FERS Medical Retirement: The Weekend (Weakened) Goal

Is that what we live for?  Is it sufficient?

Once, in youth, the thought was: Each day will be lived as preciously as any other day.  Thus the phrase, “Seize the Day” (or, if you want to sound somewhat intellectual, the latin phrase, “Carpe Diem”).  It is meant to remind us that tomorrow may not come at all and to live to the fullest that which is before us.

But so much of life is a drain; like the whirlpool sucking down into the sinkhole, the breath of life can barely manage to survive the rigors and stresses of each day, and so the weakened goal is to just make it to the weekend, where one can rest, find a bit of respite, and get the batteries recharged in order to survive the grueling Monday and beyond.

That aptly describes the healthy individual.  But if you are less than healthy?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a health condition such that the health condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the weekend is the weakened goal to reach, and any pablum of phrases like “carpe diem” is merely an empty dash of meaningless nothingness.

Getting through each day with a medical condition is hard enough; making it to the weekend in one’s weakened state, is even harder.

Perhaps it is time to contact a FER Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and get the process started, so that one day in the not-so-distant future, your weakened state may be attended to and those latin phrases, like “carpe diem”, aren’t just artificial hoorays to get you to the next weekend.

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 Attorney Help: The Hammer or Screwdriver

They are two different tools or implements; of the latter, a connotation not of the tool itself, but the approach to take.  In grammar (do we even teach that in schools, anymore?), the term “implement” can be either a noun or a verb.  As a noun, it is a tool, utensil or other piece of equipment.  As a verb, it means to act upon a decision made or plan devised.  In either meaning, it is the application of X upon Y, as a tool to use or a decision to move forward upon.

As to the specific tools — the hammer or the screwdriver — the application of either depends upon the work to be done.  As metaphors, they denote differing approaches.  The way of the hammer is to pound whatever it is which needs to be driven in; the approach of the screwdriver is to slowly and methodically twist and turn the screw until it attaches and secures the two or more surfaces which previously remained separate and apart.  The manner and approach between the two differ considerably, but both in their completion manage to do the job required.

In Law, the two approaches require thought and planning.  The “hammer” approach, of pounding the law aggressively; the “screwdriver” way, of a quieter, more persuasive tone.  The choice between the two depends upon the circumstance, the audience, the goal and the plan.  For Federal Disability Retirement applicants, the manner and approach of applying the law is important.  What you say; how you say it; the hammer approach or the screwdriver manner — that is the province of an experienced lawyer.

Contact a FERS attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees’ Retirement System (FERS) with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, you should use the hammer approach, or the screwdriver methodology.

Sincerely,

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

 

Federal Disability Attorney Help: The Chime Which Stills

Wind chimes still the heart; door chimes ring to announce a visitor; but in the midst of winter when the winds howl to pronounce the desolation of the season’s end, neither the visitor nor the warmed heart can stay long to listen to nature’s corridor.

Wind chimes abound in neighborhoods throughout, and when the dog is walked, or the back door opens for a moment’s exit, the music evoked in the still air of night meanders and mocks, but rarely of a hint for what it seeks.  Is chance what makes the stillness of night?

One wonders whether this universe cares for its flock of devotees.  Poetry is but the pause which makes everything worthwhile.  Then, suddenly, a medical condition hits us, and we wonder what the purpose of it all means.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have had that feeling of a wind chime which stills the heart — that, somehow, there is still a purpose, and not everything is encountered by mere luck or chance — you may want to consider preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, and not just leave everything to luck and chance.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and don’t let the chime which stills the heart remain as a passing whim that fails to nudge.

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.

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Life’s Muddle

We like to think that we are competent; but much of life is a muddle, where we try and plod along acting “as if”, when the truth is that we are winging it.  For the most part, that works; and the reason why it works is because the rest of the world, as well, is simply plodding along in the same manner and fashion.  Life is a muddle, and when a significant intervening event comes into play, the muddle becomes even murkier and the division between those who are truly competent, and those who have simply been “faking it”, come to the fore and become ever more focused.

Medical conditions, likewise, tend to do that: They bring out the best of people, as well as the worst.  They sharpen the divide between people who are empathetic and those who care not a twit except for times when it might be to their advantage.  And, as Federal agencies and Postal facilities are mere microcosms of people in general, the extent of an Agency’s efforts to accommodate a Federal employee’s medical conditions reveals the underlying character of the people involved.

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 time to continue to muddle through the complex bureaucratic process of filing a Federal Disability Retirement application should be left to the “experts”.  There are times to muddle, and times not to muddle, and the latter is one of those times when filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits with OPM.

Consult with an OPM Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and stop trying to muddle through life’s muddle.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Medical Disability Benefits: King for a Day

There are times when you simply “feel” different; of having greater confidence; of sensing that you can accomplish things in life beyond the negative reality that circumstances have imposed; and that had you been born in the days of feudal lords and castle moats surrounding the dungeons of the human heart, you would have been knighted on this day of days where reckonings don’t matter and the callous universe around fails to dent the optimism abounding.

Is it all a surreal mirage?  Is being King for a Day enough for most of us, when reality checks the fantasies and daydreams with impervious ineptitude but with an efficiency far beyond what most of us require?

Contrast such a day to so many others: the daily grind of mortality’s unforgiving nature, where we feel less than the day’s wages will allow for. Medical conditions have a pernicious way of beating us down; and on those days when we feel that we are the King for a Day, it turns out that it was all a figment, a filament of unproven discourse echoing down chambers that we never knew.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition makes for continuation in one’s Federal or Postal job an incompatibility which cannot be sustained, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is an option to consider.  Chronic medical conditions sometimes allow for a moment’s respite, where you might feel that you are “King for a Day”; but that is not enough to sustain or justify the unendurable.

OPM Disability Retirement is a benefit which all Federal and Postal employees have a right to, so long as the medical condition impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, and it can be shown to last for a minimum of 12 months.

Consult with a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest being King for Day is not enough to sustain the remainder of the days when you merely feel like the pawn isolated and abandoned within the Court of Human Misery.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Truth and Credibility

One normally presumes that the two go hand-in-hand: That if something is true, then it is credible.  But doesn’t the origin and source of it, at least in a subjective sense, matter?  If a known lier makes a truthful statement, could we assert that, “While the statement made by X is true, the fact that X made it results in my questioning its credibility.”  Does that even make sense?

How about a person who is a known philanderer who has had multiple affairs and has married and divorced multiple times — but then travels around the country lecturing at public schools on the subject entitled, “The Importance of Marital Fidelity”?

Let’s assume that everything contained in his lectures rings true: That marriage vows are important to uphold; that happiness comes from remaining faithful; that the temptations of society should be avoided — etc., etc., etc.  Everyone, including all of the elementary, middle and high school students and their parents all agree and are in complete consonance with the lectures and their content; and yet…. Somebody, during one of the lectures, stands up and points out that the “personal life and behavior” of the person giving the lecture is somewhat — ahem — “questionable”.

The “opinion camps” form into a bifurcated line of argumentation: Camp A argues: “The man has no credibility and is just giving us a bunch of bull.”  Camp B argues: “It doesn’t matter who says it — truth is truth, and what the guy is saying is true.”  Who is right?  Can truth and credibility be bifurcated?

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 job, preparing, formulating and filing a credible disability retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may become necessary.

Will it have to be “truthful?”  Yes.  But “Truth” and “Credibility” are two distinct concepts, and while every Federal Disability Retirement application must be based upon the truth of a medical condition, the issue of credibility — of compelling OPM to view your FERS Disability Retirement application seriously — is a separate matter, and one that may really need an experienced attorney to represent you in filing a credible and truthful Federal Disability Retirement application with OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement under FERS: The Promise

Can you make a promise to yourself?  What would that look like?  Would it be valid and binding?  If not, how would we “prove” it?  Perhaps in a similar manner as Karl Popper’s “falsification” approach — of being able to come up with conditions under which a theory or a posited application can be “falsified”?

Take the following hypothetical: A man sits in a cafe and is clearly upset; perhaps he makes unconscious heaving sounds, and tears stream down his face.  A friend of his happens to visit the cafe, enters, sees his friend in distress and sits down at the same table, uninvited.  “What’s the matter?” the friend asks out of concern.  Hesitant but clearly wanting to share his feelings, the individual queried answers, “I broke a promise, and I feel really terrible about it.”  Pausing — for, despite being his friend, this particular person has a reputation for exaggeration and overstatement — he forges onward bravely and asks him to “share” his story, believing that empathy is the better part of valor.  “Well, I made a promise that… [and the reader can fill in the blank following the ellipses].  And I broke it.”  The friend, concerned and puzzled, asks: “And who did you make the promise to?”  The distraught Person A looks up, tears still streaming down his face and states calmly, “To myself, of course.”

Can such emotional turmoil remain commensurate with the fact of a broken promise made to one’s self?  Can a unilateral promise be binding, or can it be broken with as much ease as the creation of it in the first place?

We all make promises to ourselves, and perhaps an argument can be made that the very essence of “character” and “integrity” is revealed in how scrupulously one abides by those promises made and kept by and to one’s self — even if others don’t know about it.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contemplate filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the promises made, thought of, kept or broken may make a long list in a cruel world of treachery and misstatements.  Perhaps you made a promise to yourself that you would make the Federal Service into your lifelong career; or, perhaps it has to do with not wanting to “give up”.  Whatever the promise, life intervenes and we all have to adapt to the changes of tumultuous circumstances.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS is never a broken promise, no matter the soliloquy spoken or thought left unspoken; rather, like the friend who comes into the cafe to give some comfort, it is a reminder that there are choices and options in life that may be a better fit than to remain miserable with a job that is no longer consistent with your medical conditions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Favoritism

There was an interesting article the other day, where certain public schools were attempting to banish the use of the term “best friend” from the ordinary and daily usage by students.  Now, the immediate reaction by some would be:  Uh-oh, here comes another “politically correct” movement that is based upon the foolish idea that social engineering can be attained merely by manipulating language’s daily discourse by simply expunging the vocabulary we engage.

That is what Orwell’s point was, isn’t it — in that part in his novel, 1984, when there is the discussion of the New-speak dictionary that would be coming out in the fictionalized society of Oceania — of a dystopian world that determines thought by controlling the available words we use?  By expunging and extracting, diminishing and destroying certain words, phrases, concepts, etc., we then limit the ability of an individual to engage in certain thoughts — thereby restricting and ultimately erasing any capacity to discuss and communicate such conceptual constructs.

Some positive idealists would believe that human creativity would somehow remain victorious over such totalitarian methods, and find ways to communicate, then create “new” ideas — newer than the anomaly and counter-insurgency of New-speak — and still come up with alternative words and phrases to replace any such attempt at erasure and extinguishment.  But even Orwell doubted the success of such an endeavor, no matter how hard we try; and thus the dark ending to the novel, 1984.

But back to “outlawing” the references made on the playgrounds all across the country or, likely, across the spectrum of the world — would two or more children still engage in the behavior of “best friends” regardless of the expungement of the language identifying it as such; and if so, what would be the purpose of extinguishing the language if the underlying act itself continues to remain?  Won’t children on playgrounds the world over engage in favoritism and concomitant exclusion because unexplainable attraction is the natural order of the universe?

Of course, social engineering initiated at an early age has a purposive direction which can be seen in later life — as in the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker, where favoritism prevails no matter how many laws, statutes, regulations etc. are imposed and upheld.  Fiefdoms of every kind will always exist, and totalitarianism will often prevail.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer 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 concept of “favoritism” — growing out of the tender years of “best friends” but taking on another name and form — begins to take on greater meaning.  For, its opposite — disfavor — begins to be applied for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who is no longer “as productive”, not fully a “member of the team”, and shows signs of slowing down; and then the harassment begins, just like when we were children and the pecking order always favored the bully and disfavored the weakling runts of the world.

At that point, it may be time to consult with an experienced attorney and begin the process of initiating a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset — sort of like going and “telling” on that bully.  Maybe so — but it is a necessary next step.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

PM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Those goals

What constitutes a worthwhile goal?  Is it determined by the outcome – i.e., a retrospective, outcome-based proposal, as opposed to the gambling one where one must enter into the dangerous waters not knowing what the future provides?  Are we so safely ensconced in life’s predictability such that we will not longer accept as a goal that which cannot be ascertained unless and until there is some guarantee?

Do people immediately criticize and diminish the stated goal by categorizing it as either “realistic” or “unrealistic”?  Is there a distinction with a difference between “dreams” and “goals”, where the former is unbounded and unfettered by the reality of expectations, whereas the latter must be confined to that which can be reasonably ascertained as achievable?

What of the child who “dreams” of becoming a major league baseball player – do we cite the statistical odds against it, even at the tender age of 5?  What if the child works diligently and shows some promise – daily exercises, practices at every aspect of the game, and joins this league or that and shows “promise” and “potential” – at what point do we advise him (or her) to give up and “become realistic”?

Are some dreams okay to retain and have despite any semblance of “reality” intervening to make them come true – like secretly wanting to be a novelist (even though not a single page, let alone one sentence, has been put on paper) or a pro basketball player (even if you are 5’ 3”, and certainly no Muggsy Bogues), just because it makes one “feel good” or allow for self-confidence by carrying a secretive self-image that one is not what one truly appears to be?

At what point do dreams become goals, and goals merely dreams?  Is it when you actually take a “concrete” step towards making a dream become a reality, that then you have a goal, because the latter is “achievable” while the former is not?  Or is it like that old Chinese proverb that Kennedy liked to recite (or was becoming a writer for John F. Kennedy merely a “dream” and that is why Ted Sorensen, his ghost writer, is the one who did all the writing that the former President merely dreamed about?), that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?

Or, perhaps like the Federal or 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 position with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, the goal is to become healthy again – or is it merely a dream?

Dream or goal, for the Federal or Postal worker trying to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be reviewed and determined by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, like the potential baseball star or the best power forward in the business of pro basketball, the first step is the most important – of realizing dreams into goals, and goals into realistic dreams, whichever may be the case.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Reality and poetry

A woman sits on a park bench surrounded by the concrete giants of looming buildings and antiseptic structures overhanging and overshadowing all but the remnants of nature’s detritus, with the cooing pigeons that bob their heads back and forth as they meander about in the contrast between reality and poetry.

And she has a book in her hands.  It is a book of poetry.  Who the author is; what the verses metaphorically narrate; how the images impact the quiet reader; these are not so important as the oxymoron of life’s misgivings:  A city; the overwhelming coercion of modernity’s dominance and encroachment into nature’s receding and dying reserve; and what we hang on to is a book of poetry that reminds us that beauty is now relegated to printed pages of verses that attempt to remind of beauty now forever lost.

No, let us not romanticize the allegory of a past life never existent, such as Rousseau’s “state of nature” where man in a skimpy loincloth walks about communing with nature’s resolve; instead, the reality that man has lost any connection to his surroundings, and is now lost forever in the virtual world of smartphones, computers, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Texting.

The tactile experiences of our individual encounters with the objective world is now merely the touch of a screen, and feel of glass, metal and plastic, and the pigeons we feed with such joy and excitement from park-benches manufactured with recycled materials so that we can “feel good” about the environment that we have abandoned.  And so we are left with the reality of our lives, and the poetry that we always try and bring into it, if not merely to remind us that there is more to it all than work, weekends and fleeting thoughts of wayward moments.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from an additional reality – of a medical condition that impacts his or her life in significant ways – the third component is not a mere irrelevancy that complicates, but often becomes the focal point of joining both reality and poetry.  Medical conditions have the disturbing element of reminding us of priorities in life.  Reality, as we often experience it, is to merely live, make a living, survive and continue in the repetitive monotony of somehow reaching the proverbial “end” – retirement, nursing home, sickness and death.

Poetry is what allows for the suffering of reality to be manageable and somehow tolerable; it is not just a verse in a book or a line that rhymes, but the enjoyment of moments with loved ones and those times when everything else becomes “worthwhile” because of it.  But then, there is the complication of a medical condition – that which jolts us into wakefulness of a reality that makes it painful and unacceptable.  What is the road forth?

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition now makes even work at the Federal agency or Postal facility intolerable, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is at least a path to be considered.  It is a long, arduous and difficult road that must wind its way through the U.S. Office or Personnel Management, but the choices are limited, and surely, you never want to abandon the poetry of life, and be left with only the reality of the medical condition?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire