Federal Disability Retirement: Different Approaches

There is a difference between the ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of things — “How something is done” is quite different from “Why something is done.”

One can argue that the ‘Why’ of something should logically precede the ‘How’, for the meaningfulness attached will motivate as to the mechanical doing of it; whereas, others will propose that one should simply follow Nike’s oft-repeated logo — “Just do it” — and in the act of doing it, the meaningfulness of the activity will naturally follow and be discovered.

Ultimately, they represent different approaches, and may even be characterized by different personalities.  The one who simply charges forward without purpose or meaning may be superficially identified as a ‘pragmatist’ of sorts, while the one who first ponders the “Why” of everything may require a ‘spiritual’ source in everything before proceeding.

In the end, however, the underlying source of everything returns us to that what Viktor Frankl identified as the central human motivational force — the paradoxical search for a life’s meaning.  The importance of the ‘Why’ cannot be ignored; and as science can only point to the ‘How’ of anything, the emptiness of an unanswered ‘Why’ will often paralyze us.

Life is difficult as it is, with calamities and unexpected twists and turns along the way, and the fragile state of our health can be devastating without having an answer as to the ‘Why’ of everything.

For FERS Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from an chronic injury or other condition and are forced to make a major decision moving forward, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may be one of the biggest fights of your life, and while a FERS medical attorney may not be able to answer the more important question as to the ‘Why’ of what has occurred, it is the more pragmatic ‘How’ which may be needed, for the time being.

Sometimes, the different approaches require a priority of answers in a sequence less than optimally answered, and in the case of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system with OPM, it is the question of ‘How’ which must take precedence.

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: The Proper Perspective

You can gather all of the available facts, and yet still make the wrong decision because you fail to have the proper perspective.  To have the right perspective, you must assess and evaluate the facts as presented and arrive at the best judgment based upon a proper perspective.  The “proper perspective”, moreover, is often based upon a lifetime of habits formed in how one engages the facts amassed.

Do you allow for emotional prejudices to cloud your judgment, or have you cultivated a habit of dispassionate review?  Are you able to set aside the overwhelming sense of panic which can lead to a reactionary course of response, or can you set the issue aside and come back to it with a reserved approach of greater objectivity?

In most cases encompassing a variety of facts, a requirement of interpretive analysis must occur, and that process of arriving at the best course of action in determining the comparative and superlative degrees of a judgment does not necessarily mean that there is a singular “best” course, for reasonable people may differ on that.

And, of course, that is the proverbial “rub” of the issue — that the proper perspective arrived at the time may not lead to the best action to be taken, but merely that, given a set of facts analyzed at a given time and place, it is the “proper” one for the moment.  Other facts and circumstances may come into play if left to ponder, but because an imminent decision must be made, it is often enough to rely upon one’s best judgment in moving forward.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a chronic illness or injury such that an application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system must be considered, arriving at the proper perspective will often be clouded by the medical condition itself.  As such, it is important to have the assistance of a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to provide the proper perspective in fighting against OPM for your rights.

The perspective of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is always that no Federal or Postal employee qualifies for Federal Disability Retirement, and will often deny a case by making it appear that you had no chance for success, to begin with.  However, that approach is not the right or proper perspective, and the way to counter OPM and arrive at the proper perspective is to apply the law.

Contact a Federal Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and respond with the proper perspective.

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 OPM: The Altered Life

We tend to think that, at some point in our lives, there is a problem of the static — of lacking any action, movement or change.  Perhaps that is why some people engage in a life of crisis, of a second puberty or what was once termed “going through a phase” — of needing to suddenly change in an effort to grasp and hold onto one’s youth, whether misspent or not.

We see it today more and more — of old people trying to act like the foolish young; and so, why would there be any respect for age or wisdom, since everyone seems to be acting like every other young person?

There is, of course, some comfort found in the static life — as reliance and dependence upon a static world is the foundation of calm and peace.  The altered life — one of change, of new challenges and movement towards a different direction — often seems like a threatening and foreboding circumstance to avoid.

Medical conditions are like that — of an altered life, whether because one must face chronic pain, change the way one accepts a certain quality of life, or if it involves psychiatric conditions, a level of acceptance in one’s cognitive capacity.

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 altered life is consumed by the medical condition itself, and the way to counter the alteration is to combat it with another change — in the case of Federal and Postal employees, of considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider that the altered life need not remain static within an alteration you do not want to accept, but that there can be an altered life after the initial onset of the medical condition which altered your life to begin with.

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 person who wasn’t

It sounds somewhat like a Hitchcock film — or, is that too archaic a reference these days?  Is Hitchcock a film director whom nobody knows, anymore — another person who wasn’t?  Or, more precisely, “Isn’t” but was?  Is that the greatest fear of most people — the negation that erases, and why immortality and the existence of an afterlife is so important?

It is like Berkeley’s problem of the disappearing room — it is easy enough to imagine that when we exit one room and enter another, the first or previous one still exists in quite the same manner as when we last observed it (with the exception, perhaps, of a mouse scurrying along the baseboards or someone else entering the room while we are gone, changing the placement of the furniture, sitting down and smoking a cigar and changing the atmosphere in the room, etc.) — and the definition of “existence” as tied to our capacity to observe or perceive an object.

It is the thought of our erasure from existence that is the fodder for fear; yet, the self-contradiction of such a fear is so obvious as to logically obviate such a fear, but it doesn’t.  For the contradiction goes as follows: Our fear is based upon our thought of an event that cannot be, precisely because our erasure from the image formed by the thought cannot remain since we no longer exist; yet, it is the prevailing image of non-existence that haunts even though the image would not exist except during the pendency of our existence in formulating that image.  Existence reminds us of immortality; non-existence, of our vulnerability.

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, remember that the mere telling of one’s intention to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may trigger a host of reactionary retributions by the Federal Agency or the Postal Service, and so one should be carefully cautioned, guided and counseled by a lawyer when considering entering the administrative arena of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

It is as if the information about filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits is a reminder of one’s mortality — that a medical condition that impacts you reminds those at the Federal Agency or the Postal Service that it could also happen to them — and thus the Federal Agency or the Postal Service moves quickly to erase such reminders by initiating adverse actions, harassing you, intimidating you, etc. — so that such reminders can quickly be erased in order to make you into the person who wasn’t.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Unwillingness

What is it about a personality that is unwilling?  Is it pure obstinacy?  Or, perhaps a personality trait of stubbornness that goes against the very nature of a person’s essence?  Such traits or quirks of personalities are interesting, precisely because they can fluctuate depending upon the particular context encountered.

Take, for example, an important conference where negotiations are occurring — say, in the settlement of a lawsuit or the consequential merger of two giant companies, etc.  If one of the principals in the negotiations has a reputation of “unwillingness” to compromise, or during the course of back-and-forth give and takes, it becomes apparent that the chief negotiator is unwilling to move an inch, we say of the person that either his (or her) unwillingness to reach a common accord is X or Y — i.e., tenacious to certain unmovable principles; stubborn; intractable; a “brilliant” tactical negotiator, etc.

Now, take the same example but with an individual who is willing to bend and allow for concessions — we might say of that person that he or she is “reasonable”, or that he is a wimp or she is without integrity.

But “unwillingness” has a special characteristic and connotation, does it not, from the rest of the personality traits described?  Especially if it is a permanent feature of a person’s makeup, and not merely a temporary, stubborn streak that may change and alter later on, or in a week, or in an hour’s time.

There is both something admirable as well as exasperating when referring to a person who has a personality characteristic of “unwillingness” — whether based upon an inner principle that drives the intractable nature, or perhaps a quirkiness of nature that refuses change.  The test of that unwillingness, and whether it is apparent only in certain particular and unique circumstances, or whether that is a permanent feature of a person’s internal mechanism, can only be tested through the spectrum of one’s life.  Such a personality trait can be admirable and reflect an evolutionary advantage in surviving the encounters with the world at large, or they can be a self-inflicting wound that can destroy and defeat.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have an unwillingness to throw in the proverbial white towel despite all evidence that shows that the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the alternative one must face can be daunting: continuing to endure the medical condition despite the debilitating nature of the trauma; the increasing harassment that must be faced because of excessive taking of Sick Leave, Annual Leave or LWOP; the the questioning looks from Supervisors, managers and coworkers, etc.

Federal Disability Retirement, of course, is an alternative course of action — of recognizing the need for change, the requirement of pliability, and the necessity for modification in one’s life.

Yes, “unwillingness” is often an admirable trait to cling to, but for the Federal or Postal employee who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it can be an obstacle to a necessary next step in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for Federal Disability Claims: Rituals

All of us engage in them — whether of religious significance or arcane remnants of superstitious beliefs harkening for magic, witch’s potions and lost incantations we believe can still work (or perhaps a childhood belief from watching Star Wars that there is really a “force” beyond the cold reality of day-to-day monotony) — we just don’t think of it in those terms.

How we wash our hands; what daily preparations we must engage before leaving the house; the manner of locking doors; the inner voices of prayers said before a meal; or of begging voices just before a sports event; these and many more rituals are the fodder that make for individual personalities otherwise uninteresting to the rest of world except to one’s family, spouse, brothers and sisters, and often not even to them.

Is it all bosh or superstition?  Can we — or should we — submit to the cold and impervious reality of logic, science and the algorithm of facts and mathematical calculations and discard the rituals of ancient cultures and dungeons where nuns bore babies and the fervently religious were tortured and murdered? Do we so callously abandon the humanity of our forefathers merely because the Age of Science is now upon us?

In the end, the rituals we embrace may give us comfort beyond the repetition of predictability; they may be engaged because they “work”.

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, it may be time to “change” some of the ritualistic thinking that we have become steeped in.

Change, alteration, modification, etc., is a difficult pathway to adopt.  One must, in the end, consider “why” we engage in a ritual — for, if it is because we have “always done it”, as opposed to retaining a meaningfulness and significance beyond the rote of repetitive monotony, then it may be time to reconsider and rearrange the proverbial furniture upon the deck of a sinking ship.

The Federal or Postal worker who has — through the pain of a medical condition — come to work and engaged in the daily ritual of performing the essential elements of a Federal or Postal job, may need to consider adopting a different ritual: one that focuses upon one’s health and rehabilitation of one’s condition.

Federal Disability Retirement is an employment benefit that allows for ritualistic thinking to be reconsidered, and for the Federal or Postal worker who can no longer perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, anymore, because of an ongoing, chronic or traumatic medical condition, it may be time to abandon those outdated rituals and consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and rearrange the priorities that have been ordered from a past that is no longer relevant.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation OPM Disability Retirement: Thinking it through

What does the concept even mean?  When we guide the child with such a statement, we are asking that the formative years of impulsive reactivity pause for a moment to try a different approach.

“Think it through” – is an admonition to figure out the tangled web of problems by applying a sequential, logical methodology where frustration should not impede, and when patience becomes the friend of success.

“Thinking it through” is a reminder that there is indeed a solution, but sometimes the problem will only be sorted out if some further time is given in reflective pose, or Sherlock Holmes-like investigative intuition based upon the scientific paradigms of rationality.  Yet, one must also be reminded of the fact that “solutions” to problems do not always lead to satisfactory conclusions; sometimes, there are a finite set of alternatives, and no one of them may be an option that one delights in.

But, then, life is often like that, isn’t it?

We are beset and faced with a challenge; we review them, thinking each one through, and in the end, we face a dilemma where the solutions offered or revealed are not necessarily the ones we like; nevertheless, we must choose, like entering into an ice cream parlor at the end of a summer’s day only to find that all of the favorite flavors are gone and we are left with rhubarb spice and cotton-candy mixed with peanut butter drops – somehow, not the best of combinations and understandably left for those who came too late.

Then, of course, there are the questions for everyone who posits the answers as “thinking it through” – does the person have the sufficient knowledge and preparatory tools to actually figure out the problem?  Or, are there necessary pre-performance insights that must be gathered first, before the proverbial “key” can be used to solve the problem?

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 positional duties, the question of “whether” to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is best left to the Federal or Postal employee who recognizes the wisdom of the incompatibility between the Federal or Postal job and the medical conditions suffered.

It is only the “how” to file that needs some “preparatory” work and knowledge; for, that part of it involves the law, the regulatory morass and the bureaucratic complexity of submitting the Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For the latter, “thinking it through” may not be possible without the insight and knowledge of a Federal Disability Retirement attorney who specializes in that field of law exclusively.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Medical Retirement for Federal Employees under FERS or CSRS: The Big 3

In basketball, it referred to the unstoppable trio; although, with the recent addition of Durant, it becomes a crowded foursome.  In baseball, of course, with whatever home team you rooted for, the term represented the first three in the lineup, with the fourth allegedly reflecting that force who would bring the spectators up onto their feet for that anticipated grand slam.  And in the third major sport?  It might refer to the quarterback and his 2 favorite receivers, or the bookends on defense with a linebacker thrown in.

Americans love triplets; whether in sports, where a fourth can never quite squeeze in despite there being nature’s four seasons; or in government institutions, where the three branches of government remain ensconced in the conscience of a collective citizenry, despite the need for that ineffective fourth estate which is meant to oversee and investigate.

In other areas, of course, the reference to “the Big 3” may be somewhat esoteric — as in the realm of hermeneutics, where the dominant theologians were once comprised of Barth, Bultmann and Bonhoeffer.  They could, by alliteration, be collectively grouped as “the 3 Bs”, but because of their relative lack of media anonymity and disparate connections, except for their European origins and the combined deconstructionism based upon dialectical theology and demythologization of the sacred text, here again we find a triad of untold force.  Of course, they never played on a basketball team, nor represented a cycle of sports spectatorship; instead, their impact was to alter the manner in which theology was approached.

Only one of them — Bonhoeffer — was executed; but not directly for his liberal theology, but for his staunch vocalism against the Nazi regime and an alleged involvement in a thwarted plot to assassinate Hitler.  In these days, history rarely marks the ghosts of those who never received the accolades of media notoriety, and “The Big 3” almost always engenders reactions to sports references.  But there are other arenas of substantive discourse, as well.

In Federal Disability Retirement law, “The Big 3” would invoke the tripod of the Federal Retirement System — of the FERS Retirement, Social Security benefits, and the Thrift Savings Plan, and the interplay between the trio.  The first in the three can be “tapped into” early, by filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, which pays 60% of the average of one’s highest-3 consecutive years of service, then 40% every year thereafter, until age 62, at which point the Federal Disability annuity gets recalculated into a “regular” retirement.

Of the second, there is an interplay and an offsetting feature between Social Security and FERS Disability Retirement, but only if the Federal or Postal employee becomes concurrently qualified with both FERS Disability Retirement and Social Security Disability Insurance.  As for the third rail — the Thrift Savings Plan — it can remain in the same investment device after a FERS disability retirement is approved, but should probably not be accessed until a later age, for obvious tax reasons.

Throughout history, words have been elastic and malleable, but relevance is often determined not by the substantive meaning of a staid concept, but by the perspective of the audience.  With that in mind, “The Big 3” isn’t always about LeBron James and what other 2 players he may be joined up with; sometimes, it can refer to Barth, Bultmann and Bonhoeffer, or even to the triumvirate of a FERS Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Medical Retirement System under FERS or CSRS: The footnote

Who reads them, anymore?  Defined as an ancillary or corollary piece of information beyond that which is stated in the body of the main text, the footnote represents that which reflects an addendum and not something that is considered “required reading”, but more likely for the benefit of those who enjoy quixotic minutiae and esoteric details of irrelevant import.*  As referenced in history, one who is relegated to the afterthought failed to reach the first order of things, and their lack of relevance is reflected by banishment to the bottom of the page.

Before computers were invented, long before the notion of “cut and paste” defined the laziness of intellectual prowess, the writer had to engage in prescient forethought, and calculate by measured deliberation the space to leave, the length of the footnote, and whether there was enough white-out left in the crusted bottle to make up for any lack of proper preparation.

The pretentiousness of the pseudo-intellectual, of course, was to have footnotes of greater length than the body of the text itself, spanning multiple pages so that the reader would become confused as to what constituted relevance in contrast to signification of purpose, where some pages barely had a sentence with but a horizontal mark demarcating the onerous esoterica of erudite irrelevancy.  And the worst, of course, is when a teacher or professor would ask a test question based upon one; for, again, the common refrain was twofold:  Who reads them?  Were we required to read them?  And the scoffing retort from the test-giver — that god amongst gods who held grades, fate and future plans in the palm of a single hand: If it was in the assigned material, it was “required reading”.

Much later, of course, we came to realize that “it was really good for us to read them” (though we never really believed such inane confessions), or to our own children, “When I was your age, and computers weren’t yet invented…” (with but a reactive facial expression beyond capacity to translate).  In the end (literally and figuratively), we all realize that the footnote itself represents mere distractions upon an otherwise ordered pagination of an author’s meanderings, and for ourselves, that they reflect a metaphor of who we are.

Most of us are treated as mere footnotes, left unnoticed, disregarded except for occasional reference by accident or happenstance.  For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who has come to a point in his or her career, where a medical condition has progressed to a deteriorating consensus of requiring an alternative plan of action, being treated as a footnote within a subtext of irrelevancy amongst a sea of bureaucratic inefficiency, is likely a feeling of growing concern.

As footnotes are deliberately disregarded, so the majority of people are like those masses of addendum relegated to unnoticed details of sub-citizenship.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will often elevate one’s status and stature for a time, if only because the Agency or U.S. Postal Service is suddenly forced to read the footnote, and take notice of the subtext; but beyond that, it is the medical condition itself which relegates the Federal or Postal employee to that numbering at the bottom of the page and left to irrelevancy, precisely because you are not one of the “productive” ones.

How does one force the “outside world” to “read” you?

In the end, there is life beyond a career with the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is merely a first step in getting beyond being relegated to a mere footnote.

As with those generals who served alongside Eisenhower, Grant, Lee and forgotten Roman centurions, most of us are mere footnotes, and glad of it for the unnoticed joys we can embrace in the anonymity of our privacy, and for the Federal or Postal worker who wants to get beyond the notoriety accompanying that unwanted attention for merely having a medical condition — and thus temporarily assigned to the body of the “main text” for being a nuisance — preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with OPM is often the first step towards asserting one’s rights to getting back to the footnote of time and timelessness, where most of us want to remain, in the cocoon of irrelevancy and historical afterthoughts.

 

________________

*Footnote 1:  Just to make sure; otherwise, refer to page 3,275 herein, where you will be required to obtain a special password and key in order to access a pseudo-intellectual forum of erudition within an ivory tower of confounding thoughts, for further reference to important commentaries otherwise pretentiously inserted in order to appear intelligently cogent.

 

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The lethargic state of tacit acceptance

Life has a way of beating down.  Whether it is from the constant drudgery of daily responsibilities, or perhaps the overwhelming bombardment of the harsh technological stimuli foreign yet to the still evolutionary sensibilities of nature’s slow progression for adaptability; the human body, mind and soul, while possessing a capacity for resistance greater than many other species, nevertheless is contained by limits of restrictive mechanisms tested daily beyond the tolerance of allowable endurance.

It is often said that time and age will take care of any youthful idealism; for, as cynicism is the property of the older generation, folly is the playground of the younger.  Falls resulting in laughter, as opposed to empathy; tears paused by applause, as want of sympathy; but as we grow up on morsels of victorious tales from mythology and storytellings from the warmth of loved ones, that security which we were once wrapped in quickly becomes a tattered shawl unable to conceal the victimhood which haunts our inner soul.

Acceptance of one’s plight has been, throughout man’s history, the basis for longevity and survival; and the quietude of a tortured soul, nowadays, may result in a bloodletting untold in former times for their atrocity and ferocity for purposeless mayhem.

It is that lethargic state of tacit acceptance which we always have to battle against; for, we know not when that moment of quantified bevy reaches the point of no return and the boiling level of overflow; and, for each of us, the threshold of that which constitutes “enough is enough” is variable, as the genetic predisposition for an explosive overflow depends upon birth, character, and the historicity of experiential phenomena which all of us carry within as the baggage which is unseen but which exudes like gangrene and spoiled milk wreaks of a rotting soul.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have reached that point of despondency, where a medical condition has prevented the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties at the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, the time may have come, already passed, or may be nearing, when the liveliness of the inner psyche once running barefoot through the pasture of timeless childhood memories has transformed into the mummy-like vestige of what once was, and now in danger of a metamorphosis into the lethargic state of tacit acceptance.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may not always seem like a “positive step”, and may have the appearance of stoppage, cessation or even a terminal conclusion pausing forward progress; but in the end, it is the health of the body, mind and soul which should dictate the priority of one’s actions, and not a career which will go on in the bureaucracy of the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal worker, whether that rotting essence lives on for a more hopeful tomorrow, or remains quietly rotting in a lethargic state of tacit acceptance.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire