Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Selfishness

Many are taught concerning the virtues of selflessness; that in a society of greater complexities, that is often a good thing.  But there are times when the opposite must be considered:  of selfishness, when weighing the relative import of contending values.

Now, one might begin such a discussion with the wink of irony:  “Doesn’t it depend upon how we define the terms, to begin with”?  Yes, it does; for, relativity in ethics, while denied by many with a religious “bent” because it is assumed that everything relative cannot be universalized, and as we are all under the misguided Kantian notion that if anything is less than a universal, it must by necessity be invalid.  Yet, if you read Aristotle correctly, it is always from the particulars by which universals develop, and in that respect, it is the very foundation of Truth.

“Selfishness”, at some point, in specific circumstances, can be a “good” thing.  The selfless individual who has disregarded his or her own well-being in pursuance of the good for others, at some point must return to the care and maintenance of the self, if only to conserve and persevere in order to fight for another day.

Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal Service workers are a prime example of the selfless devotion to duty, to responsibility, and a sense of carrying out “the mission” for the agency — often at the expense of one’s own health.   When the time comes, however, when the Federal or Postal employee has sacrificed his or her own health in the process of working to death one’s self, for the furtherance of the agency’s mission, then it is time to consider becoming somewhat “Selfish”, and in that context, selfishness is a “good” thing.

Contact a FERS Disability Retirement Attorney at the point when selflessness becomes a necessary transformation into selfishness, and begin the process of initiating a Federal Disability Retirement application under the FERS system, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to embrace the ultimate concept of self-contradiction:  Of the selfish selflessness.

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.

 

Medical Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: Isolation

It is a state which many declare to be desired; but, in reality, human beings are social and political animals (the latter term applied in an Aristotelian sense), and a true state of it becomes an insular havoc of desperate insanity.

Isolation is used in penal institutions as a means of punishment.  Whether it has a rehabilitative effect is questionable, but the policy is generally to impart upon the prisoner a stripping and depriving of a needed human experience — that of contact with others — and by punishing the individual, to allegedly “motivate” the offending party into behaving in an orderly manner in the future.  However, human beings possess great forces of creativity.  Stories from the Guantanamo facilities reveal a wide range of ingenuities in communication methods employed when “solitary confinement” is imposed upon multiple individuals.

In the end, the policy of isolation is often ineffective, and merely serves as an extreme measure of punishment which motivates not the human appetitive sense of behavioral modification, but cuts deeply into a profound sense of resentment and hatred.

In the general population, we have come to fool ourselves into believing that a blinking screen can replace actual human contact.  The worldwide pandemic has revealed the fissures of such thinking, and has tested the extremes of isolation.

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 under FERS, the sense of isolation can be felt from not being able to engage in the multiple essential elements of the position — of participating in conferences; of engaging with other coworkers; of missing time from work because of doctor’s appointments, etc.

Further, actual isolation is often exaggerated in the mind, where the mental isolation becomes disproportionately viewed and exponentially harmful to a person’s self-image.

Contact a retirement attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider the option of filing a FERS Disability Retirement application.  As isolation is the harbinger of a future yet uncertain, FERS Disability Retirement may be the ray of hope which opens the jailhouse door to a mind which is willing to be motivated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The realization

In most cases, it is not as dramatic a moment as we all tend to think; it is rarely “The X”, as in the penultimate juncture of enlightenment where the “The” is prefatory to the noun, as opposed to a more general article such as, “A realization” — meaning, one among others, or just another one amidst many.

Most such moments are not “Aha” ones, where there is a sudden and profound revelation, like the proverbial Road to Damascus experience or the Gestalt shift in thinking.  Instead, the realization of X is more often than not subtle, incremental and a slow progression towards an acknowledgment, observable and quantifiable over a period of many months or years.  Whether we make it into a momentous period, a critical juncture in our lives, or as one of many tokens of change often depends upon how we view each segment that results in a modification of a life judged in its totality.

Aristotle’s belief is that a person’s life cannot be fully evaluated until much later in life.  Indeed, what do we make about a person’s career, reputation and overall “life” when a critical mistake is made at the beginning — say, in the early years of youth when one is more susceptible to the vicissitudes of emotional upheavals and pursuance of desires without thought?  Or, of the fool who, in old age, does something similarly rash?  Do we make an evaluation at the eulogy and excuse the one bad bit?

Something like, “Now, we all knew X.  He was a great man.  He had, of course, that one incident, but …”.  Is it better to have the negative incident occur early in life so that you can rectify and redeem for the remainder?  Or, is it more acceptable and palatable to live an exemplary life, then commit an error in later life so that you can excuse it as the “folly of age”?

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 the Federal or Postal employee’s job and duties, “the realization” that something has to change will mostly come about over a period of time — incrementally, perhaps even subtly, and then one day there is a determination that has to be made that priorities of life need to be reordered and modifications to a life of struggle necessitates modifications.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the necessary next step after such a realization.  Preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application is the natural course of events once the Federal or Postal employee recognizes that change must occur.

Consulting with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is also a good next step — for that points to the realization that not all things in the universe are known, and some things may need some further guidance in pursuit of a gargantuan effort required to go up against a behemoth of a bureaucracy — OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Not the storybook tale

It has been widely commented upon, by naysayers, essayists and various commentators upon life’s winding course of pessimism, cynicism and some rarefied sprinkling of optimism, wherever the “isms” will take us: we are crippled from an early stage of life by being fed Fairytales and Fanciful Fantasies, and then pushed out the door to deal with the reality of the real world, which are NOT like the storybook tale.

Why the disconnect?  Wherefore the disjunctive between what we grant to our children in contrast to the objective world?  Do we witness any of the other species in this Kingdom harm with such aplomb their youngsters – where birds “cruelly” push their young tots out of the nest to force flight even if not quite ready; where predators abandon their herds and hoards to survive on their own – by first saying: “Now, now, kids, I am going to tell you a lie, then have you live in the early phases of your life only to be disappointed by the reality of what you will be facing”?

No, the human species is one of a kind; but then, we have the capacity of linguistic elasticity – a tool that others are (fortunately) not weighted down by.   Isn’t that the story of politics – of saying things that will never come to fruition, promising acts that cannot be accomplished, and declaring facts that are merely alternatives to objective reality – just so that votes can be accumulated and enemies can be identified?

It is well that human beings can fantasize and live in an imaginary world, because otherwise we would all go insane if we had to encounter the reality of the objective universe around us.  What of Marx’s dictum that religion is the opiate for the masses – if true, where are we today, inasmuch as religion is no longer a cohesive foundation in most people’s lives; and, if false, what has replaced it as the dulling effect for survival’s continuation?  Is it the flag, the Constitution, the hope founded upon a Lottery Ticket, or perhaps the greater indication of that which is not an analogy or a metaphor, but the reality of heroin addiction that is a growing menace?

Perhaps, after having tried everything else, the opiate itself is not just some proverbial reality, but the real thing itself, and that is why the problem grows exponentially.  Perhaps, we have come to a point where we realize that the fairytales told and the reality faced cannot be reconciled.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have had a long and productive career, but where medical conditions have more recently impeded, debilitated, and ultimately prevented the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, perhaps the realization has come to the fore that the storybook finish line doesn’t quite match up with the reality of one’s present situation.

That’s okay.  You’ve earned the right to view reality “as it is”, as opposed to the fond remembrances of fantasies and fairytales.  Yet, don’t become too entrenched in a negative perspective; for, the objective reality is more likely somewhat involving greater balance, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is not the end of one’s professional career, but merely another beginning.

Many have gone on beyond a Federal Disability Retirement and started new careers, initiated fresh vocations and enjoyed a second or third phase of life. It is somewhat like a marriage, a divorce and then a remarriage. Perhaps it is not the storybook tale written by some, but it can be one that is written by you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Federal Employment: The Methodological Approach

Many call in a frenzy of confusion, admitting openly of being lost and not knowing where to begin.  That is always the starting point, as even Socrates conceded — of the hope of knowledge beginning upon a recognition of not knowing (though, if one looked carefully and scrutinized the face and eyes of the old sage, one probably gleaned a twinkle of sly naughtiness).

Philosophy began in ignorance, and from there, attempted to ascertain a methodology of approaching problems in a systematic way, in order to overcome the shortcomings of man’s frenetic inclinations.  Identifying and ascertaining a knowledge of a criteria, a system of approaching problems, and an applied methodology of solving, is the preferable way than that of plugging holes where leaks appear.

Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need 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, it is often necessary to formulate a sequential strategy at the outset, before embarking upon the dark abyss of preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Should certain information be gathered prior to completing the standard forms?  Yes.  What forms are “central” to a Federal Disability Retirement application?  Certainly, all of them, but if timeliness is an issue and the 1-year Statute of Limitations is suddenly upon the Federal or Postal employee attempting to file, then the SF 3107, Application for Immediate Retirement, including Schedules A, B & C, as well as SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, must all concurrently be prepared for immediate submission.

Identification of the essential as opposed to the bifurcated peripheral must be realized; compilation of the proper information, and the laws governing supplementing a Federal Disability Retirement application is essential for a successful outcome.

In the end, as it turns out, Socrates knew much more than he revealed; but the sly sage was wise enough not to engage in the solipsism of later years, like Descartes and the French Existentialists, and by recognizing that lack of knowledge and the admission of such vacuity is the first step towards wisdom, he was able to initiate the prefatory questions in the quest for knowledge in a world devoid of both.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employees Disability Retirement Benefits: Weather and the Prognosis

Prognostication of weather, beyond a day (or sometimes a couple of hours) can be treacherous and self-defeating.  With enhanced computer networks which reevaluate information as it is fed with information concerning patterns of predictability, shifting atmospheric changes and spectrums of barometric alterations; cumulatively, a pie in the face is preferable despite advanced technologies allowing for respectable predictability.

Similarly, the medical field is expected to provide predictions of future events and as-yet unforeseen consequences.  Because medicine is considered a “science”, the level of accuracy is required beyond mere witch’s brew, or the spell of waved wand cast upon an unsuspecting eye.  Thus do doctors engage in percentages and probabilities; of mortality, X-percentage, give or take a few months, based upon studies delineated in some obscure journal presumably respected and hidden in the esoteric towers of ivory bastions.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the requirement for Federal and Postal employees includes information that the medical condition will last a minimum of 12 months (from the date of filing for Federal Disability Retirement).  Persistent and prevalent misinterpretation of this requirement pervades; one often hears the belief that the Federal or Postal employee must be away from work, or otherwise incapacitated, for that period of 12 months before filing.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The requirement is merely one which denotes a prognosis or prediction, no more than what the medical field can predict and what the weather can portend.  It merely means that a Federal or Postal employee who suffers 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, will be so prevented and impacted for a minimum of 12 months.

Any doctor worth his or her salt can provide a prognosis of how long the medical condition will last, and whether or not such a prognosis is as accurate as the 10-day forecast promulgated by weather entities is often irrelevant.  For, in the end, the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from the medical condition and who needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, knows in his or her “heart of hearts” how long the medical condition will last, whether it is for a day or a season, or a lifetime of chronicity requiring longterm care and treatment.

As one’s own body, mind and soul rarely mistakes the shifting changes of life, so the weather and prognosis of one’s own health can be established through the experience of pain, agony, and the pounding of deterioration perpetrated upon the vulnerability of a mortal being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Attorney: Pivotal Moments

In basketball, it is a key movement of escaping an opponent’s attempt to block or steal the ball, so long as one foot retains its point of contact with the hardwood floor.  In the game of greater life, it is a moment, in contradistinction from a singular series of movements, comprising the culmination of a spectrum of events, which requires a decision of exponentially quantified significance, such that it may be considered metaphorically to be “earth shaking”.

It can seemingly be as minor an event as when the first confrontation occurred as a child, challenging one to a fist fight; but, in retrospect, win or lose, that moment was pivotal in the sense that it determined the future character of an individual’s make-up:  of courage or cowardice, of fight or flee, and of facing up or turning away.  Or, of greater relevance, at least on a memory and consciousness level, of a career choice, of which school to attend, of whom to marry, and of raising a family despite difficulties, or divorcing with impressionable regrets.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is just one of those “pivotal moments” — it is a point of reference, the proverbial “fork in the road”, and the Frost-like road less traveled.  For many Federal and Postal employees, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, “sticking it out” and enduring the pain, the constant harassment and pernicious hostile environment, is actually the path of least resistance, precisely because the repetition of habitual comfort is often preferable to the unseen, unknown and unforeseen.

Like the basketball player who must maintain the point of contact with one foot while moving about on the other lest the referee’s whistle blows for a traveling violation, the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition such that he or she is no longer able to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, remains within the “safety net” of the greater arena of life.

But within that macro-context of one’s future, whether one remains or takes an affirmative step by preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, will determine that future orientation where retrospective dismay may tether the soft landings of past regrets, when once butterflies fluttered like the dreaming spirits of yesteryear for pivotal moments once grasped at, but lost forever in the floating vestiges of our memories of yore gone and long forgotten.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: The Question of Worth

Whether animals consider the question or not, they certainly make judgments based upon prudence, calculation and quantification of effort involved; but perhaps not in some conceptually systematic approach.  “Worth” can involve multiple meanings: of time expended; monetized value; quality; but always involving the evaluative process of comparative analysis.

It is this latter process which is important for the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker in determining whether to proceed with preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset. The comparison may be on different levels, and pitted against and between various elements: priority of values (health versus continuation and persistence in present circumstances); current financial condition in contrast to future reduced benefits; the penalties imposed by taking an early retirement as opposed to a Federal Disability Retirement; the length of the process in contrast to one’s age and cost of hiring an attorney; and many such similar factors to be analyzed.

Perhaps the only comparative analysis which need not be engaged is the one which the Agency implicitly compels: The worth of self, derived from the manner in which the agency or the U.S. Postal Service treats the Federal or Postal employee once it becomes evident that the Federal or Postal employee has a medical condition such that it prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, and thereby consideration must be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Other animals never ask that question of self-worth, as survival and Darwinian principles prevail and overtake the inherently nonsensical nature of such a question; it is only the human being who ever questions the worth of self, and only within the greater context of a society which places a premium upon questions unworthy of consideration.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Fear and Trembling

The reference, of course, is to the major philosophical contribution by Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish Philosopher; and his title is a further extrapolation from the Bible.  It is an investigation of the test placed upon Abraham to make of his son, Isaac, the sacrificial lamb as a testament of his faith and obedience.

Whether one is religious or not, the value of such an investigation cannot be disregarded.  Such a test and endurance; how far Abraham was willing to go; were there indications of behavior which revealed hesitancy; did doubt ever enter into his mind; is obedience to faith ever justified when it seems to overpower fundamental moral considerations; does the author of moral uprightness have the right to violate the very laws of issuance (similar to the theological conundrum, Can God create a rock heavier than He can lift, and if not, does that not undermine the very definition of omnipotence?); what emotional turmoil was Abraham wrestling with, and what of fear and trembling?

These are mere surface questions which Kierkegaard attempts to encounter; the fact that most of society fails or ignores to consider, is a reflection of the state of our own being.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition impacts (A) one’s own health and livelihood, and (B) the capacity and ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the issue of fear and trembling should hit close to home.  Fear is attributable to the uncertainty of one’s future; trembling concerns the state of persecution one experiences at the hands of a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Kierkegaard leaves no stone unturned in his rapacious search for truth; for the Federal or Postal employee, even a surface scratching of what Kierkegaard questioned, can be of relevance in moving forward.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may not seem like entering the lofty towers of ivory perspectives as presupposed by Kierkegaard’s work; but it is in the end a pragmatic decision of fortitude which secures one’s future and allows for the stresses of our times to be set aside, deliberately, purposefully, and with regard for one’s own life and being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Avoidance and Delay

Human beings have an uncanny capacity for avoidance.  In the greater genus of the universe we identify as the “Animal Kingdom”, where survival of the fittest determines the genetic viability of the evolutionary scales of neutral justice, avoidance means potential death, and delay constitutes a certainty for an untimely demise.  For, as thought and reflection is the pause between an event and a necessary response, so avoidance and delay is that interlude between necessity and regret.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties as a Federal Employee or a U.S. Postal Worker, the avoidance of the inevitable, and the delay for the obvious, often becomes an intransigent approach to life’s misgivings.

The act of 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 thought of as a step of finality — an admission to one’s self that the battle has been lost, the war’s outcome has been determined, and the cards dealt must now be played, with nothing left to trade in or replace.  That is the “short view”, as colored by the perspective of avoidance and delay.  The “long view” is that there is actually life after Federal Service, and potentiality for growth beyond the U.S. Postal Service.

We become entrenched in the habits of our own making, and while filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM may seem like a step of finality, it is actually just a step in a different direction, where one can open up new avenues for a second vocation, while at the same time securing a financial future for stability and further growth.

Avoidance and delay — they are the price one may pay for the limitations imposed by our own lack of imagination, but the greater canvas of life opens up the power and creativity hidden within the deep recesses of a childhood potentiality we once held on to, but somehow let go in this journey we call “life”, which often puts us down and tramples upon the flights of a child’s wide-eyed vision of the greater universe.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire