FERS Medical Retirement Law: Of Better Times Before

We like to think that; of filtered memories downstream where the pond is pristine and pure.  But the question remains:  Were they?

Romanticization of “before” is a capacity uniquely human.  Today, we even think of better wars before — of World War II, and even of that “Great War to end all wars” — WWI.  To have endured and survived The Great Depression was to have experienced some grand period of American history;  for, of better times before is of a time where communities were intact, children didn’t have the traumas of modernity, and life didn’t have the complexities of Smartphones, Facebook, Instagram and computerized conundrums.

Of better times before — before what?  Before when?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a health condition, the “before when” is answered quite easily:  Before the onset of the medical condition.  And the “before what” is also discernible:  Of that time before when the medical condition was manageable, and it did not interfere with the ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal Service job.

Is it true — of better times before?

It depends upon the time period; but certainly, when health was thoughtlessly taken for granted, there were better times before, and in the comparative “now”, the way forward is to consider preparing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application, and have the time to attend to one’s health in order to reach that dreamland of better times before.

Sincerely,

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

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: The Comparative Perspective

It is a game which is played throughout history — of comparing one’s own situation to a projected, often inaccurate portrayal of “the other”, whether that other is the neighbor across the street, the stranger whom you see sitting in a cafe drinking coffee, or some celebrity who is obsessively followed for their seemingly outrageous lifestyle and unpredictable tantrums of demands and pubic displays of extravagance.

There are the traditional responses, of course, of: “The grass always appears greener on the other side of your fence”, or that you can never know of another’s life unless you walk in his/her shoes, etc.  But such pablum responses never stop the game that is played — of providing a comparative perspective by judging, on a superficial level, the more appealing life of someone else.

But what if that “someone else” was comparing his or her life to yours?  What is it that they would “not know” but would make a great difference “if only they knew”?  How about a medical condition which you have been masking for many years, which has taken a tremendous toll upon your life?

Indeed, that is often how Federal and Postal workers continue to work despite a medical condition slowly and incrementally destroying the health and well-being of a Federal or Postal worker’s life.  The comparative perspective is often the wrong one, precisely because the comparison itself is made on the most superficial of levels.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement if your health has deteriorated to such an extent that any comparative perspective would open up the eyes of the person making that comparison — with the realization that it is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

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.