OPM Medical Disability Retirement: Effectiveness

What does it mean, to be “effective”?   The dictionary definition will always include some synchronicity between “outcome” and “desired result”, but can one still be effective if one falls short of the goal desired?

If a football team goes through an entire season with a perfect record, but loses in the first round of the playoffs, has it failed to achieve its mission of “effectiveness”?   Similarly, if an up-and-coming company places a milestone-goal of 1 Billion Dollars in sales by year’s end, but misses its mark just shy of it, has it failed to be “effective”?

One may, of course, conclude that such analogies don’t always apply, as it often depends as to whether or not the goal itself is an “all or nothing” desired end, as opposed to a spectrum upon which success or failure depends and where there are varying degrees of differences which may result in a wide range of relativity.

For Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a disability, and where “effectiveness” is first gauged by looking at whether or not you can perform all of the basic elements of your job despite your ongoing medical conditions, the consideration as to whether it is time to initiate the process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, must in the end depend upon multiple factors.

Are you becoming deficient in performance?  Have there been any “conduct” issues?  Is your attendance becoming less than satisfactory?  Do you have a doctor who is willing to support your case?

In the end, “effectiveness” in a Federal Disability Retirement application has only one (1) desired result:  An approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, under the FERS system.

In order to reach that desired result, contact a FERS Retirement Attorney who specializes in Federal Medical Retirement Law and let the synchronicity between “outcome” (an approval from OPM) and the “desired result” (early retirement based upon your medical condition) meet without a gap in between.

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 Medical Retirement under FERS: Planning Long Term

Augustine’s view of Time is essentially based upon the projection of our thoughts into the past; our current encounter with the present; and our anticipation of what will occur in the future.  Without a human involvement in thought spanning across the spectrum of past, present and future, Time merely exists in the presence of the current moment.

Human beings are not the only species who utilize time and apply it for planning long-term.  Other species plan for the coming winter; some engage in long flights to warmer conditions, and not necessarily for just a short stint in Florida.  For planning “long-term”, however, the human species tends to engage in such sport more than others.

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, it may often appear that “long-term planning” is an act of futility, given the nature of an illness, medical condition or other form of disability.

However, filing for Federal Disability Retirement under FERS is actually an excellent plan for the future — long term.  For, not only does it provide for a monthly annuity to live on; it actually is “building” your future long-term retirement by counting the time you are on Federal Disability Retirement in the total number of years being accrued, so that when your Federal Disability Retirement benefits are recalculated at age 62, the “total number of accrued years” takes into account not just the time you had as an active Federal employee, but also the years you have been on Federal Disability Retirement as an annuitant.

Thus, you are building up your retirement while you are on Federal Disability Retirement.  Now, that is planning for long-term.

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 Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: Succor

It is an unused word, likely because no one knows how to properly pronounce it, and even if it is pronounced properly, it would be misunderstood and thought to have either been misused or viewed as a blot against the user for attempting to insert a word in a conversation which nobody comprehends the meaning of, anyway.

It is a noun.  It is defined as providing “assistance in times of distress or hardship”, as in, “X gave succor to Y when he most needed it”, or some such similar usage and application.  Or: “The succor provided was inadequate”, or “Mary was succored by the community and greatly appreciated such kindness”.

Do words that never get used matter?  Why are there synonyms, and not just a single word describing a singular event or occurrence, and are there societies in which a 1-to-1 ratio of word-to-phenomenon is so unique as to never lack for clarity precisely because the reservation of a particular word has a singularity of meaning such that there can never be a deviation from its proper application?

Words have meanings — thus stated in the plural, we recognize that either in the subject or in the predicate, the multiplicity of applications can result in confusion.  How about the following: A single word has a particular meaning.  But that is not true; at least, not in the English language.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are undergoing hardships because of a medical condition, such that consideration must be given to filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM, seek the succor of an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  In other words: Look for guidance and counsel from an experienced attorney who knows the process of filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application.

Why we need “other words” remains a mystery.

Sincerely,

Robert R.McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: Silence

Whether of the historical novel by Shusaku Endo or of the film adaptation by Martin Scorsese, the powerful images evoked (or provoked?) by the contrast between noise heard and the silence following can be felt only with the “before” and “after”.  The novel itself is Endo’s masterpiece, although he has written many; and, of course, Scorsese has a long list of accomplishments and commercial successes, but Silence is not one of them— at least not by commercial standards.

It is a serious movie with few bright moments; of contracted theological arguments and disputations revealing cultural chasms so deep that only a simple metaphor can make it comprehensible; of an agonizing series of endless torture; of the anguished, linguistic divide apparent between two countries which fail to understand each other because of the subtleties of language’s disconnect.  And then there is — silence — in contrast to noise; of a “before” and an “after”.

And the questions which foretell of the quietude: Does the lack of God’s intervention mean that there is no God?  Does “speaking” of denying and renouncing, or the act of stepping upon the image of God, determine one’s faith, or can faith be alive within the silence of one’s inner soul?  Can the Peter-like character, Kichijiro, remain a “faithful apostle” despite his breaking of his silence in actively renouncing and apostatizing?  And who has the greater faith — the priest who grudgingly passes judgment each time the apostate comes for confession and forgiveness, or the one who renounces but then confesses and asks?

In the end, Silence is too heavy a movie to be considered “entertainment”, and most people will not want to spend an evening watching a movie that has little joy and less to laugh about; for, the pain that is experienced by so many in this world in the silence of one’s own suffering is torturous enough without asking to view an even greater expansion of such pain and silence.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who, similarly, suffer in silence because of a medical condition that prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it may be time to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Consulting and being guided by an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is likely the wiser course to take, as the bureaucratic morass that one must be guided through can be likened to the foreign country that the priests in Silence had to endure — through the pitfalls of dangers and caverns of unknown territories.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: In the way

We talk about objects being “in the way”; of an accident on the road and we complain, “Why can’t they just pull over and get their vehicles out of the way?”  We use similar phraseology when we “objectify” human beings, as in — when we seethe with anger and retribution at some person — the threatening tone of: “Stay out of my way!”

Does the subtle (or not so subtle) alteration in language’s usage determine how we treat another human being?  When a driver gets irritated with a bicyclist who is not so adept at keeping a straight and narrow line on the roadway, do we forget suddenly the value of human life and see it merely as an “object” that is “in the way”?

And when you read of stories of human tragedies — of a person who negligently ran over a person and seriously injured or — worse, yet — killed a pedestrian, we realize the thin line between insanity and rationality, of love and hate, and the vulnerability of passions left out of control and going berserk when it is often the language we use so carelessly that leads to the tumults of life’s misgivings.

Objects are often “in the way”; can it ever be that people are also?  Do we bypass one another and ignore the plight of others because of our capacity and ability to objectify those very subjects we want to ignore and avoid?

Utopia is an idea of human perfection; the reality of this real world is quite different, where love, cooperation and human compassion lags far behind because the essence of human nature is far below the paradigm of perfection.  Honking the horn at something “in the way” when one is backed up on the highway in a state of frustration may well shed one of some frustration — until we learn later on that it was the body of a young child hit by a car because he was “in the way”.

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 concept of “in the way’ is a familiar one — for, the Federal or Postal worker has knowledge of it both as an object, as well as a subject.

The “medical condition” itself is “in the way” — seen as an object that has become an obstacle. Conversely, the Federal Agency or the Postal Service begins to see that once-stellar, high-performing individual — you — as something “in the way” of the Federal Agency’s “mission” and the Postal Service’s “work”.

When the Federal Agency or the Postal Service begins to see a Federal employee as an object, as opposed to a subject, then you know it is time to begin to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, lest you become another casualty left in the heap of roadside debris as a passing car yells, “You were in the way!”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The facade of happiness

There are weather-related “fronts” — of “cold fronts” and “warm fronts” bringing in the freshness of change, a sudden modulation of temperature and a gust of windy hollows echoing through valleys and down into the chill of our bones.  They change the temperature of the air around us, and often moods are impacted as well.

Then, there are also “fronts” of human characteristics — of “putting on a brave front”; of making a “frontal assault”; and of these latter, we realize that there is always something behind, like the wizard concealed by the curtain undrawn.  We all of us put on “fronts” — and like the weather fronts that fool us at first that Spring may be nigh or Winter’s discontent may be around the corner, the “brave” front may be just a put-on, just like the “frontal assault” is likely a ruse to deploy one’s forces all at once to meet the enemy head on.

Of all the fronts, it is the facade of happiness that fools the most, even one’s self, into thinking that contentment is the amassing of objects surrounding, careers advancing and problems left avoiding.  The facade of happiness works well for a season, so long as the fool who buys the bridge of smiles never lifts the veil an inch to peer into the darkness of a soul in anguish.  Happiness is a fleeting state of existence; here for a moment today, it vanishes like the spirits of yesterday’s underworld where gods were chosen to wander the earth in ashen looks of greying days.

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 facade of happiness has likely been an essential tool for survival in this past year, if not longer.

It allows for the Federal or Postal worker to put on a “brave front”, to fool the others for a time — somewhat like the cold front that descends upon the south in the middle of summer to remind one that change is in the air, or the “architectural front” that gives an old building a facelift and draws people inward as an inviting new asset.

But don’t be fooled; for the facade of happiness can never hide for long the suffering beneath, and for the Federal or Postal worker, preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the first real step towards an abiding and real happiness, as opposed to the fake smile that conceals beneath the facade of happiness.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: Last Days of Summer

When the urgency of a sales event about school supplies blinks prominently across television screens, and those couple of days in August arrives where a foretelling of colder weather breathes a freshness as a reminder; and when the haziness of plants wilting, the stickiness of summer’s heat has faded the memory of last year’s harsh winter — we suddenly realize that the last days of summer are upon us.

Days come and go like gnats that take a single bite and then fly on; and suddenly we can’t remember where time has disappeared to, and another gray hair has sprouted, another wrinkle has cut deep the lines of time and timeless lines of memories now vanishing like so many waves that lap upon the seashores of countless hours.  And like the last days of summer, we relish the good fortune of health and painless existence only so long as fate allows for another day of challenges left unfulfilled.

The last days of summer are like those unwanted encounters that life inevitably challenges us with: It reminds us that what was once promising may not always come to fruition, like the beginning days of summer that looked forward to a respite from the humdrum of everyday existence, only to be snatched away like an illness that debilitates.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where 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 last days of summer often represent as a metaphor the realization that one’s Federal or Postal career must come to an end.

Where the choice is between health or career, it is not much of an option presented: health must always be and remain the priority, and preparing and submitting an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is somewhat akin to the last days of summer, where the end of something is merely the foretelling of a new season beyond.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Claims: The constant pruner

Without the constancy of the activity, the growth itself saps the life within and extends to expend energy that ultimately reacts with a self-immolation that harms itself.  Pruning is a necessary activity to lop off the unnecessary; otherwise, the diseased branches and the weakened limbs rob from the underlying life that needs less in order to live more.

Limbs that have weakened and are dying; the weak extensions that are yet strong enough to cling on as useless appendages that refuse to break and crack despite the winds of storms that test and weed out; and in clinging, deplete the sap of life that must still run its course through to the end of each.  The constant pruner knows that less is more; that by lopping off and ending the dependencies, the life that remains will be extended all the more.

So much of the world reflects the same approach; history is a constant pruner, of importance, significance, relevance and of what remains within the consciousness of a living society.  Bodies need pruning; or, at least, a refinement and readjustment, just in order to survive.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, there is a reflective duality in the act of pruning: for the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, they may look upon you as that useless appendage that must be pruned, leading to a systematic campaign of pressuring you to either resign (self-prune) or terminate (a third party act).

For the Federal or Postal employee, the steps necessary for “pruning” can involve:  Resignation; Filing a Federal disability retirement application; or just “staying put” — which, in the end, is an inactive, passive way of self-pruning, anyway, because it will ultimately lead to one of the first two, in the end.  The question is: Do you want the agency or the Postal Service to do the pruning, or do it yourself?

In order to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal disability retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is necessary to first take out the metaphorical “shears” by consulting with an experienced attorney who specializes in the law of Federal Disability Retirement.

That is the beginning of becoming the constant pruner — to first learn, then to proceed, lest you lop something off that should not have been.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Of spare things left in the world

We don’t seem to have a capacity to share of those things which we have no need, anymore.  Does scarcity of resources result in “doubling down” in ways formerly described as miserly in deed?  Does the free market principle of supply and demand explain the loss of social grace in responding to need?  What ever happened to the spare tire, the jingle of spare change, and the ephemeral absence of spare time?  Has society come to a criss-cross of contending forces, where the explosion of population growth, the rise of the middle class in developing nations around the globe, coupled with the exponential depletion of finite resources, have cumulatively coalesced to an incandescent compromise of character crisis?  Does the lack of everything mean that we can spare no more for others, or provide assistance in the event of need?

As for the spare tire issue, the fact is that modern technology has extended the wear of tires, and many people have lost the knowledge or skill to use a jack or a lug wrench.  This, combined with fear of scams and roadside robberies, in conjunction with the durability of today’s tires, has resulted in the widespread consequence of calls for help defined as a cellphone dial for professional roadside assistance.  Further, society has deemed that any caricature of a ‘damsel in distress’ is tainted with a misogynist attitude; and we certainly would never want to be charged with an ‘ism’ at the cost of helping another.  And of spare change?

Homelessness has been relegated to either a non-existent phenomenon until a different political tide rolls in, or has otherwise been linguistically redefined as an alternative lifestyle.  What remains, then, is our spare time — which we have no more of, despite the constant drumbeat to the contrary that the aggregate of modern technology is always supposed to ‘save us time’.  Isn’t that what we are told each time a new gadget is foisted upon us?  That it will save time so that we have more time for greater and more important things — like politicians who suddenly leave office or fail to seek another term in order to spend “more time” with family.  Right.

The fact is that we are left with very little of anything, anymore, other than to stare vacuously into the fluorescent chambers of computer screens and smartphone apps.  Yet, spare time, spare tires and spare change — while apparently mere arbitrary anachronisms of antiquity, alas, fading into the dim light of change itself — reflects a community of sharing now lost as art was once a defined form.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the idea of sparing a person a break, has gone the way of other spare things.  Neither the Federal agency nor the U.S. Postal Service has any spare time to spare anything, anymore, and certainly no more than the rest of society can spare.

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, can be likened to the spare tire in the back of the trunk, which is always there but forgotten but for the time of crisis or need.  When the Federal or Postal worker can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, then preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to OPM is like getting out that spare tire.

The problem is, as most people have lost the skill to use the ‘other’ implements hidden beside the spare tire — like the jack and the lug wrench — so the proverbial roadside assistance may be required.  As for spare change and spare time?  Pockets are a requirement for the former, and future fashion will determine the necessity of an antiquated design, as will inflation and online banking for the need of coins or paper money at all; and as for the latter, we are told that we have more of that than ever before; just not enough to spare for others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Government Employment: The Daily Diatribe

This is an angry time.  Contrary to the appearance of sophistication and quiet aplomb conveyed by shoulders shrugged and ignorance attributable, the festering anger which forms a quaking (or quacking?) undercurrent, like shifting undersea tectonics just before a major earthquake which then results in a tsunami, the fact is that the fragile threads of common courtesy and conventional manners have disappeared over time, in increments of eroded concerns, likened to the moth which remained hidden in the darkness of a closeted space, eating away quietly at the fine costumes of societal consternation.

Conversations and rational discourse are replaced by daily diatribes of sputtering infamy; yes, Hitchens was a contrarian, but we miss his voice precisely because he could do it without us knowing it, and in addition with that fading British accent that always put a stamp of civility upon the acerbic wit.

Whether anger and certain medical conditions have any connection, will likely never be established as a causal certainty.  But 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, escape from the cauldron of daily diatribes can only contribute to better health and greater psychological stability.

Calmness of discourse, quietude of mind; there is no longer a place of repose or respite from the vicissitudes of this complex societal aggregate defined by the fast pace of technological whims.  We all have to find our corner of rectitude from this constant clanging of harshness; how we go about discovering that unique slice of life, attuned to our needs and satisfying our desires, is the question of a lifetime.  For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal Service worker who needs to consider first the state of his or her medical condition, and connect the deterioration and progressive decline to the daily diatribe of the workplace, there is no rational basis for delay or procrastination.

In life, priority is established by sequencing one’s life:  Health, family, career, etc.  Somewhere, the daily diatribe fits like the proverbial square peg in a round hole (or, as the contrarian Hitchens might have said, Is it a round peg in a square hole?); but whether the greater macro-society engages in the daily diatribe of life, it is the “little people” of minor consequence who must pay the price, and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it might be a good time to look for that shining light on a hill, and move on to the next phase of living this life of escapism and constant seeking.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire