OPM Disability Retirement: The Upper Limit of Havoc

Is there a limit?  Or, is Man’s capacity for havoc, mayhem, untoward devastation limitless and incalculable?

There is havoc on the personal level, and then on the societal level; and perhaps if we just turned off the news, refused to read anything but the local newspapers, then our bifurcated levels would merge into a synthesis of one.  You cannot even go to a 4th of July parade without fear of being shot at; you can barely make a living, nowadays, with inflation eating away at every penny, gas prices skyrocketing, and food prices soaring to unaffordable limits.

In the aggregate, do these all qualify as “havoc”?

Certainly, we do not have the havoc of Ukraine, where entire cities once beautifully landscaped are now devastated to mere images of rubble and mayhem.  Entire populations have disappeared; daily shelling from Russian advances have made survival and habitation impossible.  But wherever people live, in small towns and other cities — where none of what has been described has actually occurred — can one live like the proverbial ostrich with its head buried in the sand?

But then, of course, there is the personal level of havoc — say, of a medical condition.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where that medical condition has resulted in the serious contemplation of the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) — on a personal level, leaving aside the greater societal level — you have probably reached the upper limit of havoc in your life.

Contact a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin to lower the upper limit of havoc in your personal life by preparing, formulating and filing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application.

And as for the societal upper limit of havoc — of shootings and deaths; of the ongoing pandemic; of wars in other parts of the world, etc. — the buried head is often the only way to avoid the havoc, and perhaps ignorance is bliss, after all.

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 Worker Disability Retirement: Considering The Future

When considering the future, we look at the present and rely upon the past.  It takes an imaginative mind to see the future beyond our present circumstances.

That is often why a Federal or Postal employee who needs to file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits under FERS looks bleakly at the future: Suffering from a medical condition; Knowing that, presently, you cannot do your job; Assessing that your income will be reduced; Realizing that you are not the same person you were before the medical condition — these factors will be looked at in a negative way.

Yet, the future with a FERS Disability Retirement annuity allows for so much: Of focusing upon getting back your health; of being allowed to work in another job and making up to 80% of what your former Federal or Postal position currently pays; and while you may not be the same person as before, you have the opportunity to become a better you, adjusting to the health challenges before you, but without the stresses of trying to be as before.

Consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and consider seriously the future, bright and promising.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employment Medical Retirement Benefits: Answering

There are a wide-ranging set of rules when answering — whether to a question, a query or the need to rebut a determination of some sort.  Etiquette often plays a large part in social situations; or of common conventions and unspoken rules of interpersonal interactions.  Different situations call for tailored responses, and often we confuse one sphere of responsive need with another. “Do I owe an explanation” often depends upon the circumstances — the status between the query and the deposed; the relationship fostered; whether there would be consequences in failing to provide an answer, etc.  Then, of course, there is the issue of timeliness.

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, much of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a matter of answering questions — questions posed by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management on Standard Forms 3107 and 3112.  How one answers the questions; what answers are formulated; when to file a response; where to file the response — they are all relevant in preparing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Laws and set the path of “answering” not only in the right way, but in an effective manner in preparing, formulating and filing a successful Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The persistent tinnitus of life

The root word that contains a valid diagnosis of a medical condition, sometimes comes about gradually, others at a persistent rate of uncommon urgency; and whether by emanation of a serious, primary condition such as Meniere’s Disease, a brain tumor or cardiac elements impacting upon the heart or blood vessels, or mere residuals from a short-lived ear infection, the low, persistent ringing can interrupt and disrupt focus, concentration, attention to detail, and lead to depression, anxiety and panic that the idea of sounds being heard without the objective world recognizing or acknowledging them, can indeed be disturbing.

Tinnitus is a serious medical condition; yet, while we seek treatment for such a state of health deviancy, we allow the persistent tinnitus of life to surround, abound and confound us throughout.  The persistent tinnitus of life is almost an unavoidable juggernaut in modernity.   Yes, we can make the inane argument that, as we are the gatekeepers that can allow, deny or limit the access granted on any given day, who can withstand the active and passive onslaught of daily and onerous, oppressive bombardment of the multitudinous spires of high-speed jettisoning of such information overload on a daily, consistent basis?

From blaring headlines screaming while standing passively in a grocery store, to gas pumps that speak back to you with the selective entertainment headlines of the day; from unsolicited advertisements personalized to one’s computer based upon information provided and shared despite every precautionary steps taken, to mediums of electronic communication that are depended upon and mandated in this day and age just to remain employed; we cannot put a wall between the need for a soul’s quietude and the persistent tinnitus of life.  If not completely, then how about in some limited form?

The trick, then, is not to succumb completely, nor attempt to sequester one’s self in a hermitage of complete abandonment; rather, to selectively distinguish between information of useless human detritus from that of relevance and significance; in short, between Orwellian linguistic garbage and that which constitutes “wisdom”.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating 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 importance of limiting the persistent tinnitus of life applies to the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, especially by recognizing the distinction between truth and falsity, between objective facts and inaccurate innuendoes; for, in the end, the medical disability retirement application must contain the facts to persuade, the evidence to establish, and the legal arguments to consider, and in order to do that, one must resist the persistent tinnitus of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: Minding the ‘happiness principle’

Is there such a thing?  Certainly, enough authors, gurus and faith-healers have claimed it, packaged it and sold it as a commodity to be prepared, marketed and purchased.  Somehow, we are all gullible enough to believe in it:  Just as sorcerers of old possessed powers beyond human comprehension, so we hold on to the hope that such secrets of soothsayers mixing the concoction in a cauldron of expectations may boil over with fumes and aromas we can smell into oblivion.

That secret incantation; those mysterious sequence of codes (yes, which is why the Da Vinci Code was so popular – until it was made into a movie and the audience realized the farcical nature when bad literature is transformed into an ever worse media script); or perhaps it is a deal of Faustian proportions – of one’s soul for the hidden principle, the fountain of youth, the corridor down timeless ecstasy; instead, of course, in this mass-marketing world of consumer gullibility, we cling to the anticipation – despite all historical evidence to the contrary – that there exists a fortune-teller’s abracadabra comprising a happiness principle.

Principles are the foundational guidance for understanding the causal connections of events that occur in the objective world; first principles, as Aristotle liked to point out, are important in their revelatory powers to comprehend the operational mechanisms of this world of Being.  If you don’t know first principles, or the paradigmatic principles that operate behind the scenes – much like the Wizard behind the curtain —  then you will always only know that it happens, not why it does so.

And so we go through life, walking and wandering the streets, seeing others smiling, laughing and seeming to enjoy life, while we stew in the solitude of our private misery, perhaps outwardly attempting to feign such emotional brightness while inwardly decaying with each day’s tumult of angst and anxiety.

In minding the existence of the ‘happiness principle’, we are everyday falling into the statistical trap of that famous quip attributed to the 19th century Showman, P.T. Barnum, that there’s “a sucker born every minute.”  Even if everyday empirical evidence refutes the existential reality of such a principle, we nevertheless hope against fading hope for such a white knight in shining armor – that armor of protective fallacies based upon a nonexistent principle wrapped in the cloaking of hopes unearned and never to be attained.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are down in the dumps because of a medical condition, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the reality that one’s career may be cut short and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may be a necessity, must fight against the false hope that a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is the “be-all” and “end-all” of life’s miseries.

Medical conditions may continue to remain chronic; there will likely remain many challenges in the future; but the point of filing for Federal Disability Retirement is to allow for one to attain a plateau of hopefulness where one can make one’s health and well-being a priority, without necessarily minding the ‘happiness principle’ or believing in P.T. Barnum’s secret to success.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Life’s enjoyment

Are we ever taught that?  If the answer is in the negative, then from whence did we learn, attain or otherwise receive the tools to engage in the purity of sensation such that we could embrace it?  Did we become such through osmosis; from imprints; from learned behavior encompassing a lifetime of observations reinforced by wisdom’s refrain upon the blank chalkboard of our consciousness?  How does one “enjoy” life, anymore than learning to ride a bicycle, drive a car or care for a cute puppy (the last in the list, of course, need not be learned, but only be taken in by the natural affinity one has upon seeing the eyes of warmth, intelligence and fierce loyalty displayed, and is an exception and one of life’s conundrums to be accepted without questioning)?

There are many who walk about, who have absolutely no clue as to how one can, should or would have any enjoyment at all; and thus the total immersion in one’s work, or projects begun and always left unfinished – for, to complete them would mean that something ended, and that would force one into a reflection about the meaning, value and relevance of one’s activities, would it not?

One often hears the familiar refrain:  “I don’t know how to enjoy life; to me, unless I am busy with work, chores, updating my Facebook page, texting friends or jogging, I can’t be happy.”  Productivity is the measure of success; time set aside for vacations – despite still doing email, texting, messaging or other forms of “connectivity” as advertised to be the horror of all horrors if loss of it were to ever occur – is a concept that questions the very meaning of life’s enjoyment.  For, if one pauses for a moment to reflect:  Is the treadmill one is on merely for purposes of getting off for a moment, then to get right back on in order to find, again, a time to get off for another period of repose?

If so, how is that any different from Camus’ essay on the absurdity of life’s perspective as seen through the eyes of a French Existentialist, and specifically, of the Myth of Sisyphus and the condemnation by the gods to roll the boulder up the hill, only to watch it tumble down, then to engage in the eternal monotony of pushing it back up, only to observe its descent?

Life’s enjoyment, and the promise for tomorrow, was always meant to be more than that – of a daily sense of joy, a widespread sensation of contentment, and an ease of burden when once we were innocent children playing with but a ready laughter to give.  It is the truth that haunts, and especially the proverbial quip about the final straw that breaks the camel’s back.  With the persistent onslaught of stimuli unable to be resisted, we allow for the daily bombardment to deplete the little energy we have in reserve.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition not only intervenes in the ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, but further, depletes, diminishes and – ultimately — destroys even the potentiality to enjoy life and all of its complex presentations, the option to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits must be considered.

Yes, it is a long and arduous bureaucratic process.  No, going through the process will not enhance, for the short term, life’s enjoyment.  But in the end, necessary changes are called for – nay, compelled by – medical conditions that interrupt life’s enjoyment, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is to enhance that potential for the future enjoyment of life’s joys, while perhaps foregoing the short-term stubble of inconvenient interludes of angst-driven necessities.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Living versus being alive

There is a difference, is there not?  Of hummingbirds and cardinals bright against the backdrop of an evergreen; of a child running across the grassy knoll; then of aged men in nursing homes, shuttered away in corners where the drool of saliva unwiped reveals the tarnish of human unkindness; and of prisons rotting away with crowded cells for addicts whose sickness is considered a crime where, in ages past, opium dens and other vices merely preached in empty churches of the difference between mortal and venial sins unrehearsed.  Yet, we have somehow been duped into believing that “movement” is the basis of “living”, and its antonym, the lack thereof, constitutes something less than.

It is often when a medical condition overwhelms one with a debilitating illness, or a chronic state of pain; or, even of inconvenience in not being able to function as other “normal” people do, that it begins to “hit home”:  living is good; being alive, also, is worth it.  Perhaps the distinction is scoffed at by the healthy; as youth believes in the immortality and invincibility of foolhardiness, and often tests it to the detriment of failure and embarrassment, so wisdom may accompany an insight of some rather insignificant profundity – that we can boast well when everything is merely a hypothetical, as in ivory towers of university concepts, but we are all willing to compromise when the stark choices of life present themselves within limited contexts of concealed alternatives.

Being alive isn’t all that bad; living is preferable, but sometimes we have to accept the choices as presented by the reality of our unique and individualized circumstances.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates ending one’s career and shortening one’s desire for continuation in a chosen field, the recognition and admission as to the limitations imposed by one’s mortality, health and physical boundaries, as well as the impact of psychiatric conditions upon one’s ability to have the cognitive focus, concentration and attention to detail, will oftentimes require compromises that come close to the distinction noted – of living, versus being alive.

Perhaps the contrast has not swung in the pendulum of such extremes of options, but the feeling is certainly something that hits close to home.  For, continuation in the job will only further and progressively debilitate, such that you will come to a point of no return and end up simply being alive.  Living, as the preferable choice, is to take the steps in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, precisely in order to prevent that state of last option prior to the ultimate test of mortality’s humor – of merely being alive, as opposed to living.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Benefits: Immunity

It is both a state of protective legal cover, as well as possessing enough strength of resistance to counter the invective of marauding viruses invading beyond the walls of health-moats keeping out unwanted Trojan horse violators.

In the former meaning, it is often granted through agreeing to deliver the goods on others, and breaching the code of silence in stabbing unsuspecting co-conspirators in the proverbial backsides, but assuring survival of the weakest link in the chain of criminal conduct.  In the latter sense, one is told to “build up” one’s immunity, or to become inoculated in order to obtain it; and in a wider and more pervasive annotation of the word, it generally possesses the connotation of self-protection, egocentrism and self-centered focus against the world at large.

Further, when we talk about the “Teflon” effect, it is akin to having an immunity against criticism, of possessing that self-effacing sheen that never spoils, and a reputation that while others may walk about this world with soiled garments depicting poor circumstances and unfortunate trials of reduced means, that special person who has the “Midas touch” is the one immune from the everyday travesties that desecrate the rest of us.

Immunity is that which we seek – for ourselves, to protect against others, and always as a wall of separation in the event that the Mediaeval horrors of the Black Plague come back to haunt and destroy, so long as it fails to touch the inner sanctum of those who are blessed with the inoculation of life’s fortunes never to be interrupted.

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, the idea of immunity quickly becomes a fiction that only others can abide by.  At one’s weakest point of vulnerability – when the medical condition depletes, progressively destroys and become a chronic condition of perpetual misery – does the Federal agency and the Postal facility suddenly take away all semblance of immunity.

It is withdrawn; it is voided; it is disallowed until further notice.

Immunity is no longer part of the “deal” and, instead, full prosecutorial discretion is suddenly imposed.  No accommodations; punitive actions are suddenly initiated; and it is as if the grand Plague of former times has advanced with greater force and energized vitriol than ever, and the Federal or Postal employee is left with no choice but to file 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.

Thus is immunity often granted when one least has need of it – unless, of course, you are caught in the very act of involvement as a co-conspirator, in which case it is cloaked in a request to sharpen the knives to harm others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Means to an end

There is a difference, with a real distinction, between utilizing a process as a means to an end, as opposed to using people for the same purpose.  Such a concept should be a “given” – that logical posit which is unquestionably true, without the likelihood of being controverted, and generally accepted as a foundational principle in a caring society and community.  Yet, modernity has contravened such a belief, and truth and falsity have become relative concepts on the pendulum of linguistic elasticity where the spectrum of facts, beliefs and opinions have become an amalgamation of conflated confusions.

Have we lost the capacity to recognize and identify distinctions that are substantively different because of their self-evident meaning and relevance?  Do we no longer teach logic – whether of the fundamental Aristotelian syllogism, or the greater complexity by extension as delineated in Russell’s three-volume magnum opus, Principia Mathematica – such that we can no longer argue for even the basics when confronted by once-accepted paradigms that Kantian categorical imperatives allegedly put to rest forever and a day?

Yet, that final proverbial “day” has now passed, purportedly, and such statements have become mere fodder for dismissive philosophical trash-heaps characterized by “Mereology” and other third-rate, Oprah-like condescension of forgeries masking as genuine belief systems.

Sartre and Camus presented their cases; the former, through a meandering philosophical treatise some would characterize as “Heidegger-Lite” (the comparison can be made superficially on the titles alone – of “Being and Time” as opposed to “Being and Nothingness”) and where his plays allowed for greater coherence than any of his “serious” attempts, while the latter conveyed the angst of human repugnance to becoming “objectified” through novels depicting alienation and the dilemma of human value in the very activity of defiance and rebellion.

Man, we are told, should always be treated as an end in and of himself, and never as a means.  Yet, in this mechanized, electronic-ized, technologized society, where the Smartphone is King and the tactile engagement with one another is merely an afterthought, we have to recognize that such inane beliefs are now mere archaic formulations of former times, previous generations and outdated constructs no longer applicable.  The Angst of Existentialism has come full circle; that which we scoffed at because it originated from Continental Europe is no longer a Sisyphean mythology, but a reality that now consumes.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who feel the weight and burden of a medical condition, being treated as a means to an end becomes part of the process.

Past accolades of dedication and loyalty fail to leave a trail of concomitant interest and empathy of warmth; you find out quickly that others don’t give a hoot about distinguishing between “means” and “ends”; but in the end, it is precisely the means by which you end up treating a fellow human being, and the very filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application should in and of itself warrant treatment of being an “end”, and not a “means” – but such self-evident principles appear to no longer be the accepted normative value within a society that cries tears for the Oprah show, but not for the real human experiences of the person in your own office, sitting in front of you, a foot away, real, not imagined, not a picture on Facebook, but a person of real flesh and blood.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: Contented misery

Does the one who strives for happiness as a goal ever escape the bonds of contented misery?  It is the ecstasy of a moment’s glimpse, and then the feeling is gone; for, such is the fleeting nature of a sensation, and more of an encumbrance than a plateau of embraced attainment.  Can happiness be gauged, like a heart monitor, taking one’s blood pressure, or in that millisecond of pain in determining the glucose level through the pinprick of time?

Once, in generations past, when neighbors asked of one another the state of affairs, the politics of an era, and listened by that long-lost tradition of taking one’s hat off, lazily fanning one’s self in the sweaty afternoon of the blazing sun, people used to actually pause during the day without a watch or cellphone to check and recheck; and conversations took the meandering deliberation of voices undulating without the tense pressure of time, money and restrictive covenants imposed by society’s need to compel movement.

Happiness was not the goal, but the byproduct of social interaction.  Misery was reduced to the loss of purpose, violation of normative values and now, in modernity, replaced with contented misery.  No, it is not an oxymoron, for it is a state of Being accepted by most and recognized by few, and the duality of a seemingly conceptual friction is merely on its surface; for, such an accepted state of being exists precisely because we seek that which can never be attained but for a fleeting moment, like trying to grasp, catch and hang on to the flowing robe of an angel as that heavenly being floats by with a sprinkling of residues depicting the regrets of our lives.

We become contented with our own miseries, because we seek to attain a state of Being which can never be the essence of life, but merely the flux of sensations resulting from man’s worthy journey akin to a teleological embrace.  Worth is tied intricately and inextricably with projects; and though Heidegger’s quip that such human work and activity is merely to avoid the inevitable encounter with Nothingness, it is nevertheless driven by a need to advance, a value in accomplishment, and a sense of creativity in the process of what we do, how we achieve it, and where we are going in life.

Contented misery is to exchange all of that for a moment of sensation, extrapolated to an unattainable and unreachable state of Being, and that is why misery prevails within a plateau of accepted contentment.

Such is the state of Being for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the health condition prevents the Federal and Postal employee from performing the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  For, think for a moment – one’s career and mission in life is perhaps interrupted and impeded, and the Federal or Postal employee must consider alternatives, such as preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

But if a sensation is all that is sought, as opposed to considering the next steps into the future – such as an alternative vocation in the private sector after obtaining a successful approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management – then contented misery will have won.  On the other hand, if a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is successfully obtained, there is a chance that the future may hold further opportunities, and the restrictions of a contented misery may be replaced with that which Man was compelled to engage:  a project or activity beyond the sphere of mere sensations.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire