FERS Medical Disability Retirement Law: The Finite Life

The concept itself may connote multiple meanings: That we have a set amount of time within which to live out our lives; and, additionally, that what is in our power is limited, contained, restrained, and bounded by our nature, our born-with talents, our circumstances, and likely the most significant factor — luck.

Are some people just “lucky”?  And, what does it mean to “have luck”?

Certainly, if you are walking down a street and you come upon an abandoned briefcase which no one claims, and you open it and find a large sum of money within — that would be considered “pure luck”.  But that doesn’t happen often in life; instead, the merging of various circumstances and events occur, where opportunities are presented to Subject-A but not to Person-B; and then, we declare of the former, “He was just lucky”, and of the latter, “She just never has any luck.”

That we have a set amount of time in this world is a concept of inconsequential results, for that is true for everyone.  But of the concept of a finite life which means that we are limited in our potentialities — well, that clearly has dire consequences, especially when it belittles and diminishes the human imagination.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition reminds us of the finite life — both in terms of our mortality as well as the limitations of what we are able to do — preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) may be the answer for releasing the Federal or Postal employee from the conceptual constraints of what that definition entails.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and release yourself from the Finite Life resulting from the greater sense of mortality brought on by your medical conditions.

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 Law: When Once We…

How does one finish the sentence?  Are we at that point in life when reminiscing about our past status has become an obsessional point of daily reflection?   Does it say something about ourselves when we engage in such thought processes?

Our past accomplishments; what we were once able to do; the reflection upon our present circumstances — of what we cannot do, are unable to accomplish, of who we once were in comparison to what we represent today.

The list of comparative analysis is endless.  Whether from aging or from suffering from a debilitating medical condition, when once we were able to multi-task, to laugh off stresses and pressures, of being able to handle multiple hats and change our positions daily from one role to the next, etc.  When once we were able to do, to accomplish, to reach — so many things, goals, projects, etc., and now….

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who lament the comparison between what you once were and what you are today, the goal is not to merely slog through and survive, but to get to a place where you can redeem the life you once had.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application might not be the best next move in order to regain that semblance of a life when once we were able to do and be so much more than the debilitated Federal or Postal employee we are today.

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 from the OPM: Careful Planning

Is there any other type?  Do we ever plan, but do it carelessly?  Or, is it a redundancy to ascribe any planning as being “careful”?  Another question, of course, is the manner in which we determine the basis of such planning; i.e., is it only a retrospective judgment that is made after the fact?  In other words, do we ascribe the designated title of “careful planning” only after things have gone smoothly, and that of “careless planning” when things have not?

When the boss pats you on the shoulder and says, “Good job” and you turn and smugly respond, “Well, it’s just a matter of careful planning,” is such a response appropriate only because things had turned well?  And when it does not, do you just say: “Well, despite careful planning, there were some unforeseen circumstances that arose and all we can do is to counter them as best we can”?

There is, of course, such an animal as “careless planning” — where one has engaged in the motions of planning a future course of events, but has not taken the time to think it through, plan alternative avenues for “handling a potential conflict”, or otherwise did not meticulously prepare for the upsides and downsides of potential difficulties.  And that is the key, isn’t it — to consider the options, take into account the possibilities, and to plan accordingly?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, careful planning in the preparation, formulation and submission of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is a “must”.

We all engage in retrospective confirmation of our actions, and the single telling factor of careful planning in a Federal Disability Retirement application is when you receive an “approval” from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Of course, when dealing with a Federal bureaucracy, a denial does not necessarily mean that careful planning was not engaged in, but merely that further planning and careful consideration must be given in order to battle with, and prevail, against OPM.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin to formulate the plans which will be most effective in obtaining your disability retirement benefits from OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Bumps along the road

On any trip or travel, how many bumps are felt or experienced along the road?  Many are imperceptible; some are noticeable; a few may be jarring to the effect that it jolts one from the automatic-consciousness-mode of how most people remain while driving.  But what impact does the entirety of the aggregate have upon both the vehicle being driven and the individual sitting behind the wheel?

Take first those almost-imperceptible bumps — what effect do they have, over the life of a car, upon all of the parts, bolts, springs, complex computer systems, etc.?

We know that, over time, stresses and metal fatigue over many trips and upon thousands of miles of travel can result in the sudden breakup of an airplane engine, or when a catastrophic event suddenly occurs where a car stops running or a plane crumbles in mid-flight, we come to the realization that the aggregate of imperceptible bumps can, over time, cumulatively have the effect of a single jarring event.

The fact that they are ‘imperceptible’ doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, nor that they have no impact; rather, it is just that we do not perceive them.  That is the old Berkeley problem in existential philosophical discourse, is it not?  Of the following: Do mountains exist on the far side of the moon despite the fact that we do not see them?  Does perception equal existence, or merely one’s perspective upon an opinion concerning such existence?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition necessitates the effective preparation, formulation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the bumps along the road in the complex administrative morass of a Federal Disability Retirement process will be many and sometimes overwhelming.

Some of the proverbial ‘bumps’ may be minor and merely irritating; others, looming large and difficult to conquer.  To ensure that the ‘ride’ is smooth and relatively trouble-free, you may want to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the bumps along the road result in a jarring decision of denial issued by OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Circumstances and choices

When is it too late to begin reflecting upon one’s circumstances and choices?  Do we already do that daily, and does the length of rumination engaged depend upon where one’s station in life has reached? Do old men and squeaky rocking chairs justify such reflective modes of behavior, or do the young as well take the time to ponder upon choices made, circumstances encountered, and the spectrum of clashes in between?

Do we formulate a fauna of false representations of ourselves, and depict upon the screen of a mind’s inner movie of the “self” with edited versions so that, when queried, we can make those “bad mistakes” of past choices appear to fit into circumstances where we can innocently declare, “I had no other choice!”?  We “make the bed we lie in”; suffer from the “messes we make of our lives”; or of what other adage or declarative falsehoods may we come up with to excuse our own choices in life’s travail of valleys full of mournful echoes?

Circumstances often dictate the choices we make; or, at least the metaphor of “dictation” leads us to believe.  For, the very idea of “X dictates Y” as in the previous statement, “Circumstances dictate the choices we make”, removes us of the responsibility in making the choice, by making it appear as if the choice made is not really a choice at all, but merely an action that is necessitated and you are therefore merely an unwilling agent.

What is lost in such discourse, of course, is the lengthy history of sub-choices previously presented and ignored, where choices that could have been made before circumstances became so dire that the narrowing of alternatives dissipated until a crisis point came to the fore — that is where circumstances and choices require careful analysis before the alternative juncture of varying pathways disappear.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is important to early on recognize the circumstances unfolding and the choices presented, before the multitude of “forks in the road” begin to disappear, and life’s circumstances begin to impose — not binary choices — but choices that begin to dictate.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may not seem like a choice that one wants to undertake, but it is often the circumstances that one has no control over that dictates the future course of choices, and not the choices themselves.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Maintaining a schedule

We all abide by them, strive to meet them and toil to achieve them.  We claim that we control “it”, but in fact, it often becomes the monster which completely constrains and restrains, overpowers and undermines.

Maintaining a schedule in life is important.  Some, because of unknown past issues or current difficulties, cannot stand by and allow for a violation of it; others, with more daring personalities and flighty egos, defy it deliberately and result in floundering about without a purposive intent or constructive content.  Maintaining a schedule is often essential to the daily lives of all; for those who have certain learning disabilities, it allows for a structuring of a universe which would otherwise appear chaotic and undisciplined; for others, the very structure imposed restricts the inner creativity of brilliance, and we are left with the genius who follows no man’s path.

Babies and children do well with it; the creative genius who is always distracted by the brilliance within his or her own subjective world, often cannot abide by it; but the rest of us follow a fairly monotonous routine and stick close to it, if only by excuses given of being “five minutes late” or the sorry excuse that the bedside alarm clock failed to rouse us.

Then, there are companies and agencies that seem to fall apart at the seams, where overwork, underpaid staffers and unreliable workers seem to disrupt that most important of schedules – meeting deadlines.  Then, there is the incongruence between one’s personal schedule and the schedule of another entity, and when the two fail to agree or work in consonance, then frustration begins to develop.  The tumult of frustration is often based upon the chasm that occurs between what one expects and the reality which unfolds.  Closing that “gap” is the solution to one’s growing frustration in this world.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to, are about to, or have already filed a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the key to containing one’s frustration over the time-period that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is taking, extending, violating and ignoring in performing their duties in approving or denying a Federal Disability Retirement application, is to recognize that their “schedule” is one of complete and utter power, and that the Federal or Postal Disability Retirement applicant is in a position of complete powerlessness; and, on top of that, to maintain a schedule apart from what OPM does, while one waits for an outcome that is hoped to be favorable.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The monster within

There are gargoyles we imagine, which are scarier than those in real life – unless we mean by them the ones who plan to do us harm (and not just murderers, rapists and other violators of the social contract scheme).  For the latter, we have laws, self-defensive mechanisms, and the ultimate justification for flight, and sometimes they work, at others, partially or not at all.  We can spend a lifetime fretting over the monsters without; it is those within – the former that haunts and never leaves the home of the mind – that destroy without a finger lifted.  For, in the end, it is fear that defeats, and that is well known by students of military strategy.

What weakness the adversary has, should be exploited tenfold as a vulnerability beyond the actual numbers; and what suspicion of doubt is kept in reserve, should be accessed and manipulated in order to magnify the exponential harm perpetrated by a cautious mind.  What looms large in one’s mind is quantitatively expanded despite arguments of logic, rationality and calm discourse; for, it is the imagination left untethered when the quiet of darkness falls upon a sleepless night, that the qualitative lack of focus begins to take shape in shadows unseen by a dawning light.

What can be more fearsome than that which we cannot control?  In reality, the circumstances that develop and unfold are mostly those that we have allowed for; in the creative recesses of our mental reserves, the expansive and uncontrolled destinies can never be curtailed, but have the limitless potential beyond any reality of sanity.  That is why the master torturer knows never to rush, and the interrogator recognizes the value of anticipation; of allowing the quiet fears to grow in the solitude of thought; and in the period between reality and imagination, the monster within can grow tenfold in untold features of taking on masks of fearful expressions and profiles of unfathomable terror.

How does one break that spell?  The shattering of an imagined fear is often tied to a fragile psyche that cannot be separated, and like conjoined twins who share a vital organ, should not be bifurcated but with surgical precision.  Fear is an interminable intrusion, unless and until the causative forces are intersected by an antidote which dissolves and dissipates.  The key is to find the antidote; and in the meantime, to hope that the elements of reality are not so traumatic as to overshadow the forces of psychic quietude.

For Federal employees who suffer from a medical condition, and Postal workers who similarly experience the pain of physical disabilities or psychiatric dysfunctions, the issue of when, how, and if one should file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is intimately conjoined with the growing monster within, while battling the dual forces of antagonism and contentiousness from without.  For, it is often the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service which exacerbates the problems associated with a medical condition, which then further complicates and magnifies the monsters stirring within.

To resolve such a problem, the answer lies in the very preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management; for, in the end, the monster within becomes resolved only when the gargoyles outside are dealt with, and for the Federal or Postal employee with a medical condition, that resolution is defined by obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, in order to be able to take the next steps to secure a hopeful future, beginning with the act of separating from that environment of the Federal agency or U.S. Postal Service which helps to create the monsters in the first place.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Tethered, Tattered & Tortured

The first in the series connotes bonding; the second, the state of being; and the third in the tripartite application of this linguistic artifice, the conclusion to a life lived.

Camus and Sartre represent the despair and loss of innocence – of a melancholy realization in the disillusionment of life’s aggregate experience – born in the early days of existentialism which uttered its first breath of strangulated gasps in the aftermath of the horrors of the First World War, only to be reinforced with experiential encounters of greater dehumanization during the Second World War; then, finding its fullness of maturation, with the discovery of alienation and conduct of thinkers like Heidegger, counteracted by the courage of Bonhoeffer’s refusal to submit; and in that consummate realization of the inhuman, collective carnival of cruelty deliberated as the penultimate culmination of Man’s loss of his soul – once, when the bonding of a community embraced the gathering of warmth and caring, and the insertion of alienation from the ashes of despair; much like the Phoenix rising but unable to spread its wings because of the weight of ruin.

The soul once tethered was now severed from its bonds of innocence. The state of being – of the tattered soul – is much like the Japanese woman who once uttered with accusatory vehemence: “When you landed on the moon, you destroyed imagination, romance and the beauty of the gods smiling upon us.” Such was the state of being – of the tattered soul of modernity. And of that conclusion to Man’s fate? Of the tortured soul who finds no path out of the misery of eternal condemnation?

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition separates one from the tethered bonding with one’s workplace, career and coworkers, it is but an obstacle from the tattered state of being which can only conclude with a tortured end, but for the option 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.  No, filing for OPM Disability Retirement is not the solution of and for all things misshapen; rather, it is an alternative to the complete loss of tethering, where the tattered remains may preclude the ambivalence of a tortured end.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medically Retiring from Federal Government: Environmental Toxicity

We read about it in the print and other media; the global nature of the problem, the haunting images of rusting barrels and canisters with leaking liquids of foreign and unidentifiable hues of chemical mixtures; of stories involving deformed babies and cognitive delay, with early onset of dementia causally related to the drinking water, air pollution and osmosis of agents otherwise harmful.  Science Fiction writers employ the genre of antiseptic cities of artificial constructs, with men and women who venture out into the tainted world in white suits of sealed purity, breathing through tubes and oxygenated rasps barely audible through the thick materials of protective immunity.

China, we are told, basks in the careless disregard of deliberate destruction, with India lagging not too far behind, and then the “developing” countries; that the airstream, jet stream and water streams are all connected, like tentacles which relate back to the organic essence of human existence, and unless little old “me” and “I” and the pointed finger of accusatory mumblings does “his part” or “your part” in reducing all that mess that the proverbial “we” have created, that doom is just around the corner accompanied by “gloom” preceding its cousin; and so we laboriously cart our plastic bottles and milk cartons into larger and larger bins that have logos we proudly think represents the advancement and modernity of our thoughtfulness, and watch as the powerful jet set in private planes and get transported in SUVs that spew out untold tons of unseen pollutants in order to congregate and discuss the fate of the universe, the represented country, the state, the community and lil ol’ me.

Environmental toxicity, of course, is a real problem; it is the lip service paid by those who preach without actionable lives of verified sincerity which presents a problem for most.  And for the rest of us, the “little people” who matter not and impact insignificantly upon the global scale of policy interventions, there are multiple dimensions of the term itself — as in the quality of the workplace, the manner in which the employer treats employees, and in the Federal sector and the U.S. Postal Service, the application of relevance for the conceptual compound of the two words often implies more than the physical universe of occupied space; it involves the harassment, emotional abuse and hostility of purpose.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition compels the Federal or Postal employee to 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 question of environmental toxicity is just that — not the wasteful plastics otherwise disregarded and discarded into the trash bin, but the real impact of a caustic atmosphere empowering little minds within fiefdoms of medieval power centers.

How the Federal agency treats “lil ol’ me”, and what the U.S. Postal Service does to its employees by requiring and forcing abusive repetition of physical labor, goes well beyond what the ordinary person cares about in China, India, et al.; instead, they want you to look beyond the window of your own house, even as the smoke fills and the fires blaze in the very neighborhood you live in.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Magic & the laziness factor

Magic is something we cling on to, if only as a last vestige of the light of hope, flickering ever so delicately against the tumultuous winds of a world gone mad.  In childhood, it was an imagination enlivened by the pure delight of fairytales, mythologies and rhymes of wands in the single sweep where the golden dust of insurmountable problems is suddenly a trail of corrective bygones with mere words of incantations mysterious to eyes agape with wonderment and awe; and in the middle-to-growing times, the words altered somewhat, the concept changed and the linguistic construct evolved to imply an attitude, a hope, an approach to future life based upon hard work, honesty and mere cannibalism of negative thoughts.

To remain positive was to overcome the vicissitudes of reality; to forego immediacy of pleasure, a pathway to self-discipline.  But time has a way of defeating and beating down even the best of men; there are few limits to the unseen enemy, and much which constrains the visible.

Is there magic to be gotten?  That hope without substance which we pray for; that lottery ticket in the face of statistical impossibility; and that verbiage we throw about by inane moments of meaningless contexts — “There is always tomorrow”.  What have we not shed but to which we cling?  To what do we cling that no longer applies?  Or is it mere laziness, the factor that we dismiss but for everyone else?

In modernity, of course, such tendencies and proclivities toward the magic of superstitions have become exponentially magnified through games of virtual reality, and the numerical chimera of Facebook “likes” replacing actual friendships and human bonds.  Then, when reality hits us square in the face, we fall apart all the more easily, for want of preparation in the face of true vicissitudes that shake the cavernous combustions of this world we live in.

Medical conditions are just one of those realities that cannot be ignored.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who one day wake up to the realization that there is no magic to impart when a medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, and that the pragmatic step of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application may be the best alternative available, the conjunctive one must often face — “and the laziness factor” — is a reminder in two ways:  First, in making sure that you do not allow procrastination to impede the path towards a future for success, and Second, to not be deterred by coworkers and others who criticize ignorantly by alleging that it is all “made up” in order to “game” the system.

The law is what the law is; and Federal Disability Retirement is a system reflecting a progressive perspective on workers who can no longer perform a particular kind of job in the Federal sector and the U.S. Postal Service, but who may be able to remain productive in some other capacity in the private sector.  That is why Federal Disability Retirement annuitants are allowed to make up to 80% of what his or her (now former) Federal or Postal position currently pays, in addition to the annuity being received, and continue to retain the Federal Disability Retirement annuity — precisely because it is a recognition that the Federal or Postal employee is not “totally disabled“, but rather, disabled only from performing one or more of the essential elements of a particular job.

The “real world”, as a grown-up views it, must set aside the magic of make-believe trailing upon a disillusionment wrought in the face of experiential encounters that incrementally beat down and squeeze out the wonderment of childhood thoughts; but hope for a better tomorrow should never be extinguished, and while the flicker of a dying flame emitting light in the deep abyss of despondency overshadowing the magic of bygone days may indeed threaten the future, never allow for the appendage of the laziness factor deter the best step forward in preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire