped in trying to be that last Edwardian.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The spam of life

Have you ever been amazed by how much “spam” there is?  Consider how many individuals, organizations, groups of individuals, people sitting in their bedrooms with a laptop, etc., trying to scam and spam, for whatever nefarious reasons hidden; it is as if the whole world has gone mad.

Is it true that the great majority of such leftovers often filtered by computer software dependent upon the dubious intent of those who would infect and harm, is produced for the most part by a single individual, group or entity, and the rest and residue by the remainder and leftovers less calculating and invidious?

How is it that we have accepted such human detritus as a normal component within our daily lives, such that we even have a special “folder” that is designated for “spam”, where the software mechanism kindly identifies and re-routes such unwanted crumbs into that neatly identified space, so that in the morning we can just click upon the icon next to it that deletes it into a “garbage” can.

In “real life”, is there such neatness?

But that there would be a software mechanism that rerouted all of the annoyances and irrelevancies in life itself, like the spam that is cordoned off, isolated and singularly quarantined so that we never have to actually deal with it.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  A person who you do not want to speak with begins to approach you.  Bam!  He is immediately carted away and placed into an isolation cell.  A problem within the family arises that is distasteful and irritating.  Slam!  It is summarily solved by swiftly being designated as a spam of life.

Symptoms of a medical condition begin to impact your health.  Pause.  Somehow, you cannot always equate the spam of the computer world with the spam of life; not everything can be simply rerouted and discarded, forgotten forever.  It would be nice if such were the ingredients of life, like that in the world of computers; unfortunately, some things have to be dealt with in a different manner, by a differing approach.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers needing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the spam of life is the medical condition itself, and despite our desire to have a computer software somehow make it go away like computer spams that try and infect the technological creations of modernity, there is no special manner in which it can neatly be tucked away into a separate folder.

Instead, the spam of life must be dealt with as with all other similar problems in life’s complexities – by careful preparation, fastidious formulation and timely filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, so that other computer spams and unwanted spams of life can be more easily dealt with for a better tomorrow free from the junk mail of a future yet unknown.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Medical Retirement: Recalibrating the Reset Button

Preparing for life’s vicissitudes can be a daunting task.  Some never acquire the skills necessary to accommodate the winds of misdirection; others stumble through like a drunken sailor walking down fate’s gangplank, seeing the end but failing to adapt in time to prevent the calamities forewarned.  The very few somehow manage to engage the transformation, like a chameleon who responds to the surrounding environment by becoming invisible within the subtleties of life.

Change is the inevitable essence of life.  From alterations occurring from growth — from birth to adulthood, then to aging decay — to the physical universe of constant transformation; the world is represented by the various metaphors and symbols of permanence and change, of Yin and Yang, of Parmenides and Heraclitus, and in modernity, of the recalibration of the reset button.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find themselves with a medical condition which impacts the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to continue in his or her present career, it is precisely that fear of change which precludes one from engaging in the necessary steps required to adapt, transform, and reset.

If insanity is defined as performing acts of failure repetitively, then the world must by definition be insane, and the Federal or Postal employee who continues down the same path despite all of the headwinds and warning signs present, should be placed in a straightjacket and confined to the halls of antiseptic whitewashed rooms.  Change is always difficult; but it is a necessity of life.  It is the life spring of a vibrant community; and its opposite is a parallel universe of decay, decrepit degradation, and destructive degeneration of death and desperate deterioration (and so, why is the alliteration of negation so rampant with the letter “d”?).

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for the Federal or Postal employee under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset is a step in a changing direction.  It takes the Federal and Postal employee out from the insanity of repetitive failure by allowing for a recalibration of the requisite reset button, and to potentially engage in a future which leaves behind a past replete with hostility and increasingly adverse attitudes.  It secures a base annuity such that one can survive; then, allows for the Federal or Postal employee to work in the private sector and make up to 80% of what one’s former position currently pays.

As change is necessary to the survival of any organism, so stagnation is the result of resistance to transformation; and like the putrid waters of stillness filled with microorganisms waiting to destroy the abdominal walls of the unsuspecting traveler, the Federal or Postal employee who refuses to recalibrate the reset button is merely waiting for the day when the external order will force the change involuntarily, as opposed to he who chooses the day, time and moment of an inevitable fate which awaits us all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Poverty of One’s Soul

The locus of one’s soul has been much debated throughout the history of Philosophy; Descartes, of course, took the incommodious step of actually identifying the central point, but left some “wiggle room” by declaring it merely as the “principal seat of the soul” (is there a secondary, back-seat area for the soul, as well?), but of course, the French can be excused for such seemingly drunken issuances of localities, when belief in supposedly impenetrable defenses can provide for a mirage of security.

The question itself is non-sensical, if one pauses for a moment of reflection.  For, as the soul is not part of the physical universe, to ascribe to it a point of defined location is to misunderstand the conceptual paradigm itself.  Rather, it is the state of the soul which is of greater relevance, and whether enlivened, invigorated, or impoverished.  What deadens the soul?  From Plato to Scruton, the argument can be made that music is an important component in the cultivation or demise of soulful activity.  Repetition of meaningless and monotonous actions, engaged like Camus’ Sisyphus, can also inflict harm; but even he, along with other French existentialists, found meaning in the absurd.

Medical conditions, obviously, can have a profound impact and effect upon the soul.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the relationship between “meaning” and “employment” can remain the single most significant obstacle to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For, it is often fear of the future and the unknown elements which pervade the dark recesses of nightmares abounding in the subconscious of one’s mind, deep in the caverns of sleep, or interrupted, non-restorative slumber, where childhood visions of dancing daisies and carefree summers have long been replaced by the reality of adulthood, ogres and goblins as real today as when the child once watched with innocent eyes; it is from those vestiges that grown men weep and feel the tiny droplets of fear, and we call them “insecurities”.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is indeed a large step into the unknown.  Poverty, let alone poverty of one’s soul, is a fear of real proportions in these uncertain economic times; but in the end, one’s health should be the priority of ultimate concern, precisely because health engenders the continuing viability of the soul, and for the Federal or Postal worker who fears for one’s future, to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is a positive step towards securing a safety net to further prevent the impoverishment of the soul, whether located in the pineal gland, or in the ethereal universe of a childhood summer long gone and lost in the innocence of daisies returned to the bosom of the earth.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Predictable Pantomimes

Most of life is simply lived.  One engages, works, plans, deliberates, initiates, completes chores, gets up in the morning, goes to bed at night, etc.  Little reflection or thought is required; much of it, like an automaton on a conveyor belt of cursory convenience, requires but mere human movement.

Perhaps in the mythological State of Nature, as described by Rousseau or Locke, the predatory environment creating a necessity of alertness just to survive, required greater cognitive involvement; or, as a corollary, an utopian condition of peace and tranquil coexistence with other forces of nature.  It is when one pauses for a brief moment, reflects, and has a sudden awareness of one’s self in the presence of others, that the very knowledge of acting within the confines and context of “doing”, becomes a consciousness of self-realization.

Self-awareness — that level of consciousness beyond mere recognition of one’s surroundings, but involving a direct acuteness of “being” but simultaneously “being in the world”, is what makes for human uniqueness.

Heidegger tried to describe it through linguistic mechanisms which turned out to be beyond the common realm of understanding or comprehension, and thus became relegated to the esoteric halls of academia.  Sartre and Camus attempted to capture it through fictional depictions, and indeed, it was more the texture of the novel, The Stranger, than the actual words, which came closest to successful conveyance of the experience of the absurd.

For the daily person, medical conditions tend to starkly bring out the reality of the experience.  Medical conditions suddenly reveal one’s vulnerability, and the fragile nature of one’s being.  Mortality becomes a reality beyond mere distance-reflection of some unknown future intent; it becomes the freshness of the now for a being within a body of decay.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suddenly realizes that life, career, future and the boredom of constancy can be but a moment in time because of an impending medical condition which threatens one’s security and livelihood, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, becomes a reality of immediacy, precisely because of the urgency of the medical condition upon one’s life and livelihood.

Suddenly, the priority of “being” presents itself.  What one did before the crisis of vulnerability was merely a predictable pantomime; the reality of life and the significance of relationships becomes the true being of living.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may seem like a mere act of administrative convenience, but for many, it becomes the avenue of necessity in order to deal with the reality of illness, disability, and medical urgency.  And, as with all aspects of life and being, other predictable pantomimes will become apparent:  the agency’s hostile reaction; the looks of suspicion from others; unfriendly attitudes displayed by coworkers and supervisors; they are all merely actors on a larger stage, but yet to realize that “being” and “being-in-the-world” are one and the same, when tragedies befall and humanity acknowledges the fragile nature of life, like the soft petal from a dying flower which drifts soundlessly upon the earthen dust from which we were born, and to which we return.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire