Medical Retirement for FERS Employees: The Person You are Not

We are, of course, both the person of whom we present, as well as the person we are not — not known as; not publicly announced; not revealed.  Much of the private life of those we publicly admire or hold up on pedestals turn out to be ugly and better left alone.  Things which have been hidden and concealed are done often for good reasons: the light of public display is not where the creepy-crawlies of one’s life should be.

The old adage is normally true: If you want to admire a public figure, don’t go looking under the rocks and closets, lest what is revealed might dampen your enthusiasm of admiration.  Yet, for the ordinary person, the person you are not is merely that part of you which not too many are familiar with, but which reveals the greater essence — of hobbies unknown; of kind acts not publicly shared; of a remarkable past undiscovered, etc.  We are never the person “just” as we appear.

That is why, for Federal and Postal employees 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 tawdry and uncaring attitude of one’s Federal agency or Postal unit when a person needs to file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits under FERS is often quite hurtful.

For, to be relegated as merely that person who wants to get a “benefit” while ignoring the lifetime of dedication to work and trying to do the best one can while struggling with a medical condition is to view the person in a one-dimensional way.  OPM has a tendency to do that — of treating you as the person you are not, especially when they deny you and characterize your application in a way that should not be.

Contact an OPM Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of getting your retirement benefits approved so that you can go on your way to being the person you are, and not the person you are not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer 
OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer

    

FERS Long Term Disability Benefits: The Edge of Doubt

It is that place where one teeters; of that gnawing sense and feeling.  It often occurs with one’s faith — of an abiding doubt, healthy in order to keep the questions active and relevant.  For, as one grows older, one often becomes entrenched in beliefs of yesteryear merely because we held them the day before.

It is in youth where the incessant questions arise; middle age, when the weariness of unanswered queries exhausts us to a point where we simply give up; and in old age, when we arrogantly believe that wisdom somehow occurs through osmosis.  The edge of doubt is the point where we must force ourselves to look out over the precipice and consider the options.

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 edge of doubt is when you recognize the impact upon your ability and capacity to continue in your career.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law and consider whether or not the edge of doubt may require you to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Perfecting life versus living perfectly

It is the latter which most of us do, or pretend to do, and which stunts the capacity to engage in the former.  And so that which we should be doing (the former) is prevented because of that which we are already doing (the latter), in a never-ending cycle of self-destruction.

Those Internet internecine attempts which include Facebook and Instagram don’t help in these matters, and perhaps exacerbate them exponentially.  For, in both cases, they encourage each one of us to “appear” to be living perfectly, when the whole endeavor of human existence should be a striving towards perfecting our lives — i.e., of recognizing the imperfect status of our current condition, having a paradigm towards which one strives in order to correct those defects, and thus towards the “end” of this prosaically-described “journey” of sorts, to be able to declare that “perfection” was somewhat achieved.

But — no — instead, we create an appearance, a facade, a dissembling image of one’s appearance and put forth a self-portrait of an already-achieved perfection: The perfect happiness; the perfect outing; the perfect couple and the perfect participle.

The origins of philosophy (i.e., Plato, Aristotle and those who followed) were always concerned with the differentiation between “Appearance” and “Reality”; in modernity, the two have been conflated, where one’s appearance is the reality of one’s existence.  By commingling concepts which were once clearly bifurcated, we prevent the capacity of human beings to strive to be better, to grow and mature towards greater fulfillment of one’s potentiality.

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 is a familiar concept — of hiding one’s imperfections in an environment that demands perfection daily.  Medical conditions and their impact on a person’s life — these are considered “imperfections” in a society that demands nothing less than perfection.  Thus does the targeted harassment begin — to “punish” the very person who needs support, empathy and understanding, instead of the constant barrage of unneeded animosity.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may not, in and of itself, be the perfect solution; but, as imperfect a solution as filing a Federal Disability Retirement application may seem, the appearance of an imperfect solution may be preferable than the perfection expected but unattainable in a society that appears to be perfectly fine with imperfections pervasively perfected by appearances of concealed imperfections.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: The parade that fades

Parades are often forlorn events.  The pomp and circumstance that brings forth the loud serenade of trumpets, drums and cadence of disparate groups; the sequence of human colonnades marching to the beat of rhythmic blares where medals gleam in the glint of sunlight’s twilight; and when the speeches end and the parade that fades leaves but for the leaflets that once announced of its impending arrival, the hearts that once fluttered in anticipation of the marching band that lost its footing may but be a glimmer of tomorrow’s hope.

Parades celebrate, and the participants engage the public eye to put on a show of appreciation, but do they voluntarily come together, or are they merely compensated workers ordered to appear?  And when once the parade fades, what happens to those left behind, of the grieving widows and children left orphaned, and the pinning of medals that sang the mournful hollow of a priceless life?

Other lives march on; it is the forgotten ones that inhabit an earth that continues on in haunting groups of voiceless sorrow, for years on end without the recognition noted but for that singular day on the parade grounds, where glory once revived and then soon forgotten.  Much of life is like that, isn’t it?

Like a parade that is put on, lasts for a day, or perhaps merely a part thereof, and then soon to be forgotten except for memories that are seared with a grimace and graceless utterances of voices once remembered and now merely a fading vestige, if that.  What was the fanfare for?  Do we even remember? What was said in the speech now faded but for glory’s once grand applause?  Do we even care?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker’s attempt to continue his or her career because the progressively worsening medical condition itself is preventing one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job — the end of one’s career may be likened to the parade that fades.

That sense of belonging; that feeling that life’s cadence included you in the marching band of the colorful parade; of being part of a team, with a sense of coherence and purpose; but like all parades, the day’s end ultimately comes.  Whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the sinking feeling that the parade that fades may mean that there is no longer the trumpet’s blare or the drumbeat of life’s cadence is simply a fear within that does not reflect reality.

Tomorrow, the sun will still shine and the birds will yet sing; the grounds will still be there, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is merely changing the venue of where the next parade will be held, thus replacing the parade that fades at the end of this day alone.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: The price paid

That is the question, isn’t it?  In this monetary-based system of thought, we always ask that one, and the follow-up:  What was the price paid, and was it worth it? Are the two questions and issues divisible, or are they inseparably linked like Siamese twins sharing a vital organ?

As to the first, the question can encompass an entanglement of intricate complexities that flow from the second — when, in fact, it is a simple question requiring merely a fundamental answer.  We ask first, What is the price paid?

We begin to hem and haw and hesitate:  Well, it was really beautiful and I’ve always wanted it and it was worth it because it brought back the warmth of childhood memories and….  Once such explanations and justifying delineations occur, you have conflated the second issue into the first; for, the first requires a simple and straightforward answer:  the dollar-amount; a monetarily-objective response; a unit from a designated numerical set, etc.  Thus: “I bought X”.  “How much did you pay for it?”  “It was priced at X-dollars, and I purchased it for Y-amount”.

Then, the inevitable follow-up:  “Was it worth it?”  It is this second question that evokes a conflation with the first; for, such a query is not so simple inasmuch as it involves psychology, emotion, rational and irrational underpinnings, and the subjective encompassment of often-unexplainable attachments.

The worth of a thing may not parallel the price of it; for, what what paid for it can spread throughout a spectrum of differentiating circumstances:  Perhaps one got a bargain; maybe the seller didn’t realize the true market value and vastly underpriced it; or, it may be that a person needed to do a “quick sale” because he needed the cash, and was willing to part with it at a basement-bargain price, etc.

Take the following hypothetical:  At an auction, a painting is bid upon.  It is a rather unassuming piece that depicts a woman, fully clothed, with a slight smile.  It is not an exceptional painting, and is expected to be auctioned off for about a thousand dollars.  The bidding begins, and very quickly, it becomes clear that primarily 2 individuals are vying for the painting — one, a very wealthy individual; the other, a middle-class bloke barely able to meet his monthly debts.  The bidding exceeds the expected price to be gained by the auctioneer, which makes him happy beyond description.

This is the cake that dreams are made of for the auction house that expects very little:  Two or more individuals who are willing to pay a price exceeding the monetary worth of the item.  After a series of back-and-forth bids, the middle-class bloke wins the bid — at $20,000.00.  When later asked about it, he replies: “The painting reminds me of my mother.”  Bankrupt and considered a fool by everyone in the neighborhood, he nevertheless feels for the rest of his life that it “was worth it”.

Now, turn the hypothetical around and let’s say that the wealthy man won the bidding.  When asked about it, he simply stated: “Oh, I was just bored.  I plan on trashing the painting when I get home, but it was exciting to just rob someone else of his desire and pleasure.”  In either case, was the price paid “worth” it?

That is the question that Federal and Postal workers have to answer when determining whether or not to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset — the price of one’s health; whether it is worth continuing in a job or career that persists upon a track to demoralize, deteriorate and destroy one’s health; or, whether a reduced income at the price of being able to focus upon one’s health may be “worth” it.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM itself has a price — of the long wait, the complex administrative process and the stress of waiting; but like the painting being bid upon at the auction house, it is always the balancing of the price paid and the worth of the gain that must be considered when preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Suffering

It is something that cannot be avoided; it is part of life, of living, of engaging.  The history of it existence is palpable; the tactile images throughout can be experienced in images painted and words described; and the various religions embrace it – some as a foundation that allows for forgiveness to alleviate that felt by others; many, as a foundation to explain it away; and still others, to train a disciplined life in order to avoid it, or at least to contain it.

Whether by meditation or medication; through enduring or embracing; or perhaps even by enjoying some form of it in a masochistic manner; it is there because the body, mind and soul are sensitized in the evolutionary process of advancement to remain heightened for survival’s sake.

Suffering is part of living; without it, we imagine that life would be a constant cauldron of endless merriment, when in fact its absence would spell the very definition of misery and decay.

Throughout history, sickness, death and suffering encapsulated an apt description of life, whether human or otherwise.  Thus did Thomas Hobbes admonish the world in his seminal work, Leviathan, where the famous passage describes the natural state all human beings find themselves in until the rescue by political community or social contract, that the life of man is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

But whether by social contract elevating the aggregation of humans into defensive communities envisioning civilization and cultivation beyond the penury of life’s misgivings, or some utopian belief that can result in avoidance of that which is inherent to us all, the fact is that suffering can at best be contained and limited, but never extinguished or eradicated.  Life famine, viruses, cats, weeds, moles, droughts and diseases – we can inoculate against and quarantine as best we can, but they keep coming back and rearing their heads up even after exhausting their nine lives and filling in the holes they have dug.

Suffering is, in the end, that which is there for a purpose – of allowing for feelings; of contrasting the opposite of ecstasy and joy, without which there would be no comprehension nor appreciation, as “being” cannot be understood without its flip-side, “nothingness”.  Thus, the question must always come down to:  Not “whether” it must be, but to what “extent” it needs be.

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, it may well be that you have reached a pinnacle point of suffering such that preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, becomes a necessity.

Every Federal or Postal employee, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, must make the “right” decision for him or her self, as to the timing, the substantive event and the future securitization for livelihood’s sake.  It is, in the end, suffering itself and the medical condition that overwhelms, that often determines such a course of action, and that is a very personal decision that each individual must decide in the most appropriate of circumstances.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Byzantine Iconoclasm & Compromise

It was a period in history when religious images and icons were considered heretical.  It resulted not merely in the rejection of new such images, but in the active and aggressive destruction of venerated art, sculptures, etc., and the persecution of those who created or owned them.  The term itself has come to represent an unyielding, irrational stance, unmoved by rational discourse, and even more to the point, aggressive in stamping out all opposition.

“Compromise”, on the other hand, has come to represent the ability and capacity to accept something other than the original starting points of two or more conflicting views, victims or vantage vats; for some, it reflects weakness and meekness in the willingness to capitulate beyond principles, setting aside cherished beliefs for the sake of concession and agreement.

What happens when an individual possesses the personality characteristics of an iconoclast, but circumstances dictate flexibility for compromise? Beliefs are great to have; that, and a dime, won’t even buy a cup of coffee, anymore, and it is this conflict which often arises which tempers the spirit of human pursuit and happiness of infernal contentment.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition impacts one’s capacity and ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the internal conflict between enduring the pain and turmoil of one’s medical condition, and the need to keep one’s commitment to family, employment and self-sacrifice, come to the fore, and is often reflective of the historical clash and intersecting conflict between Byzantine Iconoclasm and Compromise.

We often think that our own situation, in its microcosmic relevance, has never been known, unlikely to have been experienced, and stranger than fiction of verse.  But as Aristotle often notes in observing the physical universe, there is a “substratum” concealed by the elements merely seen by the observing eye, which continues on imperceptibly whether we know it or not; and for humans, that underlying unchangeableness falls under the generic aegis of the “human condition“.

Often, changing circumstances require a fresh perspective and a willingness to re-prioritize our lives.  For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who must face the very-real prospect of a change in career and future goals because of a medical condition, the first order of priority must be one’s health and attending to his or her ongoing medical condition.

Once that has been established, then one must ask, Is continuing on in the same way — like the Byzantine iconoclast of yesteryear — impacting my health?  If the answer is a truthful, “Yes”, then one must consider preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to attain a state of circumstances where one’s health is not progressively being destroyed by one’s employment.  For, in the end, compromise from a prior set of circumstances is not indicative of weakness or concession of principles; it is merely to embrace the wisdom of ages long ago lost, and to recognize that those images destroyed in the fervor of Byzantine Iconoclasm never extinguished the true essence of religious belief, but merely the product of human creativity in service to the principles of beauty and art.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: Excision & Expiation

Sometimes, the former must be engaged in order to save the whole, lest the lesser segment spreads to infect the greater; while in different circumstances, of contexts involving spiritual offenses, the latter may suffice through acceptable acts of contrition or penance paid through rote words of sincere atonements.  In other instances, the act of the latter may account for the former, while the satisfaction through the former may be sufficient to complete the latter.

Excision is to surgically sever and remove, and then to discard and alienate from the body of which it was once a part; while expiation is to similarly remove, but which can still remain as a part of one’s history of misdeeds.  Both are acts engaged in for purposes of atonement beyond the present state of existential negativity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who, despite the ongoing flagellation compounded by one’s Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service upon the aggregation of negativity impounded through one’s deteriorating medical condition, continue to endure the proverbial adage that when it rains, it pours, consideration should be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

In many ways, filing for Federal Disability Retirement is tantamount to the duality of acts involving excision and expiation; for, like the former, approval of a Federal Disability Retirement annuity by OPM results in a separation from that very body of which the Federal or Postal employee was once a part of; and like the latter, it resolves the ongoing conflict and struggle between the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, and the Federal entity or the U.S. Postal Service, in terms of work left undone, dissatisfaction because of lost time, excessive use of Sick Leave, or exhaustion of FMLA benefits, etc.

From the perspective of the Federal agency or the Post Office, excision is the preferred methodology, as the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service can then replace the separated employee with someone else.

From the perspective of the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, the approval of a Federal Disability Retirement benefit amounts to an expiation of sorts, as rendering a benefit to make it all worthwhile, for the years of dedicated service and sacrifice given, and a recognition that those achievements and accomplishments have not been for naught, despite what the last remaining years where deteriorating health and progressively debilitating medical conditions wrought upon one’s reputation and employment relationships.

Excision and expiation; they are the dual forms of atonement for the Federal or Postal employee who takes the affirmative steps in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, when it becomes apparent that loss of physical or mental capacity in the face of impending health conditions is not a basis for surrendering to the inevitable vicissitudes of what life brings to the fore of man’s future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Whispers of Time

Sometimes, in the deadened silence of night, thoughts beyond our daily routine creep into the shadows of the subconscious; or, in the quietude of rustling leaves, a harkening which is lost but for the whispers of time.

Is it true that there are signs, voices, foreboding elements around which warn of impending events beyond the pragmatism of our technologically-driven society?  Did epochs of yore possess knowledge beyond what we discover on Google?  Put that way, the simple answer is, “yes”; but if characterized as engaging old spirits through acts of necromancy and boiling bones, hairs and organs in a cauldron of witch’s brew, then our doubts begin to ponder.  Is there a “middle ground” — of recognizing that animals have an innate sense of danger which we have lost, or where the scent of impending prey pervades, which we once may have possessed a heightened alarm for, but which society has stamped out through the callous indifference of civilized comportment?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who wait for finality of judgment prior to beginning 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, it may be that the Federal or Postal employee shuns and casts aside that quiet “inner voice” which tells one, “This cannot go on.”

We tend to do that.  Man has an unlimited and vast capacity for self-justification and rationalization, often to the detriment of self.  And that quiet voice of foreboding need not be something mysterious or even sinister in timeless sorcery; it could merely be our bodies telling us that, whatever hope our treatment modalities may be holding out for, the inconsistency between the medical condition and the positional duties required by the Federal or Postal job can no longer be maintained.

Truth is always magical, if not bluntly pragmatic; and while the days of magic have been lost when once the whispers of time succumbed to man’s landing on the moon, where romances and imagines faces converted to mere dust in the dustbin of history, there still remains room for the person who stops, listens, and pauses, if not for the oncoming train warning of impending catastrophe, then at least for the quiet warning signs that continuing in the same vein may not be the wisest of paths to take.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire