Medical Retirement for FERS Employees: The Person You are Not

We are, of course, both the person of whom we present, as well as the person we are not — not known as; not publicly announced; not revealed.  Much of the private life of those we publicly admire or hold up on pedestals turn out to be ugly and better left alone.  Things which have been hidden and concealed are done often for good reasons: the light of public display is not where the creepy-crawlies of one’s life should be.

The old adage is normally true: If you want to admire a public figure, don’t go looking under the rocks and closets, lest what is revealed might dampen your enthusiasm of admiration.  Yet, for the ordinary person, the person you are not is merely that part of you which not too many are familiar with, but which reveals the greater essence — of hobbies unknown; of kind acts not publicly shared; of a remarkable past undiscovered, etc.  We are never the person “just” as we appear.

That is why, for Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job — the tawdry and uncaring attitude of one’s Federal agency or Postal unit when a person needs to file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits under FERS is often quite hurtful.

For, to be relegated as merely that person who wants to get a “benefit” while ignoring the lifetime of dedication to work and trying to do the best one can while struggling with a medical condition is to view the person in a one-dimensional way.  OPM has a tendency to do that — of treating you as the person you are not, especially when they deny you and characterize your application in a way that should not be.

Contact an OPM Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of getting your retirement benefits approved so that you can go on your way to being the person you are, and not the person you are not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer 
OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer

    

Federal Disability Retirement: Perfecting life versus living perfectly

It is the latter which most of us do, or pretend to do, and which stunts the capacity to engage in the former.  And so that which we should be doing (the former) is prevented because of that which we are already doing (the latter), in a never-ending cycle of self-destruction.

Those Internet internecine attempts which include Facebook and Instagram don’t help in these matters, and perhaps exacerbate them exponentially.  For, in both cases, they encourage each one of us to “appear” to be living perfectly, when the whole endeavor of human existence should be a striving towards perfecting our lives — i.e., of recognizing the imperfect status of our current condition, having a paradigm towards which one strives in order to correct those defects, and thus towards the “end” of this prosaically-described “journey” of sorts, to be able to declare that “perfection” was somewhat achieved.

But — no — instead, we create an appearance, a facade, a dissembling image of one’s appearance and put forth a self-portrait of an already-achieved perfection: The perfect happiness; the perfect outing; the perfect couple and the perfect participle.

The origins of philosophy (i.e., Plato, Aristotle and those who followed) were always concerned with the differentiation between “Appearance” and “Reality”; in modernity, the two have been conflated, where one’s appearance is the reality of one’s existence.  By commingling concepts which were once clearly bifurcated, we prevent the capacity of human beings to strive to be better, to grow and mature towards greater fulfillment of one’s potentiality.

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, it is a familiar concept — of hiding one’s imperfections in an environment that demands perfection daily.  Medical conditions and their impact on a person’s life — these are considered “imperfections” in a society that demands nothing less than perfection.  Thus does the targeted harassment begin — to “punish” the very person who needs support, empathy and understanding, instead of the constant barrage of unneeded animosity.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may not, in and of itself, be the perfect solution; but, as imperfect a solution as filing a Federal Disability Retirement application may seem, the appearance of an imperfect solution may be preferable than the perfection expected but unattainable in a society that appears to be perfectly fine with imperfections pervasively perfected by appearances of concealed imperfections.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: The parade that fades

Parades are often forlorn events.  The pomp and circumstance that brings forth the loud serenade of trumpets, drums and cadence of disparate groups; the sequence of human colonnades marching to the beat of rhythmic blares where medals gleam in the glint of sunlight’s twilight; and when the speeches end and the parade that fades leaves but for the leaflets that once announced of its impending arrival, the hearts that once fluttered in anticipation of the marching band that lost its footing may but be a glimmer of tomorrow’s hope.

Parades celebrate, and the participants engage the public eye to put on a show of appreciation, but do they voluntarily come together, or are they merely compensated workers ordered to appear?  And when once the parade fades, what happens to those left behind, of the grieving widows and children left orphaned, and the pinning of medals that sang the mournful hollow of a priceless life?

Other lives march on; it is the forgotten ones that inhabit an earth that continues on in haunting groups of voiceless sorrow, for years on end without the recognition noted but for that singular day on the parade grounds, where glory once revived and then soon forgotten.  Much of life is like that, isn’t it?

Like a parade that is put on, lasts for a day, or perhaps merely a part thereof, and then soon to be forgotten except for memories that are seared with a grimace and graceless utterances of voices once remembered and now merely a fading vestige, if that.  What was the fanfare for?  Do we even remember? What was said in the speech now faded but for glory’s once grand applause?  Do we even care?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker’s attempt to continue his or her career because the progressively worsening medical condition itself is preventing one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job — the end of one’s career may be likened to the parade that fades.

That sense of belonging; that feeling that life’s cadence included you in the marching band of the colorful parade; of being part of a team, with a sense of coherence and purpose; but like all parades, the day’s end ultimately comes.  Whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the sinking feeling that the parade that fades may mean that there is no longer the trumpet’s blare or the drumbeat of life’s cadence is simply a fear within that does not reflect reality.

Tomorrow, the sun will still shine and the birds will yet sing; the grounds will still be there, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is merely changing the venue of where the next parade will be held, thus replacing the parade that fades at the end of this day alone.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Admission

It is a noun of peculiar variability, perhaps all interconnected upon reflection.  It can refer to the permission to enter, whether by right, payment or removal of obstacles; or, denoting the price of such entrance; or even yet, a confession or acknowledgment of a point taken; and in other contexts, of being accepted into a fraternity of sorts, as in “admission to a university” or “to the legal bar” – meaning, not an actual, physical movement through gates now open, but a conceptual membership into a community of selective individuals.

Is there a linguistic relationship between that sequestered sense of the word – of an acknowledgment or confession – in contradistinction to the other forms, all of the remainder of which encompasses an entrance, movement or acceptance to a desired destination upon the removal of an obstruction, whether by a physical gate or a nod of consent?

How about this:  An admission denoting a confessional standard or conceding a point of conflict can be likened as a release, where pent-up resistance is suddenly or finally torn down, and the voluntary pouring out of one’s previously-withheld desire to “tell all” has been replaced with the emptying sensation of a satisfied conscience.  You are now allowed into the community of guiltless souls, or at least of having the feeling of being released from the cage of deception in falsehood.

Admission in this sense is a freeing of one’s inner soul, and it is normally insufficient to bring that narrative of expiation in a silent soliloquy to one’s self; thus, there are confessionals and penitent individuals, bowing with genuflective subservience and unmasking one’s soul to someone cloaked in authoritative garments, and somehow the externalization of one’s guilty conscience has an antiseptic, cleansing effect.

Admission into a fraternity of brotherhood is always a welcoming act; admission of one’s mistakes, wrongs committed and sins adorned, has never been an easy undertaking, and less so in this day and age where moral equivalency is the prevailing rule of life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the issue of admission is always twofold:  First, the entire purpose of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is to gain admission into the class of former Federal and Postal employees who are now Federal Disability Retirement annuitants; and, secondly, it is important to allow for the difficult admission that the entire administrative and bureaucratic process is a complicated one, and therefore may require the assistance of legal counsel in order to successfully maneuver one’s way through the maze of complexities.

An admission in the first sense is thus the goal; an admission in the latter sense is merely a reflection of wisdom in progress for the Federal or Postal employee who, by necessity of a medical condition, needs to file a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

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

 

Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: Clarity of purpose

It is always a burden when the passageway beyond is a mist of obscurity.  It helps to possess it, even in partial shades of inane generalizations; but lack of it, especially in youth, is neither a crime nor a blot of misdeeds upon one’s reputation so early in a life or career.  We have known them, whether as a “type” or an individual; that rarity of endangered species where the target-point of life is an unwavering straight line directly from birth to death (or at least for the moment when a career goal is sought).

Clarity of purpose is something one “ought” to have, but rarely manifested in the lives of ordinary people.  We talk of a nation’s “manifest destiny”, or of the importance of having some “foundation” in life; of faith, purpose and a desire or motivation to – what?  That is often the problem; not so much that we have no purpose in life, but that clarity of that essence is too often subverted by events unasked for and circumstances untold.

In W. Somerset Maugham’s novel, The Razor’s Edge, where Larry merely wants to “loaf” after his traumatic wartime experiences –  does lack of clarity of purpose as defined by conventional society evince a mere deviation of acceptable behavior, or constitute a complete violation and breach of man’s destined existence harkening from the residues of Puritanism and religiosity in general? (Note the comedic definition of Puritanism from H.L. Mencken:  “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy”).

Modernity no longer believes in destiny, fate, or purposeful existence; and thus do we lack great figures, anymore – as Churchill who consistently defied death in war because of an inherent belief that he was destined for greater things, and thus the gods would not dare to undermine that predetermined fate of life.  Instead, the insidiousness of Darwinian belief – a foundation where reductionism to pure materialism and life lived by sensation, pleasure and tactile responsiveness:  these are the purposeful endeavors for us all.  It is, however, still a requirement that, in order to reach a destination of accomplishment, we “clarify” the “purpose” for which we engage to act.

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, the need to define, refine and clarify such a purposive action is a crucial component in the successful formulation and filing of a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Wandering and meandering with merely a general sense of what needs to be done, like Larry Darrell’s search for meaning in Maugham’s masterpiece, will likely result in a denial by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  There are legal statutes to consult; case-law that should be cited; and a streamlining of medical evidence in order to pinpoint, with circumscribed accuracy, the argument and methodology for approval of an OPM Disability Retirement application.

In sum, there needs to be a tactical and strategic clarity of purposive action throughout, in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Life’s Fathomless Diatribe

We tend to personify and project upon lifeless, inorganic and inert entities, not to mention the extrapolation of generalized and universal conceptual forms, and inject them with personalities, characteristics and living imprints.  Did Plato make this fatal mistake, or was he beyond our intellectual capacity, and perhaps like the mischievous character he provided in his dialogues, was he merely the siamese twin of Socrates and inextricably conjoined in body, mind and philosophical spirit, with that glint of the knowing jokester?

“Life”, as we like to make of the stuff which confounds us, is like the half-crazed homeless person who stands on the street corner and yells at us as we pass by.  Sometimes, we even get hit by a bombardment of spittle, and an unexpected whack on the head, leaving us stunned and helpless, faint with outrage and anxious that Mr. Life may follow us home.  And, indeed, he sometimes does.

Life is like that fathomless diatribe; and we are merely an audience of one, isolated, watchful, spectators who can only observe, sometimes shout back, and in a feeble attempt at altering destiny, weep in a heap of self-pity and trembling repose.  That is how the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker feels, in confronting the mammoth of the Federal Bureaucracy and the U.S. Postal Service, especially when the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker are enmeshed in the weakened state of fighting a 3-front battle:  One’s own Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service; a medical condition that has begun to impact the ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional requirements; and the battle against “life” and all of its multitudinous facets of complexities.

Is “life” just another metaphorical voice in the darkness of time?  For the Federal or Postal worker, the time 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, must often be determined by the harkening voice of life’s trials and travails.  As OPM is just another behemoth to confront, in addition to one’s own agency or the U.S. Postal Service, so the preparation to “do battle” must include the tools of engagement:  the facts, the law, and the will to proceed.  And like life’s fathomless diatribe, the will to win must first and foremost be the amour of protection in preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Stuff of Life

Aristotle refers to the underlying unchangeableness of the world we encounter, in contrast to the cosmetic alterations which appear to defy the constancy of the universe, thereby bringing together the two poles of philosophical opposition as represented by Heraclitus and Parmenides.   That “substratum” which underlies it all, and of which Heidegger sought to unravel and make known; for the everyday person, it is the “stuff of life” that we must deal with.

Things happen (which is a more genteel way of putting it, as opposed to the colorful vernacular by which it is often known), and the aggregation of all of the compendium of cumulative such bundles — of bad childhoods, decisions we make, corners we turn, the stresses which bombard, marriage, children, the inconstancy of life’s trials and travails, and medical conditions which impede and debilitate  — some are mere appearances which dissipate as time endures, while others constitute the substratum, or the Forms of Platonic Philosophy, and must be accepted as the essence of our very Being.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must endure the hardship of surviving through a medical condition, where the medical condition itself begins to impact the ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal duties, that “stuff” must add one more component:  the reaction of the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, in attempting to accommodate the medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing the essential elements of one’s positional duties.  Stuff happens, and the stuff of life must be dealt with.

For Federal and Postal workers, the question of preparing, formulating and 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, is one which must begin with the core of human need and daily suffering.

Do we wait until all appearances fade away, and we are left with nothing but the exposure of what remains?  Do we “fight on” until the essence of who we are is lost forever?  That is often the conflict which must be resolved, and to which the Federal or Postal employee must resign him or herself to — of whether the Federal or Postal job is merely another one of the “stuff of life“, or have you made it into the Staff of Life?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Asylum

As an active noun, it can mean the protection accorded to a migrant seeking refuge and escape from persecution; in a passive sense, it is an institution with a historical connotation of ill-treatment and mistreatment, imposed against the will of another who may be unable to care for oneself.  In either implied denotations, it reflects a protective refuge, either against the outside forces by within, or in response to inner spirits imagined without.

In rarer moments of perceptive translucence, one sees the need for the imposition of both definitions upon an allegedly sane universe.  Like the story by Hans Christian Andersen, The Emperor’s New Clothes, it isn’t until we stop ourselves and pause for reflection, like the boy who shouted out that, indeed, the Emperor is wearing none, that the need for an asylum is everywhere to be discovered.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers observe and witness such an event each day, every hour.  For Federal employees with a medical condition, and Postal workers who suffer through the agony of daily turmoil because “management” will not allow an injured worker to be accommodated, the abuse and misuse of people — the very resource of civilization which should be protected like precious gems to be admired and revered — is palpable and ultimately inexcusable.

Federal Disability Retirement should not be the final refuge of asylum seekers, but it often is.  It isn’t that Federal or Postal workers turn at the first opportunity to seek the protective walls of escape, but Federal and Postal workers often have no other choice.  If allowed to recuperate and regain one’s sense of equilibrium and repose, it may be that the wealth of experience and knowledge gained through years and decades of work could be re-channeled, but Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service rarely see it that way, and instead view all individuals as merely short-term investments.

Asylums are built to protect, but when the patients have run amok and control the very institutions designed to provide the refuge needed, it is then time for the Federal or Postal worker seeking assistance in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, to contact an attorney to escape from the madness of antiseptic walls crawling with imaginary creepy-crawlies — or those who control the levers of power in the Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Whispers of Time

Sometimes, in the deadened silence of night, thoughts beyond our daily routine creep into the shadows of the subconscious; or, in the quietude of rustling leaves, a harkening which is lost but for the whispers of time.

Is it true that there are signs, voices, foreboding elements around which warn of impending events beyond the pragmatism of our technologically-driven society?  Did epochs of yore possess knowledge beyond what we discover on Google?  Put that way, the simple answer is, “yes”; but if characterized as engaging old spirits through acts of necromancy and boiling bones, hairs and organs in a cauldron of witch’s brew, then our doubts begin to ponder.  Is there a “middle ground” — of recognizing that animals have an innate sense of danger which we have lost, or where the scent of impending prey pervades, which we once may have possessed a heightened alarm for, but which society has stamped out through the callous indifference of civilized comportment?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who wait for finality of judgment prior to beginning the process of preparing, formulating and 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, it may be that the Federal or Postal employee shuns and casts aside that quiet “inner voice” which tells one, “This cannot go on.”

We tend to do that.  Man has an unlimited and vast capacity for self-justification and rationalization, often to the detriment of self.  And that quiet voice of foreboding need not be something mysterious or even sinister in timeless sorcery; it could merely be our bodies telling us that, whatever hope our treatment modalities may be holding out for, the inconsistency between the medical condition and the positional duties required by the Federal or Postal job can no longer be maintained.

Truth is always magical, if not bluntly pragmatic; and while the days of magic have been lost when once the whispers of time succumbed to man’s landing on the moon, where romances and imagines faces converted to mere dust in the dustbin of history, there still remains room for the person who stops, listens, and pauses, if not for the oncoming train warning of impending catastrophe, then at least for the quiet warning signs that continuing in the same vein may not be the wisest of paths to take.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire