FERS Medical Retirement Benefits: Hope Springs Eternal

It is a phrase which quickly became proverbial; from the poem, “An Essay on Man” by Alexander Pope, it reflects upon both the need for it and the inherent state of man’s being.  In the face of trying circumstances, it is often the only thing that an individual can cling to; for, without it, the insignificance of one’s existence becomes a poison which shrivels and destroys.

“Hope” is not merely a catch-phrase or an “Atta-boy” pablum of empty condescension; rather, it is the basis for which existence can thrive.  There is a distinction between existing and living; the former has abandoned hope; the latter embraces it.

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, being forced to continue working in an environment where daily struggle and failure becomes a pattern of expectation will only lead to greater misery and depression.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer and consider the option of a FERS Disability Retirement.  It may be the best course of action where hope yet springs eternal.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Attorney 
FERS Disability Retirement Attorney

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: That Lost Innocence

Can innocence lost ever be regained?  We often reminisce and shake our heads with wonder — what a naive, innocent young person we once were.  Do we yearn for that time of innocence?  Or, do we shake our heads at the stupidity we once exhibited and scurry away out of embarrassment?

With the present knowledge of cynicism and the current state of wisdom gained over these years, do we wish that we could recapture those day of youthful folly and have the chance to do it “all over again”?

If we could go back in time, would we take advantage of others with the knowledge we have today, applied in a context of prior innocence where others around us were also unaware and unsophisticated? Would we live our lives differently, knowing that today’s regrets were yesterday’s lack of understanding?  Is it true what the grumpy old man on the porch said in the perennially-watched movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life” — that “Youth is wasted on the young” (or was it George Bernard Shaw who first uttered those words?)?

What would we do differently with present wisdom applied to past circumstances?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows for the Federal worker or Postal employee to perform all of the essential elements of his or her Federal job, the opportunity to regain that lost innocence may be forever foreclosed.  You know — that time when work was a breeze and daily challenges were met with aplomb.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit that needs to be considered when that time past where innocence lost can no longer be regained and has now become a reality where the Federal Agency or the Postal Service cannot or is unwilling to accommodate the medical condition which remains unresolved.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the innocence lost becomes a greater loss by adverse actions initiated by a Federal Agency or the Postal Service who takes advantage of the lost innocence that is now nowhere to be seen or found.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Foregone conclusions

There are many; some, within the universe of a greater subset, are perennial by nature, and can never be altered but for some miracle yet to be considered (like the fact that the Baltimore Orioles will have ended its season sometime by early June of each year); others, of a more generic knowledge, assumed and forever predictable, ever to be presumed as a law of nature (as in, somewhere in the world a war will be started within the next year, or that a child will be born, or even that a medical condition will impact someone, somewhere).

Foregone conclusions are tidbits of knowledge gained from experience of life; and where the cynic will declare that they establish the circularity of repetitive reality that cannot be avoided or ignored, the idealist will counter that miracles and exceptions may yet prove otherwise such that what was presumed to be a conclusion is never foregone but merely imagined.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who harbor thoughts of foregone conclusions based upon the deteriorating health of one’s present circumstances — that you will be “fired”; that the PIP imposed will inevitably lead to termination; that filing 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 will be defeated by one’s own Agency or the U.S. Postal Service — remember that it is up to the sole determination of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and not one’s Agency or the Postmaster of one’s Postal Facility.

All Federal and Postal Disability Retirement applications are submitted to OPM, and one’s own Federal Agency or the Postal Service can only have limited influence upon the viability and persuasive effect of a Federal Disability Retirement application.  Where there is a will to fight and an objective basis in which to file a Federal Disability Retirement application, it is never a foregone conclusion that there is not a chance for a successful outcome.

Now, as for those Orioles’ fans who think that there is hope for next year…well, you must truly be an idealist to avoid the foregone conclusion that, yes, the sun will rise again tomorrow, and set yet again later, but a season’s end that began in early May is not a great indicator of next year’s beginning.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: The unknown

What is it about “the unknown” that terrifies us?  Is it merely from the stories of childhood that kept us up late into the night with limbs and face under the heavy blankets, hoping that those goblins wouldn’t suddenly pounce upon the flesh that remained uncovered, with sweat and suffocation preferable to the gnawing of a hungry predator?

Or from insecurities that remained despite the best efforts from parents who were clueless but wanted a dissimilar approach from their own childhoods; yet, despite those efforts to “never be like my mom and dad”, such exertions were merely untested applications from tentative and unlearned methodologies, leaving the insecurities manifesting through thoughtless hesitations because no one knows what they are doing?

The unknown is always, by definition, an uncertainty, and thus a conundrum that instills fear, prefatory pause and trembling of confidence.

When a medical condition enters into the picture as a factor to contend with, the unknown becomes a depth of fear and loathing, precisely because there can never be concretized stability within a wrapping of the unknown.  Suddenly, with the medical condition present, the unknown becomes an uncertainty; the uncertainty compels anxiety and an angst that cannot be controlled.

People enjoy watching horror shows and movies depicting the supernatural; of monsters and goblins that suddenly pop up from nowhere and frighten; because, once removed as a spectator who can fear and yet know simultaneously that you are merely an observer of the horror and mayhem, the fear of the unknown is recognized in the third person, and therefore separable enough from the reality of the virtual.

When one suffers from a medical condition, however, the observer and the sufferer become one and the same, inseparable, unable to merely act as a dispassionate spectator.

For Federal and 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, the unknown is the uncertainty of a future undetermined.

Thus, what needs to be focused upon is what is known, and let the unknown unravel — by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, so that the Federal or Postal worker suffering from a medical condition can focus upon the known quantities of life: One’s health, one’s happiness, and the present circumstances that cannot continue perpetually into the future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Federal Disability Lawyer

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: “Oh, can I help?”

It is the grammatical interjection or discourse marker; in either usage, it is in response to some new or surprising information received.  Thus do we often encounter that individual (we all know of at least one) who, sitting silently, idly and unnoticed throughout, suddenly perks up after all (or most) of the work has been done – whether in preparation of a meal; cleaning up after the dinner party; or where the main elements of a project have just been completed.  And the uninvited interjection:  “Oh, can I help?”

There may even be a hint of clever knowingness in the eyes emanating from that query – of a challenge and defiance, to dare one to question the sincerity of the offer, even when the history of that singular uniqueness has many times over manifested a consistency of never having acted upon the discourse marker.

Yet, we are required to graciously accept it as sincere, and to respond with resignation that, No, there is nothing more to do, but Thank You for the offer, anyway.  For, we all know that the test of sincerity is not words upon words, but rather, that individual who, without uttering a single word, gets up and acts, and engages, participates, contributes and embraces with nary a muttering.  It is the pause between the utterance and the action that makes all of the difference, in common discourse as well as in everyday lives.

There are many, many people who interject with the “Oh, can I help?” but fewer still who act without words unnecessary and unappreciated because of humility in silence.

It is that chasm between word and act, utterance and initiation, a cocoon existence in the silence of one’s thoughts and the breach of entrance into the objective world around – or, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management:  the gap between the suffering silence of a medical condition and taking that step in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, which can be an administrative process that can take many months, and sometimes years.

It is well and good for the individual who consistently utilizes the discourse marker to avoid entanglement in undesirable projects, but when it begins to harm one’s own interests, then it is time to not merely utter a sentence, but to prevail upon the world and act upon the need.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who, because of a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, can no longer continue in the career or vocation of choice, the grammatical interjection of, “Oh, can I help?” should immediately be followed with initiating the steps necessary to secure one’s Federal Disability Retirement application, by making inquiries with a lawyer who has experience in Federal Disability Retirement law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Coordinating the efforts

The amazement of tandem coordination is discovered in various corners of Nature – of tentacles of an octopus seemingly working without the complexity of entanglement; of an eagle’s capture in mid-flight of its prey, where the claws and wings attack and devour with perfect harmony; and in modernity, the capacity and ability to “multi-task”, as the parlance of efficiency has been noted.

The human animal is a formidable creature – perhaps not the best at any one thing (speed is set by the Cheetah; endurance, in the Wolf’s persistence; but of competence in all areas, the two-legged, vertical organism sets the standard for excellence), but able to compensate for deficiencies by exerting acceptable levels of efficiency in many.

However, we often confuse the ability and capacity to multi-task with the presentation of an objective, impervious world of multiple data bombarding simultaneously.  Thus, the fact that the tentacles of an octopus may seemingly work in coordinated fashion in swimming and engulfing does not mean that if a dozen marbles were thrown at it in a single shot, that it would be able to respond appropriately.  Similarly, speed in short bursts may be impressive, but it may not translate into an ability to adapt if objective conditions require greater endurance for quantitative calibration of speed.

There is a limit and a ceiling for tolerance in performing feats, and for the human animal, the mere fact of showing minimal competence in some forms of multi-tasking, does not necessarily convert well when the necessity arises to coordinate complex issues which are further impeded by a medical condition of an impactful nature.

Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the fallacy often arises that, because one has been capable in an administrative or executive capacity, one may be able to coordinate the efforts for one’s self in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Bridging the nexus between the medical condition and the essential elements of one’s positional duties; conforming to “the law” in formulating one’s Statement of Disability on SF 3112A; of obtaining the proper medical documentation that will meet the standards of the compendium of legal opinions issued by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board – these, and many others, must be taken into account when preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application.

And, like the hunter in past lives who suddenly becomes winded, becoming the hunted is not where the Federal Disability Retirement applicant wants to be when coordinating the efforts in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire 
Postal & Federal Employee Retirement Lawyer

  

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Comfort in regularity

There are those who relish the seas of daily change and the excitement of altered circumstances in daily discourse.  But as the rhythms of a seasonal perpetuity teach us of Nature’s need for regularity, so the biorhythms imparted can often form avenues of predictable patterns.  There is comfort in regularity (no, for those with singular minds, we are not here referring to the constancy of utilizing bathroom facilities; although, there is also some truth in that perspective, as well); of engaging in the monotony of expectations, unchanging circumstances and boredom of daily redundancy.

If we interpreted Bishop Berkeley’s philosophy to the extreme, each time we were to leave a room, the physical world we left behind would vanish; upon our re-entrance into the “same” room, it would again materialize, but who knows if the armchair in the corner with the slight tear in the seam of the cushion has not been moved several inches to one side or the other?

Wasn’t that always the fear in Star Trek, when Scotty would push the lever for the transporter, and the molecular deconstruction of the individual would occur – but the danger involved the potential interference within that short timeframe, when the reconstitution of matter might bring about a missing limb, a lesser intellect, or leave on the dinner table in the previous location one’s eyes, nose or mouth?  But the digression into science fiction merely points out the obvious; whether via molecular transporter or physically walking from one room into another, the expectation of “sameness” is what we rely upon, in order to maintain a sanity which otherwise would be lost in a sea of constant change.

It is, ultimately, the paradigmatic confrontation between the age-old perspective of two old philosophical grouches – of Parmenides and Heraclitus; of permanence seen in a world of a singular whole as opposed to the constancy of an ever-changing universe.  Note that, in either perspective, there is a regularity that is sought and discovered:  the expectation of consistent change constitutes that regularity we seek; and the regularity of a singularity of permanence reinforces that comfort in the same.  That is what we forever sought and continue to seek – and it is in the comfort of regularity that we maintain our balanced perspective.

That is why the turmoil of change is often devastating 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 position.  The inability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties is frustrating enough; such alterations often require accommodations, but when such requests are rejected, it is like a verdict upon one’s worth by the agency or the Postal facility:  You are not worth the trouble of change.

Yet, that change or alteration in the schedule, flexibility of attendance, or other minor adjustments, are often of no greater effort by the Agency than Scotty pushing the lever to initiate the power of the transporter.  But, then, Captain Kirk was quite good at making adjustments and ad-libbing as he went along – something that most Federal agencies and the Postal Service are unable to do; and that is when preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application becomes an ever-present need that will ensure the comfort in regularity of purpose, goals and future security.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Federal Employment: Magnum Opus

It is applied as the masterpiece and pinnacle of achievement, but is more generally referred to as the identifying crown for an individual of some notable accomplishment in the various fields and disciplines.  There are looser forms of using the term, of course, in common parlance, in a half-joking, half-serious manner; as in referring to one’s spouse with greater humility, or events that occurred with greater consequences than expected or foreseen.  Like Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D Minor or Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, the Magnum Opus represents the pinnacle of one’s achievement in the career of a chosen field, or within a discipline one was merely destined for.

Most of us, of course, never reach that height of human achievement recognized and lauded by a standard of excellence the world around; mediocrity is the lot of most, and that is okay, so long as the achievements made within the confines of private lives are accorded a similar standard striving to reflect the apex of human worth.  For, the Magnum Opus can be in the simple act of kindness in daily living – of bringing in the garbage can of an elderly neighbor too frail to wander out on a snow-fallen morning, or giving a shelter animal a chance at some semblance of happiness and contentment, and diminishing the violent memories of prior mistreatment and maltreatment.

In the end, it is not the marking of graves with epitaphs of grandeur that matter – though we may fantasize of jealousy and envy overwhelming relatives we disliked, visiting the tombstone of our own creation and smirking at the largesse accorded by a public never quite knowing but the public figure of accomplishments we deign to applaud – but of unmarked ones that are visited by a family left behind, empty with an aching heart for the laughter that we brought, the joy we helped enliven, and the fleeting moment of happiness that encompassed the otherwise dreary lot of a population confused between sex and love.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who has believed that the Magnum Opus of one’s fortunes were somehow tied up inextricably in the career path of a Federal agency or Postal facility, rethinking the paradigm is tantamount to a heretical utterance of unfathomable delay.  There is life beyond a Federal agency’s mission (though you may not discern it well from the attitudes of coworkers and Supervisors), and there is importance and relevance beyond the Postal facility one has worked for.

When a medical condition comes to a point where one cannot meet the expectations of that grand “mission” that has been a constant drone of contention, it might be time to consider preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  Don’t let the Magnum Opus of one’s career be on the downturn of one’s accomplishments because blind fealty to an agency or the U.S. Postal Service has stopped any forward progress; instead, it may be for the next phase of one’s life that the unmarked grave is visited upon with an epitaph still to be written.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: The locked certainty

It must be nice to walk around this world of insecurity with an intractable sense of locked certainty.  There are those some few who possess such a perspective:  everything is without any shades of grey; “rightness” is defined by one’s power, position and capacity to impose, and those who stand in the way are mere leftovers in the residue of history’s garbage heap; and, whether in the privacy of one’s thoughts (if there remain any) or in that moment of vulnerability when the alcohol allows for an openness not previously manifested, there is revealed a glint or twinkle of a doubt, one normally never finds out, as the opportunity for such fissures upon a locked certainty rarely unravel.

How does one go about “unlocking” such a fortress of beliefs, ideas and faith in self?  Perhaps, never.  How did one arrive at such a point of foundational, unmovable certitude?  Darned, if this writer knows.

Authoritarians; totalitarians; cult figures and other assorted and assertive leaders; is it mere brashness and bravado, or is there some “secret knowledge” they possess where the “rest of us” merely squander?  Is it merely a restatement of that ancient division between Parmenides and Heraclitus?  Where, seeing the world as a singular whole and unchanging, in contrast to a perspective where everything is in a constant state of perpetual flux?  Is the psychological emanation that distinguishes and differentiates the two derive from that foundational belief-system that is proposed, or is the duality of such teleological posits merely offering a false choice of two extremes?

There are people like that – both in fiefdoms of past ages where the Medieval colonies restricted and constricted both in thought and in cultural diversity; and, today, in Federal agencies and U.S. Postal facilities, where all Federal and Postal workers who have a medical condition are viewed as “suspect” and unproductive workers who are merely shirking their duties out of sheer laziness.

Can you change their minds?  Probably not.  Is there a key to unlocking that locked certainty of belief?  Unlikely.  So, what is the “solution” to such a problem?  Fortunately, for Federal and Postal employees who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement is “out there” to be accessed.

In order to successfully maneuver through the bureaucratic maze and administrative obstacles, however, one must shatter one’s own “locked certainty”, and try to view the process as a means to an end, and realize that a successful endeavor such as filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, begins with the realization that there never was a guarantee of security from life’s lottery of hope, but that the benefit of a Federal Disability Retirement annuity allows for a second chance at an apple already ravaged by those who surround you with that locked certainty of suspicion.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire