OPM Disability Retirement Law: Ease of Life

There are many.  Some which come immediately to mind: Dogs (or any pets who can engage beyond food and water); lifetime partners (formerly referred to as husbands and wives) — at least, sometimes; a good book; snowflakes viewed from the inside while sitting beside a roaring fire; chocolates; gardening, when you want to.

Antonyms, or things which make life more difficult: Death (obviously); a toothache; poor health; economic hardships; kids who disappoint; and a list which can go on forever.  It is when the ease of life turns into a difficulty previously unexpected, when we relied upon it so heavily or taken it for granted, that we come to realize and recognize how hard life really is.

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 ease of life which was once so central — health which allowed you to pursue your career of choice — has now become the negative, the detriment, the diminishing factor.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is meant to return you to that ease of life, where a retirement annuity can allow you to focus upon regaining that which you once had, had relied upon, and had taken for granted — your health, the  pinnacle and apex of the ease of life.

Contact a Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and see whether or not preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may return you to the ease of life which most of us were born with, and took for granted, until it was no longer.

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.

 

Early Retirement for Federal Employees with Disabilities: Persuasion

Can the written word persuade?  Can “passion” be elicited by a series of letters, dots, crossing “t’s” and other such grammatical nuances?

Certainly, when language is spoken, we often hear discussions about the “passionate” delivery, or the fact that the speaker was “fiery”, a “true believer”, or even “inspiring”, etc.  Somehow, and for whatever reasons, we attach the emotional component of a speaker’s voice with the persuasive force of sincerity upon the words themselves.  Can it ever be “faked”?

We are too often too naive to think not; and that, of course, is what the con-man and the counterfeiter is banking upon.  Persuasion offered by an impassioned voice is much easier than the power of the written word; for, articulated with the right barometer of a voice’s pitch, it tugs at one’s hearts and confuses the otherwise skeptical mind.  A paper presentation must persuade through the force of logical argumentation; for, there exists no voice of passionate conveyance to do otherwise.

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 of Postal job, filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management must by necessity be a paper-presentation to OPM.  To be persuasive is thus doubly-difficult, as you must make sure that all of your arguments are articulated with soundness of reasoning and forceful in their legal relevance.

Consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and make sure that your method of persuasion matches the substantive weight of you circumstances.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Herd Mentality

We see it on Wall Street, we observe it in the wild: Once the lead is taken, the rest follow, even if it is to run headlong over a cliff’s edge.  The herd mentality is perpetrated and perpetuated by fear and thoughtless action; of flight no matter the direction, for fear of being left behind; and without thought, for it is based upon an instinct of flight.  You see it in nature when the grazing herd suddenly takes off; or when the pecking flock becomes a dark blanket of flight.

It is the singular and unique individual who, despite the sudden pandemonium of engendered fear, remains calm in the face of danger, and takes a different course, a path beyond the herd mentality.

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, it is to be expected that your coworkers, supervisors, colleagues and those whom you once trusted begin to band together with a herd mentality and take the stance of “us” versus “that person”.  Being ostracized, of no longer a member of the “herd”, becomes a natural part of the bureaucratic process.  For, as someone who can no longer be part of “the team”, you become the natural enemy.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and consider being that solo individual who is no longer a member of the herd mentality, and begin preparing and formulating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Authentication

There is a process and means by which it is accomplished — as in authenticating a painting or an antique piece of furniture, jewelry, etc.; of an autograph or handwritten letter (although, many will say that in the field of forensic sciences, handwritten analysis is far from reaching a vaunted level of precision or reliability); of a pet’s pedigree or even of a person’s right to have access to sensitive information, etc.

Authentication is thus a process of verification, of identifying X as being Not-Y in many instances, where exclusion by elimination of other possibilities results in the declaration of the genuineness of the person or thing declared to be so.

When applied to an object, it inspects and compares against other objects within a historical context, style, peculiar features of an artisan’s eccentricities, period-characteristics and signature features, etc.  When applied to an individual, it may take into account physical features as well (appearance; finger prints; voice matching; DNA sample, etc.), but could also encompass questions posed and answers given, and depending upon the comparison to known archives of historical background checks made against statements previously provided, deem that an “authentication” has been reached concerning the “true” identity of an individual, akin to declaring that a painting previously unverified is in fact a product of this or that “Master”, or that an antique furniture piece was the craftsmanship of some famous cabinetmaker during the Jeffersonian Renaissance period or from some pop-culture minimalist timeframe during the early Sixties, etc.

The process of “authentication”, of course, can be distinguished from whether or not an individual is living an “authentic life”, as well, and here, the meanings become somewhat muddled and divided.  One can be “authenticated” and be allowed access to sensitive banking information, be allowed to use a credit card, write a check, etc., and still live an inauthentic life (e.g., act like someone you are not, present yourself as a “family man” despite all the while committing multiple affairs; live a double or triple or even a quadruple life and deceive everyone around, etc.).

The process in reaching a conclusion as to whether a person is living an authentic or inauthentic life is somewhat different from “authenticating” a person.  For, to engage in the former analysis, it is normally done for the most part as a self-analysis (i.e., only the person who is living an inauthentic life can know for certain whether it is so or not), whereas the methodology imposed of “authenticating” a period-piece or an individual (the latter) is by applying a more objective standard of comparative review.

For the Federal or Postal employee who is suffering from a medical condition, where the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the dual issues of “authentication” and “authentic living” come to the fore, precisely because the Federal or Postal employee becomes forced into behaving in rather inauthentic ways.

Hiding the medical condition; trying desperately to work through the debilitating symptoms and maintaining an appearance of normalcy; and all the while trying to force a consistency between one’s capacity and the watchful eyes of the Federal Agency or the Postal Service — these are the elements that challenge the authenticity of one’s life.

Living an authentic life under normal circumstances is difficult enough; trying to authenticate one’s capacity to continue “as is” in the face of a progressively deteriorating medical condition makes it all the more challenging.  It may be that preparing, formulating and filing 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, is the only way forward in forging an authentic pathway away from an inauthentic morass that the medical condition has forced upon you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Necessary changes

Is it a redundancy to state it in this manner?  Is change by definition necessary, or are some alterations merely voluntary, unnecessary, or modifications that are not required but are desired by sheer want of replacing boredom with ineptitude of lackluster metamorphosis?

Evolution surely resists it; for, the incrementalism and subtle refinement favors an unchanging universe, and we see that in the natural world, where an anomaly or mutation is disfavored, shunned by others and excluded instinctively.  The albino giraffe may be a fascinating phenomena to witness, but in the wilds where blending in with the landscape in order to go unnoticed by predators lurking about is the key to the survival of not just the “fittest” — but the one who is passed by unnoticed by more powerful forces ready to pounce and devour.

Change can take on many and variegated forms — from a spectrum dividing a wide chasm of consequences, whether intended or otherwise thoughtlessly expounded — from the minor adjustment to the tumultuous overhaul of upheaval and irreversible impact.  Some changes are merely insularly internal and go unnoticed, such as a “new perspective” or taking on a different way of seeing things.

Religious conversions can take that cloak of alteration.  We may know a friend, a neighbor or a family member who lives at the same address, speaks the same way, dresses in the identical manner, but one day blurts out, “I have become X!”  Perhaps there are some residual modifications made, and some we notice, others go with a ripple, like the many pitter-patter of rain drops that fall upon the midnight ocean and no one ever notices.

Other changes come from without — imposing its impact and causal effect without any choice or say in the matter — earthquakes; deaths; wars that no one asked for; events that unfold with untold consequences that no one thought through very well.

Medical conditions are akin to the latter — of a vicissitude that occurs without the asking, with impact upon lives both minor and consequential.  It is not only a change, but necessitates changes in the lifestyle, manner and approach of the one to whom it impacts.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it will often become apparent that the unnecessary (or unwanted) change to one’s health begets a necessary change that must accommodate the former.

A Federal Disability Retirement application may be a necessary change, if only to follow upon the change that has imposed itself by the very medical condition itself.

Changes — necessary or otherwise — require an adaptation, both mentally and often physically, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the penultimate necessary change that must be contemplated in a universe replete with necessary and sufficient causes beyond one’s control.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement claims: The price of loyalty

It is the negation of that very concept which we fear; not of loyalty, but of disloyalty.  The positive of it is what we are taught to abide by; of “honesty”, “integrity”, “faithfulness”, “reliability”, and so many other such reputation-bearing ascriptions that one may carry about within the essence of one’s being, like so many medals pinned upon the flesh and blood that constitutes the entirety of a human being, his or her life, the soul of who one is, and how others view and perceive an individual.

How many of us, however, before we cling to and so desperately fight in order to resist the loss of any one of those concepts, have carefully understood, studied and evaluated the value of each?  And thus the question: What is the price of loyalty?  When is the debt satisfied, and to what extent must we travel in order to establish the worth of it, and when does it become too costly such that we decide we can no longer afford the price?

Of course, the mixing of metaphors and analogies can confuse and befuddle, and that is often the problem with interspersing common, everyday-used “practical” realities with those that involve emotional attachments, historical assignations and prescriptions for “good living” or “successful lives”. To conflate concepts involving the “practical” world with the inner sanctum of culturally relative ideas – of “price” (as in, what is the price of a bushel of apples?) and of “loyalty” (i.e., knights in shining armor, band of brothers, filial attachments, etc.) can often lead to a confused state of inactivity, precisely because one cannot distinguish the applicability of one with the other.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the question involving the price of loyalty – and its negation – comes at the critical juncture where the suffering from the medical condition exceeds the ability and capacity to continue working in the Federal or Postal job one is positioned in.

Many Federal and Postal employees continue to cling to a false sense of loyalty – that the commitment to one’s career, at any and all costs, is simply the price that one must pay.  But the price to be paid should depend upon the indebtedness owed, and in considering one’s health, such a price should never have to exceed the cost of one’s own health.

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 merely the satisfaction of the debt owed – not by you, but by the terms of one’s employment contract with the Federal agency or the Postal Service, and the price of loyalty, whether real, false or imagined, was long ago satisfied and paid in full the moment you met the minimum eligibility criteria of 18 months of Federal Service under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Lack of time

It takes time in order to be “nice” and “considerate”.  We don’t have such a luxury, anymore.  We have been sold a bill of goods; that technology, Smart phones, computers, laptops, tablets; of the actual engagement in texting, emailing, and all of the multitudes of communicating by delight of button-pushing, will allow for man to pursue the creativity within, and to forego the toil of an otherwise working world. Then, we would reach the pinnacle of human ecstasy, of “time” enough to do that which we  were destined for.

And, yet…  Somehow, the promises made became empty vessels of contractual vacuity, and the social contracts so construed with ponderous delights, never reach a moment of fruition, and instead left us all with an emptiness of soul.

When a society begins to trumpet blares of social “rights”, and to utilize the political process and the courtrooms to assert the ability and capacity to force changes, then it is the step beyond moment of neighborly cohesiveness.  There have always been disputes within organizations, townships, blocks, etc., which have required mediation and third-party intervention; but, for the most part, the working order of a society depends upon common courtesy, decorum, and accepted conduits of conventional behavior governing personal conduct and public displays of geniality resulting in the glue which cements societal functionality.

But, that takes time.

It takes time to say “hello” and “good-day”; it takes time to know that The Stinsons down the way, or the Zachariahs or Abdullahs two houses away and four blocks to the left of the Smiths, respectively, have a child with pneumonia (as opposed to being fearful that such revelation of illness will be interpreted somehow as weakness of character), and the discourse of living should immediately invoke a response of care, concern and a grant of extended help.

But we don’t have time for all of that nonsense.

That mushy-gushy-goo of human relationships, where actual contact has to be engaged, and when picnics were once the commonality of congregation when children dressed in Sunday bests with butterfly nets in hand, flushed cheeks from the midday sun of dancing waves in the delight of a summer’s breeze, and neighbors actually stood face-to-face and reflected upon the concerns of others, and not faceless stoicism and the staid numbness within the cocoon of selfish wants and virtual realities of Pokemon and timeless pursuits of distractions unleashed but for the loss of connection with human contact, and thus of humanity itself.

But, that is because we lack the time.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who feel the loss of time and the lack of time, and where time seems to be “running out” like a spigot left unintentionally open and connected to a finite source of reserve – it may be “time” to prepare, formulate and file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits.

When the agency has no time for one’s medical condition; when the U.S. Postal Service cares not for one’s health; then, the only “time” which matters is that moment when health deteriorates and progressively debilitates, and then it is surely time to consider “moving on” and leaving those with such ties to the currency of time behind, in order to reach that pinnacle of timeless timing when an effective Federal Disability Retirement application may be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where lack of time is more akin to the timing of lack which certainly takes time to prepare, formulate and file in a timely timelessness.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Peripatetic Nature

But for a rarity, we seek its very opposite; consistency, stability, and the duration of longevity; these, we believe, provide for that which we didn’t have ourselves, yearn for, or seek to give to our own offspring.  In domestic legal proceedings, we hear tell of incongruent arguments where, in the midst of separation, the parties delineate what is in the “best interests of the children” — of remaining in the family home, maintaining a stability of regularity, etc.

From our limited micro-perspective, the loss of constancy when contrasted with the length of one’s own mortality from birth to death, is but a linear insignificance in comparison with the age of the universe.  Conceptually, we recognize this; and yet we constantly fight against it.  Our forefathers maintained a single job from youth to death; then, someone thought of the idea of “retirement”, and suddenly there were mandatory age requirements and proposals floating about concerning the “golden years”, all the while keeping pace with mass constructions of nursing homes and home healthcare services.

The incongruity and self-contradictions are palpable, but somehow we get away with it all.  Is man a seeker of stability, or does he possess a peripatetic nature?  Beyond such a question is the tendency to reject and resist being “forced out”.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers 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 positional duties, the persistent harassment, the hostile work environment created, and the progressive insistence of pernicious pettiness invoked to make life unpleasant — these are all signs to acknowledge that one must “move on” with life.

It is difficult enough to deal with a medical condition; harder still to attend to it in conjunction with work-related pressures.

Stability of purpose is often what we thought we wanted; and for the peripatetic traveler, perhaps moving to another phase of life is an easy thing; but for the rest of us, change — even recognizing the necessity and inevitability, especially for the Federal or Postal employee who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset — is something that is hard to accept, given the true nature of man, even if we all think of ourselves as Aristotelian philosophers.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Linguistic Labyrinth

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

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

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

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

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a difficult approach when the mandates of life’s ferocity coalesce in a tripartite convergence:  a medical condition; impact upon one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service; and the need to secure one’s future in order to attain a level of financial stability.

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

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

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire