FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: Time to Heal

Depending upon where you place the verbal accent to accentuate one or the other of the 3 words strung together, the phrase can have different meanings.  There is a time to heal; it takes time in order to heal; over a stretch of time, healing may occur; as time passes, the trauma becomes less powerful, and healing takes time.

Time and distance allows for acceptance to occur.  The regularity of a person’s absence or that of a beloved pet, allows for habit to incorporate the missing “other”.  Death, as a finality of non-existence, is something which modernity attempts to avoid.

Yes, we read about it in the obituaries, and recognize that it happens every day, all around us; but in an antiseptic universe where we insulate ourselves from the objective world by getting lost in the virtual universe of Smart Phones, Computers, and the idolization of youth — we avoid the natural occurrence of mortality’s end.

Our encounter with Being, as Heidegger would put it, is the regular avoidance of choice by engaging in human projects in an effort to “forget” the teleological result of our state of being; and so we need time in order to heal from the recognition of the extinction of others, lest our own imaginations fail to save us.

Time was, because of famine and disease, a family of a dozen could see death of at least a few, but modern medicine has cured us of that calamity — until the pandemic reminder of recent vintage.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition reminds you daily of the need to heal, time is unfortunately not on your side.  The daily grind of your work doesn’t allow you to heal.  Healing needs time away and time in and of itself in order to allow for healing to occur.

Contact a Federal Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider that Federal Disability Retirement benefits will allow you to focus upon your health, and allow Time to Heal.

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 Law: The Exponent

In math, it is the symbol indicating the operation of raising from the base.  In modernity, it is the quickened pace of the life we live, beyond the scope of our own humble efforts to control.  In reality, most of life passes by within a whirlwind of work and sleep, with small interludes of memorable pieces of times spent otherwise.

Sanity is challenged exponentially; stress has increased exponentially; the lights, the sounds, the constant noise from the streets — all, a greater volume of exponential capacity beyond what the human ear can sustain, resist or otherwise bear.

Have our bodies and minds kept up — exponentially — with the increase of the world around us?  Or, do we remain within the evolutionary accident of the slow but steady adaptive genes trying to allow for the natural law of “survival of the fittest” to catch up, all the while merely remaining where we were tens of thousands of years ago — of the exponent of “1”?

Federal Disability Retirement is a law which recognizes the incompatibility between the medical condition — an exponent of many — as against the type of duties required of a position.  Incompatibility occurs when the medical condition(s) suffered are no longer compatible with continuing in a position where the various elements of the position can no longer be satisfied.  It is based upon the identical principle as the exponent — the contrast between what is required in modernity as opposed to the capacity of the human mind and body.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows the Federal or Postal worker to continue in his or her career or job because of the incompatibility between the medical condition and the position/job, consider that the exponential incompatibility between the chronic medical condition and the positional requirements may be the basis for preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider increasing the chances of an approval of your Federal Disability Retirement application by hiring a Federal lawyer who specializes in the practices area of OPM Disability Retirement Law, thereby increasing that symbol indicating the operation from the base — the exponent — resulting in a successful approval.

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 Employees Retirement System (FERS) disability Retirement: In Captured Time

It can be a photograph — of a time frozen.  In our imagination, whenever we come upon the same photograph, the mind’s eye begins to immediately re-live that moment captured, and provides the context, the vestigial events surrounding that frozen tundra of an otherwise stoic moment.

If it is an image which has no relationship with you — perhaps seen at a neighbor’s house or a friend’s apartment — then the moment in captured time remains just what it represents: an event, a moment, a picture of people as they are, represented by the photograph in captured time.

Of course, you can still put your imagination to work and try and realize what had occurred, when it was taken, who took the photograph, and perhaps even contextualize the image by combining your own memories with a creative insertion of projected impositions upon that tundra of timelessness — but in the end, it would all be “make believe”.

In life, captured time is also one of immobility and paralysis.  Medical conditions also bring us in captured time by refusing to allow us to move forward.  Regression is an element in captured time when medical conditions become chronic.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who want to move their lives forward and beyond the moment in captured time, contact a Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of moving outside of captured time, and into greater moments of life and living, where the frozen tundra of remaining in captured time is replaced with the warmth of living beyond the lifeless inertia of a photograph unrelated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Imperfect Storm

We hear often about its opposite: The “perfect” storm.  For, it is the combination of coincidences which coalesce that result in that greater calamity which we all allegedly want to witness: Of winds howling at destructive speeds; of the tides reaching their pinnacle; of other natural forces bringing to fore the ferocity of supernatural strength — and all together, the aggregation of beauty within fear.

But what about the imperfect storm?  The one that merely is ordinary and without much fanfare?  That is what most of us represent — of nothing exceptional; where history did not note, nor did it grab the attention of the front pages.

Most lives are ordinary, in that sense, where we represent an imperfect storm, not worthy of even a mention in a footnote.  A birth; a life; somewhat of a career; a sickness; an illness, then death.  But within that spectrum of ordinariness is the tale of human triumph and suffering; it’s just that we don’t notice it, and barely give it a second glance, precisely because it was never advertised as the “perfect” storm.

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, perhaps your case fails to merit a mention as a “perfect storm”; although, from your perspective, the calamity of a career-ending illness or injury will likely be seen by you as such.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, lest your imperfect storm become one of greater imperfection by receiving a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement under FERS: The Inconsequential

In the annals of history, most of us remain as the inconsequential.  Not even a footnote, nor even a passing reference, we are lumped into generations of third-person subjects unnamed and faceless.  We might read, for instance, that during the “Sixties” or “Seventies” (or beyond), this group of people or that community of individuals did X or participated in Y, and we might say to ourselves, “Oh, that is a reference to my generation”.  Yet, as an individual, it is rare to be identified by name.

History always fails to recognize the inconsequential; except, perhaps, by memory of relatives and faded photographs barely remembered in gatherings where old folks once chattered about this or that person whose absence emphasizes the starkness of the inconsequential.

Is that what many of us fear?  Not just about being ignored; and perhaps not even of leaving this world without a mark of recollection; but of being one of the inconsequential within a mass populace of unknown graves, unmarked but for those faded memories of vestiges in whispered conversations once echoing down the forgotten chambers of time.

And of that place where we toiled for a decade or more — where so much time was spent, so much effort and expenditure of labor: The workplace.  Once we are gone, will we even be remembered?  Will a fellow worker say, years hence, “Oh, remember that guy who…?”

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 fear of becoming one of the “inconsequential” is often what makes the Federal or Postal worker pause before considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

But just remember this: There is life after work, and whatever “consequential” work you believe you contributed to the Federal Agency or the Postal Service, there is nothing that cannot be replaced, and the greater consequence of failing to attend to one’s health is what makes for the inconsequential to loom larger with greater consequences down the road.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Games

How do we learn how to play them?  If we play Game-X, must we follow “all” of the rules ordinarily known and ascribed in order for Game-X to still be recognizable as such, or does it become “Modified Game-X”.

If little Toby plays his first game, but doesn’t know the rules, yet nevertheless realizes that games are “fun” because everyone else is smiling and seemingly excited, does the fact that the kid-who-knows-no-rules plays without knowing the limits and boundaries of the game make him into a participant, or a pariah?  Of course, if he stamps his feet in the middle of the game and declares that he doesn’t like the game, and walks off (even taking with him the proverbial ball), can we declare him to be a poor sport, an okay-sport, or any sport at all if he never knew the rules of the game in the first place and therefore never quite played the “real” game?

How about dogs — do they “play” games?  The dog that chases the ball but doesn’t want to bring it back to the ball-thrower, and instead runs away with it — has he broken the “rules of the game”?  How is it that dogs play games with their masters without ever being able to explain what the parameters of the rules are?

Then, of course, there is the slight modification in the term “games”, as in “games that people play”.  We all know what that means — of being insincere, fake, or otherwise putting on a double-face.  Why is that called a “game”?  Is it because it is not real, and constitutes a copy of “make-believe”, much like playing a game when we all know that it is not reality that is being rehearsed; and yet, isn’t playing a game — any game — just a part of the reality of the world we live in?  Why, then, is life bifurcated between “games” and “reality”, when in fact both are real in the sense that we are living a life of surviving, making a living, etc.?  Yet, we constantly distinguish between “playing” and “living”, as if there is a difference to be identified.

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 any longer performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal worker’s job, career or craft, the preparations needed to come to a point of realizing that an effective Federal Disability Retirement application must be filed, often requires a recognition that the proverbial “game” is “up”.

Whether the Supervisors and Managers at the Federal Agency or the Postal Facility are up to their usual “games” or not — of harassment, derisive comments, making your life “hell” by increasing the levels of pressure or stress, is really besides the point.  What matters is that life itself is not a “game” at all, and those who separate games from the daily living activities don’t really “get it”.

Medical conditions bring to the forefront the reality of living, and the harshness of how people treat other people.  Yes, preparing 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, may seem like just one of those other “games” that have to be “played” — but the reality is that an effective OPM Disability Retirement application is a necessary part of life’s many facets of games and reality-based endeavors, such that the “rules of the game” always need to be consulted in order to “play” it well, and thus the first step is to learn the rules by consulting with an attorney who can advise on the rules themselves.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The light in someone else’s home

Walking the dog out past dusk, or perhaps standing in the backyard after the sun sets; or, in an apartment complex looking out beyond; a light turns on in someone else’s home; we wonder, who is it, what are they like, and how different are they?  Do others, upon seeing the light switched on in your home, wonder at the owner — the possessor of the finger that flicked the contraption that illuminated the room and altered it from darkness into a visually acute arena of human activity?

Why do we spend so much time pondering about alien lives in other worlds, in faraway universes beyond our very own, when scant little attention is paid to knowing about our next door neighbor?

Some would give a quick scoff at such a thought and quip, “If only you knew my next door neighbor — you wouldn’t want to know!”  And yet, it is always the one that is “just beyond” that attracts our attention — not the person sitting next to you on a train, or the woman with three screaming children on public transportation; rather, it is the unseen stranger who flicked on the light switch afar, whom we cannot see but by shadows that pass behind the blinds that veil; that is the person who sparks an imagination that there are other lives, other ways to live, and who remind us that the light in someone else’s home means that there are other ways of seeing things, living life and having different opinions, goals, dreams and conversations.

The objectivization of other human beings is the basis by which murders are committed, wars are justified and slogans are written; it is only when the warmth of a light that suddenly illuminates the darkness that prevailed begins to permeate one’s consciousness of what it all means, is when human empathy and compassion begins to form.

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 light in someone else’s home is the one left unlit, and that is often why the harassment begins, the coworkers remain uncaring and the agency seems oblivious to your deteriorating health.

It often seems as if the world cares not; that, despite your years of loyalty shown, late-nights expended to complete an important agency project, or staying beyond the hours to finish the sorting, distribution and delivery — now it is supposed to be someone else’s turn to switch on the light and carry forth the mission.

Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may be the only option left.  Whatever the conditions, it is no longer the light in someone else’s home that should be of concern, but the darkness left in your own that needs to change, by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Silent lives defying interpretation

Life is a mystery, and individual lives a puzzle untold.  It is the calluses that we develop throughout our lives that diminish our individual and collective curiosity to get to know the “other”.

We are born with a teleological intellect striving to unravel and unmask the depths of human essence; but modernity, technology and the singular focus of tangents often involving prurient asides distract and envelop with unwavering obsessions, but it has gotten worse:  no, not in any violent manner or upheaval of historical significance; rather, the electronic means of texting, emailing, Facebook-ing and other such means – which, if one pauses for just a moment to reflect, is merely a white page on a screen of illuminating blindness where symbols representing communicative ignorance are exchanged through the ethereal conduit of airwaves – give an artificial semblance of comfort that we are still engaging in the essential project of destined human activity:  getting to know one another.

When, in fact, the distance between words and the human touch; the distinction between the beep apprising one of receiving a message and the subtleties of an eyebrow raised, a grimace faintly made or a sparkle from eyes admiring; or the differentiation between black lettering upon a lighted page as opposed to the intonation and undulating mellifluousness of the softly spoken word – these, we are losing as each day passes, unnoticed, unconcernedly, and without any real hope of recovery.

It is, in the end, those silent lives defying interpretation which are lost forever on the doorsteps of unwritten historical accounts, despite the stories never told, the narratives forever undeclared and the characters uncharted because of the mystery of life and the conundrum of human lives.

History, it has been said, is written by “winners”; and if there is indeed truth in such a statement, then its corollary opposite must be similarly true:  unwritten and unknown accounts are forgotten or never written of those “losers”.  But that is only half of the truth; for, there are those countless bystanders who are never acknowledge, but fail to be inserted and included in the narrative of unmarked graves unacknowledged through the accounts of history untold.

We all want to be “significant”; we all want to “make a difference”; and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition cuts short a promising career, a relevant contribution to the “mission” of the Federal Agency, or make a difference to an old woman living alone who waves hello to the Letter Carrier as the high-point of her day – filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may seem like the end of that teleological journey that we are all engaged in.

But always remember that there is life after the Federal workplace, and whether you are an active Federal or Postal employee, or getting ready to take that step to initiate a Federal Disability Retirement application, there are still silent lives defying interpretation, and yours is one of them.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The implication of ‘finding happiness’

Human beings live in a duality of universes; within the linear historicity of an objective world, daily unfolding with encounters with physical objects and other beings, comprised of interactions both superficial and intimate, combined with utilization of inanimate constructs for daily living; then, there is the insular universe of a parallel phenomena, where we are subsumed by a conceptual menagerie of language, numbers, extrapolated forms of ideas and strings of thought processes; and how we coordinate and intersect the two determines the success or failure of who we are, how we thrive and to what teleological end we pursue.

The words which we use often define who we are, as well as what motivates and moves us into action or inertia of mindless behavior as science fiction describes the modernity of automatons.  In the animal, non-human kingdom, survival and the pursuit of food sources dominates to satiate the basic tendencies of the appetitive aspects of existence.  ‘Happiness‘, as a defined principle, equates to a full stomach at the most foundational of sources.

For humans, we tend to make complex of the simple, and turn an evolutionary basis into a conceptual conundrum.  Thus do we add the prefatory vacuity of ‘finding’ and attach it to the root of existence — ‘happiness‘.  Such a concept implies that there existed a time before when something was lost, never attained, or otherwise left unsatisfied.  As a result, a ‘search’ is undertaken, a lost civilization reenacted, a missing person found and a stray dog reunited with its owner.  But that life were so simple as to merely search for the confounding link to fulfillment, as if the effort merely consists in the remembrance of the location of the misplaced watch by tracing the steps previously taken but somehow forgotten during the slumber of exhaustive nights.

Is life too complex to behold?  Do the accoutrements of cultural rot pile upon us daily, such that the simple root of conceptual simplicity remains beyond the reach of most of us?

Happiness as a principle should always remain as a byproduct of the life one leads.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a meandering pool of daily suffering, resulting from a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Postal or Federal positional duties, the issue of ‘happiness’ is often quite simple:  freedom from the medical condition and stability of purpose for the future.

The former may never be quite achieved, as it is determined by factors so complex as to encompass body, soul and emotional health; but as to the latter, 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 at least a step in the proverbial right direction.  For, in the end, the insularly devoid conceptual construct of ‘finding happiness’ must be determined by the angel’s residue of sprinkled gold dust, left to sparkle with infinite radiance as we venture forth into worlds unconquered and visions yet unseen.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The power of dialectical shrewdness

The Middle English noun form of the term connotes a conniving and negative tone, as in the focus of Shakespeare’s play, “The Taming of the Shrew”; but the adjective form merely denotes a practical astuteness in utilizing scarce resources in creative and constructive ways, whereas the altered noun form of “shrewdness” simply extends upon that kinder, gentler meaning.  When truncated as a compound concept with the term encompassing language and communication, however, it is meant to imply a practical force of conveying which sheds itself of unnecessary embellishment and unrequited force of utterance.

We live by narratives.  They form the foundation of who we are, the essence of that image which we carry about, and we readily push the proverbial “button” of the subconscious when queried about our past.  It is not so much that Grandpa or Uncle Ben are getting senile when they repeat the same stories, tell the parallel jokes, or convey the identical remarks from the previous merriment of holiday cheer; no, the narratives kept deep within the treasure troves of the inner soul and psyche are mere traces of a recording played with repetitive muse.

Can they be altered or amended?  Of course.  Can corrections occur? Always.

That is why, when a third party is invited to dinner, who by happenstance was present to confirm or deny a shared and common experience, or to correct a detail not heretofore known (it turns out that Grandpa wasn’t quite at the “first” landing of D-Day, but arrived a few days later as part of a “clean-up crew” in a more “administrative” capacity), the sudden need to rearrange and reorder the ensconced narrative forever frozen in a timeless eternity of thought, historicity and remembrances, becomes more of an irritation than a grudging concession.

That is why it is vitally of importance when a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who is preparing an OPM Disability Retirement application, to recognize a need to depart from the automaton-workings of life’s daily routine.  Language is more than a conveyance of directions and recipes to prepare a meal; it is the manner of osmosis for higher animals and angels unseen in a universe of trolls and trollops.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, recognizing the power of linguistic shrewdness, wrapped in the methodology of forceful dialectical argumentation — of that combination of words, facts, forming narratives of undulating emotional sensations which reach down into the depths of souls unmoved, and yet pragmatic to the core because of the sufficiency of correlating and confirming documentation gathered and research unearthed — these are what make for the fine gold dust which must sprinkle from the wings of angels when the flight of the Phoenix must arise from the ashes of a Federal or Postal career ended by no fault of your own, but through a medical condition unplanned for and unnerving to the unknown exponent of a future to be followed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire