FERS Medical Retirement Claims: Things We Didn’t Ask For

Perhaps the list is long; or, somewhat shorter than expected.  If it is a long list, one must question whether or not you actually didn’t ask for the items on the list.  If it is comfortably short, then it may reflect a greater control of one’s life.

Some things which the list may include: Financial problems; difficulties at work; a dog, a cat or some other stray animal having made it to your home; unruly kids; unappreciative kids; kids who never grow up.  Marriage often adds to the list — not because you don’t love your husband or wife, but because marriage is often an involvement of complex compromises where not everything is agreed to.

Can a shorter list reflect a greater capacity to control one’s life?  Perhaps — but the one column you cannot control is: A disabling medical condition.

That’s one of the things we didn’t “ask” for, although living a certain type of lifestyle may implicitly be interpreted as having “asked” for it, like: Jumping out of airplanes while being in the military (with later consequences of degenerative arthritis in the knees, for example); living in an unregulated state where upriver or downwind is a chemical pant spewing out dubious toxins which rain onto your lawn, forever killing anything and making those tomatoes a strange grey pallor, as in the state of Texas and perhaps some others; or of excessive use of drugs and alcohol in self-medicating for stressful issues, etc.

But, for the most part, a medical condition is one of those on “The List” which we didn’t ask for.

For Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition — whether you asked for it or not — the prospect of preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS may well be necessitated by one of those things you didn’t ask for.

When a medical condition prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your job, it is time to ask for something which you need — a Federal Disability Retirement Annuity — because of that which you didn’t ask for — a medical condition.

Hopefully, your application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management will fall into another known category: Of Ask, and You Shall be Granted: An approval, from OPM.  Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Medical Retirement Law and begin the process of asking for a benefit which is your right under Federal Law.

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 Legal Services: Where Did The Time Go?

It is most often a rhetorical question — one which the answer is known, but the point is made by the query itself.  The question is thus left mostly unanswered.  Time escapes, slips away, is robbed and stolen away by the activities which we enjoy but are not conscious about in the very pursuance of engaging in an enjoyable or otherwise highly distractible participation.

The beginning of a weekend brings a smile of self-satisfaction; on the afternoon of Sunday, the query becomes: Where Did the Time Go?  As if the previous 2 days somehow had disappeared without any explanation for the time spent; evaporated without any knowledge of the activities engaged, the people having met and conversed with, etc.

Sometimes, the query is posed for decades of a frenetic life: The kids have grown up and gone; the empty nest syndrome naturally is filled by the void and echo of the same question: Where Did the Time Go?  Do we ask that same question, however, when we desire something to come to an end — or only when we wish that the circumstances would last a bit longer?

For example, when a career-ending medical condition requires the filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, do we ask during the process, “Where did the time go?”  Or, instead, do we query: When is this process going to end?

Medical conditions, likewise, often reverberate with similar questions; for, it is only the times of enjoyment when we ask the rhetorical question, and not when an undesirable condition is being experienced.

To get beyond the times of crisis and concerns, contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and get an attorney who will see you through the time of uncertainty, and get you to a point where you may again ask the question, Where Did the Time Go?

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: Changing Lives

The phrase can have multiple meanings, depending upon the emphasis given to the words.  On the one hand, it can imply an affirmative, active meaning — of some individual or organization implementing steps in order to alter the course of another’s life.

In this sense, it may be that a problem has been identified — for example, higher rate of drug addiction in a community; increase in crime rates; an intersection with a greater incidence of traffic accidents, etc. As a result of an identified problem, a person, group or entity goes about “doing something” about it — i.e., petitioning the city council to put a traffic light at the intersection; forming a community-watch program to reduce the crime rate; intervening and educating the community about drug addition, etc. Thus, the phrase “changing lives” in this sense can be characterized as an “active” involvement where X is impacting upon Y.

In another sense, it can remain inactive — as a passive onlooker who recognizes that there are alterations occurring in the lives of individuals.  Every day, changes occur in the lives of everyone about.  One may quip that such a manner of meaning is rather inconsequential, inasmuch as it is a given that lives must by necessity change and encounter adaptations every day; for, it is a tautology to include in a single breath the terms “life” and “change”, just as it is a redundancy to refer to the weather without admitting vicissitude.

Changing lives is to be presumed.  Life’s daily turmoils require it; it is an inevitability which cannot be avoided.  The greater question is: How do we respond to the changes?

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 issue about changing lives can take on a third meaning — that one’s life, career and employment status must by necessity undergo an alteration and modification.

The changes wrought are forced by an uninvited force — the medical condition — and the circumstances which mandate change cannot be controlled — of the inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s position with the Federal Agency or the Postal Service.  How the Federal employee responds to this necessary change is where the relevant next step takes on greater consequences of potential harm.  What you don’t know in the changing life may harm you, and that is why consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law prior to initiating those next steps in changing lives, is important.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The shape of reality

Does it really have a shape?  Yes, yes, of course it is a “dimensional” world where there is depth, height, width, volume, and all sorts of “stuff” in between — and “form” differentiates and distinguishes between various “beings” such that there is not a “oneness” of Being; but beyond that, does “reality’ have a shape, and is it different for each of us?

Of course, the natural follow-up question concerns whether we can ourselves “shape” reality — used as transitive verb and not as a noun — as opposed to encountering reality “as it is” and merely accepting its trueness of Being.  Is Kant correct in that the categories of the human psyche form the perceptual reality that surrounds us and, if so, is it different for each of us?  Do the mentally ill merely have a different “shape of reality” as opposed to “normal” individuals with healthy psyches?

How is reality shaped — does our eyesight make a difference?  Do the blind have a different shape of reality because they must depend more upon tactile experiences which determines their space within a darkness of extension and volume?  If we could smell colors and see scents, would the shape of reality be altered?  Does language modify the reality we perceive, and in modernity, has Facebook, Twitter and Instagram radically transformed the very essence of reality’s shape?  And does a medical condition modify one’s shape of reality, as well?

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 shape of reality must include various encounters with alternative universes that may previously have been unthought of — as such shapes of reality that may include the preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

It is, indeed, a different shape of reality: One must think about a life and career apart from the Federal or Postal sector; and while such shapes may change, such realities must be adapted to, and the one constant in life is the essence of who you are, what you have become, and the idea that you can still shape reality into the realness based upon the shape that you are in today.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Persistence versus giving up

The latter should never be an option, although it is too often contemplated; and the former requires either a dull sense of reality or an in-born stubbornness that refuses to acknowledge defeat.  Both are often the result of the countermanding characteristic of the opponent who relies upon the fact that a certain percentage of the population either lacks the characteristic of persistence or otherwise will ultimately give up with nary an effort or will to fight on.

How many battles in history’s billfold of forgotten memories resulted in defeat because of a ruse portrayed by the enemy?  It is the bold pretension that tests the resolve and allows for victory or defeat; the knowledge that there will always be a certain number of people who, upon facing any resistance or adversity, will simply “give up” and surrender.  Thus is it left up to those who will persist no matter the challenge, where adversity and contention will be endured no matter the cost.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who enter the arena of a Federal Disability Retirement process, one should always expect and prepare each stage “as if” the battle at the next stage will ensue.  If a denial is issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for a Federal Disability Retirement application, of course it is going to be written and conveyed “as if” the case never had a chance, “as if” none of the medical evidence had any relevance or significance, and “as if” you don’t even come near to meeting the criteria for eligibility for Federal Disability Retirement.

By sounding “as if” you never had a chance and failed miserably to meet any and all legal criteria for eligibility, OPM is banking on your lack of persistence and the concomitant reaction of simply giving up.

However, persistence is the key to success, and giving up is merely a prelude to a victory near at hand if only one steps back, takes a deep breath, and realizes that, from the very beginning, Federal Disability Retirement was never going to be an easy road to bear — but a consultation with an experienced attorney may well lift the burden of the beast where persistence is the key and not giving up is the pathway to a successful outcome at the next stage of the administrative process called “Federal Disability Retirement”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: Morning quietude

It is that early morning time when dogs remain still, mice scurry about and the soft snore of distant somber drifts down hallways without traffic of daily discourse.  Morning quietude is a slice of a coming day before the tumult of life begins.

Modernity possesses a level of activity heretofore untried and unimaginable; the constant barrage of emails, the connectedness that everyone feels pressured to comply with; the fact that we are glued to technology, dependent upon it, anticipating it for satisfying our every needs; and beyond the storms of everyday living, there is still a need for that brief period of morning quietude.  It is, in many ways, an extrapolated slice of a metaphorical interlude; for, like the stages of a linear life itself, there are periods of extremes that can be charted on any graph that reflects the daily heights and depths of human activity.

The other side of the spectrum, of course, is the nighttime rest – whether of the need for a period of “down-time” before turning in for the night; or even of sleep itself: how difficult, whether immediate or preceded by a period of insomnia; or even of tossing and turning throughout each night, every night.  Then, morning quietude dawns.  Does it last for very long, or will the rush of the day’s noisiness shatter any semblance of peaceful calm?

Medical conditions are likened to those mornings shaken and interrupted.  For, with unexpected rudeness, they awaken us from that slumber we feel where we were once immortal, invincible and unchallenged.  Then, one day we wake up and realize that we are all too human, and our bodies deteriorate, our minds begin to slip.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates one to begin considering 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, it is like that interruption of morning quietude that finally makes us realize that one has no choice in the matter.

Just as the peace and calm of early morning cannot last forever, so the Federal or Postal employee who cannot perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job cannot sit idly by and watch as events continue to deteriorate at one’s job, in one’s personal life, and the clash between health and work.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is the next logical step after the morning quietude is broken – when the mice no longer make noises and the dogs begin to bark.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Of garbage, debris and leftovers

The first is that which we outright discard for loss of value or unrepentant conclusion of worth; the second, what remains after destruction or usage; the last, what is set aside or left behind for multiple reasons, including everything referred to in the first and second, as well as a sense that a loss of appetite resulted in security of its existence without any judgment upon the core of its essence.  Because of our own linguistic laziness, we tend to just lump them all together; but distinctions in language-games matter, and what we do with each, how we treat them, and when we act upon them, requires more than recognizing the subtlety of differentiation we may overlook.

We associate garbage with the smells of rot and decay, and set aside vast areas for landfills to bury and cover over in the remoteness of society’s outskirts, where in lands of impoverishment and suffering starvation, the outcasts of society gather just to pick at the best of the worst.  Of debris, the wealthier people and nations as a whole simply discard and start over, again.  Those who can ill-afford to simply begin anew, will often try and salvage what debris can be reconstituted, and attempt to rebuild lives destroyed and damaged from hurricanes, wildfires and tornadoes, or other such disasters pummeled by nature’s fury or man’s carelessness.

And for leftovers, it is appropriate that it should be the last in the tripartite of linguistic examinations.  For, it applies to foods, to various aggregations of detritus, and to human beings themselves.  Of entities inorganic or inert, they can represent the extra screw mistakenly inserted with the package received, or the cheap trinket purchased in a foreign land but unable to fit into the bulging suitcase and discarded under the unmade bed in the hotel room left unpaid.  Of foods and other organic matter, it is the lesson taught by an overbearing parent, where loggerheads with stubborn children evoke stories once heard and continue as mythologies which – like unicorns and 3-ring circuses, never quite match the smell-test of reality – propagate like mice in the basement of dank and darkness, where the utterance, “When I was your age, what you leave as leftovers used to be the main course!” was but a boast echoing with hollow discourse upon ears deaf with such trite admonitions.  But the more serious manner of the meaning is reflected by the human cost of how we treat one another.  For, it is the “leftovers” of society which we forget about in the teaching lessons of wealth and abundance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are shunned aside because of 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 conceptual construct of what is a “leftover” is a poignant reminder of what once was, of what can still be, and a hint of hope for a future without the harassment, intimidation and constant barrage of aggressive threats propounded without concern for consequences. For, it is the lesson of the leftover which we should all bear in mind.

As any reference in this day and age of a “Biblical” concept is immediately dismissed and ignored – (remember?  Of how treating the “least” is tantamount to re-crucifying at each turn?) – we must therefore embrace the lessons of our own childhoods.  For, in the end, the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker must make a decision of self-worth, and decide whether or not it is of any value to be treated as the vegetables untouched or the morsels undisturbed; or, perhaps, to “move on” and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, and become again the “main meal” as the lesson taught once recognized, in this universe where garbage, debris and leftovers are treated all in the same manner and upon the same plate of empty promises.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Amoebic Devolutions

What if the telltale signs are there, but we cannot, or are unwilling to, recognize them?  Perhaps the forward progress has already stopped, and we are in the throes of having reversed course without knowing, and that the innate genetic material by which Darwinian advancement promised a glowing epicenter of continual advancement, has in fact turned around, and we are witnessing the march towards a regressive, amoebic devolution?

Maybe we have already reached that penultimate pinnacle of a paradigmatic precipice, and the discovery of our technological prowess has already peaked, to where humanity’s U-turn is characterized by the behaviors we exhibit towards each other, to institutions we once beheld, and of reflections in misty ponds where our own images can no longer be discerned with clarity of teleological purpose, but where childhood dreams were once of fluttering butterflies, colorful not just in flights of fancy but in the twilight moon of castaway days, when goblins, elvin creatures and hobbits of yore delighted the human soul with imaginations beyond mere cravings of fantasies, but of that time when the breath of peaceful solitude cast shadows beyond the cavernous dangers where ogres lie?

Certainly, one can make a forceful argument that, If X constitutes the highest achievement of Man, then Y must be an indicator that the deconstructionism of civilization has already begun the process of devolving further into the abyss of decadence of soul.  Is this all there is in life?

Once, in days of Roman legions and civilizations expanding with the quickened pace of cultural upheavals, the dawn of man’s hope and the pinnacle of invention, the arts and the Renaissance of Timeless beauty brushed across the canvas of humankind, and revealed the inner sanctity of an empty religiosity.  There are no more principles worth dying for; and that is precisely why people blow themselves up.  There are no causes valued; and that is why despair pervades throughout.  Are those two candidates the best we can offer?

Do we treat our spouses as we would our best friend, before we discard the years of shared belongings like so many dishrags we fling down the garbage chute?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, in addition to the harassment, difficulties and intimidations felt at work, it is often an agonizing decision to make — to take that initial step in order to begin the process of 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.

For, the tripartite compartmentalization of one’s life must coalesce in order to advance:  Recognition that the “status quo” cannot continue; a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties; the ability and capacity to amass and prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that all of the eligibility criteria for OPM Disability Retirement benefits are met.

And of the amoebic devolution?

That march in the midst of time cannot be stopped, any more than the harassment, intimidation and workplace hostility can be set aside; and as the latter is probably an indication of the former, it is best to accept the reverberating laughter of the gods who look coyishly down upon the caverns of that hell we create, and wink at them from afar with the knowledge that we may well join them in the greatest farce we have staged — that of Man’s capacity to live in his own excrement while delusionally opining on how cultivated he believes himself to be.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Cavalier extinctions

We focus much on lost species, forever erased at a rate of untold apocryphal dimensions, as if the deletion of undiscovered DNA material might never be recovered, and thus for once, we worry about things which we have never known ascribed as that which “could” have saved us from our own extinguishment, all the while ignoring the plight of human detritus all around us.  We do that with fading civilizations, too, don’t we?

We argue for egalitarianism, impartiality, and for all things being of equivalency in value and worth; but, somehow, the “primitives” remind us of that romanticized notion which touched our nerves, even as Rousseau created a fictional “State of Nature” in which we lived in complete harmony (but for those few who, through brutish force and uncivilized conduct, forced us into an unwilling social contract in order to aggregate our weaknesses against a Hobbsian Leviathan for self-preservation and protective numerical advantage) and to which we pay homage in childhood fantasies.  And so we strive to pursue our own environmental agendas, as if we can police the universe against the insanity of our own making; all the while, we engage in cavalier extinctions, ourselves, though we may name it by another identity.

We form and drop relationships; we friend, defriend, add and delete with a push of a button; we even divorce and break up so-called lifetime commitments, with the cavalier explanation that it is “better” to live in harmonious consonance than to subject the innocent to daily ravages of our own termpermantal tumults.  An electronic screen, whether on a tabletop, laptop or a smartphone, can easily bring the bright glare of activity as the blank blackness of nothingness.

That is why extinguishment of purported “friends” can occur just as easily as engaging artifices of friendships; the button itself determines the substance and depth of any such relationship.  It was hard enough actually know and tolerating people; it is easier still, to know them on the tablet of a screen, and not have to contend with irritants of behavioral eccentricities.

On the spectrum of human growth, we are stunting ourselves by relegating the mechanism and tools for human conduct to mere words and responsive utterances on lighted screens.  The tools which we provide to the innocents, to develop those traits for successful human interaction, are diminished by the limited resources available via distance interaction.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and who by necessity must consider 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, the notion that there is a negation of estimable empathy, sympathy, and just simple human caring, becomes a glaring reality too quickly, too forcefully, and with a dosage of untold reality.

Will it only get worse?  Probably.  As the new crop of managers and supervisors who have little contact with actual relationships, but whose voided perspective has been formed by online services of gratuitous and dubious authenticity, the level of understanding and mechanisms for human compassion become exponentially diminished.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is not a mere choice of optional engagement; it is spurred by necessity and human tragedy.  But beware, as this brave new world of cavalier extinctions will bring forth the worst in the unclaimed losses of genetic materials, where the Darwinian principles seem to finally win out in a battle of fierce and unwitting conflicts for the survival of the fittest — or meanest.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Magic & the laziness factor

Magic is something we cling on to, if only as a last vestige of the light of hope, flickering ever so delicately against the tumultuous winds of a world gone mad.  In childhood, it was an imagination enlivened by the pure delight of fairytales, mythologies and rhymes of wands in the single sweep where the golden dust of insurmountable problems is suddenly a trail of corrective bygones with mere words of incantations mysterious to eyes agape with wonderment and awe; and in the middle-to-growing times, the words altered somewhat, the concept changed and the linguistic construct evolved to imply an attitude, a hope, an approach to future life based upon hard work, honesty and mere cannibalism of negative thoughts.

To remain positive was to overcome the vicissitudes of reality; to forego immediacy of pleasure, a pathway to self-discipline.  But time has a way of defeating and beating down even the best of men; there are few limits to the unseen enemy, and much which constrains the visible.

Is there magic to be gotten?  That hope without substance which we pray for; that lottery ticket in the face of statistical impossibility; and that verbiage we throw about by inane moments of meaningless contexts — “There is always tomorrow”.  What have we not shed but to which we cling?  To what do we cling that no longer applies?  Or is it mere laziness, the factor that we dismiss but for everyone else?

In modernity, of course, such tendencies and proclivities toward the magic of superstitions have become exponentially magnified through games of virtual reality, and the numerical chimera of Facebook “likes” replacing actual friendships and human bonds.  Then, when reality hits us square in the face, we fall apart all the more easily, for want of preparation in the face of true vicissitudes that shake the cavernous combustions of this world we live in.

Medical conditions are just one of those realities that cannot be ignored.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who one day wake up to the realization that there is no magic to impart when a 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, and that the pragmatic step of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application may be the best alternative available, the conjunctive one must often face — “and the laziness factor” — is a reminder in two ways:  First, in making sure that you do not allow procrastination to impede the path towards a future for success, and Second, to not be deterred by coworkers and others who criticize ignorantly by alleging that it is all “made up” in order to “game” the system.

The law is what the law is; and Federal Disability Retirement is a system reflecting a progressive perspective on workers who can no longer perform a particular kind of job in the Federal sector and the U.S. Postal Service, but who may be able to remain productive in some other capacity in the private sector.  That is why Federal Disability Retirement annuitants are allowed to make up to 80% of what his or her (now former) Federal or Postal position currently pays, in addition to the annuity being received, and continue to retain the Federal Disability Retirement annuity — precisely because it is a recognition that the Federal or Postal employee is not “totally disabled“, but rather, disabled only from performing one or more of the essential elements of a particular job.

The “real world”, as a grown-up views it, must set aside the magic of make-believe trailing upon a disillusionment wrought in the face of experiential encounters that incrementally beat down and squeeze out the wonderment of childhood thoughts; but hope for a better tomorrow should never be extinguished, and while the flicker of a dying flame emitting light in the deep abyss of despondency overshadowing the magic of bygone days may indeed threaten the future, never allow for the appendage of the laziness factor deter the best step forward in preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire