Federal Disability Retirement from OPM: Identification

It is through identification that constancy is maintained.  When we look in the mirror in the morning, we identify that reflected individual as the same person whom we knew a decade before — despite the greying hairs, the tributaries of creases and wrinkles; we brush the gray and wash the rivulets, and turn away knowing that our identity of today is the same as before.

Similarly, when we recognize a childhood friend from long ago, we greet him or her through identification.  We might say flattering (and perhaps somewhat untrue) things like, “You haven’t changed a bit!”  Or: “Gosh, you look great!”  In either and both cases, it is the identification itself which establishes the constancy of life.

One does not sever that constancy by pointing out the changes — of saying, “Wait a minute.  You didn’t have those wrinkles, and you were just a skinny little guy when I knew you 20 years ago.  You are not the same person, and therefore I do not know you!”  Such failure of identification — would it be true, or not?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition  no longer allows you to continue in your choice of career with the Federal Government, always remember that identification still exists and constancy may yet be maintained — the only change is not in the person, but the incompatibility between that same person and the job which one has.

You will remain the same person — albeit with a medical condition.  The change is not in you, but in the fact that the job you hold is no longer compatible with the you of today, of the same identification with the you of yesterday.

Contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider the constancy of your identification for your future of tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Workers: The Messes We Make

We make many of them.  By “make”, too often implies that it is our fault; and yet, some greater number of messes we make are merely the consequence of unknown factors, thoughtless actions and unintended reservoirs of youthful behavior.  Our parents often clean up after the messes we make; and, for a time, at least, such parental love allows for the children to mature and grow up until the messes become less and the successes replace them.

Some parents take the harsher road: “You have to clean up your own mess”; while others take too lenient a role and never allow their children to learn from their mistakes.  Most parents take a middle-of-the-road approach and try and guide their children through life’s learning process of making messes.  Some messes, like acquiring a medical condition, simply come upon us and we have no control over them.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are beset with the “mess” of a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of his or her Federal or Postal job, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is the “cleaning up” of the mess we have acquired.

Contact a FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Life Goes On

Americans make of politics the same as everything else we do: It becomes a passion with a responsiveness tantamount to life and death.  We do it in almost all else, as well, as in sports — if our team doesn’t win, it is as if the world has come to an end.

We do it in marriage — we put on a great show at tremendous expense to announce that it is an event which will last forever.  We do it in religion — where every denomination and every pokey-little church has a corner of truth in interpreting “the doctrine”.  We do it in Supreme Court nominations, who our Congressman or Senator will be, and in every other sector of life.  We act as if the world will come to an end — like Y2K, Climate Change and the Presidential Election.

But Life Goes On.

The “day after”, everyone else has to move on and make a living and deal with life, no matter who won, what occurred or which side prevailed.  And 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, dealing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is still a reality which must be faced.

So, recognize your priorities in life and realize that whatever happens, you will still need to consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, because no matter what, life goes on.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement for FERS Employees: Presumption of Orderliness

It is a peculiar presumption; for, in most other contexts, we presume the very opposite.  Yet, for whatever psychological basis of need or desire, we presume that there is orderliness in the lives of everyone else despite the chaos in our own lives.

We hide well for appearance sake, and perhaps that is the key: Everyone else seems to live an orderly, planned, well-managed life, and so the appearance itself is what maintains the sanity of society’s apparent orderliness.  Yet, when we hear about the chaos erupting in another’s person life — of a break-up between couples; of a life ruined for this or that incident; or even of a sudden medical condition that traumatizes a family member — are we really surprised?

In public we maintain a passive face; despite internal turmoil and private lives of hellish circumstances, we do our best to put forth a calm demeanor.  That is the unspoken rule, is it not?  Once out the door, the “deal” is that we leave the chaos behind and act “as if”.  To that extent, we are all great actors on the stage of public discourse; we just don’t get paid like the megastars in Hollywood, but nevertheless take on the lead role of the greatest movie series ever made: Life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the time to stop “covering up” and “acting as if” has likely come to a crisis point.  The chaos of trying to hide the medical condition and acting “as if” everything is fine has now come to a point where life and acting coalesce: You must acknowledge the reality of the medical condition and stop trying to hide it because, in the end, your health is of greater importance than the appearance of orderliness.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the discussion of bringing back not only a presumption of orderliness, but a reality based upon an earned annuity of financial security.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: How words matter

They do, don’t they?  Otherwise, how else to explain the endless plethora in the course of a single day, heard from every corner and source imaginable: The radio; the television; DVD; streaming; other electronic mediums; bystanders; on the telephone; written forms in email, texts, Facebook postings; everywhere, the insular words of a private-public conversation — public because much of it is accessible to everyone, except for those whispered soft nothings in the privacy of bedrooms and lips upon ears, but throughout acted upon “as if” each exchange of communication is between the sender and receiver, the declarative and the reply, the conversationalist and the lecturer; and so the infinite stream of words flow back and forth like the ebb of tides that have washed the shores of this earth from the beginning of time, or so it seems.

But what if actions never follow upon words; do they still matter?  When a person condemns another and shouts out, “He’s just full of it!” — what exactly do we mean?  A person makes a promise; words are spoken; perhaps even a “contract” is written up and entered into.  But then, nothing happens.  No actions are taken; a lawsuit is filed, and more words are entered into the database of the “justice system”; a trial is held, and more words spoken, this time in front of a judge.

At what point did the words originally spoken or written fail to matter, and when did they then again matter?  What is meant by “matter” — is it only in conjunction with actions taken, or do the words themselves, hanging in the suspended universe of the ethereal, have some impact despite no one taking any notice of it?  Is a “vow” or a “promise” something more than mere words?  If a person makes a promise and marries, takes the traditional vows of fidelity and honor, do the words matter, or only by the actions that follow, or both?  And what of the person who says nothing — in past ages, there were men (and women) who had a reputation of “being a man (or woman) of few words” — but always follows through on his or her commitments?  Do the words not spoken matter?

Yes, yes — the linguistic philosopher will observe that the very lack of words was telling all the same, but we are not talking about that — not of silence, but of words spoken, and not of those unspoken.  Thus do we say of the person who keeps his promise — “He is a man (or woman) of his/her word”. But what if he/she breaks every promise spoken, and says upon getting caught, “But I never meant a word of it anyway”?  Does that make a difference?  Or of the boring lecturer who no one listens to, but then when a fire breaks out and a small child yells, “Fire” and everyone listens and exits safely — how did the action following upon the words spoken matter?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has come to a point where preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, what must always be kept in mind is that the entire administrative process of the bureaucratic methodology of “Federal Disability Retirement” is based entirely upon “words” — of meeting the legal criteria with words; of describing the nexus between the medical condition and one’s positional duties with words; of making persuasive legal arguments with words.

Words matter by being effective, where actions follow upon the singularly unique encounter between the insular world of subjective words and the objective reality of “others” listening, taking it in, then acting upon them — as in granting an approval for a Federal Disability Retirement application upon a submission of a bunch of effective words that comprise a successful Federal Disability Retirement compilation.  That’s when words matter, and the manner in which words are put together.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

CSRS & FERS Disability Retirement: Life’s silent opera

Is not much of opera a booming voice, a lingering chord and the grand mayhem of combining movement with long, loud and hanging sounds emitted from men and women who are born with a talent rarely heard?  So, can there be a silent opera?  An opera where movement and gestures are seen, but when the performers open their mouths, only silence come out?  If one-half of opera is the singing and the uniqueness of voices, while the other half is comprised of extravagant costumes and sets that tell the narration of the story through dramatic display, can life be bifurcated any more than an opera?

And, yet, isn’t that what much of life is – of a silent opera, where we notice, recognize and even sometimes acknowledge the movements of another person, but rarely listen or hear anything about that person?  How well do you know the person sitting next to you, or your next door neighbor whom you have seen for over a decade?

We ask not questions that might query and squeeze out narratives otherwise unknown and ignored, and so long as we attend life’s silent opera, we only glean half of the story, if that.  And to others, likewise, we are life’s silent opera.  They mind their own business, and we ours; and that is what we call “privacy” and the heart of individualism, as opposed to “collectivism” or, in more picturesque settings, of a “community” – something which we fool ourselves into believing exists, anyway, but spending countless hours of valuable time searching the Internet and engaging in make-believe that Facebook is a “community”.

Then, of course, life’s silent opera often includes a medical condition, or some pain or trauma experienced or currently undergoing, but of which no one else is aware.  The movements are still there, and even the extravagant settings.  Perhaps a person walks with a limp, or as he or she sits down, an involuntary grimace shadows the expression; yet, no complaint is made, no sound is emitted, and so we are satisfied with half of the storyline.

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 the Federal or Postal worker’s job, life’s silent opera begins.

It is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, because – while no one acknowledges the “voices” and “sounds” of the medical condition, the “movements” are there, of the Agency beginning to realize less-than-acceptable performance; of using too much SL or extending one’s FMLA and remaining on LWOP; and while no one may say anything, the rumblings of Agency harassment and impending termination may be just around the corner.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is the next logical step in this extravagant setting of life’s silent opera, where even the main actors are no longer interested in whether the audience hears your voice or not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Disability: The constant fight against the negative

There are different ages in different times, designated by the dominance of one entity over another. Thus do we refer to the “Age of Dinosaurs”, or the “Ice Age”; the Age of Feudal Lords; the Age of Man, of course, is a general aegis under which everything falls, once the four-peddling quadrant of living beings became dominated by the bi-pedaling progenitor of carnivorous over-consumption that prevails from time immemorial to the present “age”.

Modernity had now become the “age of therapy”, where somehow psychiatry and therapeutic intervention has come to dominate the basic necessities of life.  Perhaps that is appropriate, as the daily stresses that govern the requirements of survival have mandated a vicious cycle of inestimable pain, both in terms of physical deterioration and cognitive dissonance, by placing an intolerable level of stresses upon daily living.

It is this constant fight against the negative that we are told, holds the key to a “happier” life.  Can change in perspective, of outlook and viewpoint, simply by inserting “positive” language games into the daily soliloquy of internal voices make such a difference?  If language were non-existent, and we became a species of grunts and grumbling noises (which, if you pause and listen around you, comprises much of what passes off as “conversation”, anyway), would we be anymore “positive” than what we are today?

What if the human vocabulary were to be reduced to only positive declaratives and adjectives that only revealed “good” things – would such expunging of negative concepts result in the net effect of everyone “feeling good”?  Or, does “feeling” precede language, such that one can be negative in one’s essence before expression of that negativity, such that thoughts are merely the natural consequence of a state of negativity, anyway?

Medical conditions tend to make liars of us all; for, we can go through life imagining that we are somehow the “exception”, and those “others” who are beset with medical conditions did something “wrong” to have been hit with a medical condition – until it happens to us, as well.  Suddenly, with the reality of pain, suffering, and the general human condition of illness, sickness and debilitating injury, we realize our mortality, our susceptibility to a viral plague, and our fragile existence.  How others view us also changes.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the constant fight against the negative become a daily struggle that often takes its toll, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may become a necessary next step in such a daily struggle.

The constant fight against the negative, itself, will have its impact, and it may be that the combination of the medical condition, the adversity shown by the Federal agency or Postal facility, and the negative internal thoughts that insidiously devalue and destroy, will come to a coalescence of intolerable stress.  When that happens, it is time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as another step in the constant fight against the negative.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Rhymeless Poems

When did it happen?  Certainly, by the time E.E. Cummings came upon the scene, with his oddity of typographical stream of consciousness, the acceptance of it had already come to fruition; or, perhaps it was in the translation of foreign such vehicles of linguistic amalgamations – when the first frustrated translator threw up his hands in disgust at a Japanese Haiku or a German verse of too numerous a compendium of throat-clearing consonants, that the advent of the rhymeless poem reached its fulfillment and pinnacle of public acceptance.  Or, maybe we just ran out of words.

Words are funny vehicles of communication.  With facial expressions, the scent of another, the movement of body or a sense of fear, anticipation and the adrenaline of life, one can discern an endless eternity of subtleties that, in their inexhaustible divining of messages sent and received, can further be conjoined, compounded and confounded by the essence of human complexity.  But words are limited to the meanings of each; and in the finite world of vocabularies existent, the rhyming words are that much more delimited.

It is not, as Wittgenstein would point out, something that we can just create out of whole cloth; for, there can be no “private language game” of one, as the very essence of it would be lost in the creation of a singular language game – communication, which is the purpose and teleological livelihood, cannot be justified if no one else understands the word, the greater concept, or the linguistic artifice intended.

Sure, sure – words are created everyday, especially in order to accommodate the growing technology of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.; and the abbreviated forms of linguistic devices necessitated by text messaging, as well as the diversity of communicating through emoticons, etc., only prove the point:  All such such inventions and convoluted conventions of acceptability have a finite basis in any algorithm created.  In the end, we are just left with more words, and the inability to find that perfect rhyme in a verse of poetic need.   And that is the point, isn’t it?

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker, having a medical condition is similar to reaching that point in writing a poem, when the rhyming word can no longer be found.  Life itself is like an endless verse of poetry; we flow along and rhyme from word to word, with a cadence found in maturity of experiences; then, one day, a medical condition develops, and the rhyming verses suddenly pause.  We don’t know what to do.  Search as we may, we cannot find that perfect word, or that acceptable cadence of living life.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may not be that discovery of the perfect word to end the silence of a rhymeless poem; it is, however, the last word in the verse of a Federal or Postal employee’s career, which may save the day from leaving the empty space blank, and instead, allowing for the next cadence in this continuing drama of verse-filled experiences, to take a leap into a future of security and new beginnings.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Bastion and Refuge

The former is a fortress of protective repose; the latter, a shelter from pursuit or danger; in either case, both provide for an escape from harm.  And there are harms beyond physical danger, which count as “real” threats.  One need not be a refugee standing in line at the borders of Hungary or Croatia, hoping to be given asylum enroute to Germany, France or the U.K. in order to be considered a person of persecutory targeting.

Whether physical harm or by psychological demeaning, the need for safe harbor should never be determined by comparative analogies of differing circumstances, but via the perception of our needs and levels of tolerance.

In logic, there is the fallacy of mereology, where the relationship of part-to-whole can lead to conclusions wrong in substantive form, and dangerous in terms of truth and validity.  One’s own circumstances may be “merely X” in comparison to the greater encompassment of tragedies taken as a whole; but that does not necessarily invalidate the reality of the desultory situation one must face, and the loss of compass, meaning and circumference of relational considerations in determining the future course of one’s life.

Medical conditions have a tendency to skew one’s perspective.  To continue on without change or repose, because the rest of the world in comparison to one’s own microcosmic universe is merely that much worse off, is to deny the reality of one’s own hurt.  For Federal employees and Post Office workers who feel that giving up one’s career and applying for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a step towards escaping to a bastion and refuge but one which fails to adequately compare to others in more dire circumstances, the need for a “reality check” is often required.

One needs to always start from the vantage point of the present.  What others do, where others are, and how comparatively one’s own situation is “merely X” in contrast to stranger-Y, are irrelevancies perpetrated upon one’s imagination through an overabundance of informational overload.  Once, there was a time when a local newspaper was the only contact with the greater world.  Now, with Smartphones and constant Internet access, we tap into the greater bastions and refuges of those in far-off lands.

But for the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who must confront the reality of the situation of contending with a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, the “here and now” is what must be faced, and whether one’s medical condition and the situation facing the Federal or Postal worker of today “merely” pales in comparison to others in unknown wastelands, is to concern one beyond the focus and centrality of concerns and problems encountered now, in real time, in the reality of one’s universe, today and this minute.

Other parallel universes will have to deal with their own internal problems; it is the bastion sought and the refuge take by the Federal or Postal employee of today, which matters in the most personal of manners, and what should concern the hurting Federal and Postal employee in the here and now.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: That Song That Won’t Go Away

There is that song, tune, jingle, etc., that sticks to the mind and refuses to go away; and the circularity of the anomaly is that, the more one tries to expunge the melody from one’s mind, the greater the force of staying power; it is only when we “give in” to the persistence, and “give up” trying so hard in suppressing beyond the subconscious, that there comes a time when we can give a sigh of relief and acknowledge, “Ah, it’s gone” — and upon that very instance, it comes right back!

Such persistence of pernicious placements in the universe of cognitive capillaries are not the only conundrums in life; the general rule to be extrapolated is that, the greater the resistance, an equal and exponential quantification of insistence will reverberate.

Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who try to avoid, suppress or otherwise ignore a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s positional capacity to maintain productivity and a semblance of denial, the greater force by the agency to increase the pressure, and the further exacerbation of the medical condition itself because of the added stresses of the agency, the Postal Service, etc.

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, is always an option and alternative that needs to be considered, if only to prepare for an exit and avenue out of the constant morass which fails to let up.  Prioritizing of life’s challenges involves taking affirmative steps towards a resolution.  If you don’t do it, other forces outside of your control will.  When it comes to your own health and well-being, it is the Federal or Postal employee who knows well when the time is ripe to begin the long process of preparing, formulating and filing for FERS or CSRS Disability Retirement benefits.

In the end, the song that just won’t go away is merely a melody of irritation; when it comes to the nagging deterioration of a medical condition, however, the stakes are much higher, and comparing the two is fine for metaphorical purposes, but not for the challenges which must be faced before the universe of reality and pragmatism.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire