Tag Archives: office of personnel management medical retirement

FERS Medical Retirement: The World of Yesterday

Yesterday was the day before the medical condition made its introduction; the day prior to having to acknowledge its existence, its impacts or its chronic appearance; the day just when complaining about life’s missteps and unfairness seems now so trivial and far off the mark of justified sequences; and it is the day now in the near past, yet so distant in significance or of memories retained of better times when laughter would echo with sincere, heartfelt exuberance until today came along with the baggage of the world of yesterday.

Yesterday is the time we romanticized, of better times, more upstanding people seemed to populate the earth, and though there were still crimes committed, hearts broken and promises left unkept, nevertheless we insist that the world of yesterday was better than today, and tomorrow, bleaker yet except in small puddles of hopeful naïveté left abandoned in the palms of begging children outstretched to ask for alms of forgiveness never to be recognized except in shuttered side streets where mud, recklessness and poverty-stricken families with eyes staring vacantly from gaunt looks remain in silent alcoves of painful remorses.

The World of Yesterday is what we remember, that which we long for, and to which we direct our conversations, thus averting our eyes away from the reality of today, the ugliness of tomorrow and the hopelessness of the day after.  It is what makes us pause, justifies our procrastination and makes pudding out of venerated food items that are left on the shelves to rot and decay.

For Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition now prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the World of Yesterday was when the chronic medical condition could be tolerated, hidden, ignored or “dealt with” — but we must always live in the world of today in order to prepare for the world of many tomorrows, and to do so, preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), whether the Federal employee or Postal Service worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, becomes a necessity, lest the World of Yesterday consumes the World of Today and subverts the many worlds of all the tomorrows which are yet to come.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Attorney exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their FERS Medical Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

FERS Disability Retirement Help: The Unraveling

It is similar, yet quite distinct, from the concept of “unwrapping”, or even of “finding”, “revealing”, of “unearthing”.  For, the other words describe an indication of voluntariness — of a third-party agent (or even of the first-person pronoun) engaging in an act of deliberative steps toward an appearance of something.

But that other term — the word which is today’s focus — has a frightening aspect of loss of control, inability to contain, a lack of freedom or choice, and even implying a frailty of crumbling, catastrophic consequences.  When there is a societal unraveling — or even a personal one — there is an underlying sense that the constraints, borders, fences and outer membranes which once restrained and held together the entity contemplated, are now disintegrating.

The term, “bursting at the seams” or “cracks in the foundation” and similar metaphors, are all appropriate when using the term, “unraveling”.

Sometimes, it seems that society as a whole is unraveling.  But societies don’t unravel unless there is an aggregation of personal unravelings, where the cumulative effects of many such individual unravelings result in the further metaphor of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” phenomenon, in a negative, reversing manner.

Unraveling, of course, is what sells newspapers and online stories; the trading of bad news is always scintillating for the prurient needs we all ascribe to; and the antidote to such a sense of unraveling is to take a walk through your own neighborhood, where it is likely that things still likely appear “normal” and “together”.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are experiencing a personal sense of unraveling because of a chronic medical condition which impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal Service job, the solution may be to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Preparing an effective Federal OPM Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) is tantamount to taking that “walk” through one’s own neighborhood, to get away from the greater sense of unraveling.  For, whether society as a whole is unraveling, or you next door neighbor’s life appears to be boring and normal, you may want to contact a FERS attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement Application.

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 Disability Retirement Law: The Finite Life

The concept itself may connote multiple meanings: That we have a set amount of time within which to live out our lives; and, additionally, that what is in our power is limited, contained, restrained, and bounded by our nature, our born-with talents, our circumstances, and likely the most significant factor — luck.

Are some people just “lucky”?  And, what does it mean to “have luck”?

Certainly, if you are walking down a street and you come upon an abandoned briefcase which no one claims, and you open it and find a large sum of money within — that would be considered “pure luck”.  But that doesn’t happen often in life; instead, the merging of various circumstances and events occur, where opportunities are presented to Subject-A but not to Person-B; and then, we declare of the former, “He was just lucky”, and of the latter, “She just never has any luck.”

That we have a set amount of time in this world is a concept of inconsequential results, for that is true for everyone.  But of the concept of a finite life which means that we are limited in our potentialities — well, that clearly has dire consequences, especially when it belittles and diminishes the human imagination.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition reminds us of the finite life — both in terms of our mortality as well as the limitations of what we are able to do — preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) may be the answer for releasing the Federal or Postal employee from the conceptual constraints of what that definition entails.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and release yourself from the Finite Life resulting from the greater sense of mortality brought on by your medical conditions.

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.

 

Postal and Federal Employee Disability Benefits: Purpose and Meaning

They can feed off of each other in motivating us, and have cross-boundaries in their definitional relevance.  “Meaning” provides the foundation for the signification of one’s activity or engagement; “Purpose” gives us the reason — or the meaning — of that which we do.

Before the development of the cognitive universe, we were compelled and motivated by instinct — of the basic reactionary need to survive without thought, purpose or meaning.  Or, perhaps one might argue, survival itself contained the meaning and purpose for every existence.

Once the cognitive universe began to develop — you know, that area of internal living comprised of our thoughts, words, conceptual universe, and the strings of sentences which form the universe of our daydreams, plans, anxieties and schemes — we required more and more of that duality of motivators: Purpose and Meaning.

For a good part of our society, work provided meaning and purpose; families solidified it; relationships obligated it.  When the seams of society begin to unravel, however, the duality of our motivations follow in successive disintegration, as well, and purpose and meaning become hollow echoes of sounds reverberating from a pebble dropped into a deep and uncaring cavern.

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 being able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, purpose and meaning may become undermined precisely because of the deteriorating circumstances triggered by the medical condition itself.

Contact a disability attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of recovering that purpose and meaning — that duality of motivators — by first securing your future with a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, then figuring out what will motivate you to move forward in life, into the next sector of this barren universe where one must find purpose and meaning outside of the postmodern era.

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.

 

Federal Disability Retirement Legal Services: Where Did The Time Go?

It is most often a rhetorical question — one which the answer is known, but the point is made by the query itself.  The question is thus left mostly unanswered.  Time escapes, slips away, is robbed and stolen away by the activities which we enjoy but are not conscious about in the very pursuance of engaging in an enjoyable or otherwise highly distractible participation.

The beginning of a weekend brings a smile of self-satisfaction; on the afternoon of Sunday, the query becomes: Where Did the Time Go?  As if the previous 2 days somehow had disappeared without any explanation for the time spent; evaporated without any knowledge of the activities engaged, the people having met and conversed with, etc.

Sometimes, the query is posed for decades of a frenetic life: The kids have grown up and gone; the empty nest syndrome naturally is filled by the void and echo of the same question: Where Did the Time Go?  Do we ask that same question, however, when we desire something to come to an end — or only when we wish that the circumstances would last a bit longer?

For example, when a career-ending medical condition requires the filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, do we ask during the process, “Where did the time go?”  Or, instead, do we query: When is this process going to end?

Medical conditions, likewise, often reverberate with similar questions; for, it is only the times of enjoyment when we ask the rhetorical question, and not when an undesirable condition is being experienced.

To get beyond the times of crisis and concerns, contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and get an attorney who will see you through the time of uncertainty, and get you to a point where you may again ask the question, Where Did the Time Go?

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 Law: Shakespearean Comedy — or Tragedy?

Shakespeare has said it all; whether in one of his Tragedies or Comedies, or in the Sonnets which addresses so many topics ranging from mortality to love, time, beauty, etc. — he covers the inner psyche of man and the outer folly of our actions.  That we no longer quote from his plays or sonnets is a reflection of our own superficiality, and the failure on our part to recognize, protect and preserve the genius of a relic so relevant even today.

“Genius” is precisely that — of thoughts, principles and stories that transcend time, culture and historical context; but we live in an age where, as Aristotle would note, the “appetitive” part of our soul has been allowed to rule, whereas the intellect, reason and rational parts were meant to be the dominant force in our lives.  Comedic situations or tragic circumstances — one often melds into another.  In modernity, we often don’t know when to laugh or to cry, as the pain is great, the absurdity greater, and the two cannot always be recognized one from the other.

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 Shakespearean Comedy — or Tragedy — one is witnessing, must by necessity require a conclusion to the play you have a role in.

Consult with an OPM Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider what role you have been playing all along, and still need to play.  For, the differences between a Shakespearean Comedy and Tragedy are often indistinguishable, but for the wisdom the Court Jester has given to the Tragic Hero, and whether or not his hubris results in failure to listen to the advice given.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
FERS Disability Attorney

 

FERS Disability Retirement Retirement: Destroying Yourself

Self-immolation is not normal for the common beast; but then, Shakespeare noted that, “What a piece of work is man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals.  And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?  Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither; though by your smiling you seem to say so”.

And so through literature do we have such a high opinion of ourselves, though as Prince Hamlet observed, the actions we take fall far below those ideals to which we aspire.  What is said more often than not contradicts what is done; how we behave, a chasm far and wide from the words we employ.  What are our values?  Retirement is a grand goal, but of what good is it if you are debilitated when you reach that stage?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service 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 his or her job, the question which must be asked is: What am I killing myself for?  Is it worth getting to the proverbial ”finish line” only to collapse into a wheelchair?

Consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who Specializes in Federal Employee Disability Retirement Law.  Destroying yourself is not the goal; instead, it is to rise above the quintessence of dust and focus upon the paragon of virtues: One’s health.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Preparing a Seamless Application

Is it possible?  When two fabrics are sewn together, it is almost always the case that a seam will appear; but it is the expert seamstress who has the knowledge of the proper stitch, the “tricks of the trade” and the technical knowledge in order to make it appear as if the boundary doesn’t exist, so that the two foreign bodies mesh and meld into one.  There may be multiple seams in creating a piece of clothing; where the sleeves meet; the attachment of the pockets; or, for style’s sake, sometimes the seams are meant to show.

This is true of almost any process which involves the combining of materials, people, organizations and differing entities — the “seams” must be sewn in order to become a combined but single body; the question is whether there will remain a weakness in the seam, to what extent the seam will show, and how strong the seam will be.

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 position, the key to preparing a seamless application will depend upon the proper analysis, evaluation and coordination of the various elements involved in the process itself.  The medical evidence to gather; the relevant information to include; the legal arguments to be made; the nexus between the medical condition and the essential elements of the position — these all must be brought together by the expert hands of the “tailor” who knows the “stitches” to apply.

Consult with an Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in preparing as seamless an application as possible.  For, it is the expert tailor who has the knowledge and expertise to make both the process and the substance as a seamless entity, and that is the key to a successful outcome.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Wisdom amidst noise

There is much of the latter, and too little of the former.  Further, the latter tends to drown out the former, and while it is the former which should gain prominence within the spheres of influence, it is the latter that dominates and strangulates, leaving only the emptiness of seeming profundity and relevance so that what remains is the hollowness of inaneness.

Do we consult the Aged?  Or, in this era of modernity where the cult of youth predominates, is it back to the blindness and ignorance of Plato’s Cave?  Noise is more than the drowning sounds of a multitude of chatter and drum beats; it is the sheer volume of words spoken without meaningful discourse.  How many corners in forgotten Old People’s Homes reside the wisdom of timeless insight, and yet they are left to shuffle about and stare with vacant eyes upon a world that cares only for celebration of the young.

There is noise; then, there is wisdom amidst noise; the question is, Do we listen and can we learn when the din of irrelevance takes the form of profundity when logic is lost in a world that has renounced rationality in favor of celebrity?

Those old dusty books — of Plato’s Republic to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; the writings of the Medieval Scholastics; of Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and of recent vintage, almost anything written by Roger Scruton — who reads any one of them, anymore, and less likely, do we approach them with curiosity as once in the child’s eyes wide with want of wisdom in search of it?

Wisdom is a rarity in a universe of noise, and it is the noise which deafens for timeless eternity.

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, it is important to seek wisdom as opposed to the noise of the moment.

Federal Disability Retirement Law is a complex bureaucratic process which involves many levels of administrative perplexities, and while there is a lot of hype and noise “out there” among H.R. Specialists, coworkers and even among lawyers, it is always the best course of action to seek wise counsel and advice, and to be able to distinguish wisdom amidst noise.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire