FERS Medical Retirement: The Protean World of Unreason

It is the unsettling, quickly-changing, fluid world — that of “Unreason”, of when rationality fails us, reasons slips away, a psychosis develops.  It is perhaps a truth which — no matter how many times it is told — can never be understood.

Depression is not just a slight sense of “feeling down”; Panic attacks are not merely moments of passing anxiety; Generalized Anxiety Disorder is not just a fleeting sense of stress; rather, they are debilitating medical conditions with no cure.  Yes, psychotropic medications can prescribe some measure of palliative relief; but in the end, the side effects of such medication regimens can be more harmful than good, systematically dulling the symptoms somewhat, but never more than the time it takes for the effect to wear off.

People who don’t suffer from psychiatric conditions can never fully understand or comprehend the devastating impact of the protean world of unreason — of the cognitive dysfunction, memory problems, inability to focus or concentrate; and if a Federal or Postal employees must function in a job requiring sustained cognitive acuity in order to successfully complete the essential elements of his or her position, but can no longer do so, then it is time for the Federal or Postal employee to contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal OPM Disability Retirement Law, and to be guided with expert legal advice through the “other” protean world of unreason — the bureaucracy identified as 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.

 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Disability Retirement: Village Narrative

When was it lost?  Does it become fractured and irrelevant once a society grows too large, looms too complicated, decides to go off in different directions?

Once upon a time, villages had a specific narrative, identifiable, accepted, the mythology of its unique character.  If you came from Village-X, you knew the narrative — the story of your group, where you came from, what gods controlled the universe, who fought bravely, how you came about.  A stranger from another village had a different narrative; it was called Village-Y-narrative.  They had strange ways.

Perhaps there was trading between the two; sometimes, inter-marriage occurred and the complications of rearranging belief-systems to accommodate any differences had to be allowed for.

In today’s society, the village narrative has all but disappeared.  Not only has it disappeared — but even within the fractionalization, there are further micro-fractures, where no one can agree even upon the most fundamental of core beliefs.  That is when empathy disappears, replaced by laws and statutes to maintain some semblance of order and structure.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer 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 Federal or Postal job, the village narrative of working as a “team” with the Federal Agency or Postal Unit can no longer remain compatible.

Does the Agency show any empathy?  Or are they simply ignoring the problem?  Will you be placed on a PIP?  Will you be terminated?  Is the “village” out to banish and get rid of you?

Contact a Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law.  It may be already time to find another “village”, inasmuch as the current village narrative no longer includes you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Disability Retirement: Ostensibly

Apparently; on the face of it; in all appearances.  Isn’t that how OPM views all medical disability retirement cases?

It is as if the “medical specialist” opens each file before reviewing it, with a notation under his or her breath, of: “Ostensibly”.  And so the challenge is on — of persuading from the presumptive world of the “Ostensible” to the world of approval where appearances are turned into reality.

How does one do that?  Why are some Federal Disability Retirement applications more persuasive than others?

Of course, there will always be the “irrefutable” cases; then, some cases which fall in the “probably no chance” category, simply because there is not enough medical evidence to persuade; then, as with most cases, somewhere in the middle kingdom where the coalescence of medical evidence, the law, agency actions or inaction, with a dash of concurrent and parallel legal issues must be all taken into consideration in their aggregate evidentiary presentation.

Ostensibly.  By all appearances.  That is the challenge — to persuade OPM that the ostensible is the real.

Contact an OPM Disability Retirement Attorney who deals only with OPM Disability claims, and begin the process of putting together an ostensibly viable Federal Disability Retirement case and turn it into the reality which brings about an OPM approval.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Sun rise, son set

Can homonyms be mistakenly utilized in spoken language, or only if written?  When we speak, do we have a conceptualized entity of the sentence spoken within the mind’s eye, or is it all just the blather of our own voice which prevails upon the sensitive ears of others?  If we have a word misspelled in our own minds as we speak of it, does it count?

Or, what do you make of a person who says, “I believe that the son is about to set”, then apologizes profusely, saying, “Oh, I am so sorry for the mistake; I was thinking about my son just as the sun was about to set, and mistakenly inserted one for the other as I declared the sun about to set.”  Does it even make sense to apologize?  Yet, in his own mind, he has made an error that needed to be corrected, so the further question would be: Can an error be one if no one else but the person who made the error recognizes it?

Oh, but if only this were true in all sectors of life — take, as another example, a person who finds that his bank account has been deposited with an astronomical sum: instead of $200.00 deposited on Thursday, the bank records show a deposit of 2 millions dollars.  You go to the bank and inquire, and the bank manager treats you like royalty and says, “No, no, there was no error; it was definitely a deposit of 2 million dollars.”  You know that an error has been committed; no one else will acknowledge it, and feigns either ignorance or rebuts your presumptuousness that you are correct and all others are wrong.

Is such a case similar to the one about homonyms in one’s own private world?

Or how about its opposite — Son rise, sun set.  You say that to someone else — “Yes, the son will rise, and the sun will set.”  It appears to sound like one of those pithy statements that is meant to be profound: “Yes, the sun will rise, and the sun will set”, stated as a factual matter that cannot be disputed.  Was an error made?  Do you turn to the individual who made the declarative assessment and correct him — “Excuse me, but you misspelled the first ‘son’ and should have been ‘sun’”?  And to that, what if the speaker says, “No, I meant it as it is spelled; you see, my son gets up to go to work when the sun sets.”

Of course, how would we know unless the speaker were to spell the words out as he is speaking — you know, that annoying habit that people engage in when they think that everyone around is an idiot who cannot spell, as in: “Now, watch as the entourage — e-n-t-o-u-r-a-g-e for those who don’t know how to spell and who don’t know the meaning of the word — comes into view.”  To such people, we roll eyes and step a distance away.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are wondering what homonyms have to do with Federal Disability Retirement issues, the short answer is: Not much.  Instead, the point of it all is to have the Federal and Postal employee understand that 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 much like having a private thought — the medical condition — which is suddenly revealed only after we choose to do so.

Medical conditions are extremely private and sensitive matters, and are often hidden by taking great extremes of cautionary steps.  Privacy is crucial, but when the decision is finally made to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, you must accept that others will come to know the reality of the privacy you have protected for so long — somewhat like the sun rising and the son setting, only with greater significance and painful reality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: No time for empathy

Perhaps its disappearance and rarer occurrences are not because of defection of angels and loss of virtue from the circumference of human character, but for a much simpler reason:  We have no time for it, nor patience, nor capacity to embrace.  Often, the intersection between the reality of our social constructs and the loss of moral foundations mixes and makes obscure the ability to assign blame and causal connection to one or the other, but it is the cumulative and inseparable combination that results in the dire consequences we witness.

This technologically sophisticated world has no time for empathy.  All of that incessant talk about “connecting” and the importance of remaining constantly online, in-tune and involved in the virtual universe of Facebook, Snapchat, Tweets, text messaging, cellphone and other such modalities of electronic connectivity, the reality is that – from a purely objective perspective – each of the methodologies of communication are comprised of an illuminated screen with written words without warmth, human feeling nor organic nerve endings.

We communicate by means of those androids we created, expecting that exponential quantification of mechanical complexities can somehow qualitatively enhance our humanity, when in fact each such invention insidiously depletes and deteriorates.

Once, we scoffed at Chiefs and other indigenous characters who believed that the mystical capturing of one’s image by cameras and Daguerreotypes robbed and confined one’s soul, and now we make fun of those who believe that human contact is lessened by the tools of mechanized warfare; and so we decimated all tribes and their leaders, and leave behind in history books lost in the dusty shelves of an unread past the images robbed and lessened, and arrogantly giggle at those who complain of modernity and the technology of communication.

Empathy takes time.  We have no time left.

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, if waiting upon one’s agency to reveal and manifest some semblance of human empathy has been a patient discourse of frustration, you will not be the only one to experience such disappointment.

The fact is, empathy is a rare commodity, and showing its face of value is a search of futility more and more each day because of its scarcity.

Waiting for the Federal Agency or Postal Facility to accommodate your medical conditions?  Empathy is required, and nonexistent.  Expecting helpful information and cooperation from your Human Resource Office without fear of leaking sensitive information to coworkers and supervisors?  Empathy is necessitated, but clearly lacking.  There is no time for empathy, and it is better to begin the process of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application without relying upon that which cannot be found even in the far corners of humanoid tablets we sit and stare at each day.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The furrowed face

Does the palm reader tell from lines deepened and extended by time, or in the creases of birth and predetermined fate?  Do the ruts and chasms criss-crossing like doodling designs created by a madman mixing a cauldron of witch’s brew depend upon fate already set, or can the future be altered by choices one foresees?  And what of the face — the creases around one’s mouth, the ruts above the furrowed brow, or the fine filaments of timeless cuts around the eyes; do they tell a story of joy and promise, or of sadness and sorrow?

The furrowed face is but a moment’s expression; it is rather the corrugated painting, forever captured in the stitch of life’s experiences, which lasts in timeless bottles of floating memories, like butterflies caught in a web of deception where promises of boundless expectations and revelations of hope as sung from the loving tongues of mothers dreaming of tomorrow’s future for children yet unborn.

Time, experience, and confrontations of life tend to deepen the furrowed face of age.  As do medical conditions.  It is when the tripartite combination coalesces, that decisions need to be made, lest extinguishment of life become the goal of sorrow.  For, when a medical condition comes to the fore, it impacts one’s capacity and ability; when capacity and ability become impacted, then one’s work suffers; and when one’s work begins to suffer, the notice of employers, coworkers, and the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service begins to turn on its engine of harassment and adversarial modalities of meddlesome trickery.

Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service care not whether the ruts and grooves of the furrowed face deepen by the actions of an uncaring bureaucracy.

As Americans spend billions each year on health care and cosmetic products to enhance beauty and delay the inevitable lines of age, so it is often the best medicine to alter the predetermined fate of time by considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, when the furrowed face of life requires such a step.  Adulthood rarely spares any of us from the deep ruts of facial scars; and when there is a “baby face” in middle age, it often reflects deeper chasms and valleys within the psyche, where hidden traumas are screaming to be let out.

Federal and Postal employees who face the problems of work because of a medical condition have the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, and begin planning for another stage of one’s life in the private sector.  Not everyone has such an option or an opportunity in the face of a medical condition which robs the Federal or Postal worker from continuing in one’s chosen career, but OPM Disability Retirement is that rare benefit which allows for further employment while receiving an annuity.

In that sense, the furrowed face need not be the last and frozen picture of a person’s future, and the palm reader may yet be tentative in predicting the final chapter of one’s life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Those Nagging Questions

“What if” questions constantly haunt, and persistently undermine.  They are the questions which people repetitively ask of themselves; and yet, like questions in Philosophy spanning multiple millenniums, they defy answers, and merely trouble the mind.  Or, as Bertrand Russell once quipped, If such questions continue to bother, it is probably a problem of indigestion.

“What if I had done X?”  “What if I go in today and tell the Supervisor Y?”  “What if I ask for an accommodations by doing Z?”  “What if…”  The game of “what if” serves to delay and obfuscate; it kicks the proverbial can down the dusty road of oblivion, and rarely solves the concrete problem facing the individual engaged in the meaningless query.  Almost always, the solution is instead to take affirmative steps towards reaching a goal.

Experience serves to defy repetition of questions left unanswered, and the best way to satisfy the linguistic hypothetical is to act in accordance with one’s need.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition is impacting one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s job, the questions of “What if” may abound:  “What if I am able to recover in 6 months?”  “What if my agency fires me?”  “What if the doctor will not support me?”

Some such questions are valid; others, emanating from fear and lack of knowledge.  As gathering information is the key to satisfying questions unanswered, it is well to make inquiries and obtain facts as opposed to opinions and conjectures.

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 a major step in the Federal or Postal employee’s life; but the alternatives are often untenable and leaves one with an empty hand to continue asking those unanswerable questions which leave the stomach churning with fears, doubts and unresolved issues.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM as a concrete step in taking an affirmative hold of one’s life, future and undiminished aspirations.  And like grabbing a handful of sand in the dry desert of questions, to ask and query without a rudder to direct one’s efforts, is to meander through life with a blindfold.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Precedents and Contingencies

The former constitutes a prior event already established, which may influence and impact current courses and future decisions; while the latter reflects an unforeseen circumstance as yet uncertain, but one which must occur prior to triggering the subsequent act.  Both constitute events which, in their logical sequence, should be prior in time, and satisfied before going on to the next.

In law, without the precedent, there is no argument to be made, except to blaze new trails and create orientations for fresh ones, which can be a dangerous and uncertain line of argumentation.  In Hume’s laws of causal contingencies, the billiard ball which precedes the impact upon the subsequent one matters little, except for the non-existence of the “necessary connection” which is replaced by mere repetition of events.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, what matters is the sequential utilization of the duality of concepts.

Precedents of law are there to be argued as strengthening one’s own disability claim, by citing prior issues already decided upon primarily by the U.S.Merit Systems Protection Board and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Contingencies are the pragmatic decisions made by the Federal or Postal applicant, determining the sequence of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, in order to present a cogent, coherent and persuasive Federal Disability Retirement case.

Federal Disability Retirement applications prepared and presented lacking the coherency of sequential establishment of contingencies unsatisfied, are tantamount to cases which have no precedents; and the duality of combined mishaps represent a meandering of a rudderless ship.  It is both together which make for an effective OPM Disability Retirement case:  the logical sequence of presentation, and the citing of relevant legal precedents in presenting an effective, coherent and persuasive Federal Disability Retirement application.  And, in the end, isn’t that what we are shooting for?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Those Fall Leaves

The time of change and spectrums of colors beyond mere rainbows of solitude; it is often poetically described as the season of deterioration, of old age before the winter of mortality.  Fall brings about a freshness of cooler winds, a precursor of foretelling that those dog days of summer have come to an end.  Ever look at the fallen leaves and mistake them for something else — an animal, perhaps, or a figure of caustic imagination?

Such projections erupting from our own fears and hesitancy reveal the true state of our being.  The leaves bring color to an otherwise dreary existence; once fallen, they can take on whatever hopes, dreams and fears we wish to accentuate.  Looked upon from a distance, shapes of crinkling leaves can take on forms enhanced through our imaginations.  It is only when we deliberate, walk up closer, and verify, that we can ascertain with a semblance of certitude that it was not what we thought, or that it constituted nothing more than our fears gone awry.

Fear and imagination tends to do that; until we take affirmative steps to ascertain, verify and concretize, what is left in a muddle remains so.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who sit and fret over one’s future because of a medical condition which has begun to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the fear of future forebodings becomes an exponentially-enhanced subject of terror and trembling, so long as pragmatic steps of self-affirmation are avoided and neglected.

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, may seem like a small step, or perhaps a too-large one in supposing an end to an otherwise successful career.  But sitting in fear and loathing is never a solution; one must, by affirmative steps and bounds, break the isolation of fear and move forward with life.

As the fallen leaves of Fall are merely a season of change, and the colors which surround the spectrum of life’s spector, to remain as a spectator to the vastness of change is to allow for the vicissitudes of misgivings to shake the essence of purpose.

Like the crinkled leaf which sits afar and takes on a gargoyle-like appearance, it is only when those first steps are embraced towards ascertaining, verifying and establishing that the very fears we once took comfort in, are but mere wisps of whispers dissipating into oblivion, once we take those initial steps in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, in order to defy the foreboding of the winter season yet to come, but where our future lies not in fear but in securing a semblance of stability through a benefit available but for want of hesitation.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire