OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Hope

Apathy is the cold pail of water which extinguishes the glowing embers of hope, while hope is the warmth that maintains the light needed for the expectation of a better tomorrow.  It is easy to extinguish that flame of hope, and fall into the cobweb of despair; for, thoughts of all that can go wrong are easily conceived, especially when considering the negativity which pervades the daily news feeds bombarding us each day.

There is comfort to be found in apathy; for apathy merely confirms the taste of normal life for most — where communities fail to provide any semblance of cohesion and families live not together as an organic singularity but in dissipated independence of apprehensive indifference.  Few can count on communities when calamity destroys, for we live in solitude mired by our own set of problems without regard for our neighbor’s troubles.

Thus is apathy the next step from hope as we see indifference to be the natural response of our neighbor and the greater community in modernity, despite the avalanche of words posted on social media and electronic forms.  For, in modernity, people have come to believe that words can be substituted for actions, when in fact the loss of human interaction is what allows apathy to prevail.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the FERS system to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, you may want to consider contacting an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to secure your hope for tomorrow before the apathy so pervasive in modernity begins to undermine the still-burning embers of a brighter tomorrow.

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 Pension: Order of Our Lives

All lives require it.  Some, more than others; others, less than some.  If self-order is not imposed, then some semblance of order from beyond will come about — through reactions of others; by forcible confinement; by privileges withdrawn, etc.  Society requires it in order to manage a civilization; civilization is defined by it, with anarchy being its alternative.

Immanuel Kant argues that there are internal structural categories which impose order upon an otherwise chaotic universe: We “see” the world around us through this ordering cognitive perspective; otherwise, we would not be able to go about our business.  When the disorder in our lives becomes too prevalent to bear, we manage by either ignoring or avoiding the alienation of our selves from an otherwise overwhelming sense of chaos.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from the chaos of a medical condition, the order of our lives may require the preparation and submission of an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application under FERS, to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Medical conditions themselves can create chaos, and it is only by removing one facet of that chaos — the stress of having to continue to work in a career which is no longer viable — that a greater sense of order of our lives can be created.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The Difficult Road Ahead

It is not different for much of life; it is always a “difficult road ahead”.  Whether viewed in a poetic pentameter or in long, Faulkner-like narratives, the troubles, traumas, upheavals and disappointments felt, experienced and injured by most, is simply the cost of living an ordinary life.  There may well be lives out there which are untouched by troubles or tragedies; but as every family has a closet full of skeletons, so the “perfect family” as portrayed on social media is likely a mere facade concealing secrets of unstated hurts.

If given an opportunity, what 3 wishes would be asked for to blunt the difficult road ahead?  Wealth?  Yet, having unlimited financial resources will not necessarily make you “happy”.  Fame?  Will adulation and recognition bring about lasting contentment?  How about good health?  Yes, but if everyone around you is susceptible to the scars of illness, what good would it be if you are the only one left and all of your loved ones become debilitated?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition begins to prevent you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your job, the difficult road ahead is not merely the deterioration of your health, but the long process of trying to become approved by OPM for a Federal Disability Retirement application.  Perhaps neither wealth nor fame were ever a goal for you; perhaps good health was always hoped for; but in the end, the loss of our health makes the other two rather insignificant, and the difficult road ahead magnifies even more the value of good health.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider that the difficult road ahead may require someone who not only knows what direction to take, but which road will lead you back to fulfilling the wishes of your dreams.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: Traps and landmines

They are not just set on the roadsides of war zones or in public squares where the greatest damage can be projected; for, by analogy, they are in existence as metaphors of human deviancy and evil intents. Traps are deliberately set with motives and intentions to capture; landmines and other devices are put in place to maim, injure or kill.

Then, of course, there are analogies used and metaphors employed — of legal traps and linguistic landmines; of contracts that “hide” language in miniature fonts that are designed by clever lawyers to mislead and draw into a cobweb of entanglements meant to enclose, corner and — like traps and landmines — either to capture or to destroy.  Linguistic landmines and traps are the ones we encounter more often than the ones in war zones.

In other countries, in far away places where we see reporters “embedded” and whispering in hushed tones of urgency to give us a sense of danger and exotic misadventures, we get a sense of what real traps and landmines are all about.  But in this country, within our universe of relative calm and peace but for the periodic tumults of tragedies in the next city, the farther town or that “big city” out there — in such relative calm, it is usually just a casual trap of language or a landmine of a metaphorical sort.

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 applicant for Federal Disability Retirement must be cautious and wary of the legal and linguistic landmines and traps in the very preparation, formulation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement Application.

Those innocent-looking forms, such as SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability — while they do not pose the same danger as a mousetrap to a mouse or a landmine to a wandering child on foreign soil — nevertheless, they can become problematic unless you are aware of the dangers posed, much like those traps and landmines we hopefully will never encounter in war zones and conflicts afar, in a metaphorical sense.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Being too kind

Can we be so? Is there a tipping point on the pendulum of sugary personalities where the spectrum of color-coded warnings tell us to be wary, for danger lurking within a context where one becomes suspicious of a conversation turning to an overabundance of kindness? Is there such an event, a personality, a characteristic and a trait of opposition as “being too kind”? On a spectrum or scale of revealing who or what a person is – does kindness turn about into an antonym of sorts, and become naked meanness or obstructive disregard in malfeasance by neglectful ignorance?

Can parents be charged with negligence or criminal neglect because they are “too kind” to their children by allowing them to do as they please?

Can a sugary-sweet conversation engaged in with a superior turn out to be a deliberate intent to elicit responses where safeguards are lowered and one’s instinctive inner alarms of suspicion are temporarily abandoned? If a person is truly “too kind”, does being so become a detriment, or a badge of honor that allows for one to pass through life with ever a smile on one’s face? Or, behind closed doors, in the dead of night when the darkness shrouds the turmoil brewing in ones’ inner thoughts, at what price does being too kind extract, like that pound of flesh diminishing the weight of relevance for each of us in a world known to be mean and unkind?

We all accept predators and other animals of wolverine intent; and there are surely angels amongst the population who wander throughout in order to touch the hearts for the pleasure of gods in the underworld of eternity; but of those who by personality quirks or some missing link in the Darwinian universe of survival instincts, do the opposites of kindness equal the mathematical rule and create the sum of meanness, or its very opposite, of angelic qualities rarely encountered in this universe of cynicism?

Then, of course, there is the dismissive wave of the hand of which no one wants to fall within that category: “Oh, he’s a nice enough guy” – a declarative which, when properly interpreted, means: “Irrelevant; not worth spending more than a few seconds with”. For, being too kind has two faces to it: Whether of a perennially naïve character, such that the person with that eccentricity can be trampled upon and yet remain so; or, there is an underlying and often malicious intent beneath the veneer of such kindness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, remember that there is always a history of repeated conduct by Federal Agencies and Postal Facilities, which should forewarn you about a person, an agency, a department of a facility, that suddenly is being too kind.

For, always remember the childhood fable about Grimm’s or Perrault’s eternal truth, as depicted by Little Red Riding Hood; and, depending upon the version written, you may not want to get into that bed with a grandmother who has a long and suspicious-looking nose, as well as other telling features that should ring the alarm.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Affirmation, Affiliation and Affectation

But for the middle syllable (the extra “ta” in the word), it is what people strive for; and like the thief in the night who leaves behind earthen footprints of his twilight misdeeds, the insertion of that additional combination of a consonant and vowel turns the meaning of the word upon its head, and leaves us with an artificial prose devoid of poetry and warmth.

The middle term is a favorite of sociologists and other “soft” sciences where anthropological studies determined the course of serious studies or of mere pretentiousness of purpose; associations, initiation into phi beta whatever and epsilon in uppercase or lunate form, characterizes the human need to belong, despite our contrary assertions and protestations that man, machine and a wagging dog’s tail are enough in this world of virtual reality where communication is accomplished primarily through pushing a button via glowing faces of blank pages and fluorescent screens.

As for the first in the tripartite series of syllabic partnerships, it is that inner essence which the child in all of us seeks, but which Dickens, Salinger and Capote all cried out for lack thereof, and depleted their souls in the course of searching for that which was never lost, rarely to be found, and tenuously held by a mere thread of hope and longing.

It is funny how much time we waste upon past hurts.  Most such narratives deserve, at best, a single night at a bar, a few sobs, and perhaps the generosity of the proprietor giving the gift of a free beer; and then it is time to move on with life.  Some stories, of horrors unimaginable but for the telling in quiet whispers in bedrooms locked, but then those who survive such tales are often the very ones with impeccable and impenetrable fortitude, and they don’t need the free drink anyway, leaving aside the heaving sobs and a momentary sympathetic ear.

Narratives are important for people to carry about; like manuscripts hoping to be discovered, we cherish them in binders of protective combativeness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have managed to cull together multiple years of survivorship despite the thickets of affectations imparted by so many elements of narcissistic behaviors, it is in the end the true affiliations which come to the fore when a crisis erupts.

If the singular sob-story told at the corner pub was not enough to replace that lack of affirmation wanted and desired for as a child, and throughout your career you have striven to replace it by becoming lost in work, career and sheer busy-ness, then the sudden loss of that coalescence of unending activity can indeed have a traumatic impact.

If a medical condition interrupts that innocent search, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, then it becomes necessary to consider 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.

But in doing so, just remember that, while the process of separating away from a career which engulfed so much of your time and energy may be an emotional turmoil of sorts, especially because of the wide affiliations garnered over those many years, it is the medical condition itself which must be first and foremost in contending with the crisis, and not the affectation of coworkers who suddenly show their true selves and gather like a pack of predators ready to pounce, no more than the affirmation you may have wanted from a bureaucracy which, in the end, cares not for your narrative, other than the effective one you must write for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in order to win an approval for your Federal Disability Retirement application.

In the end, all stories are told and forgotten at the corner pub of our hearts, in the fading suds of a beer gone stale, only to be retold by the next patron of the establishment where the jukebox fades with a selection of a song yet to be sung.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Resigning from a Federal Position Due to a Medical Condition

To resign is often considered the last vestiges of giving up hope; somehow, it contradicts our DNA, and the resistance to it reinforces the Darwinian idea that the evolutionary drive for survival rules our choices, as determinism persists despite our best efforts to remain free.  To resign is to give in, surrender, abandon the lifelong plans and dreams for the future; it marks, for many, a decision of raising the white flag.  In life, however, sometimes the choices offered are but a few, and within that limited arena of options, the best must be taken.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal and Postal worker from performing the full panoply of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, it sometimes becomes necessary to “cut the losses” and move onward to other ventures in life.

When the level of harassment becomes untenable; when the best negotiations lead to the Agency’s offer of resignation in order to keep the record “clean”; when access to one’s TSP is necessary in order to survive the long period of waiting for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to decide upon a Federal Disability Retirement application; or even when the constant “fight” is no longer worth it, or is not there within one’s self; then the only thing left is the proper characterization of such a resignation, for inclusion as a short statement on one’s SF 50 or PS Form 50.

Depending upon the particularized circumstances, a resignation is not always a surrender, but merely a regrouping in order to return to resume the fight of life on another day.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Linguistic Labyrinth

“Language is a labyrinth of paths.  You approach from one side and know your way around; you approach the same place from another side and no longer know your way about.”  #203, Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein.  Life is never a static construct; those who consider it so, are sorely left behind when the winds of change suddenly fill the sails and the slumbering ship awakens with a groan to pull free of its moorings.

Left behind are the days when a person could count on the vocation of the parent, or of a career singular throughout.  Instead, the economy forces us to adapt and reconsider; new skills are needed, or old ones refined and readjusted.  And the feudal days when the kindness of the squire was tested where lameness or debilitating accidents incurred the wrath of life, are bygones of past initiatives thrown to the howling wolves of predatory eyes lurking behind to take advantage of every slight and weakness revealed.

Language is like that, too.  We think that schooling ends when the diploma is handed out, at whatever stage of advancement; but the reality is that the true test of self-initiative begins at that very moment, precisely because liberty allows the freedom to choose between vice or value, where the former is offered freely to the youth who has been released from the shackles of parental control.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers who find themselves in a position where a career move is necessitated by an unfortunate accident or onset of a medical condition, the truth of Wittgenstein, and of life lived in a world of complexities, comes to the fore.

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, is a difficult approach when the mandates of life’s ferocity coalesce in a tripartite convergence:  a medical condition; impact upon one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service; and the need to secure one’s future in order to attain a level of financial stability.

The unknown labyrinth of language becomes a maze of confusion when the Federal or Postal employee encounters the legal eligibility requirements mandated by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in order to overcome the obstacles and hurdles in an effort to obtain a Federal Disability Retirement annuity.

Throughout life, the Federal or Postal Worker has approached the path of language from one opening; now, he or she must enter the gates of a bureaucracy which requires expertise and knowledge of a completely different sort, and without the assistance of an attorney, you enter the labyrinth of the unknown at your own peril.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire