Federal Medical Retirement under FERS: The Unsmiling Eyes

It has often been noted that the line between tragedy and comedy is a thin and fragile one; of the farcical uttering of King Lear poignantly and subtly emphasized by the Fool or Court Jester; of the indistinguishable demarcation between madness and sanity; and then, of the unmatched contrast between the lips smiling and the eyes saddened.  The lips can always be forced to curl upward, revealing a smile; but whether such an expression is genuine depends upon the eyes just a few inches above.

The contrast — or the discordance — is like the words of flattery followed by the vengeance of betrayal; what words can fool when actions follow revealing the true intent of man.  It is in that flash of a moment — a handshake and a smile; a short laugh at an allegedly funny joke; or too-hearty a laugh or smile; and yet…. When the eyes remain with saddened shadows but the lips curl into a smile, we become disconcerted because of the discordance between the two.

How can one describe unsmiling eyes?  It cannot be described — for, it is neither a coldness nor blankness; merely, that the brightness of the pupils follow upon a sincere smile of satisfaction, happiness or contentment.  You know of the unsmiling eyes when you see it; it is as if the eyes know other eyes of comity; but when that brightness is dimmed and matches not the sincere smile of giving, you know — or sense — that something is amiss.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who walk around with the smile but with unsmiling eyes, it is often because you are trying to hide the medical condition which is impacting your ability and capacity to perform the essential duties of your position.

If you are contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS retirement system from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and consider the pathway forward so that those unsmiling eyes can one day — in the very near future — turn into a consonance with those upward-curling lips called, “A Smile”.

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 Retirement Law: Knowledge of the Elements

It is important to understand what a thing is made up of; otherwise, without that knowledge, you will fail to appreciate the interaction and possible reaction to other elements.

It is the Aristotelian approach which is important — of understanding “first principles” and the underlying substratum of a thing.  Plato’s approach, as well, was similar — of abstracting the greater principle from the particular, but the manner in which he explained things was more in a poetic sense than the practical, and thus do we consider the Aristotelian approach the more “scientific” of the two.

In Law, an understanding of the elements is just as important.  For, if you are not familiar with the elements, you can be easily sidetracked into irrelevant issues, inconsequential arguments and insignificant declarations.  In a very different sense, as well — as in the “elements” comprised of the weather — it is important; for, knowing the elements will mean that you can prepare for any eventuality.

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 important not only to know what “essential elements” might mean, but also, what the elements of the law governing Federal Disability Retirement are comprised of.

For, without knowledge of the elements, you will fail to understand what to prove, how to prove it and to what extent proof is required.  Without such knowledge, you will be exposed and vulnerable to any and all claims of rebuttal by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who has the necessary knowledge of the elements, and begin to formulate an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, whether by an Aristotelian approach or the more poetic methodology of Plato.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: And then…

It is the precursor to the punch line, or perhaps the conclusion of a tale told with eyes wide with anticipation; what precedes, what follows, and then….  Stories are told well, middling, or perhaps badly, but they are told nonetheless, with conclusions that come about with surprise, aplomb or perhaps with a suspended yawn stifled for mere courtesy.  Everyone has one.  It is often said that the story of a man’s life is not in its conclusion, but in the living of it up to the end, but one wonders; is it the telling of it that matters, or the living of it?

In this day and age of technological openness, where everyone’s every detail is disseminated within moments of occurring, no one actually lives anymore, but merely by virtual existence.  Life is about what others think, about the opinions of likened friends, and how many “likes” have been amassed over a life-span of one’s presence upon social media.  The “telling” of one’s life has always been a part of the human makeup; cave-dwellers from long ago we were, and the drawings that have been left by ancestors long forgotten reveal the propensity and desire to tell tales — tall or otherwise — that also ended with, “And then…”

But this is a new phenomena; of telling the tale whilst living it, and sometimes even before; of setting up the “And then…” before the “then” even occurs, and well before the “And” makes its existence known.  It is a switch of a paradigm, a conversion of the psyche and a pre-consciousness before the ego bit off the Id of the seamless ego’s altercation with itself.  And then….

We know not what the outcome of such a story is.  Untested, unresearched, under constant attack; it remains the single mystery that yet needs to be told.  For, everyone has a tale to tell; a life to live; but the telling of the tale of one’s life was once the province of old men in rocking chairs who whispered to wide-eyed boys and girls of the feats of justice and generational transfers of heroic deeds left to folklore, old wive’s tales and exaggerated syllogisms lost in the conundrum of nightmares and sleepless ogres.  No more.  And then….

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, the SF 3112A — Applicant’s Statement of Disability — provides the opportunity to tell the tale of one’s woeful conditions and worrisome progression of deteriorating circumstances.  The tale needs to be told; and like all tales, it needs to be presented with coherence and with a logical sequence of validity.

The problem with such telling of the tale of one’s medical condition, however, is the same problem that today’s generation faces: Of living the medical condition and yet telling of it, all in the same breath.  Too emotional, too involved or too whatever; in the bureaucracy and administrative complexity of presenting the tale to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the telling of one’s tale should be consolidated into an objective delineation in a clinical and legal admixture of complex simplicity.

For, like jokes and narrations that keep the attention of the reader and audience, there must always be the punchline that persuades and convinces, as in — And then…

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Distractions

They are the projects of life of which Heidegger recognizes, allowing for avoiding the inevitabilities of life’s challenges; of fate, mortality, future insecurity, and death.  What quantifiable slice of one’s life is governed by distractions?  Must it always be less than 50% in order to remain so, and if it exceeds that halfway point, does it then become something substantive and not merely the peripheral meaning of what it means to “be distracted”?  If a distraction is considered to be an aside – that which waylays a person’s attention by focusing upon a central project of life’s endeavor – what then defines an inversion of that perspective?

Take, for example, the following:  A mechanical engineer is working on a technical project that consumes one’s focus, concentration and attention to detail, but has a unique and eccentric ophthalmological condition, whereby the eyes are compelled to follow any and all red objects that pass by.

Now, the company has attempted to accommodate the medical condition by requesting that no employee shall enter into the mechanical workshop wearing red, but on this particular day, some investors are visiting, and a man in the troop of intruders is wearing a red tie, and a woman in the entourage is sporting a red sweater.  They go from bench station to the next cubicle, within the purview and arc of dimensional periphery of the eccentric man’s attention, and with each movement, every sidelong blur, his eyes are “distracted” by the red moving objects.

Out of every minute of work, fully 45 seconds are spent on focusing upon the red objects that detract from the necessary mental acuity attending to the project at hand, and indeed, while they are far enough away such that from an objective viewpoint, the objects are mere inches in proportion and are of a distance as to almost be unnoticeable to others in the group of engineers, for the eccentric mechanical engineer, it is the focal point of his attentions.

The distraction is such that it disrupts the sequence of testing conditions and interrupts the validity of the technical precision required, and a coworker finally declares, “You’ve been too distracted and the project has to be scrapped.”  Would we agree that, because of the numerical disproportionality of concentration attributable, “red-object observation” takes precedence as the primary project, and it is the engineering project that is the distraction?  Or, because it is a medical condition of which he “cannot help it”, do we excuse the distraction in its entirety?

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 positional duties, the central point made here is precisely how the Federal agency and the Postal facility views the issues significant in a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Federal Agencies and the U.S. Postal Service possess a myopic view of “work”, and even if the Federal or Postal employee is able to continue making valuable contributions to the workplace, they often see the differentiation between “work” and “distractions” as one quantifiable by time alone.  This is too bad, but a reality that must be faced.  For, medical conditions are not mere distractions; they are life’s interludes that can often be faced and overcome, if only outmoded ideas about what constitutes workplace contributions are set aside, and realize that even distractions delaying the central mission of a Federal agency or Postal facility are not the most important, or even of much significance, when it comes to the worth and value of a human life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from USPS or other Federal Agencies: Solomon’s choice

Even in this age of millennial ignorance of ancients, literary or biblical references to arcane metaphors (while taking delight in such useless information as the minutiae of Sanskrit grammar), the general view that King Solomon’s judgment was profoundly wise, is accepted without argument.  Yet, were his assumptions correct, and do they apply today?  Is it presumptively reasonable that love of child would rise above the other emotions felt – of jealousy, perhaps, or envy of the other mother – and declare the truth of the hidden motive?  Is there a priority or order of sequence that necessarily mandates truth to manifest itself, when the choice is one of death, loss, sacrifice and the horror of splitting a baby into two?

Of course, beyond the significance of the epic story itself, is the metaphor we are left with in living our daily lives – of making a choice between honor and its opposite, or of Truth and Falsity; of enduring for the sake of X as opposed to sacrificing in the light of Y.  To embrace a Solomon’s choice is to accept that there is a binary presentation in life’s offerings, and while that is often the appearance of a case, it is the stark reality of the limitations of alternatives available, that makes a decision to be made difficult and unenviable.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must endure and “deal with” a medical condition, such that the medical condition has come to a point of interference with many of life’s major activities, including employment and performing the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, the options presented are often binary, and sometimes adding another to create a trinity of choices.

The Federal or Postal employee can remain and endure; or, if the Federal or Postal employee has met the minimum eligibility requirements (18 months of creditable Federal Service and an evidentiary basis of showing that a medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job), consideration should be given to preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

The “other” choice, of course, is to walk away and do nothing; but that is, in effect, no choice at all, for the time invested and accrued in one’s Federal or Postal career should never be discarded and forgotten, especially when the second option is there to be accessed.

In the end, perhaps Solomon’s choice was, likewise, parallel to that “third” option which resulted in the decisions made, and as a consequence, bore the fruits for the future Trinity.  To split the baby in half could never have been a serious consideration, just like walking away without trying should rarely be considered by a Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition which prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.  Solomon’s offer was, of course, a wise one; for, in the end, he knew that such a choice was an untenable one, just as the Federal or Postal employee knows that filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is the one which will ultimately be the wise one.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Netherworld between Sleep and Wakefulness

There is that moment of haziness, where sleep has not yet overtaken and consciousness has not yet been fully lost, where the philosophical abyss of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or stands in relation to knowledge, truth, insight and puzzlement, and where questions abound concerning the relationship between words and the objective reality of constellations clashing amidst bursting stars and black holes.

Sleep is a realm sought after; restorative sleep, a state of being which, without explanation or cause, we accept as a necessity of life’s conundrums.  Without it, or because of a lack thereof, functionality deteriorates, awareness becomes overwhelming, and the capacity to tolerate a normal level of life’s stresses becomes an issue of sensitivity and tearful breakdowns.  Sleep brings us to the other side of darkness; wakefulness, this side of paradise.

Whether because our genetic code has not yet adapted fully through the evolutionary process of survivability, or that technology outpaces the capacity of human intelligence to withstand the constant bombardment of stimuli upon organic receptors devised merely for hunting or gathering, we may never figure out.  Regardless, many are like the sleeping dead, where the netherworld between sleep and wakefulness remain unchanged, and profound fatigue, daily exhaustion and untenable mental fogginess and loss of intellectual acuity impacts one’s daily ability and capacity to make a living.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contend with such an exacerbating and complex state of health, the reality of going through the day, of coming home exhausted and forlorn, yet unable to turn that profound fatigue into a period of respite and restorative sleep, is a reality faced with the concerns of being able to continue in one’s Federal or Postal career.

Sleep disorders are often secondary medical and health issues, following upon primary physical and psychiatric disabilities; but they can also be a primary basis for preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Whether diagnosed as Sleep Apnea, Insomnia, or a more generalized diagnosis of Sleep Dysfunction or Sleep Disorder, the impact upon one’s cognitive acuity as well as the physical exhaustion felt, which can lead to creating a hazardous workplace phenomena, the Federal or Postal employee who finds that the impact prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, should consider that the health issue itself is a valid one, and a firm basis for preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

One may, here and there, experience the phenomenon of entering that netherworld between the dark chasm of sleep and the full orientation of wakefulness, and know that drifting between one and the other is likened to the necromancy of human complexity; but when such a condition remains a constancy in one’s life, then it may be time to consider filing for a Federal Disability Retirement annuity, lest the sorcery of life’s dreamworld waves the wand which withers the soul.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Enthusiasm of Life

There are those we sometimes meet in life where the infectiousness of enthusiasm cannot be avoided.  Whether such active energy can be truly sustained, to what extent, and for how long; and, whether such enthusiasm is matched within the essence of the being behind the veil of smiles and outward appearances, only the heart and soul knows in the privacy of one’s chambers.  Whether an artifice for show and appearances, or a true bundle of vitality, the reality of such people and their existence is besides the point; rather, the real issue to consider is the contrasting starkness which is revealed when encountering such people.

Most of us walk through life with limited energy, complaining of life’s inequities, and performing tasks with minimal effort.  The automaton is merely a person once removed from the daily monotony of life.  Then, when a medical condition hits the person, all of the fears and predictions of gloom merely become reinforced and proven beyond a doubt.  Thereafter, the logical sequence of events often occurs, and the “piling on” follows, where family, acquaintances, supervisors and coworkers known or otherwise forgotten begin to avoid and shy away from further contact.  The “disease of failure”, or that which lacks the look or scent of success, begins to pervade.  People are funny beings; they treat the maladies of others as if it can be caught like a viral epidemic.

Medical conditions prevailing upon Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers can have a similar effect and impact:  suddenly, the pandemic of avoidance and negative perspectives pervades all sides:  the Federal or Postal employee is no longer treated with respect by Supervisors, co-workers and the agency (the cynic, of course, would question whether such respectful treatment ever occurred in the first place), and proposed administrative sanctions and actions follow not too far behind.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits, filed through one’s agency if the Federal or Postal worker is still with the agency (or has been separated from Federal Service or the U.S. Postal Service, but not for more than 31 days), and ultimately through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a step in the direction of regaining and reasserting one’s enthusiasm of, and for, that which life offers.  Staying in an environment where one is shunned and unwanted, will only exponentially magnify the stamping out and extinguishment of the afterglow of human endeavor.

Life is often short and stunningly cruel; and when a medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, consideration needs to be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, if only to escape the hostile work environment which further exacerbates the medical conditions from which one suffers.

The enthusiasm of life is not merely a viral cavity gnawing at the annoying person we encounter here and there; it is the essence of who we are in our natural state of being, but shaken and turned out of us by the incremental and subtle weight of burdens gained over time and troubled waters.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employees Disability Retirement Systems: The Quarantined Mind

From early childhood, the necessity of imposing constraints and conformity produces the positive effect of a well-ordered society.  But corollary and unforeseen consequences often occur, as in the quashing of creativity and mindsets which step outside of the proverbial “box”.

The problem with people talking about thinking “outside of the box” is that such a thought process itself constitutes nothing more than mundane conventional wisdom.  Those who have considered thoughts beyond the artifice of social concordance have already done that which is widely preached, but little known.  Then, along comes a calamity or crisis, necessitating a change of lifestyle and a different manner of approaching the linear and customary manner of encountering life.  The other adage comes to mind:  necessity is the mother of invention.

Medical conditions tend to do that to people.  Suddenly, things which were taken for granted are no longer offered:  health, daily existence without pain; the capacity to formulate clarity of thought without rumination and an impending sense of doom.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit offered to all Federal and Postal employees who require a second chance at life’s anomaly; it allows for a base annuity in order to secure one’s future, while at the same time allowing for accrual of retirement years so that, at age 62, when the disability retirement is recalculated as regular retirement, the number of years one has been on disability retirement counts towards the total number of years of Federal Service, for recalculation purposes.

It allows for the Federal or Postal employee to seek out a private-sector job, and earn income up to 80% of what one’s former Federal or Postal position currently pays, on top of the disability annuity itself.  It thus allows and encourages the Federal and Postal worker to start a new career, to engage another vocation, and consider options beyond the original mindset of one’s career in the federal sector.

In the end, it is often our early childhood lessons which quarantined the pliant mind that leads to fear of the unknown because of changed circumstances.  To break out of the quarantined mind, sometimes takes a blessing in disguise; but then, such a statement is nothing more than another conventional saying, originating from the far recesses of another quarantined mind.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire