Federal Disability Retirement: Maintenance of Sanity

Is that what life has become?

One comes into the world with sanity (for most), and the fight throughout one’s life is to try and retain and maintain that semblance of cognitive equilibrium.  We tend to think, in modernity, that there are certain “basic rights” which apply to all human beings — a minimum level of subsistence; that one should be allowed a place to live, some food to eat, etc.

A short review of history, however — even on a superficial level — readily and easily reveals that the greater lot of humanity suffered tremendously for centuries untold; that most were either in the peasant or serf class, and the daily struggle just to obtain food for survival constituted the primary focus for most.

Once a system of “middle class” standards were invented, where some leisure time allowed for engagements beyond mere subsistence living, hobbies and pastimes involving entertainment, reading, pleasurable distractions and thoughts involving preludes to abstractions became more and more available to a greater number of people.  To a point where, in modernity, in current times and circumstances, it is less the physical health which most people are concerned with, but rather, the cognitive unhealthiness in a stress-filled society.

Maintenance of sanity has become the mainstay of modern living; focus upon one’s mental health, of greater necessity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who have struggled and recognized the progressive deterioration of one’s mental/nervous health — of Major Depressive Disorder; PTSD, Uncontrollable panic attacks; Schizophrenia; Bipolar Disorder; etc. — do not let the U.S. Office of Personnel Management fool you into thinking that Mental Disorders are somehow second-class citizens to Physical Ailments; in the law, they are to be treated as co-equals in the validity of evaluating disabling medical conditions.

Contact a Federal Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, and begin to initiate the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the FERS retirement system, for purposes of the valid maintenance of sanity.

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 Employees Retirement System (FERS) disability Retirement: In Captured Time

It can be a photograph — of a time frozen.  In our imagination, whenever we come upon the same photograph, the mind’s eye begins to immediately re-live that moment captured, and provides the context, the vestigial events surrounding that frozen tundra of an otherwise stoic moment.

If it is an image which has no relationship with you — perhaps seen at a neighbor’s house or a friend’s apartment — then the moment in captured time remains just what it represents: an event, a moment, a picture of people as they are, represented by the photograph in captured time.

Of course, you can still put your imagination to work and try and realize what had occurred, when it was taken, who took the photograph, and perhaps even contextualize the image by combining your own memories with a creative insertion of projected impositions upon that tundra of timelessness — but in the end, it would all be “make believe”.

In life, captured time is also one of immobility and paralysis.  Medical conditions also bring us in captured time by refusing to allow us to move forward.  Regression is an element in captured time when medical conditions become chronic.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who want to move their lives forward and beyond the moment in captured time, contact a Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of moving outside of captured time, and into greater moments of life and living, where the frozen tundra of remaining in captured time is replaced with the warmth of living beyond the lifeless inertia of a photograph unrelated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement: Goals of abstract purity

Idealism allows for the plethora of such concepts; cynicism born of age and experience quells the exuberance of such vaunted beginnings.

When we were young — no, not the opening lines of a Christopher Robin poem where the hunt for a clove of honey is the day’s goal, but an observation about life’s folly — we harbored principles and moral codes that required strict purity: Success without compromise; life that is perfectly lived; avoidance of mistakes that our parents made; beautiful kids who will exhibit their inherent creativity at every turn, without a wail or disobedient scream of tantrum; and even if such goals of abstract purity never come to fruition, at least there is Instagram in the modern era where we can pretend to have achieved such paradise of ends considered.

Youth pretends to such abstractions; reality tends to soil such purity; and goals formulated at the beginning of life require constant moderation and adaptation to the experience of reality that is encountered throughout.  Such goals of abstract purity are best left in the Ivory Towers of Academia, or in the forgotten memories of childhood dreams.  For, it is reality and the objective world which must be contended with, and not the conceptual paradigms that make up the dreams and fantasies of our former selves.  In the end, grownups don’t have time to waste upon the goals of abstract purity because life is too challenging and reality too stark.

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 position, the Goals of Abstract Purity should be replaced with the Ends of Realistic Objectivity: Of continuing with the Postal Service or Federal Agency only to the extent that one’s health will allow, and to begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

And what of those former Goals of Abstract Purity?  You should place them upon the heap of memories that allowed for youthful folly, and realize that one’s health is the ultimate goal of purity — and it is no longer a mere abstraction, but a reality that must be faced.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The difficult good-bye

It is always difficult to say good-bye.  Whether of a long duration, or with a quick ending to an already fast-deteriorating relationship, the good-bye that brings sorrow, tears and a sense of unease is the one that once was never thought of.

Separating from loved ones; the end of a stay that may have begun with trepidation, hesitation or even loathing, but which turned out to be an embracing of past memories forgotten, revitalizing conversations and enlivening moments of collective reflections; or even of a chance encounter with someone, or with the lengthy last moments with a bedridden relative who wants the warmth of human contact nearby before departing into the netherworld through gates of wandering souls.

Whatever the circumstances, the good-byes we fear, the ones we think will be a relief, and even those that turned out to end merely with a half-hearted wave of the hand — it is the difficult good-bye that echoes within the hollow of one’s mind, squeezing between schedules full and memories touching upon a conscience that will not abide.

Careers have good-byes, as well, and not just between people; for it is the career that defines so much of who we are.  It is never just the “what do you do for a living” part of it, but the title that comes with it, the identity that is attached to it, the camaraderie that accompanies it and the past memories that haunt one; these are the cementing tributaries that form one’s personhood.

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, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the difficult good-bye is the one that separates the Federal or Postal employee from the Federal Agency or the Postal Facility — not necessarily because of the circumstances compelled by the medical conditions themselves (although that is admittedly difficult enough), but often because the job itself was and has been an integral part of one’s life, livelihood and identity, and because any change in one’s routine is hard enough.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is essentially saying good-bye to a good chunk of one’s daily routine of life and living — of spending about 50% or more of one’s life (including preparing for the day, commuting, doing work-related emails and similar activities, etc.) — and thus will be, even under the best of circumstances, a difficult separation and departing.

But always remember that the difficult good-bye is the one that retains an abiding meaningfulness within the souls of worthwhile characters, which then forms the seeds of hope for a future yet untold, as opposed to the half-hearted wave of the hand that dismisses so casually that we remember not even which hand with which we waved good-bye.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: The waiting room

We have all experienced the psychology of the cursed “waiting room” — that place which is assigned as the “intermediate” lull, like purgatory for the virtuous-to-be, where they think that by making you believe that you have now been chosen to wait in a separately sequestered area, your patience will become refreshed and you will allow for another lengthy wait.  The psychologists have it all figured out, don’t they?

First, you are left to wait with the “rest of them”; then, your name is called, and you leave those who have been waiting just as long, or some even longer, with a smug smile, thinking to yourself, “Whew, finally!”  But that sense of relief is short-lived, for it becomes clear that the room you have been lead into is merely another surreal suspension of reality’s cruel viciousness — for, this is merely an intermediate form of torture: The Waiting Room, where the real wait begins.

Somehow, the psychologists have figured out through studies conducted that patients, clients, potential customers, etc., will tolerate quite a bit of waiting so long as there is an “interlude” between waiting periods.  So, say you are at first forced into a queue with a group of others — the studies have revealed that 20 – 30 minutes is the maximum before agitation begins to manifest itself, unless you are “selected” and sequestered into a separate queue where your tolerance for a further waiting period can begin anew.

Of course, in reality, nothing has changed — it is simply that your waiting has been transferred from one area to another.  Can this occur multiple times?

Apparently, the studies have shown that, yes, so long as the logistics of the waiting period have been altered — as in, say, after 20 minutes for the 2nd waiting queue, a nurse walks in, looks at you and places a folder into the filing basket attached to the door.  Somehow, that momentary interruption focuses the waiting individual that your time is approaching, that we have not forgotten about you, and you will soon be seen.

The psychology of intermediate contacts increases one’s hope for the end of the waiting period, despite the fact that the same waiting period continues — it is just that the hour’s wait is broken up into segments of three 20 minute slices, and that, according to all of the psychological studies, makes all the difference.

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, one of the frustrating aspects of filing 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, is the long and arduous wait that must be anticipated before a decision is made.

Expect the worst; hope for the best.  There are multiple stages to the process — of the Initial Stage; of the Reconsideration Stage; of an Appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board; and even of a Petition for Full Review before the MSPB.

Thus, if you took all of the multiple stages, the “wait time” is tantamount to the slicing up of that very “wait time”, and the best way to give yourself the benefit of a higher percentage of success is to make sure that you increase your chances of getting it approved at the Initial Stage by consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest you remain fuming in the Waiting Room where everyone else taps his or her foot while the collective blood pressures continue to rise.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: Escaping reality

In some sense, everyone does it; in another, no one can.  For, in a general, generic meaning of the term, to “escape reality” is to merely engage in an activity that allows one to take a break from the ordinary and mundane, as in going to a movie, watching television, playing a video game or engaging a game of chess. In the same vein of meaning, however, one could argue that such leisurely pastimes constitute a reality no less real than working, dealing with life in other ways and attending to one’s daily duties and obligations – it is simply in a different “form”.

Daydreaming, getting lost in an imaginary world through reading a book, of even sleeping – these also constitute a form of “escaping reality”, if the term implies a narrow meaning manifesting the daily grind of work, family and surrounding obligations.  Going to school, surfing the internet or concocting plans for grandiose schemes – these, too, can be considered “escaping reality”, inasmuch as they do not put food on the table or pay bills; and thus do we face the reality that people possess different meanings when they make critical remarks that are triggered to demean an activity by making the charge that engaging in X is nothing more than an attempt to escape reality.

There are, of course, true escapes that are harmless, and those that, if entertained over too long a period of time, can become an entrenched harm that may be irreversible.  Taking a dream vacation to an isolated island deep in the Caribbean Isles can be a healthy escape from the daily reality of work and exhaustion; imagining a life different from one’s own, through a limited period of daydreaming, may be an acceptable form of transcending the turmoil of a day’s trial; but creating a world where one’s loved one, lost from the reality of this mortal world, is still present through one’s imagination and will of existence, may be considered a sickness when it begins to impede the ability and capacity to take care of one’s own needs.

There is a fine line between healthy escapes and detrimental plunges into the surreal world of the imagination.  How one takes upon the challenges of a medical condition is often a delicate teetering amidst the boundaries of health and unhealthiness.  We would all like to will away medical conditions, but the reality is that the real-ness of the injured, sick or otherwise deteriorating body, mind or both, cannot ultimately be avoided.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the idea of preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application is often a step towards recognizing the reality that there is no curative power that will allow the Federal or Postal employee to continue to work in one’s chosen career, and that preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is merely a matter of inevitable time.

Delaying the process, procrastinating the preparatory steps, or avoiding the issue altogether – all are a form of escaping reality.  Whether such an escape is a healthy precursor to the reality which must be faced, only the Federal or Postal worker who is engaging such an escape can tell, as the reality of one’s future may rest upon the very escape afforded by filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Comfort in regularity

There are those who relish the seas of daily change and the excitement of altered circumstances in daily discourse.  But as the rhythms of a seasonal perpetuity teach us of Nature’s need for regularity, so the biorhythms imparted can often form avenues of predictable patterns.  There is comfort in regularity (no, for those with singular minds, we are not here referring to the constancy of utilizing bathroom facilities; although, there is also some truth in that perspective, as well); of engaging in the monotony of expectations, unchanging circumstances and boredom of daily redundancy.

If we interpreted Bishop Berkeley’s philosophy to the extreme, each time we were to leave a room, the physical world we left behind would vanish; upon our re-entrance into the “same” room, it would again materialize, but who knows if the armchair in the corner with the slight tear in the seam of the cushion has not been moved several inches to one side or the other?

Wasn’t that always the fear in Star Trek, when Scotty would push the lever for the transporter, and the molecular deconstruction of the individual would occur – but the danger involved the potential interference within that short timeframe, when the reconstitution of matter might bring about a missing limb, a lesser intellect, or leave on the dinner table in the previous location one’s eyes, nose or mouth?  But the digression into science fiction merely points out the obvious; whether via molecular transporter or physically walking from one room into another, the expectation of “sameness” is what we rely upon, in order to maintain a sanity which otherwise would be lost in a sea of constant change.

It is, ultimately, the paradigmatic confrontation between the age-old perspective of two old philosophical grouches – of Parmenides and Heraclitus; of permanence seen in a world of a singular whole as opposed to the constancy of an ever-changing universe.  Note that, in either perspective, there is a regularity that is sought and discovered:  the expectation of consistent change constitutes that regularity we seek; and the regularity of a singularity of permanence reinforces that comfort in the same.  That is what we forever sought and continue to seek – and it is in the comfort of regularity that we maintain our balanced perspective.

That is why the turmoil of change is often devastating 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 employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.  The inability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties is frustrating enough; such alterations often require accommodations, but when such requests are rejected, it is like a verdict upon one’s worth by the agency or the Postal facility:  You are not worth the trouble of change.

Yet, that change or alteration in the schedule, flexibility of attendance, or other minor adjustments, are often of no greater effort by the Agency than Scotty pushing the lever to initiate the power of the transporter.  But, then, Captain Kirk was quite good at making adjustments and ad-libbing as he went along – something that most Federal agencies and the Postal Service are unable to do; and that is when preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application becomes an ever-present need that will ensure the comfort in regularity of purpose, goals and future security.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The complexity of human experience

We take for granted much, and dismiss with careless appreciation the residue of crumbs begotten.  The idiom that refers to the final straw which breaks a camel’s back — why does the foreign species have an impact upon a culture which is unfamiliar with such a beast of burden?  Is it that, despite the images produced against the background of pyramids and pharaohs of a bygone civilization, the essence and theme of the proverbial statement resonates, whether replaced by a horse, a donkey or an ox?

The idea that tolerance to, and capacity for, a seemingly limitless weight of workplace bombardment, whether in translated terms of physical endurance or cognitive stress, is encapsulated by that transcendent cultural expression that there is, indeed, an invisible boundary of and for the human experience.

It is complex; the physical deterioration can presumably be witnessed because of the appearance exhibited; but it is the inner psyche and psychological harm, over untold times and lacking of precision of limit, which tests the stress points of fractures barely visible and likely detrimental.  Stress fractures may be subtle and sometimes inconsequential; but the incremental aggregation if left unreinforced will refuse to withstand an eternity of disrepair.

The complexity of human experience begins with the narrative carried by childhood memories; advances in fits and starts during the “difficult” period of transition from innocence to adulthood; and becomes cemented within the casement of early independence, where the spectrum and balance between love and hate, idealism and cynicism, and a mixture of hope denied by reality, coalesce to form the compendium of what the essence of a person becomes.

On that journey of filling the narrative, some become tested by greater or lesser traumas; and whether one ascribes “fault” to actions which result in consequences otherwise foreseeable, the reality is that those experiences encountered mold the character of the human narrative exposed.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition may cut short one’s career in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service, it is the complexity of the human experience which preceded that moment of realization that a medical condition may prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, which will determine the future course of actions and lay the groundwork for a brighter tomorrow.

Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the central point of idioms which transcend time, cultures and limitations of perspectives in modernity, is that we refuse to become relegated to a mere statistical footnote by allowing for that last straw which breaks the camel’s back, and instead insist upon allowing for that beast of burden to survive another day, if only to impart some wisdom to a world which no longer recognizes the complexity of human experience.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The mere asking of a question

In modernity, the asking of the question in itself raises a suspicion.  Being curious no longer kills the cat in some obscure, proverbial manner; to inquire immediately brands the individual and categorizes the questioner based upon the query of conventional consciousness.  Thus is debate of any kind quelled; for, to engage in a dialectical process requires a prefatory landscape of imaginative fertility; but in an atmosphere of poison and shallow interests already consecrated, there can be no classic form of “give-and-take”, of a level of intellectual inquiry required for the pursuance of excellence, improvement or uncanonized thought processes.

Can society ever escape from this cycle of self-immolation, where intellectual integrity is questioned, when speakers are shouted down at quiet lecture halls of solicitations for a teleology of thought, and at a level of purposive questioning, as in the days of yore when the pestering Socrates questioned every convention of the powerful and influential?

It will be difficult, if only because the widespread de-coupling of thought from information, separated by the force of modern technology, where deviation from identity is difficult to maintain, has made drones of us all.  Fortunately, law is, and remains somewhat in a sacrosanct manner, an arena which allows the simple query to survive, if only within the compound of argumentation for a cause.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who becomes the victim of one’s own bureaucracy, where a medical condition requires an accommodation but the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service is unable, or unwilling, to pursue avenues to allow for the continuation of one’s chosen career, preparing 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, is often the best and only alternative to pursue.

The battle of inquiry and improvement — for, if you think about it, they go hand in hand in that the only way to “improve” anything is by questioning the status quo — may have to come to an end; and as it takes effort to expend to question and contend for greater heights and levels of excellence, so the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for the Federal or Postal employee to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service — the energy expended in other areas must now be preserved to attend to one’s medical condition and the deteriorating health of the employee’s body, mind and soul.

Sometimes, the mere asking of a question must be left alone, where silence is the golden ray of future radiance, and where youth may be the proper province to leave behind a generation of upstarts who never had the opportunity to ask that ever-childhood query, “Why?”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Elevation of the Federal Consumer Product Compliance Directorate (FCPCD) to a Cabinet-level status

It first came to light in August, 1974, just prior to Nixon’s resignation from Office.  A young reporter by the name of Dan Druthers asked the President:  “Have you considered the exponential factor of time wasted in consumer affairs concerning crushed toilet paper rolls during transport and delivery?  What has your Administration done about it?  The American People demand an answer!”  The White House Press Corps was aghast.  No other journalist had had the temerity to heretofore question the Presidency with such forcefulness.  The President, of course, was stumped, and shot back, “Mr. Druthers, what do you think you are running for?”  To which Mr. Druthers shot equally back, “Well, I’m not sure.  What are you running from, Mr. President?”

The rest is history, as they say.  From there, that journalist of slight anonymity and notoriety went on to become the anchor of Prime Time T.V.; the President resigned (what many people fail to understand is that Watergate had little to do with moral turpitude, and much to do with messy toiletry); the 18-minute gap in the secret White House Tapes, people suspected, had to do with deleted expletives concerning Toiletgate; and as for the greater issue of crushed toilet paper rolls — well, it took a few more years hence before the political fallout would take its toll.

First, there were whispers of grumblings, of esoteric nuances which could only be fully understood in Senate closed door hearings where titular heads of states whispered in royal functions.  How many people spend time in straightening out a roll of toilet paper, such that it rolls smoothly on a roller?  If, as a conservative estimate, 30 seconds are spent for each crushed roll of toilet paper, multiplied by the total number of people inhabiting the United States, how much of an economic impact would that have on an annual basis?  How much time would be saved if such crushing of toiletries could be prevented, reverberated a thousandfold — nay, ten thousand fold — by mere and simple preventative measures?

The question itself failed to take hold upon the American imagination, until some years later, at a Town Hall Meeting, a woman asked a Congressional Candidate a similar query, in a rather accusatory tone of voice:  “Do you not care at all?”  That got the goat of the candidate, as they say in proverbial parlance.  There were subsequent cries for immediate passage of legislation.  Republicans wanted a budgetary offset for any monies expended for the creation of a new agency, the Federal Consumer Product Compliance Directorate (FCPCD). Some questioned the need for the new agency, and whether it couldn’t just be handled by the EPA; but such queries were quickly quelled when the Senate Majority Leader declared:  “The issue itself is too important to ignore.”

In the end, the FCPCD was created by Executive Order.  Some years later, because of the very importance attached to such preventative measures — “experts” referred to the greater impact upon global warming, and some at the NSC declared that it was a matter of “national security” — the FCPCD was elevated to a Cabinet Level Department post haste, in order to ensure that the President was daily informed as to the importance of the issue and so the American People would not be ignored. The staff at the FCPCD grew from 2 in 1984 (comprised of the Executive Director and the secretary), to over 5,000 today and currently growing (you know, inspectors, analysts, policy experts, etc.).

Meanwhile, those Federal and Postal workers who had filed for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, continue to wait for their Federal Disability Retirement applications to be decided upon.  The fact that OPM is understaffed and overworked has not been brought to light, yet.  Of course, OPM does not have the ear of the President, and the issue was never queried by the likes of a crack reporter back in the days when reporting was actually occurring.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire