FERS Medical Retirement: Universes turned upside down

There are certain events that occur in life where the consequential results make it seem as if one’s universe has been turned upside down.  Even “positive ones” such as finding new employment, getting married, having a newborn — and not least of which, having a sudden, debilitating medical condition that impacts one’s ability and capacity to continue in one’s chosen career.

When such a catastrophic event occurs fortunately for Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers under FERS — Federal Disability Retirement is an option to be considered.

The benefits of a FERS Disability Retirement are numerous: It’s portability; the fact that you can make additional income on top of the annuity itself (thus allowing for a “second career”) — up to 80% of what your former position currently pays (in addition to the annuity payment which is calculated at 60% of the average of your highest-3 consecutive years of service for the first year, then 40-% every year thereafter until age 62, at which point the disability annuity gets recalculated as “regular retirement” based upon the total number of years accumulated, including the years on disability retirement – and so, you are actually building up a retirement system while you are on disability retirement).

It is a benefit which thus allows for some semblance of security to provide a cushion against that event which turns one’s universe upside down.  However, as with all such benefits, you must fight to secure it, and thus should contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal/Postal Disability Retirement Law.

The Law Offices of Robert R. McGill has been fighting on behalf of Federal and Postal employees for many years, and we have successfully secured that needed “cushion” for countless numbers of Federal and Postal workers.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The Stresses of Life

And there are many.  Whether the mere acknowledgement of their existence helps to reduce the level, quantity and qualitative impact, is of course an unknown factor.  Psychology is not a perfect science — if in fact it is a science at all — and “talk therapy” may not be the course of efficacious betterment for everyone at all times and in all circumstances.

We were all told that life would get better if: If the world became more “connected”; If new drugs were discovered to control our stresses and anxieties; If a certain standard of living were to be achieved; If …. Yet, somehow, despite all of the technological advancements which have been made, of “time-saving” devices and gadgets which enhanced our capabilities to become more productive — somehow, the stresses of life seem to exponentially compound our problems.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition — perhaps with an identifiable onset from the stresses of life — Federal Disability Retirement may be an option to consider.

Consult with an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of shedding yourself of at least one of the unwanted stresses of life: Dealing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in trying to obtain an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Help: Life’s Challenges

It may not seem so at the time.  Often, during encounters, we consider them as threats, annoyances, “the world is unfair” muses, and would rather avoid them and get on with the routine of our lives.

We hear people talk about “challenges” and “journeys”, and we scoff at such language games and euphemisms as being mere facades behind which lay the true nature of existence: fear, loathing and a greater sense of bitterness.  Why me?

Medical conditions are, indeed, challenging; and whether you characterize them as “another journey”, a bother, one of “life’s challenges” or a greater annoyance which cannot be avoided — it is an existential reality which must be faced.

In facing one of life’s challenges, it is a good idea for the Federal or Postal employee who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS to consult with a OPM Disability lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the annoyance and one of life’s challenges turns out to be somewhat more than that — a disaster that could have been avoided.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS OPM Disability Retirement: Of Imprints in the Sand

They fade away quickly and become part of the landscape that once was; and when we try and grab a handful of sand and squeeze the collective grains within our closed fists, the finery of each pours from every crevice left open like the hourglass that counts the moments lost.  Whether by the winds that shift the dunes afar or the lapping waves which erases the imprints once boldly made, the residue of our existence by natural necessity fades and ultimately disappears.

Mortality for most is a scary thought; immortality, a dream and fantasy desired; and within the spectrum of the two extremes is the daily imprint in the sand of human existence.

During that brief moment of appearance upon the sands of our lives, we all have to make decisions both of major consequential effect and minor residual impact, on a daily basis.  Plans for the future; getting the day’s chores done; actions that may impact others; inaction that reverberates to others; and throughout each, the pause and hesitation that reflects indecision may be a further factor in the imprint upon the sand, whether of lasting impact or momentary indifference.

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 imprint in the sand that has to be considered is:  Is continuation in this job and career possible? At what point should I file for Federal Disability Retirement? How will it impact my life, my finances, my ability to get a job in the future? And of imprints in the sand — will my decision have any consequences beyond the disappearance upon the dunes, any more than being separated from Federal Service or the Postal Service?

To understand the procedure, the impact and the residual consequences, consult with a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Law, lest the imprints in the sand of one’s life becomes a permanent and irreversible mistake that cannot be reversed like the sands that slip within the hourglass of one’s life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The world of faded photos

There is an anomaly contained in the attempt to “save” faded photos; it is an oxymoron of sorts, where modernity erases the backwardness of yesterday, and yet, at the same time, wants to preserve it.

We have all heard about companies that exist which “preserve” outdated family movies, photographs and taped recordings of distant times; it is all placed, preserved, edited and presented in a convenient “thumb drive” or in some “cloud” in the ethereal universe of a web-based phenomena.  That faded photograph, beautiful in its brown crispiness of an elderly man or woman who looks serious, because in those days having one’s image preserved for posterity was a serious undertaking — in contrast to today’s selfies immediately downloaded and uploaded into a social medium that is quickly disseminated to countries worldwide in an instant, displaying a foolishness that would shock a generation or two of those removed from such technological “advancements”.

The world of faded photos is an universe of past histories now forgotten, frozen in time by a captured expression depicting a time before, now replaced by a time after, and forever remaining in the memories of those who have survived but now sit quietly in nursing homes of corners relegated to mere existence in darkening folds of dementia and antiseptic coils of plastic tubing extending lives beyond what the photographs themselves intended to display.

The world of faded photos defy the modern attempt to preserve that which was meant to last for a generation only, just as men and women try in futility to ignore mortality by cosmetic corrections that makes for appearances which procrastinate the inevitability of time’s ravages.

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, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the world of faded photos is the one that you remember “before” the onset of the medical condition, and instead of attempting to “preserve” the photograph, it is best to recognize that the image you see in the mirror today is the one worth protecting, and not the faded daguerreotype of yesterday, and the best way to do that is to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement so that you can secure some semblance of your future, and not be frozen in the timelessness of the world of faded photos.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Attorney

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Here

So much time is spent upon the anticipation of some event in the distant future; or, perhaps merely tomorrow, next week, next year.  Here is where we are; in the “now”, the immediacy of a life being lived.  Human beings are peculiar, unique and devastatingly unaware to that extent; we give lip-service to the notion of attaining happiness, joy and the capacity to relish the precious gift of life, while all the while failing to embrace and embody the here of this moment.

Look at tourists visiting the various wonders of the universe; do they seem to enjoy the experience of viewing ancient relics or places where momentous events occurred?  Or, are they busy trying to make sure that the video camera or the Smart Phone is capturing the smiles, the scenery and the attraction just beyond?  How many videos of the same places exist in the world today, tucked away in the memory banks of a digital chip?  What is the difference between the video chip stored in a personal Smart Phone as opposed to a professional movie that explores the identical tourist destination?

What is missing, of course, is the experience of the “here”.  Thus, when asked the question, “So, did you go and visit the famous ruins of X?”  The answer is too often, “Yes, and let me show you the video I took of X.”  As opposed to: “Yes, and let me try and describe to you the beauty of X.”  Anticipatory living is not necessarily a negation of living the “here” of one’s life, or even the “now”; but it comes close to missing out.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who suffers 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 the Federal or Postal position, the need to file for Federal Disability Retirements benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is precisely the “here” that one is trying to preserve, by securing a “tomorrow” worth fighting for.

It is the “here” of one’s medical condition, the “here” of one’s health, and the “here” of some semblance of financial security that is the whole point of a Federal Disability Retirement benefit.  Yes, it is for tomorrow, and the process is a long, administrative headache that may not be approved until many tomorrows and another; but in the end, it is the “here” that is worth preserving, and the first step in securing a worthy tomorrow is by initiating the process of a Federal Disability Retirement application here and now.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Confidence and Self

When attached to someone other than a “self”, the issue can always allow for suspicion of absence; for, just as we can never fully know someone else, no matter how long we have been acquainted, how many decades married, and how well we have queried, interrogated or otherwise cross-examined, so the capacity of mystery may still remain that surprises us on the other’s deathbed.

What if you were married to someone for half a decade, and every Thursday during the entire blissful state of matrimonial embrace, the significant other went out to purportedly play bridge, or for a “night with friends”, or some other innocent activity encouraged and tolerated (if only because it gave you a break from the daily routine and monotony as well); and, on a twilight’s confession before departing this world, you learned that through all of those years, those many decades and countless hours of being left out, left behind or otherwise excluded, you learn that instead it was for another reason?  Would the reason itself make a difference?

Say, for instance, it was in order to see a therapist each week – would that then result in a question of confidence – whether about one’s own adequacy in supporting the loved one, or concerning the other who felt the need not only to seek help, but moreover, to keep it hidden all of these years?  Or, change the hypothetical for a moment, and instead posit that an “affair” had been ongoing for decades – would that shatter the confidence of fidelity one had in the other, or perhaps in one’s self as to an ability to “know” the world about, and come to be shaken to the core such that you could no longer believe in anyone, anything or any story, including the narrative of one’s own life that always previously appeared to be “happy” by all or most accounts?

Confidence is a fragile entity; a characteristic of the soul that takes but a minor injury to suddenly catapult into a traumatic event; and the “self” is always a mystery that the “other” can never quite grasp, no matter how many decades of study and analysis.

That is why a medical condition is so often an insidious invader and purveyor of shaken confidence, because the equation of physical or psychological derailment works upon an already fragile essence of the human self.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties at the Postal Service or the Federal Agency because of a medical condition that intervenes and interrupts, the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often intimately interconnected with issues of self, confidence, and the compound of the two – self-confidence.

It may be that the actions of the Federal agency or Postal facility have completely shattered and shaken one’s self-confidence; or, that confidences previously protected and privacy once thought to be inviolable have been breached; whatever the reasons, a medical condition will often invade the core of a self in doubt, and the confidence of one’s self may need to be repaired by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Catching with a net

Have you ever tried catching multiple entities with a net?  Whether more than one butterfly, or goldfishes in a pond, or even debris floating at the skimming water’s edge, the act of scooping, trapping and encircling with the tool of a net requires dexterity and unique hand-eye coordination.  Then, the one first caught escapes, and the frustration of gain-versus-loss ensues.  Is it greed which continues to compel despite the persistence of loss and diminishing return, or sheer stubbornness that we somehow battle against our own interests even when further escape occurs?

Ever the frustration of observing those once caught and get away, and chasing after those very ones we just enmeshed and caged within the netting of this ingenious deployment; and yet we insist.

How does that translate into a specific personality, or the manner in which we carry on in our daily lives?  Is going out and catching butterflies with a net the perfect methodology of determining a prospective employee’s “fit or unfit” personality and character for an organization?  Does it reveal a side of the person – for example, in the financial sector, or investment banking, if a person approaches the task by catching one, stopping, putting the insect or other entity into a bottle with pre-bored holes for oxygen, then proceeding in a sequential manner and attending to catching the next one, etc., does that tell of a prefatory commensurateness with careful investment strategies?

Or, take the very opposite, where the task is to catch 10 moving entities, and instead of stopping after each one, the future employment prospect goes about madly racing through the tall fields of grass furiously attempting to net the quota of requested numbers, despite imposing no time-frame in the completion of such a task – does that necessarily reveal a personality of lesser caution, of a person who may be rash and imprudent?  Does one revelation of acting in a particular context unmask a parallel semblance of reality in another, or do the specific circumstances themselves confine and define within a marginalized mirror?

Whether transferable or not, the imagery and metaphor of a person attempting to catch multiple entities with a single net, shows a side of human life which can be both comical as well as compelling.  For, as a reflection of parallel circumstances, it is somewhat indicative of the Federal or Postal employee who must begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Like the person handed the net, the Federal or Postal employee with a medical condition who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, must make a pragmatic determination as to the diminishing returns recognized in continuing in the same repetitive venture of living.  At some point, there comes a flash of realization that the same acts cannot continue without something else giving – and whether that “giving” is the butterfly which escapes, or one’s deteriorating health further and progressively becoming destroyed – is the flashpoint of reality revealing itself in compelling a decision for today, and no longer procrastinated for some unknown time in a future left insecure.

And like the butterfly which escapes to be free for another day, the Federal or Postal employee who cannot perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties must by necessity attempt to free him or herself from the medical condition in order to reach that place in life where pain, misery, and the sense of being “caged” will no longer apply.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Uncertainty and Confusion: The Federal Employee’s Sense of Identity

It is through ascription from third parties, over extended time periods, where the development of self-identity takes root, through subtle, incremental ways, until one day, unnoticed, without fanfare and unheralded, it becomes a known quantity of acceptance within one’s social circles, professional associations and the greater macrocosmic world we encounter.

The day or the time can never be pinpointed; having a name plate designed and placed upon one’s desk does not provide it; and calling yourself repetitively the title or nomenclature doesn’t quite satisfy the requirements of the sought after.  That is the anomaly; one’s identity is who one is; yet, it cannot be established by the is-ness of being; it is dependent upon the declared identification of that is-ness by others who recognize the being-ness of the individual seeking the is-ness of the person within a specified time, constrained by the community of place, and bordered by the parameters of choice. “Oh, that is so-and-so”; “Yes, Linda is the Director of ____”; “Our Letter Carrier? He’s John ___”; and so does one live within the identity of third-party ascriptions, and how we develop the self-reflection of who we are.

When lost, the crisis of self-identity comes to the fore. When it is stripped prematurely; when choices must be made to abandon the identity; when external circumstances necessarily dictate a change of identity; the crisis is exponentially quantified.

For the injured Federal employee or the chronically ill 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, the crisis of identity is often inseparable from the anxieties driven by an overwhelming sense of fear, loathing, and anxiousness over a future unknown and unanticipated. For, having a medical condition which suddenly dictates the terms of one’s choices, is essentially a negation of all that one has worked for; and to top it all, one’s very identity which has been ascribed — almost without thought, presumptively and assumed throughout without daily payment or homage for retention or reapplication to maintain the worth and value of that title — is about to be stripped, lost, taken away, and thrown into the greater heap of forfeited titles.

Abandonment, release, and sudden absconding from a known and identifiable context of life; that is how it often feels when one loses one’s identity. The medical condition itself, however, must dictate the terms of disengagement; filing for Federal Disability Retirement is a necessity and the urgency of doing so will allow for that plateau of rehabilitation in order to attend to the priorities of life; for, without life, there can be no identity, whether one’s past, present, or future ascription of the honorific title is grand or insignificant. In the end, one needs to recognize that the title most prominent and of greatest priority, is the given life as recognized in one’s reflection, and not the fleeting glory attained through accolades from others, no matter how great it all felt at the time.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Benefits: The Afterthought

It is perhaps best that anticipatory planning, based upon predictive analytics, is an afterthought for human intuition and predilection of priorities in life.  Otherwise, one can remain in a world of obsessive preventative maintenance of efforts, and never accomplish what needs to be done today.

Future forebodings aside, and whether an individual engages in hazardous duties which exponentially increase the statistical curve for the onset of an occupational disease or injury, or the development of a medical condition through repetitive and overuse of a particular appendage or anatomy; regardless, the bifurcation of thought from the daily aches and pains from one’s body, warning of impending and future difficulties, is ignored and banished, to be reflected upon in some future corner of pondering.

Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for relegating present concerns to the realm of an afterthought, and the benefit of disability retirement will naturally take a backseat for those in the youthful set, precisely because disability is associated with thoughts of avoidance, sort of in the company of old age, infirmity, and early onset of dementia.  As well it should be.  But for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find themselves with a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, and therefore becomes a threat to one’s livelihood, the afterthought becomes the primary issue, and it is then that one sounds a heavy sigh of relief in knowing that an employment benefit includes a Federal Disability Retirement packet.  But once the acknowledgment comes to the fore, the reality further hits one, that you must prove your case, and it is not merely a matter of entitlement.

Federal Disability Retirement, filed through one’s agency if you are not separated for over 31 days, must ultimately arrive at the doorstep of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  OPM is the agency which makes the decision upon a Federal Disability Retirement application (and that’s the reason why this medical benefit is also known as ”OPM Disability Retirement”).

While there are minimum time in-service requirements (18 months under FERS and 5 years under CSRS), it is the compendium of proving one’s case under the legal standard of preponderance of the evidence, which must be submitted in order to win.  Afterthoughts are human evolutionary means of avoiding unseen dangers; but when the afterthought becomes a present danger, it is time to become aware of the surroundings, context, and content of the formidable opponent one must face.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire