Federal Disability Retirement: The Signs of Age

Trees provide the signs with circular rings (is that a redundancy — is there any other type of “ring” except a circular one?) upon cutting it down.  Can a tree tell a lie?  Can it whittle away (yes, the pun is intended) a few years, like humans do, and make a few of those rings disappear so that it shows off its youth as opposed to the stodgy old fogey which the dead stump presupposes?  And, if it could, what would be the motivation?

Humans, of course, possess, harbor, retain and regretfully manifest all sorts of motivations — some simple, often complex, others with unknowable intentions.  On a simple, fundamental level, that of vanity — of wanting to remain relevant in this youth-centered culture where the signs of age make for irrelevance.  Other motivations — of psychological turmoil where one’s appearance of youth has been relied upon for advancement in employment, acceptance among others; and still others, of wanting to hold on to a semblance of the metaphorical fountain of youth.

Plastic surgery can hide the inevitable ravages of age; dying one’s hair; working out; eating well; and yet, somehow, we all succumb to the inevitability of Father Time — whether by mere mortality or, illnesses which begin to develop.

Yes, we live longer than ever, now, but have our bodies adapted in this short time-span of forced evolutionary progress?  Have the cellular structures adapted to longevity when disease and malignancy await to take advantage of our weakened state by age?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who “feel the signs of age” because of a medical condition which impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job — when, the job you occupy is a challenge for the healthiest of individuals, or for that young whippersnapper you once were, but are not now — you may need to consider initiating a Federal Disability Retirement application under the FERS system through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

For, in the end, no matter the attempts to subvert and avoid the signs of age, it is nevertheless the natural inevitability of our lives, no matter the artificial attempts to disregard it.

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 Help: The Unraveling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely,

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

 

FERS Medical Retirement from OPM: The Altered Life

We tend to think that, at some point in our lives, there is a problem of the static — of lacking any action, movement or change.  Perhaps that is why some people engage in a life of crisis, of a second puberty or what was once termed “going through a phase” — of needing to suddenly change in an effort to grasp and hold onto one’s youth, whether misspent or not.

We see it today more and more — of old people trying to act like the foolish young; and so, why would there be any respect for age or wisdom, since everyone seems to be acting like every other young person?

There is, of course, some comfort found in the static life — as reliance and dependence upon a static world is the foundation of calm and peace.  The altered life — one of change, of new challenges and movement towards a different direction — often seems like a threatening and foreboding circumstance to avoid.

Medical conditions are like that — of an altered life, whether because one must face chronic pain, change the way one accepts a certain quality of life, or if it involves psychiatric conditions, a level of acceptance in one’s cognitive capacity.

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 altered life is consumed by the medical condition itself, and the way to counter the alteration is to combat it with another change — in the case of Federal and Postal employees, of considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider that the altered life need not remain static within an alteration you do not want to accept, but that there can be an altered life after the initial onset of the medical condition which altered your life to begin with.

Sincerely,

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

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: Opening Up

Flowers do it; shy individuals, traumatized children, people who feel ashamed; and societies, especially our own, as ours is a country that can stay bottled up only for so long.  Whether the opening up of our country will, in retrospect, be deemed to have occurred too soon, will be determined by the coming weeks.

The concept itself — of “opening up” — necessarily implies a previous state of have “closed down”.  It is an interesting combination of words, where a positive term (“opening”) is related with a direction (up) that is often associated with a transcendent location (i.e., heaven), whereas the “other” term (closing) implies a negative concept associated with hell, damnation, the source of punishment and grief, etc.  In either event, we shall see how history views the opening back up of our society.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition that has impacted his or her ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, “opening up” has always been part of the problem, because to do so would mean to admit that one’s career may have to be changed.

Consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS, and consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  Opening up to an attorney will always be a confidential matter, and it may result in positive advice that can be usefully applied.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Imperceptible light shifts

They are almost imperceptible; in any event, we would not otherwise notice them but for the altered hue in morning’s glory of pink shades and yellow gleams of delight.  From one angle and perspective, one might miss the subtlety of a purple shade not otherwise naturally given to observation; from another, a shift, quite impossible to grasp and declare, but there nevertheless, and that is precisely what occurs with the imperceptible light shifts we miss in the daily lives of busy modernity that destroys and in incremental deterioration withdraws from grace.

But that we had the time, or made the way, for viewing and studying the changes of a world’s color; but we act as though we are colorblind, and rush through each day without noticing the alterations of the sensory universe we occupy.

Nature itself is a deceiver of sorts; from the sun’s rise to its apex of brilliance to the fall into twilight behind the arc of earth’s perimeter, we are unable to view the brightness directly, lest we blind ourselves in such a foolish attempt, or otherwise try and comprehend such source of solar energy in a figurative sense like the Cave Analogy in Plato’s Republic, of that chained soul who lives only within the shadows of appearances not reflective of reality.

No, it is the inability to feel the rotation of the ground beneath us that first welcomes the rising sun, then imperceptibly travels the distance to give us the gift of light, only to incrementally and with deliberative direction progress towards the pathway of twilight’s descent that allows for event a glint of the nether world.

Imperceptible light shifts may be seen in the refractive beauty upon a crystal’s gleam, or upon a clearing in a forest after a burst of rain; but it is in life generally that we must keep an eye out for the beauty of change, in order to be in consonance with a universe that is divorced from our instinctive sensibilities as the animals we once were in roaming the earth like the American Indian who followed the migration of the buffalo herd.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are impeded in life by 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 occupied, those life-startling but imperceptible light shifts are like the subtle hints of the body’s agony:  They tell us things that we already know, but are too stubborn to see.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is never an easy perspective of a long and arduous road to take; but like those imperceptible light shifts, it is the gleam of a future’s hope that must pave the way in prompting that which is necessary, as opposed to what we merely desire out of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The vibrancy factor

There is much talk these days about energy, vibrancy, health and stamina; what defines it, that which best represents it, and to whom we attribute the importance of superficial concerns.  This is an age of appearances, and it has been now for many decades.  We still hear talk about the disjunctive opinions embracing the first televised debates between Kennedy and Nixon – how, for those who viewed it, the former “looked good” and the latter appeared “drawn and shady”, with dark shadows under shifty eyes in contrast to the well-tanned presentation of the former.

For those who didn’t have access to a television, or otherwise sat forlornly in a corner pub sipping the froth and listening somewhat distractedly, the voices emitted from the trusty radio transmission evoked a different opinion and perspective:  Nixon won the debate, and Kennedy sounded less confident, less knowledgeable on the substantive issues.  So, who was right (note the past tense, as most who were old enough to pass such monumental judgments have already entered through the corridors of Dante’s Circle)?  Or, is the judgment of “right” versus whatever other categorization one may presume, of irrelevance, and it is all a pot of bosh left to subjective opinions cascading down waterfalls of opinionated tropes?

There is, in the end, a vibrancy factor which we all care about, whether or not it shows, or to what television personality we may attribute such sustained bursts of energetically deplorable innuendoes.  “Charisma” was associated with the Kennedy presidency (likely imparted by the conspirators and inner circle of advisors and political hacks), and the entrails of Nixon’s later administration became an emblem of who we are today (yes, he must be turning in his grave when comparing notes with today’s standards as to what constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors resulting in insinuations of impeachability).

For the rest of us, however, the vibrancy factor is a very simple matter:  Do we live life with a liveliness of hope, or dread each day with the burden of despair?  That simple bifurcation defines most of us.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition burdens and drags, and depletes and destroys – the choices are fairly simply and straightforward:  Stay, walk away with nothing, or file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

The first of the tripartite is rarely a true option if Federal Disability Retirement is being contemplated because of a medical condition; the second, barely to be considered because of the time already invested and the question of one’s future stability is asked; and so the Federal or Postal employee suffering 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, must ask and consider the viability of the “third option” – Federal Disability Retirement.

For, in the end, the vibrancy factor rules us all, whether because we attribute self-worth and society’s superficial concerns to the advent of television or not; “vibrancy” has to do with life itself, and the innate charisma of a soul battered and pushed about, but rarely beaten until life’s loss of vibrancy takes its ultimate toll.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Medical Retirement System under FERS or CSRS: The footnote

Who reads them, anymore?  Defined as an ancillary or corollary piece of information beyond that which is stated in the body of the main text, the footnote represents that which reflects an addendum and not something that is considered “required reading”, but more likely for the benefit of those who enjoy quixotic minutiae and esoteric details of irrelevant import.*  As referenced in history, one who is relegated to the afterthought failed to reach the first order of things, and their lack of relevance is reflected by banishment to the bottom of the page.

Before computers were invented, long before the notion of “cut and paste” defined the laziness of intellectual prowess, the writer had to engage in prescient forethought, and calculate by measured deliberation the space to leave, the length of the footnote, and whether there was enough white-out left in the crusted bottle to make up for any lack of proper preparation.

The pretentiousness of the pseudo-intellectual, of course, was to have footnotes of greater length than the body of the text itself, spanning multiple pages so that the reader would become confused as to what constituted relevance in contrast to signification of purpose, where some pages barely had a sentence with but a horizontal mark demarcating the onerous esoterica of erudite irrelevancy.  And the worst, of course, is when a teacher or professor would ask a test question based upon one; for, again, the common refrain was twofold:  Who reads them?  Were we required to read them?  And the scoffing retort from the test-giver — that god amongst gods who held grades, fate and future plans in the palm of a single hand: If it was in the assigned material, it was “required reading”.

Much later, of course, we came to realize that “it was really good for us to read them” (though we never really believed such inane confessions), or to our own children, “When I was your age, and computers weren’t yet invented…” (with but a reactive facial expression beyond capacity to translate).  In the end (literally and figuratively), we all realize that the footnote itself represents mere distractions upon an otherwise ordered pagination of an author’s meanderings, and for ourselves, that they reflect a metaphor of who we are.

Most of us are treated as mere footnotes, left unnoticed, disregarded except for occasional reference by accident or happenstance.  For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who has come to a point in his or her career, where a medical condition has progressed to a deteriorating consensus of requiring an alternative plan of action, being treated as a footnote within a subtext of irrelevancy amongst a sea of bureaucratic inefficiency, is likely a feeling of growing concern.

As footnotes are deliberately disregarded, so the majority of people are like those masses of addendum relegated to unnoticed details of sub-citizenship.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will often elevate one’s status and stature for a time, if only because the Agency or U.S. Postal Service is suddenly forced to read the footnote, and take notice of the subtext; but beyond that, it is the medical condition itself which relegates the Federal or Postal employee to that numbering at the bottom of the page and left to irrelevancy, precisely because you are not one of the “productive” ones.

How does one force the “outside world” to “read” you?

In the end, there is life beyond a career with the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is merely a first step in getting beyond being relegated to a mere footnote.

As with those generals who served alongside Eisenhower, Grant, Lee and forgotten Roman centurions, most of us are mere footnotes, and glad of it for the unnoticed joys we can embrace in the anonymity of our privacy, and for the Federal or Postal worker who wants to get beyond the notoriety accompanying that unwanted attention for merely having a medical condition — and thus temporarily assigned to the body of the “main text” for being a nuisance — preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with OPM is often the first step towards asserting one’s rights to getting back to the footnote of time and timelessness, where most of us want to remain, in the cocoon of irrelevancy and historical afterthoughts.

 

________________

*Footnote 1:  Just to make sure; otherwise, refer to page 3,275 herein, where you will be required to obtain a special password and key in order to access a pseudo-intellectual forum of erudition within an ivory tower of confounding thoughts, for further reference to important commentaries otherwise pretentiously inserted in order to appear intelligently cogent.

 

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The pleasantry of paper’s caress

Will the electronic tablet ever replace paper’s longstanding sovereignty?  The invention, dissemination and widespread availability of paper was a notable mark in human progression — if only for what it allowed in establishing communication, transfusion of knowledge and conveyance of data.  Like Gutenberg’s movable type printing press, the cotton gin, the Model T Ford and the computer chip of modernity, such inventions became, in retrospect, tumultuous benchmarks of human advancement.  If advertising images reflect a hope of an industry, it is clear that paper’s replacement is a target of that sector.

The image to be replaced — of a carefree summer’s day, lost within the creative imaginings enchanted by a book in hand, is replaced in a meditative surrounding of a monastery of quietude, with a solitary figure with tablet in hand.  Is this a clash of non-conforming imagery, an oxymoron of the tactile senses — or an acceptable intrusion of an outdated perspective now carefully designed to allow for a transcendence beyond sensory inconsistency?

Is it too “weird” to claim that there is a synergy created by the connective tissues, perhaps invisible, in the sensation of bonds reinvigorated when the human organ — the skin which covers one’s hands and fingers — makes contact with the organic product once living in the forest of endless time before becoming transformed and processed into a breathing product of man-made paper?  As opposed to:  holding an electronic device encased in plastic — that dreaded construct of human creation that poisons the environment and resists natural disintegration for eons of man’s extinguished presence on civilization’s watch?

It is precisely that pleasantry of a tactile event — that moment unnoticed when lost in an author’s universe, when the hand feels for the edge of the paper, separates the singular from the aggregation of sequential binding, slides down and in a conjunctive movement of coordinated silence, turns the page.  And from that, idioms of meaningful adages — another page in history turned, entering a new chapter in one’s life, and closing the book on a forgettable chapter in the experiential history of a person; or even of throwing a book at or “booking” someone.  How will that tablet replace such evolutions of linguistic goldmines in the future?

What we unintentionally lose by careless neglect in the rush towards embracing newfangled inventions for monetary gain and lining of pockets in corporate boardrooms, we rarely pause to reflect upon, except in the incremental erasures of history’s richness in human interactions taken for granted but never spoken of.  There is, in rushing towards replacement with thoughtless disregard, a propensity to bury that which is seemingly irrelevant but for the empty chair we suddenly miss, but too late in showing our love and care.  We can regret things that are gone, but remain impotent to despair and unable to replace, once discarded into the ashes, with but a hope for the rise of Phoenix, if only in the timeless mythologies forever extinguished.

For the present, however, paper remains king; and whether by paper or in forms of electronic transmission, Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, must formulate a proper strategy and file the proper forms and “paperwork” in order to become eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Such a submission must be accomplished within a specified statutory constraint, and the rise of electronic methodologies should not detract from the goal identified:  preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For, whether by the tactile pleasantry of paper’s caress, or via an electronic transmission, in this particular mode of presentation and submission, it is always the content which matters, and not the means of conveyance.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: The insular world of anger

It must be strange to live in a constant cacophony of anger; of a persistent and unrelenting fire pit, where demons jump from ashen glowering of hot red coals to roaring flames of unceasing rage, and back again and yet for more, ever fuming from the slights and hurts both imagined and real, but never able to escape from the corridors of one’s own making.  It is, in the end, an emotion of self-destructive turmoil, perpetrating a defiance of civility in order to engage in the ultimate self-immolation, but without honor or quietude, and thus left with the emptiness of seppuku without meditative resilience.

You see people like this all around; of venom and unpredictable vicissitudes of hate; they spew their wares on the Internet; always the first to comment, the last to leave well enough alone, and forever stalking the weary and witless in a universe of those seeking friendship.  Perhaps it is merely a show of frustration seeping from a life of powerlessness; or madmen crying desperately for help in a world devoid of empathy or compassion.

Whatever the cause, it is always the effect which is felt by all; and never merely a sidebar where forgiveness can be sought or shown, but only the moonlit loneliness of ineffectual calm where the wisp of rising smoke from the dying embers of passion unrequited remains alive, if only to survive another day.  It is seen and witnessed in the workplace, as well.  Is it the Napoleonic complex? Does the show of weakness only provide a further impetus for greater cruelty?  A quiet word of free advice: Unless there is a compelling reason to tell, don’t.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are in the process of 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, it is often a false sense of loyalty and misguided honor that compels the Federal or Postal employee to “tell all” before the appropriate and necessary moment. But that is where reality often clashes with one’s own conscience; for, always remember that people are more complex than first thought, or more likely, of greater simpleton than mere deception can achieve.

The “crazies” are out there; never underestimate that your own Supervisor, Manager or co-worker is “one of them”, and may be that unidentified stalker who lurks in the shadows of midnight owls who stare with unblinking eyes in the veil of anonymity; for, in the end, the insular world of anger remains like the hidden embers kept warm under the concealment of ashes left unspoiled, waiting to singe the fingers which reach unknowingly to begin anew the raging turmoil of a vengeful heart.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire