FERS Medical Disability Retirement: The Reasons Given

How did we learn how to give the reasons given?

We often meander through life doing the things which we do, not because we have analyzed or assessed those things we do, but because of habit and convenience of monotonous refrain.

Did you actually ever learn how to prepare, formulate and provide a “reason”?  Or, perhaps you came from a family where your parents were too busy to provide the proper “reasons”, which is the basis of forming the “process” of adequate “reasoning”?

Did your parents say things like, “Just because…”.  Or — “I don’t know; go ask your mom.”  Or even: “Don’t bother me with your questions!”

Furthermore, if you went to college, were the classes mostly a drone of lectures, or were you subjected to the Socratic method of questions-building-upon-questions in order to doggedly require the fine-tuning of the reasons given?

And, as you entered the Federal workforce, how much of your work is merely based upon the attitude of, “This is done this way because it is the way it has always been done”, or do you have some creative leeway for your own input?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contemplate preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application under FERS because of a medical condition which will not go away, preparing such a disability application must by necessity involve reasons given which must address both the “things which have always been done” as well as the uniqueness of your particular situation.

In a Federal Disability Retirement application which has any chance for an approval at all, the reasons given to justify your FERS Federal Disability application must include a sufficient legal basis in order to successfully persuade the U.S. Office of Personnel Management as to your eligibility.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to ensure that the reasons given meet that sufficiency test, and not be denied because your reasons given are essentially the age-old failing attempt of, “Because I said so”.

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 under FERS: When Health Mattered

When we were young, it didn’t matter.  It “mattered” in a hypothetical sense — but it was essentially a problem for older people and those who hit unfortunate circumstances.  Things “matter” only when it actually matters, and rarely on a theoretical level.

Do you look at the detailed language of your insurance policies — whether on our homes, our health or our cars?  Or, do we just quickly agree to the general terms of coverage, then file away the multi-paginated policy itself until that day we hope will never come, suddenly arrives?

Health, too, matters not in our youth; in the middle and later years, when time has finally ravaged and tested our mortality and frailty, suddenly we begin to experience the impact of our folly-filled past.  When health mattered — when did it?  It always did; we just ignored it in the folly of our youth.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and can recognize that health matters because it impacts our ability to remain employed, contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider the next steps in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, under FERS, to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Distinction of Days

Is it possible to live in such a manner — where days are not bifurcated and calendars remain unopened as unused tablets left without reference?  What does that mean — to not live by distinction of days, and how would that reflect upon an individual who lives in such a manner?

We act as zealots and bifurcate each day, and further fracture them into smaller and yet more detailed units of quantifiable divisions — by the hour, the minute, even of seconds and half-seconds, especially if you are a jogger or relishing the final moments of mortality’s fateful play.  The perspective of time influences us all — for, to live without the division of bifurcated days is to live outside of the purposive pathway of the world at large.

Is that why it’s often believed that people often die shortly after retirement?  Is it because the world of time becomes subsumed into a continuum of purposeless days and meanderings of timeless wanderings?  Do we lose our sense of worth when there is no longer a distinction of days?

To live as if days, nights, hours and minutes become conflated within a sea of eternal timelessness — is that when a person becomes less of an individual and begins the process of returning to the dust from which we came?

Medical conditions have a sense of that — where time is less essential because the pain, suffering and chronic interruption conflates the bifurcation of time.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and where weekends and weekdays have become a continuum when mere minutes seem like hours and days of agonizing nightmares because of the medical condition — it may be time to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Time is precious; time lost is a precious moment of lasting regret; and the distinction of days is important in order to enjoy weekends where leisure-time can become a respite away from the daily grind of work.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit available for all Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows for performance of all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties.  While getting Federal Disability Retirement benefits may not cure the underlying medical problems, it can at least give you a distinction of days in order to focus upon your health.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Stifling rationalism

Although it may no longer show in modernity, it was the dominant methodology accepted as reflecting the Aristotelian belief that man is essentially a rational animal, and thus the general approach towards reaching conclusions should embrace the perspective that the criterion of truth is based upon not sensory, but intellectual and deductive foundations.

But if the thought process fails to utilize the formal laws governing deductive reasoning, and nobody reads Russell or Quine, anyway, what is the difference?  Is it merely an appendage to the conclusion reached, by declaring, “That’s the only logical way to think about this!” – and if we add the exclamation point, state it with a clear and loud voice, does that make it so? What is the distinction to be made, from a valuation or validation viewpoint, between decisions and judgments rendered based upon empirical evidence, deductive or logical reasoning, a combination of both or all three, and the contrast as against an “emotional” basis for reaching conclusions?

If an individual engages in complex futures trading on the stock market, for example, and bases such transactional activities upon unscientific methodologies, is it not the success of the venture (i.e., a retrospective judgment on the matter) that will ultimately determine the success or failure of each approach?

Take the hypothetical of the following: Securities and futures trading can now be done with a laptop from home, and we have Jim, Nancy and Deborah, each of whom thinks that he or she constitutes the brilliance of Wall Street’s best and brightest (though none have had any prior experience but are engaged in vocations far and distant from anything to do with it).

Jim looks at the relevant newspaper quotations and likes the way the numbers coalesce, and makes the trade based upon that comforting sensory impression.  Nancy, in a different state and unbeknownst to Jim, has been pouring over the numbers, calculating, looking at the history of past performances, and creates an algorithm founded upon a calculus of probabilities, and pushes that computer button to deplete one’s bank account based upon mathematical precision that approaches some semblance of certainty, but never quite.  And Deborah, well, she possesses on this day a certain “instinctive” feeling about a particular futures trade, and proceeds entirely upon this emotional response.  Of the three, whom do we consider as validated, worthy of following or respecting of methodologies?

If Deborah were to increase her portfolio by, say, 500%, and Jim merely breaks even but Nancy loses her proverbial shirt, would we dismiss it by thinking, “Ah, just pure luck”?  On the other hand, if Jim were to make a nominal profit, Nancy were to obtain significant returns, and it was Deborah who lost everything, would it change our attitudes and confirm the notion that rationalism prevailed because it is the only valid approach to life’s complexities?

The acceptance of rationalism is inevitable for the rational animal; elevating it to a status where all other approaches are stifled, however, can ignore the spectrum of other dimensions just as valid in human life.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it may be that “rationality” cautions one to remain in the Federal or Postal job because of job security and financial stability.

But there are other considerations, as well, such as an instinctive will to survive; and when stifling rationalism quiets the voice of health’s call to safety, it may well be time to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective 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.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The informed paradigm shift

Often, in ages older and generations beyond, it somehow becomes more difficult to be malleable and bend with the times, circumstances and turmoil of the day.  Does staid decay by refusal to adapt become a law of sorts for the aged?  Is it only youth that can change, or bring about pliable lives, or can the irrelevancy of old men and women be altered with an informed paradigm shift?

There is always a tautness and tension between generational divides; youth believes in beginning over again, to invigorate all plans and prospects of accomplishments – even of reinventing the wheel by trial and error.  And of the old, whose wisdom is never accessed, whether because of pride of youth of an arrogance fraught with silliness, it matters little.  The pendulum that swings between the two extremes, must by law of gravitational pull come to rest somewhere in the middle.

Paradigm shifts come about so infrequently, but there is often an underlying reason:  Just as wholesale genetic overhauls rarely strengthen a Darwinian foundation for survival, so the principles upon which one lives one’s life should not be abandoned after a lifetime of experiences in learned cynicism.  The fact is, it is always difficult to change when circumstances dictate.

Somehow, we believe ourselves to be the masters of our own destinies; and whether the fate of a generation is collectively overpowered by a consciousness of unfathomable mysteries, or each of us must singularly carry the burden of our future lives as isolated pockets without friendship or love, we like to think that we can control our future.  But there are events and circumstances beyond our control, transcending fault or personal responsibility; and the social contract of good citizenry – of abiding by the laws, following the normative constructs of societal acceptability, etc. – follows upon that path of accomplishment.

That is true of a medical condition – for, when a medical condition begins to impact major life activities of a person, an informed paradigm shift must by necessity occur.  It is not a matter of bad fate or unfortunate luck; it simply is, and the sooner one becomes “informed”, the better the paradigm shift for one’s future.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from just such a medical condition, where the medical condition or event begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, is may well be time to consider a paradigm shift.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective 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, often requires just such a paradigm shift – a pliability in one’s thinking, and an alteration based upon the information (i.e., being “informed”) presented; and the next step once a cognitive paradigm shift has occurred, is to reach out in order to begin the administrative process of engaging the expertise needed in order to weather the trials of tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The broken record

Does the metaphor have any meaning for modernity, anymore?  Those discs made of shellac resin or vinyl, pressed into magical ridges where the needle would remain stable but for the warbling of the maze; but somehow that circular maze of ridges would have a scratch, directing the point of the needle to continue back into the previous ridge just traveled, like the lost child who cannot see beyond the walled ivy and keeps running frantically in circles, exhausted by the endless infinity of a pathway unable to be traversed beyond the limitless circularity of a philosopher’s argumentum ad nauseum, where tautology of teleology is likened to the boulder being pushed by Sisyphus.

But what of the individual who has never experienced the encounter with a broken record – neither in real life, nor in watching a movie or other inane television show where the manual labor of carefully lifting the needle by the undercarriage of a forefinger, then placing it gently onto the groove closest to the condemned one, possesses no contextual significance because of a lack of knowledge?

Those who have been dated by “aha” responses to such metaphors, take for granted such commonplace declarations; and when we meet with blank stares and confused eyelids, it dawns on us that there is no replacement for an actual experience of descriptive content.  For, the efficacy of the idiom itself is immediately lost upon an attempt to explain:  “You know, when a record starts to…”

And what of times previous to the introduction of the gramophone (boy, now we really are reaching back into time) – did the men and women from an era now past have such peculiar dialects that described repetitive droning of whining and complaining?  Was it something akin to, “Stop acting like a baying hyena,” where pioneers settled lands still dominating with lurking cries of wildlife and unsettled voices?

And what of foreign lands – countries afar and across the great oceans – did they recognize and identify the relevance of the repetition emitted by the spherical looping back upon a scratched surface, or was it ignored in other dialects as a ho-hum matter not worthy of creating a modern-day idiom to be added to the dictionary of everyday expressions?

The metaphor of the broken record is one whose utility has long passed; but for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has become a chronic state of inability in performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the underlying and substantive content of the intersection with one’s career and life, remains relevant.  For, to the Agency, the U.S. Postal Service and the Supervisors, Managers and coworkers with the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal worker – they view such chronic medical conditions like a “broken record” – of a fellow Federal or Postal worker who cannot “carry his or her” weight, anymore, and begins to treat the “situation” accordingly.

Human empathy lasts barely for a day; pernicious antagonism continues well beyond.  When it becomes clear that the Federal or Postal employee will no longer be able to abide by the conventions of the Federal or Postal rules, and others begin to view the use of Sick Leave, assertion of FMLA and constant need to shift workloads to others as acts to be punitively responded, it is time to consider preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to have that undercarriage lifted and placed gently onto the next ridge of one’s life, in an effort to avoid the metaphor of being a broken record.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Still Life

The meaning can evoke a duality of concepts; of the artistic mode, where self-contradiction is inherent – for, it is often in depictions of inanimate objects, presented in combinations not normally seen in true living circumstances, that the artist arranges in order to capture a semblance of that which is never, or rarely, encountered.  Or of the alternate implication:  Once thought to have been deceased, the realization that there is yet a soul to revive, an aspiration to embrace, and hope again to realize.

Both, however, have something in common:  A frozen placement for all of eternity to encapsulate; the organic matter from which to work with, endure through and contrast to the opposite – of Nothingness devoid of any purpose, teleology or construct of animation; and the two together will posit a compound concept of contrasting contradictions:  loss of movement, but gain of Being.  But, then, that is so often true of daily living, isn’t it?

There is a contradiction in what we do; on the face of it, we appear to be “doing something”; but deep within the recesses of our thoughtful doubts, we know that we are failing to accomplish the hope of our dreams, the aspirations still surviving deep within our hearts, and the very failure of moving towards that which we desire, diminishes our inner selves and begins to slowly, insidiously shrivel the core of our souls.

Medical conditions tend to have that effect, and when the “outside” world begins to confirm that which we fear, the shriveling effect becomes accelerated on an exponential scale where proportionality of judgment becomes askew and fails to meet the expectations of our own essences.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to pervasively impact all aspects of life – home, recreational, work and relational – the danger is that of a Still Life painting:  the combination of events and objects are not what they are supposed to be, and the encounter with “real” life no longer allows for further movement.

We become stuck in a painting arranged by someone else, and more and more, we lose greater control over our own destiny.  And in the alternative meaning of that concept – that we “still” have some life in us – is where taking the pragmatic steps toward preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset comes into play.

Still Life does not have to prevent movement where there is still life; and for the Federal or Postal employee who is no longer able to advance because a medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, it is the Still Life painting which represents the impetus that there is still life to be lived beyond one’s Federal or Postal job.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government: The whiles of life

While I wait; while I watch; while I listen; while I suffer; these, and many more, are the wiles of life (note the sudden extraction of the “h” in the subtle – or not – alteration by omission).  But such a linguistic subterfuge is appropriate, as it connotes a manipulative intention in the very wasting away of life’s gifts.  For, indeed, we spend much of our days steeped in inactivity, waiting patiently while life passes by.

While I wait in line; while I watch an advertisement; while the kids play; while the dog sniffs; the wiles of waiting, allowing for thoughts to wander afar into daydream’s decaying of time, purpose, value and worth in a traversing universe that no longer believes in anything but the self-satisfaction of bygone faith.  Does an impervious existence that traps us within a cocoon of timeless nothingness allow room for a Being of teleological foundation?

Can a person withstand substance each minute, without the interruptions and interludes of thoughtless void, where activity of accomplishment is momentarily suspended and purposeless repetition of mundane impotence fails to make forward progress, as the bane of life lures, deceives, entices – again, the very wiles of living?

Heidegger, of course, based the foundation of his philosophy upon the whiles of life – for, all projects of human activity was an avoidance with the fullness of encounter with Being – of engaging in meaningless discourses in order to avert our thoughts upon the ultimate meaning of life; that of death.  For, as fruition and maturation inevitably results in the consequence of decay and destruction, so the linguistic justifications we empower – that such-and-such is delayed “while” this-and-that occurs, or those what-nots have to be in place “while” the doo-dads first come upon us, and other such inane events of uneventful percolates.

The world has now, however, been turned upside down.  The whiles of life have become the centrality of purpose, and perhaps it is the wiles of life that have caused this inverse principle of peripheral insignificance and irrelevance.  It was once thought that one took out one’s Smart phone “while” we waited upon the activity of substantive discourse; now, it is precisely that which occupies most of our time, and the “rest of it” all has become of irrelevant disproportionality, and just an irritation to the essence of who we have become.

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 positional duties in the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, it is important to circumvent both the wiles of the agency, and understand the whiles of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

The wiles of the agency should always make the Federal or Postal employee suspicious – and as a Federal or Postal employee, you have had to contend with it throughout your career.

Now, however, it is time to switch and pivot (as the current, oft-used phrase is repetitively heard), and consider what will be done while you prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, while you wait for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, and while you continue to attend to your medical conditions while still with the agency, or while you are being proposed for a removal.

The whiles of life are many; the key is to circumvent the wiles while real time makes life barely bearable.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Federal Employee Disability Retirement: A traveler’s perspective

How is it that a tourist can see the same building which local people pass by every day, as something of an attraction worthy of encapsulating and embalming for posterity’s sake, with a click of the camera?  What is it about the eye of the traveler which is different from the staid repetitiveness of the citizen occupying for decades, centuries, and eons long forgotten, which challenges the uniqueness of stability and contrasts it as against the unwanted forces of change?

Like tectonic shifts, mass migrations armed with Smartphones and caravans of conscious interests move about like little mini-quakes barely discernible; Europeans fly to the New World; the Americans travel to Asia, Europe and beyond; then, at the end of it all, excepting those ex-patriots who are hounded for their untaxed outlays, everyone marches home to the warmth of intimacy and familiarity, where security of the known overrides the curiosity of the unseen.

Parables abound about the unwary one who enters into the strangeness of the foreign land; most reveal the welcoming hand of courtesy, hospitality and the receptiveness of presumed brevity.  Modernity defies such intercourse of comforting eyes; a seemingly abandoned piece of luggage no longer results in a frantic search for its owner, but a call to armed inspection and mechanical robots with detonation devices and close circuit monitoring to sniff out the contents of deadly emissions.

If doors can no longer welcome the weary traveler, what hope is there in mankind?  It was but for the door seen uniquely, the fountain forgotten of its historical eminence, the cornerstone marked for the brief encounter with revolution, and the lost etchings down voiceless corridors where the figure of foreign accents once dominated but where now the laughter of innocence peeks down dusty pathways of trodden sights that matter to each of us.

Where is that uniqueness of a traveler’s eye, when dangers thought to lurk in airports everywhere and bus stops no longer congregate with greetings to strangers and small tidbits of conversational reminiscences dot the quietude of breaths icily frozen in the morning mist of a cold winter’s day?  We have lost that capacity to welcome, that narrative of embracing, and instead have replaced it with the cynicism of modernity.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who is contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management because of an ongoing medical condition, the feelings felt must be likened to that modern-day traveler who re-enters his own neighborhood, and finds the suspicion and decay insinuated by strange lands to have infiltrated and invaded one’s own place of abode.  For, it is the difference displayed by the medical condition which results in the treatment by coworkers, supervisors and the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, to suddenly treat the neighbor next door as a suspicious traveler hitherto unknown or unfamiliar.

When that peculiar feeling grows in ponderous weights no longer tolerable, it is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset; for, in the end, a traveler’s perspective is no different than the Federal or Postal employee who must exit from one’s own career because the comfort of a once-familiar workplace has become a cauldron of fear and angst.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The effect of nature’s muse

The connotation is often in the quiet reflection of silence; but other references can embrace any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, and as each presided over various arts or sciences, so the inspiration or guidance we receive is spiritual or otherwise from an unknown source of creativity.  Have you ever walked through a forest and come upon a clearing where the light suddenly opens upon a spot of heaven?  That is the effect of nature’s muse.  Or of a sudden realization that the darkness overwhelming as a burden upon a donkey’s back, is lifted without explanation and released with but an unspoken pardon?

Much of life and living involves sadness, decay, dominance of fear and trepidation of anxiety; and so when deliverance from devastation comes in slices and paper cups of limited portions, we drink thirstily as if the starvation of life’s travails imprisoned our very existence for an eternity of hell.

We often suspect that gods and goddesses laugh at us from on high, behind corridors shuttered and tree limbs cascading; and in the hint of nature’s muse, we wonder whether it is all “worth it”, as if value is embedded in the secrets of Tibetan mountains.  But as the guru who drives a Rolls Royce but speaks the language of a spiritual monk winks at the followers who would grant comfort and bespeak of secret incantations reserved for the spirit of folly, so the rest of us suspect that there is something inherently wrong with the world at large.

There are always “dark forces” gathering, conspiracies mounting, and greater inequities planned for the lives of the “common folk” – who almost always includes you and I, but never the guy on television.  Does nature indeed have a sense of humor, a glint of glee or a mirth of pardonable satire?  Or is it as cold and impervious as Darwinians would have us believe?  Better were those days when hobbits, goblins and elves could be believed; where the moon was more than just mere lifeless rocks and dirt; and unnamed spirits roamed the earth.  But of nature’s muse, we can still attach our own joy, the inner warmth we still possess and the jewel of a private soul we still retain.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who yet seek to become released from a private hell involving a medical condition and the persistent deterioration wrought from an inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the preparation and filing of an effective 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, is often like a realization that the effect of nature’s muse is like that sudden clearing one accidentally wanders upon in a forest full of darkness; it is only when there is a spot of light which provides for hope, that value is rediscovered, and that search and discovery may be attained in the very process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire