FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and USPS Workers: Excuses

Language is the vehicle by which self-justification is established.  Think about it; if we assume that there is a conceptual void in the mind of other animals, that the consciousness of a squirrel, a raccoon, an owl, etc., is devoid of language as we employ it, then how can procrastination or delay occur?  It is precisely language and the tools of conceptual constructs which provide for an “excuse” for response to a stimuli, and allows for human action to be prevented.

The will to act or refrain from acting is often considered the hallmark of higher intelligence; but intelligence itself can be a detrimental quality, allowing for self-destructive actions resulting from a string of illogical but persuasive reasonings.  Where lack of intelligence provides for the immediacy of response to a presented encounter, so the presence of it in elevated forms will allow for justifying delays to such responses, even if it means a magnified danger to one’s own survival.

Excuses and self-justifying declarative sentences allow us to maintain a false sense of security by providing foundations for continuing on a path of self-destruction.  That is precisely why the Federal and Postal employee who suffers from a progressively deteriorating medical condition can maintain a semblance of normalcy despite physical and cognitive indicators to the contrary, sometimes for months, and even for years.  But pain and cognitive dysfunctions have a funny way of reminding the body and mind of danger signals.  Brain synapses communicate the growing danger, and they continue to alert until the time comes when no more linguistic justifications will maintain that false sense of security.

When that time comes, the Federal or Postal worker must consider the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS or CSRS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

There is always time for being excused, and sometimes it is well-justified; then, there are other times when the exhaustion of excuses comes to a crisis point, and one must consider a different path.  That “different” path is the need to have a restorative period of recuperation in order to attend to one’s impending medical condition.  Federal Disability Retirement, under FERS or CSRS, is just that allowance for recuperation, and is a path of difference for many Federal and Postal employees.

There are excusable considerations, which last for a time; but time is a linear movement of bodies, and on the universal scale of progression, there comes a point when both time and excuses run out their course of self-justifying efficacy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Milestones

The expanded meaning of a “milestone” encompasses events of personal successes, where the capacity of the human will exceeds an expectation of what one thought one could do.  In its original and mundane conceptual history, a milestone was merely one in a series of numerical markers designating and identifying distance.  

For the Federal or Postal Worker who continues to endure a medical condition, a “milestone” can often be a period of time in which to reach; a three-day weekend to survive; a date on a calendar to arrive at, surpass, and continue to endure.  But while such milestones may provide a focal point to reach, the reality is that it is merely a representation on a linear continuum of days, weeks, months — until the years come and go.  

Federal Disability Retirement is an option to consider for those Federal and Postal workers who are suffering from a chronic medical condition, where such milestones may be deemed irrelevant by allowing for a life of recuperative days.  

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, is in itself a milestone of sorts.  It is a recognition that there is, and can be, life beyond the federal sector; that one is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s particular kind of job; but, moreover, one can expect to find another vocation which may not be impacted as severely by one’s medical conditions.

Passing a milestone may be a positive step; using the milestone as a basis for a better future is more than a positive step — it is a step to secure one’s future, especially for the injured and sick Federal worker who may need to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: The Coming Year

The Calendar says it is now 2013.  For those preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it matters little as to the designation of the year.  A chronic medical condition makes no conceptual distinction from year to year; the impact upon one’s ability/inability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job is not distinguishable between December 31 or January 1.  

For those who have filed with the Office of Personnel Management, the fact of the waiting period itself merely magnifies — that we are now into “another” year — the lengthy process which the bureaucratic morass forces the Federal or Postal employee to undergo and endure.  The “coming year” is, for the Federal or Postal employee filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from OPM, a continuum of the previous year.  It is not the days immediately before, or just after, which makes a difference.  Rather, it is ultimately the approval from the Office of Personnel Management which will make all the difference.  

To appreciate that “difference”, the best that the Federal or Postal employee seeking Federal Disability Retirement benefits can do, is to:  increase the chances of an approval of an OPM Disability Retirement application; limit the mistakes which can subvert or otherwise damage a Federal Disability Retirement application; and always, always affirmatively prove one’s case with the best evidence possible.  That way, the coming year will have turned out to be a fruitful one, and distinguishable from the previous year.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Early Medical Retirement for Disabled Federal Workers: Fish or Cut Bait

Colloquial expressions often develop over time because of their shorthanded effectiveness; they are the antiquated equivalent of text-messaging abbreviations, but with greater meaning and potency because of their time-testedness and allowance for a slow, evolutionary progression within a society.  Such expressions allow for a blunt statement which removes all doubts as to meaning; and the statement itself is all that is necessary, with surrounding silence revealing all.

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, a person contemplating initiating the administrative process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement must ultimately come to the decision of moving forward, or not.

Such a bifurcation of clarity in making the decision is necessary both for the sanity and health of the Federal or Postal employee who must make the decision, as well as for the agency who either wants full productivity from its employees, or an ability to “accommodate” the medical condition (in accordance with the governing laws concerning the legal issue of accommodations in the workplace) in order to reach an acceptable level of productivity.

Fish or cut bait; in four words, such a colloquial expression says it nicely:  Initiate the process, or live with the pain and progressive deterioration.  Already, in the very act of trying to explain or “add on” to the expression, nothing of value has been accomplished because the expression itself is sufficient.  As such:  silence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Disability Retirement for Federal Workers: Escape from the Morass

The loss of perspective comes at a price:  ever deeper in the morass of self-reflection, one cannot step outside of one’s self in order to attain a viewpoint other than that which one possesses.  That is often how we criticize politicians who have been in Washington for “too long” —  caught within a society of power and appearances, they fail to recognize how “real” people live and struggle.

The acknowledgment of such a perspective (or, to put it more correctly, some would say the “loss of perspective”) is a first step; the second, and more important step, is to do something about it.

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it is important for the Federal or Postal employee to comprehend, understand, and ultimately “see” that there is a way out.

The desperation in the voices of those Federal and Postal employees who have been caught in the morass of the vicious cycle of pain, chronic and deteriorating medical conditions, the self-denigrating perpetual maze of being caught in a web where one can see no future in a job which one cannot perform because of a deteriorating medical condition which one cannot control, can be heard in the description of cries for help.

But the next step in order to escape such a morass is to prepare to formulate a plan, and the first stage of that plan is to decide whether one is eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  As that old proverb goes, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a first step…

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: The Theoretical, Practical and Mechanical Realms

Just as Aristotle identified the conceptual distinction between two kinds of wisdom — theoretical and practical — so such a distinction, along with a third (mechanical), resulting and consequential end to the administrative process, exists in the procedures identified as “Federal Disability Retirement“.  

The theoretical parallels the “preparation” portion of the process — of coming to terms mentally and emotionally with the necessity of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, as a result of accepting that a medical condition is impacting one’s ability/inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.  Next, the Federal or Postal worker who is either under FERS or CSRS must apply that theoretical knowledge in a practical sense, by formulating the proper approach, by compiling the aggregate of medical evidence, describing a sufficient nexus between one’s medical conditions and the positional requirements of one’s job, etc.; and, finally, there is the “mechanical” portion of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the Office of Personnel Management — the actual filing of the application, as well as the completion of the necessary forms.  

Such conceptual distinctions and identification of different realms of necessary requirements which must be met, are helpful in taking a logical, sequential approach in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, if only to bifurcate in one’s own mind the realms which must be contemplated, applied and completed, before proceeding to the next step.  Above and beyond the three conceptual realms of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under either FERS or CSRS, of course, is the overarching need for good counsel and effective advice.

Ultimately, practical application of a theoretical construct must begin with the wisdom to know that which is sufficient, applicable and effective; and while information is helpful, knowledge is the key to meeting the burden of proof, of showing that one’s Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS meets the “preponderance of the evidence” standard of review.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement: A Conscience for Work

It is a rare animal which one discovers, when a Federal or Postal worker looks forward to the day when he or she is preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS.

The concept of “conscientiousness” entails the traits of acting in accordance with the dictates of one’s conscience, and one’s conscience is formed and molded by the complex web of core and foundational beliefs — a system of accepted world-view developed throughout the course of one’s lifetime, refined by experience and applied through trial and error.  That concept is discovered in the Federal and Postal worker who has struggled and endured through the various medical conditions that he or she suffers from, and it is indeed rare that the Federal or Postal worker has a “desire” to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.

Having said this, however, does not deny the reality that there is a “necessity” to file, when the Federal or Postal worker has come to a point in one’s life where “wants” and “needs” clash.

One may want to continue to work; the reality of one’s medical condition, however, may dictate the need to file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits.  The fact that one has a conscience for work is a “good” thing.  However, where the desire for X contradicts the need for Y, and where Y entails a medical condition which is clearly preventing one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, then the clash of “desire” as opposed to “need” must give way, where the former must be recognized as subservient to the predominance of the latter.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Avoidance of the Close Encounter

Ultimately, preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS from the Office of Personnel Management requires a “setting aside” of a direct encounter with one’s acknowledgment and concession that one has an intractable medical condition which is directly impacting one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s job.  It is to come face to face with the realization that the hard-fought career goals, the years of schooling and education; the overcoming of the inevitable learning curve during one’s youth and inception of a career — are ending not as a result of actualizing one’s dreams and goals, but because of an intermediate cause:  a medical condition.  

The struggle to continue working despite the chronic pain or deteriorating cognitive capabilities is the natural attempt to prolong that which one worked so diligently to strive towards; but at a certain point, such a struggle to continue working despite the increasing manifestation of the medical symptomatologies becomes an “avoidance” issue — of avoiding having to face the inevitable decision-making process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.

At some point, however, prolonging the avoidance issue for too long leads to the inevitability of a flashpoint — of an emergency resulting from a crisis, where the Agency itself will propose an adverse action, or the medical condition itself will dictate the terms and conditions which necessitate filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS.  Avoidance will force the close encounter; too long of an avoidance will make the encounter not just close, but a direct impact requiring emergency actions.  

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire