FERS Medical Disability Retirement: The Reasons Given

How did we learn how to give the reasons given?

We often meander through life doing the things which we do, not because we have analyzed or assessed those things we do, but because of habit and convenience of monotonous refrain.

Did you actually ever learn how to prepare, formulate and provide a “reason”?  Or, perhaps you came from a family where your parents were too busy to provide the proper “reasons”, which is the basis of forming the “process” of adequate “reasoning”?

Did your parents say things like, “Just because…”.  Or — “I don’t know; go ask your mom.”  Or even: “Don’t bother me with your questions!”

Furthermore, if you went to college, were the classes mostly a drone of lectures, or were you subjected to the Socratic method of questions-building-upon-questions in order to doggedly require the fine-tuning of the reasons given?

And, as you entered the Federal workforce, how much of your work is merely based upon the attitude of, “This is done this way because it is the way it has always been done”, or do you have some creative leeway for your own input?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contemplate preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application under FERS because of a medical condition which will not go away, preparing such a disability application must by necessity involve reasons given which must address both the “things which have always been done” as well as the uniqueness of your particular situation.

In a Federal Disability Retirement application which has any chance for an approval at all, the reasons given to justify your FERS Federal Disability application must include a sufficient legal basis in order to successfully persuade the U.S. Office of Personnel Management as to your eligibility.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to ensure that the reasons given meet that sufficiency test, and not be denied because your reasons given are essentially the age-old failing attempt of, “Because I said so”.

Sincerely,

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

 

FERS Disability Retirement under OPM: The Difficult and Complex Case

Not every difficult case is complex; and, vice versa, not every complex case is difficult.

The “difficulty” of a case may be inherent or external — of problems within the body of the case, or some external elements which impacts upon the case.  Complexities can be qualitative or quantitative — arising from some element of a case which makes it more than the “run-of-the-mill” issue, or influenced by a multitude and variety of issues to be resolved.

Almost all cases have some inherent difficulties, and the complexity of a case can often be simplified by systematically resolving some of the inherent difficulties presented.  Often, a “complex” case is merely a matter of perspective — where the client believes in complications which in reality have no impact upon the case.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and which triggers the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, an initial consultation with an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law will often ferret out the complexities, define the difficulties, and simplify the issues to be resolved.

Every case has difficulties and complexities, but you should make sure that they are “real” ones, and not merely born out of not knowing the issues which are relevant.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: Pragmatism

It is that branch of Philosophy which is uniquely American; and the anomaly of the unwanted cousin was clear from the outset: Philosophy by its very nature is theoretical, and most of it dabbling in the discipline of metaphysics, ceding its other branches to theology and science.  Pragmatism, on the other hand, lends to the practical — of reacting to the world in terms of present-day difficulties and problems to be solved; of shunning the theoretical and attending to the basic needs of society.

The contrast and contradiction of a philosophy based upon practical needs as against the backdrop of an academic discipline which embraces the impractical, but rather enjoys its reputation for high-minded principles (i.e., Kant, Hegel, etc.) makes for a Jamesian pragmatism to be the illegitimate cousin of a well-respected family tree.  We are all dreamers by morning’s child; more practical by midday’s youth; and pragmatists upon an adult’s late evening; for the world forces the theoretical to be squeezed, and pragmatism brings out the harsh reality of existence.

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, pragmatism may necessarily dim the dreams of yesteryear: A career in the Federal Government no longer possible, a practical approach must be taken — of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement lawyer, a specialist who can advise, guide and counsel throughout the process, and begin preparing for the reality of responding to an all too-pragmatic bureaucracy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: The option of nothing

Inertness for a human being is always an option; although normally a default choice, it is nevertheless an alternative one chooses, rather than what we state to ourselves in justifying the negation of doing something: Just disregard it, and it will go away.  The default is embraced once the choice is made to do nothing further.  Governments are great at that, and ours in particular — of kicking the proverbial can “down the road” and letting the next generation of voters decide upon the non-decision of critical goods and services, all the while talking a good game about what “needs to be done” and “should be done.”

The question that remains unanswered throughout is always: Is the option of nothing the best option? And further: Do we always have to take the best option, or is “letting it go” and disregarding the option to affirmatively make a decision on an important matter sometimes “good enough”?

One can always avoid these latter questions by positing the conditional of: “It all depends” upon the particular circumstances, and that may be true to the extent that, in certain situations, the option for nothing is the better option given the other options available.  In general, however, inertness is merely the lazy man’s out, or an avoidance that is emphasized by a desire of negation — of not wanting to make a decision at all.

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 ones’ Federal or Postal job, the option of nothing will normally exacerbate matters.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a long and arduous path through multiple administrative facets which requires expertise and thoughtful planning in maneuvering beyond the bureaucratic morass.  Because of this, the option of nothing is really not an option at all; it is, instead, a self-harming decision that can have dire legal consequences resulting from the inaction.  As such, consulting with an attorney who specializes in preparing, formulating and filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits becomes a critical step in a Federal or Postal worker’s “next step” in deciding to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

In the end, the option of nothing is no option at all; it is merely the non-option of inertness, which ignores the greater option of doing something about that which needs to be done.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Insular worries

How much time is spent on worries constantly engaged in conversations never spoken but hidden within the insular universe of the private mind?  The walking person who appears to be “carefree” with an impassive face or even a flashing grin; of that person, can one detect the trembling child within, the shuddering fears hidden and the angst-driven force behind?

So much time is often spent on battling against the monsters that loom so large within the insular world of one’s mind that productivity is diminished, creativity is dashed and the relishing of valuable moments become forever a memory that could have been, might have occurred and only fleetingly felt.

How does one counter the obsessive characteristics that most of us are beset with — of anticipating doom and disaster where none has yet occurred; of predicting that failure is just around the corner without having seen any indicators of either the bend around the next block nor the sunshine that foreshadows success; or of simply worrying because there is too much calm, or an overabundance of happiness, joy and the saltiness of success?

Is it always the “quiet one” whom we should all watch for?  Why is it that, after a tragic incident, the neighbor always points to the perpetrator of the crime and says, “He/she was such a nice, quiet person”?  Is it because the insular worries that are never spoken, but remain silent throughout, grow and fester like the mold behind the cellar door or the pus within the bubble of hidden flesh?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who walk about with a medical condition that must be “kept private” and “hidden” for fear that the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service might begin to “take actions” to restrict the use of Sick Leave, or refuse to allow for extended LWOP or, worse yet, to place one on a “Performance Improvement Plan” with the full knowledge that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job duties — preparing, formulating and filing an effective 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, might be the logical next step beyond walking about with the insular worries of an anticipated future event.

Worrying is an integral and inseparable part of modernity; the world is complex, and the complexities themselves create a surreal universe of worries and anxieties; how we “deal” with them, however, is the key to successfully tackling them.  Consulting with an experienced attorney who specializes in handling Federal Disability Retirement issues will likely be the necessary first step in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, and perhaps the unburdening of those insular worries that are bundle up with questions that need some answers.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The wrong turn

What are the consequences of a wrong turn?  Recognition before venturing too far into the detoured travel; loss of some amount of time (allowing for that cumbersome freeway that doesn’t have another exit for some 25 miles); a rash attempt to correct the mistake by crossing the grassy knoll that divides the highway, only to find that the invitation of the greenery is a muck of quick sand that sinks the four tires into a pit of immobility; or, in the most positive scenario, a mere four-corner turn to get back onto the “right” track of travel.

Every decision in life possesses an inherent ingredient — some modicum of consequences; for some, disaster always seems to follow – like Pig-pen and the trail of dust and whirl of tornado-like innocence; while, for others, the Teflon-man of escaping even the scent of guilt is forever brushed off without a scratch or a theme of taint.

Then, of course, there are the horrible tales from newspaper clippings, of a wrong turn resulting in death, maiming, or other deviation from a mere innocence of mistaken scroll of the steering wheel; perhaps the GPS accuracy will no longer allow for such deviations resulting in detoured consequences, but others have contended that the technical glitches inherent in such devices still fail to recognize that the shortest and most efficient route may not always be the safest passage through life’s impending doom.

Further, what is it about the wrong turn that seems to define the state of a marriage?  In days of youth, such detours of deviancy may have evoked the laughter of wonder  – of an unforeseen adventure not worthy of even mild criticism; but as age increases the inner sanctum of fear and insecurity, so the wrong turn often stirs the nervous insecurities otherwise seething beneath the surface of apparent happiness and contentment of marriage, children, family gatherings and holiday warmth.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability or capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the question often becomes:  Did I make the wrong turn by taking on this Federal or Postal job, or is the wrong turn made by staying put?

Such metaphors of intent depend upon the very next move that the Federal or Postal employee will undertake.  For, if the next act is to merely remain in the same position, and allow for the harassment and adverse proposals to pile upon prior agency initiations of hostility, then the wrong turn will likely result in further mishaps of deviations of rightful routes.

For the Federal or Postal employee who can no longer perform the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the next “right” move in correcting the wrong turn.  For, it is often not the initial deviation from a set course of direction that results in a move being “wrong”; rather, it is the acts that follow, attempting to correct, that leads into consequences that make matters all the worse.

Sincerely, Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Resignation

It is both an act, as well as a demeanor.  In the former sense, the fulfillment is accomplished by the actual tendering of an offer to terminate a business or contractual relationship, with a declarative statement of unequivocal certainty.  In the latter form, a feeling, a sense of foreboding, and a concession to life’s hardships.  In either case, it is an act of withdrawal, whether by action via terminal certitude or in the wasting away of the soul’s inner flame of light.

Resignation, submitted as an act of defiance to one’s employer or as a private tender of retreat, is a statement of definitive intent, and one that negates the living embrace of Being.  In political circles and parliamentary procedures, there is often involved a game of dare and a play of obfuscation, like card players in a high-stakes poker game where the tendering of a resignation letter is not expected to be accepted; yet, such attempts at bluffing possess moments of backfiring, with the resulting end to promising political careers because of the inability to foresee substance from play-acting, or want of proper timing.  Resigning, and for what purpose?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and 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, the question of resigning from one’s Federal job or Postal employment should always take on multiple questions and conditions of “why”, “when” and “what for”?

What is the reason; why resign; when should the resignation be tendered; and what is the reason for resigning?  Is it because the doctor has recommended such a course of action?  Will the agency refuse to extend the LWOP status during the process of awaiting a decision from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management?  Will it allow for access to TSP funds during the process, in order to survive financially?  Or are there other justifying, pragmatic considerations to factor into the decision-making process?

These, and many other considerations, should be discussed, evaluated and objectively defined, before a resignation is submitted to one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service.  For, once the resignation is received, and an SF 50 is generated separating the Federal or Postal employee from Federal Service, then the 1-year Statute of Limitations begins to toll, where the (now former) Federal or Postal employee has one year from the date of separation from Federal Service to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, directly to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Thus, there are direct and irreversible consequences in the tendering of a resignation in the first sense of the term; as for the alternate consideration – of a demeanor more suited for a change of circumstances – that is up to each individual to embrace, and determine in an existential sense that any resignation from life’s beauty and worth of being, must remain a choice left only to the unidentified tombstones of unvisited grounds where neither hallowed voices are heard, nor hushed silence interrupts.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The broken record

Does the metaphor have any meaning for modernity, anymore?  Those discs made of shellac resin or vinyl, pressed into magical ridges where the needle would remain stable but for the warbling of the maze; but somehow that circular maze of ridges would have a scratch, directing the point of the needle to continue back into the previous ridge just traveled, like the lost child who cannot see beyond the walled ivy and keeps running frantically in circles, exhausted by the endless infinity of a pathway unable to be traversed beyond the limitless circularity of a philosopher’s argumentum ad nauseum, where tautology of teleology is likened to the boulder being pushed by Sisyphus.

But what of the individual who has never experienced the encounter with a broken record – neither in real life, nor in watching a movie or other inane television show where the manual labor of carefully lifting the needle by the undercarriage of a forefinger, then placing it gently onto the groove closest to the condemned one, possesses no contextual significance because of a lack of knowledge?

Those who have been dated by “aha” responses to such metaphors, take for granted such commonplace declarations; and when we meet with blank stares and confused eyelids, it dawns on us that there is no replacement for an actual experience of descriptive content.  For, the efficacy of the idiom itself is immediately lost upon an attempt to explain:  “You know, when a record starts to…”

And what of times previous to the introduction of the gramophone (boy, now we really are reaching back into time) – did the men and women from an era now past have such peculiar dialects that described repetitive droning of whining and complaining?  Was it something akin to, “Stop acting like a baying hyena,” where pioneers settled lands still dominating with lurking cries of wildlife and unsettled voices?

And what of foreign lands – countries afar and across the great oceans – did they recognize and identify the relevance of the repetition emitted by the spherical looping back upon a scratched surface, or was it ignored in other dialects as a ho-hum matter not worthy of creating a modern-day idiom to be added to the dictionary of everyday expressions?

The metaphor of the broken record is one whose utility has long passed; but for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has become a chronic state of inability in performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the underlying and substantive content of the intersection with one’s career and life, remains relevant.  For, to the Agency, the U.S. Postal Service and the Supervisors, Managers and coworkers with the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal worker – they view such chronic medical conditions like a “broken record” – of a fellow Federal or Postal worker who cannot “carry his or her” weight, anymore, and begins to treat the “situation” accordingly.

Human empathy lasts barely for a day; pernicious antagonism continues well beyond.  When it becomes clear that the Federal or Postal employee will no longer be able to abide by the conventions of the Federal or Postal rules, and others begin to view the use of Sick Leave, assertion of FMLA and constant need to shift workloads to others as acts to be punitively responded, it is time to consider preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to have that undercarriage lifted and placed gently onto the next ridge of one’s life, in an effort to avoid the metaphor of being a broken record.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from OPM: Dreams, daydreams and nightmares

Of the first in this triplet trope, the concept can envision two distinct avenues:  in a state of somnolence, to have them with minimal control of appearance; or, in another sense, to possess aspirations beyond one’s station in life or current circumstances that may impute dissatisfaction.

The second in the series is somewhat connected to the second concept branching from the first; it is a moment of reflective escape, where the reality of “now” and the encounter with Being is temporarily averted and subsumed in a meditative silence of self-repose.  Some have the capacity to embrace and become lost in such quietude of an alternate universe, despite a clutter of noises or the distraction of tumult.  Then, some would counter that it is precisely in such moments that fleeing into a parallel universe of a mental cocoon is necessary in order to maintain one’s sanity in a world replete with a curiosity shop full of random violence.

And, of the third, we again branch into a duality with the proverbial fork in the road; for, such infamy of uncontrolled images and voices while in a sleeping slumber constitutes the primary definition; but, whether in metaphorical terms or engaging in trifling hyperbole, we attribute traumatic and frightful events by describing it precisely by the term at hand.

Dreams, daydreams and nightmares are all part of our daily lives, whether awake, half-aware, conscious or sub-conscious in multiple and mysterious modalities of living; but they serve a purpose which, whether explained away by psychologists, therapists, pseudo-intellectuals or just plain people of tremendous insights and uncanny foresights, they continue to remain the foundation for maintaining the sanity preserved within the insanity of the greater universe.

Without nightmares, how would the inner psyche expiate the images and sense datum we have involuntarily ingested?  Without daydreams, what would man hope for, live for, in circumstances of squalor and decadence?  And of dreams, how would the subconscious sift through the visual and information overload experienced daily and in voluminous onslaughts of quantitatively overwhelming constructs?

Or of the second branch, where aspirations and hope for a better tomorrow, though derailed by screams of destitution and unhinged by crying babies, drunken realities and unsavory circumstances, yet to dream for a better tomorrow is sometimes the only thread which separates the crumbling heart from a tinge of a fading smile.  It is precisely these that allows for man to wake up the next morning and seek a better tomorrow.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find themselves with shattered dreams, escaping into a greater cauldron of daydreaming, or rustling in sleepless fits of nightmares unavailing, all because one’s career is on the proverbial “line” resulting from a medical condition which may cut short one’s dreams, daydreams and creating a chaos of nightmares, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may be the first step in the aspirational discourse needed to regain one’s equilibrium.

The importance of trifurcating between dreams, daydreams and nightmares is a prescient step towards recognizing that the reality of one’s present circumstances may be described as a “nightmare”, and perhaps those sleepless nights are filled with them; but in order for the Federal or Postal employee to dream of a better tomorrow, the leisure of daydreaming must be allowed, but always tempered by pragmatic steps which must be undertaken in the reality of day-to-day living, in order to reach a specific goal:  That of getting an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to reach that light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, which is neither defined by dreams, nor attained by daydreaming, and certainly not a nightmare to avoid.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire