OPM Disability Retirement: Of Progress

It is doubtful that it actually occurs; for, every step forward in civilization always seems to be met with forces which revert back two steps, or perhaps even three.  As a general rule, things tend to get worse, not better.

It is possible that the pinnacle of human achievement has already been reached, and anything beyond is simply a downhill trajectory from the apex of that human point of achievement.  Or, is it merely a matter of perspective?  Is history a linear progression, where improvement builds upon improvement — or merely of wishful thinking?

Technology always promises that the next gadget will make our lives even better — happier, more fulfilling.  We know that not to be the case — or, should know.  Russell’s definition of “the good life” went as follows: “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”  There is much truth to that statement, but the problem in modernity is twofold: Love, once defined by human interaction in face-to-face encounters, has now been replaced by virtual contact; and knowledge, which was based upon “truth”, has been supplanted by insular opinions without any need for an objective basis.

In the end, of course, “progress” has nothing to do with technology, and everything to do with human thought — of how we value life and whether & how “love” is viewed.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows for continuation in the career of your Federal or Postal job, progress can only come about through the effective preparation, formulating and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), a benefits retirement plan which is processed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

And of progress?  Do not look for “love” from your agency; but of knowledge — seek and hire an OPM Medical Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement 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 Law: The Ill-Fitted Life

Have you ever worn a shirt which is ill-fitting?  When you first put it on, you have a sense that something is not right — whether it is too tight at the shoulders, or perhaps the stomach (at which point you pull that extended belly inward, fooling yourself that the contraction is actually your natural way of walking about, despite the uncomfortable manner of breathing); or, perhaps the collar leaves too much space and tightening the tie only folds and creases the gap, making your neck appear as though you are climbing out from a sewer drain.

You say to yourself, “Well, maybe it just needs to be worn throughout the day and will resolve itself”, and so you go out the door against your better judgment, ignoring the cautionary voice which keeps getting louder with each step away from the opportunity to go back and change.  So, you wear it throughout the day, and you are self-conscious.  You avoid people; you turn sideways when speaking to others, hoping that by making any visual perspective somewhat indirect, no one will notice that which you can plainly feel.  You go into the bathroom more than usual to view yourself in the mirror, and each time, you convince yourself that it looks fine; nothing out of the ordinary; no one will notice.

Such is the metaphor for the ill-fitted life.  You know it; you can feel it; and throughout, deep down, it is with you always.

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 your Federal or Postal job, you know in your heart of hearts that continuing in that job constitutes the very definition of the ill-fitted life.

Contact an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of turning back so that you can change out of that ill-fitting shirt, and initiate the process of preparing, formulating and filing 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.

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Delaying the Inevitable

In our “heart of hearts”, we already know.  Whether it is a broken relationship, an unrepairable mechanical device, the old air conditioning and heating system that has seen its last days — or of needing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS — we already know; and yet, we delay the inevitable.

Do miracles happen?  If we stop thinking about it, will the problem just somehow go away?  Out of sight, out of mind?  Human beings have that capacity, don’t we?

Whether it is beyond the next mountain, sometime after Labor Day, maybe in the New Year — or “sometime next week” where next week is always the week after; whatever the timeframe we allow for the delaying of the inevitable, we focus upon a hope which surely must someday encounter the reality of our circumstances.  The inevitable is just that — a reality which we must face; but the delay allows for an interlude and self-delusion to procrastinate the encounter with reality.

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, delaying the inevitable — of needing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — is often engaged in because of the great hassle in facing a dominant and dominating Federal bureaucracy.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who deals with OPM on a daily — nay, hourly — basis, and leave the inevitable to an experienced lawyer in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employees with Disabilities: Simplifying the Complex

Genius is to comprehend the complex; competence is to utilize it; adequacy is to merely get by with it; to be lost is to become mired in it.  The world is complex.  Balance in a life is complex.  Trying to survive in a complex world requires a balancing act that even the most skilled tightrope acrobat can barely accomplish.

Once, when a reporter asked a mountain climber who had successfully scaled the North Face of the Eiger “why” he does what he did, the reply was: “When I am climbing, my only focus is to survive.  I do not need to think of anything but the next step, the next hold, and to ascend inch by inch.  Nothing else matters but the moment.”

But that life could be lived within the paradigm of that philosophy — of “living for the moment.”  To do so, of course, would require setting aside the baggage from one’s past and ignoring the tumultuous considerations for the future.  For most of us, we simply cannot live like that.  In this complex world, we try and “get by” through simplifying it — bifurcating it into comprehensible and digestible components; attending to each one at a time; then starting all over again at the beginning of the next day.  To simplify the complex is a skill-set that one must attain in order to just survive.

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 complex universe of an administrative process like filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a bureaucratic morass that will often require legal advice, guidance, assistance and counsel.

It is the job of an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to simplify the complex.  Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law when preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, lest you find that the complex remains too complicated and the next mountain to climb has become too steep an obstacle, like the North Face of the Eiger.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal OPM Disability Retirement: Hope for tomorrow

“Tomorrow”, as a word written today, pointing to a dimension beyond; to a vantage and perspective not yet realized, and forever to be referenced by a future date yet unknown.  When read tomorrow, it leads to the next day; and when looked upon the next day, to the following day again; and in this eternal sequence of tomorrows, whether written today, tomorrow or the next day, it forever reminds us that hope lies not in the morass of today’s problems, but in the change of things yet to be realized.

Yes, yes — we all recognize the scoffing that often surrounded the political banner of that famous phrase, “hope and change” — but that is merely because the potency of words, concepts and formulated paradigms lose their efficacy once they are used within a public arena that turns into a campaign slogan. Hope is always for tomorrow; for, without tomorrow, hope remains fallow as the desert that once promised a fertile reserve but never realized the rivers that had dried up because of the changes of the subterranean shifts in tectonic quakes that others failed to predict.

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 hope for tomorrow will often include the preparation, formulation and filing of 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 and CSRS Offset.

Today is already filled with the overwhelming problems that beset any Federal or Postal employee with a medical condition; it is for tomorrow that an application for Federal Disability Retirement must be considered, and that is the ray of hope that includes tomorrow, and the day after, in preparing and formulating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application — today.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The misplaced comma

It is such an inconsequential mark in the universe of imprints that pervade, and yet so significant, but in a cloak of anonymity, when misplaced.  It possesses the same features as other punctuations of grammar — identical to the apostrophe, the same in mimicking as the singular quotation mark that is so prevalent; and the same shape is used in multiple diacritic writing systems common within Ancient Greek writing systems, and still survives apparently in the written systems utilized in Latvian, Romanian and Livonian.

It allows for clauses to appear, to become dependent and separated, and to confine into a separate meaning where the conceptual clause, whether dependent and leaning for support upon the main thought expressed, can convey an independence of meaning that adds and modifies the original idea.

It is the misplaced comma that makes one pause and ponder — why must we hesitate here?  Why did they put a red-light in the middle of the sidewalk?  Why does the sign say, “No passage” in the center of a store, and yet we can step beyond the red line and still proceed?

Does the misplaced comma apply in spoken language?  Take the following example: You are standing and talking to a friend, and the friend says: “Now, I want you to — no comma, here — know that tomorrow it is going — no comma, here — to rain— here, there is a comma — and therefore we have to have — no comma here — our umbrellas with us.”  Aside from rendering an irritating manner of speaking, it was all so unnecessary, wasn’t it?  We don’t have to apprise others of a misplaced comma unless it is actually misplaced, and when speaking as opposed to writing, it is not needed because the hesitation in speech itself tells us of the comma, whether misplaced or not.

In written form, however, the misplaced comma — again, aside from being a mere irritant — compels us to pause, to hesitate, to take a reflective millisecond — like coming upon a crack in the sidewalk when we were kids and thinking, “Should I skip and jump over it or just be brave and step on the crack?”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the pervasive feeling of one’s tenuous position in the workforce is often likened to a misplaced comma.  You no longer “fit” into the mission of the agency.

Others begin to hesitate when approaching you; there is “talk about” you that you sense, and there appears to be commas all around, bifurcating, separating, creating dependencies that seem to segregate and confine, like invisible fences — nay, commas – that have been placed all around.

It is then time to begin to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  Consult with an experienced attorney and replace the misplaced comma with an emphatic period that will end the misery that continues to deteriorate.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The limited reservoir

What if the reserve is limited, but we are never informed of it?  Perhaps the gods, fate or however the source of creation is defined, has placed a quota upon the extent of that which is expended, but we are never included in the corporate decision-making process – then, what?  Death, insanity or just plain debilitation and stoppage of activity; is that what we call “an unfortunate end”?

By “reservoir”, we normally mean that natural or artificial accumulation that is used for a specified purpose – the town’s water supply; a special cache of good wines; or perhaps, even that sixth player who is left sitting (a temporary “bench warmer” – though, perhaps in this climate of everyone being nice to each other, such terms are no longer considered appropriate) aside until a burst of fresh input is needed.

Concurrently, we expect that any depletion from the cistern is consistently replenished, except during periods of extreme droughts when we are forced to systematically make use of it with the justification that it is that for which we reserved it in the first place, and when times are better, we will take care in replacing that which seemed limitless just an eon ago.  And, why is it that when the main tank has been completely re-filled, we have a tendency towards excess and lavish spending, but when we hit the “reserve” indicator, suddenly we act with frugal caution and become responsible conservationist?

Is it because of our hereditary backgrounds as hunters and gatherers during a time of unknown and tenuous circumstances, when bodies hungrily stored fat in order to survive during those times of want and scarcity?

What if we are left with a limited number of words in life, and once expended, we become transformed into unnoticed mutes wandering across time, traversing the silence amidst others who have saved their reserve for future accessibility?

Life often “feels” like that – of having reached a point of depletion where the quota has been reached, the reservoir has been emptied, and the excess energy expired.

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 position, it often seems as if the reservoir needed in order to reach that golden mark when retirement age and cumulative years of Federal Service coalesce to allow for passing across the proverbial “finish line”, has been too early depleted.

Unfortunately, medical conditions hasten the reservoir of time, energy, patience and capacity to withstand the daily toil of workplace stresses and employment concerns, and there is often a need to access an alternate source of supply.

Federal Disability Retirement allows for that; it is a means to recognizing that the reservoir is limited, and that the medical condition has reached a critical point where replenishment is no longer an option.  Yet, even after a Federal Disability Retirement is achieved, the Federal and Postal worker can go out into the private sector and remain productive, and under the law, is allowed to make up to 80% of what one’s former Federal or Postal position currently pays, and still maintain employment and receive the annuity.

For, while the reservoir of one’s life and talents may indeed be limited, it is the limitation of self-imposed stubbornness in refusing to acknowledge that the medical condition has reached a critical point, that often defeats and depletes long before the fuel gauge indicates a warning light of that ever-blinking “danger” point.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Comfort Zones

For animals, they are often designated as “arc of flight” — that invisible periphery where violation results in immediate retreat or thoughtless stampede.  For humans, it is identified as one’s “space”, or “privacy bubble”, and while self-control and societal norms have curtailed and somewhat dulled the thousands of years of evolutionary refinements to reactive instincts, the palpable discomfort manifested, the shifting unease of taboos violated, and for some, an onset of panic and heightened anxiety are the resulting characteristics of Darwinian antecedents.

Comfort zones apply to the generic aegis of such unseen safety nets.  For most of us, it is comprised of predictability and the security which comes from repetitive monotony.  That is why, even to one’s detriment, one will cling to the known quantity, even if the attraction of the unknown outweighs with obvious benefits and accruals.  Like the frog which sits calmly in a pot of water ever increasingly rising in temperature, the person who walks about within the confines of one’s comfort zone is in danger always of violative harm.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the question of the flashpoint — the intersection of continuing in one’s capacity and the harm it inflicts by doing so — is a complex admixture of needs, wants, comfort zones and the desire to persist.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are a hard-working bunch who, in their collective stubbornness, refuse to give up.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset matters not; it is not the system, the benefits nor the years of service; rather, it is often the career itself and the involvement with the “mission of the agency”.  It is a sense of belonging, of being part of a group of individuals, an agency, a department, and always with a sense of purpose and sometimes with a clarity of future endeavors.

Having gone to work for these many years, the value of daily routine cannot be underestimated, and therein lies the essence of one’s comfort zone:  life and the foreseeable future.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a violation of one’s comfort zone.  It is tantamount to entering the arc of flight for a flock of sheep, or the privacy bubble at a social gathering.  But when a medical condition mandates the necessity of a step for self-preservation, any consideration for one’s comfort zone should be set aside, as the road to attaining the purposive end of an OPM Disability Retirement annuity may test the very fabric of invisible characteristics yet to be revealed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Attorney: Out to Pasture

There is a natural proclivity by the previous generation to resist the transference of authority before its designated time; the conflict arises not as to the inevitability of such change, but rather as to the appropriate context, procedural mechanisms instituted, and the care and sensitivity manifested.  And that is often the crux of the matter, is it not?

The brashness and lack of diplomacy and propriety; the insensitive nature of youth in trying to take over before paying one’s proper dues; and a sense that the young are owed something, without paying the necessary price through sweat and toil.  And the older generation?  From the perspective of the young, they are often seen as intractable, unable to face the reality of the inevitability of generational transfer; the ideas once seen as new and innovative are mere fodder for laughter and scorn.

Such treatment of those on their “way out” are often given similar application for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who show a need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Such employees are viewed as those being “put out to pasture”, and as something less than human, partial in their worth, lacking of completeness, and needing to be shoved aside to make room for the healthy and fully productive.

Resentment often reigns; the insensitivity of the approach of agencies in their bureaucratic indifference is often what prevails; and once the exit is complete, those who were once the warriors and conquerors of yesteryear, are mere vestiges of forgotten remembrances of dissipating dew.

Always remember, however, that there is another perspective than the one which is left behind.  For the Federal or Postal employee who is put out to pasture by one’s agency, there is new ground to break, fresh challenges to embrace.  The pasture that one enters need not be the same one that the former agency considers; it is the one which the Federal or Postal Disability Retirement annuitant plows for himself, and whatever the thoughts and scornful mutterings of that agency left behind, they now have no control over the future of the Federal or Postal employee who has the freedom to follow the pasture of his or her limitless dreams.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset: Times of Reflection

There is never a time when reflection should not be part of one’s arsenal of daily living; but too much reflection, during “down” times where interludes of rumination can become a compound for exacerbated worrying, may result in unnecessary turmoil, and ultimately of impotent inaction.

Having a medical condition will often force an acceleration of tumultuous worrying, for it impacts one’s future, questions the stability of one’s present, and magnifies wrong turns and decisions made in the past.  But it is the combining of a tripartite approach which provides for effective leadership in any matter:  evaluation and analysis of the problem; initiation of affirmative steps to be taken; and follow-up to ensure application and conclusion to a process begun.

Being in a purgatory of sorts, or suspended through indecision, can often be a seemingly harmless state of being, precisely because nothing is happening; but in the void of nothingness, the fact of failure in progress may be the greatest harm of all.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits when a medical condition impacts one’s ability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, is just such an affirmative step which has to be taken in order to secure one’s future.

Federal Disability Retirement is an administrative, bureaucratic process which can only be secured if the Federal or Postal employee initiates the process through one’s agency, en route to filing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  It has many stages; multiple potential pitfalls; and a continuum of administrative difficulties.  At each stage of the process, there are bureaucratic requirements which must be timely met.

There is, in life, a time for reflection, and a time for action; the former can be accomplished at the leisure of civilized society where culture, creativity and a coalescence of classics can converge; but the latter must be through sheer will in the context of need, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset is a combined effort of both reflection and action, where the former spurs the latter into fruition.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire