FERS Disability Retirement: Parts of the Day

Human beings like to bifurcate, separate, identify, categorize, and otherwise artificially divide time into manageable segments in order to re-order the world to their liking.

This is the simplified explanation of Kant’s distinction between the “phenomenal world” (the one we perceive through our cognitive faculties) and the “noumenal world” — that “objective” universe which we are never able to access because the categories of our human constitution impose upon the raw universe the mental ordering so that we perceive that which is uniquely human.

Thus, “time”, as Augustine viewed it, is merely the human imposition of expectations as to an anticipated future segment, and nothing more than a fiction based upon human categorization of past, prevent and future.

And of the “parts of the day”?  Perhaps it might go something like the following: Morning coffee period — enjoyable; the slog of late morning; lunch, a quiet respite; the sleepiness after a meal, but somehow to get over the hump of early afternoon; then, watching the clock as the minutes slowly make their way towards the end of a workday; the stress-filled commute back home; home, for last minute chores, children and a good night’s sleep.

With variations, each individual experiences a similar “phenomenal” day, cut up into manageable segments — until an interceding (and interrupting) force appears.  Chronic medical conditions often constitute and comprise that “interruption”.

Fortunately, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition itself alters the Federal or Postal employee’s parts of the day — by necessity, to get through the debilitating symptoms of your disabling health condition — it may not be so simple as the hypothetical division as described herein.

What needs to happen, then, is to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), so that the parts of the day can look somewhat like the following: Focus on getting better; rest; focus on getting better; rest.

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 Benefits: Preservation

The pendulum of history swings between the two concepts — the other being one of replacement, embracing that which is new and discarding the old.

Preservation involves the decision and act of keeping and maintaining the old.  Most of what is old are replaced and discarded; for, that which is old is often in a state of disrepair, dilapidated and not worthy of upkeep or preservation.

Sentimentality, of course, is often involved — of keeping something merely because it has remained with us for quite a bit of time, or refusing to let go of a past even when that past embraced ugliness and embarrassing antiquities of outdated conceptual constructs.

Preservation can, too, involve human beings — of wanting to safeguard relationships, mementoes, memories, etc., and even careers.  Can a career be “preserved”?  How about employee benefits?

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 all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, preservation of one’s rights, benefits and future security is a crucial necessity going forward with one’s life involving the debilitating medical condition incurred and suffered.

Contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Law and consider the benefit of preserving the salvageable benefits you have worked so hard for, and deserve to preserve.

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 & Postal Disability Retirement: Options Unrealized

Is an option an option if it is unrealized?  “Unrealized”, of course, can have 2 different but subtle meanings — of not being known at all or — in a second sense — of known but just not actualized.  If a person is entirely unaware of an alternative course of action or a pathway delving into a different set of circumstances, can those other avenues be considered “options”?

They are, of course, options in a generic sense, but perhaps not yet individualized.  Take the following hypothetical: buried a foot below the ground is a hidden treasure, a trove of gold coins left behind by Spanish conquistadors many centuries before, now covered by layers of sediment and overgrown grass.

A detectorist (yes, from that cult-like following of a 3-series program) who has gone over the same ground multiple times, suddenly receives a positive signal of a potential find; stops, digs, and — becomes rich and famous.  When asked about it, he replies, “I had gone over the same area many times before and knew that something might be there, but didn’t want to realize my option because, to do so would then take the fun out of it.”  Huh?

Now, that person truly had an option — knowledge of a potential treasure and a choice to exercise the option to find it, but refraining from doing so.  Or, by contrast, the first-time detectorist who stumbles upon the same treasure trove at the first opportunity to cover that same ground — he had no “option”, but simply exercised it upon receiving a positive signal from his metal detector.

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, the options unrealized are often those that have never been told of, announced or even considered — like preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Perhaps your agency or the Postal Service never apprised you of the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement; or, perhaps you were once told but completely forgot.  In either case, the options unrealized are the ones that can do you harm, and it is only if you take the necessary steps to realized the unrealized options that it can do a person any good, and the first step towards realizing an option unrealized is to consult with an Attorney who specializes in that option yet to be realized: FERS Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The unmerited edge

And what did they all do to merit the position of harassing? Merely a negation of something never earned: Not getting sick; not becoming crippled with a medical condition; not having a medical disability. Of what accolades should be showered for that? Why is it that the person whose only success in life is a negation of nothingness, should have any edge at all, merited, unmerited or otherwise?

Life often makes no sense; and, while the concept of “fairness” is quite a subjective one, most can agree at least that being in a state of unmerited oblivion should not accord one any edge at all, but to have it would be “unfair” by fiat of logical acceptability.

Should awards be presented to, and accolades showered upon, those who are in a position of power, influence or application of future determinations upon people’s careers and job security, even if that power that provides an advantage and edge is unmerited?

One can argue that the mere fact that a person has risen to such a position in and of itself constitutes a meritorious status and stature; but, even given that, does not continuing merit depend upon a current historicity of ongoing accomplishments? And, are not some characteristics not merit-based, but merely acquired – such as negations involving “not becoming sick”, “not having a chronic medical condition” and “not being prevented from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job”?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has come to a point where he or she is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of his or her Federal or Postal job, it may be time to prepare a 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.

In the administrative process of enduring this bureaucratic maze, that Federal or Postal disability retirement applicant will likely encounter the adversarial face-off with Supervisors, Managers and Agency heads who likely possess the unmerited edge – that advantage over the Federal or Postal Federal Disability Retirement applicant – and the power to determine the course of actions contemplated or otherwise begun.

Be careful, however, as the unmerited edge should be distinguished from the power to harass, intimidate and initiate adversarial procedures. For, there are many in this world who possess power and use it indiscriminately, even though it may well be an edge which is unmerited.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits for Federal Employees: The bugle

Unlike its cousins, it has no valves or pitch-altering devices, but must be modified through the movement of the lips, the extent of breath exhaled and the undulating modifications of combined muscles in the lips, tongue and throat.  Perhaps from the days of riding a horse in the cavalry, where playing an instrument while charging full force ahead on a horse stumbling across rough terrain forced the instrument’s player to modulate through strain of keeping one’s self from falling; in any event, its very lack of complexity belies the simplicity of the bugle, as appearances are indeed deceiving.

Whether playing Taps in that mournful tone, or reveille in that jarring sound as the signal to awaken for morning roll call, or the charge to execute a cavalry or infantry advancement — that frightening sound to Indian tribes signifying the destruction of a culture long awaiting death – its class of variety extends well beyond most choices provided.

Trumpets of all sorts may be included in the family – from Piccolo trumpets, slide trumpets and multiple others from A to G and beyond; but the bugle stands alone in its structural simplicity and reliance upon the creativity of the holder who dares to attempt to master its range of pitches by the vocal creativity and lips pursed in controlled spurts of exhaling the intricacies of man’s attachment to inert objects to fill the air with sounds unnatural but for the beauty of music.

That range of pitches – from the morning call to awaken with energy reverberating from a cadence of jolting magnitude; to the charging rampage of a galloping horse; to the sorrowful tears of life’s end represented by the draping of a flag upon the coffin; these, in their collective entirety, depict the spectrum of life:  Of youthful exuberance; to middle-aged hope and faith; to the black veil of a life well lived; the sound of the bugle encompasses all.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find themselves in that twilight of life’s stages – somewhere beyond the youthful enthusiasm, but well before the illumination reflected by the funeral pyre – perhaps it is the sound of the bugle in the last stages of reveille, before the first note of Taps is emitted; and the medical condition has blanketed the tone, quality and loudness of the music of life, and a further stanza of a narrative interrupted must be composed.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is like the bugler’s call to order, and sometimes the sound of music must be heard at the end of a piece, and a pause must be endured, before the beginning of the next.  That is the challenge and the beauty of the bugle – an instrument for all stages in the pendulum of life’s musical quality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The ‘Why’ of life

Why do we do that which we do?  Do other species engage in such reflective self-assessments, or do they just perform the act without positing the query?  Or course, there is the antecedent question of whether the question itself is asked in the linguistic modality which we embrace; or, is there another form of a more subtle nature that other animals correlate and learn from without a long utterance ending with a grammatical interrogative?

Perhaps, in the mere instinctive alteration of actions future-oriented displays the capacity of other species to “learn” from past mistakes and potential dangers allowed by careless indifference, and such changes in behavior itself by fiat already answers the query of ‘why’.  Thus, the question asked in the silence of one’s subtle modification in behavioral psychology constitutes, for other species, that self-assessment, and the mere fact that a public declaration is not made, does not necessarily prove that we are unique because we persistently ask such questions without ever answering them.

Is that why human folly persists through the ages, perennially, without alteration, without revealing any wisdom gained, understanding embraced or comprehension manifested?  Do we think that because we ask the question itself, without ever coming to a consensus of answers, that we are therefore more sophisticated, more intelligent and wiser than our earthly companions as well as our predecessors?  Is a question unanswered of any value if we never gain any knowledge or greater comprehension of the universe within which we occupy, merely because of the asking or the utterance of the interrogative?

Language often becomes the “stopper” – that appearance and semblance of an act which is merely an utterance of inactivity, but because of the significance and relevance which we place upon it, is often and mistakenly thought of as an accomplishing feat.  Misjudging mere words in the interrogative form for substantive sincerity of actions often leads to inertia and being stuck in the mud of life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are suffering 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 job, the question asked will often paralyze, and the ‘Why’ that is never answered can invite one upon the treadmill that never goes anywhere.

It is the step beyond the question that makes all the difference, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the substantive answer that follows upon the perennial question that is never answered, never satisfied, and forever posited:  Why?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire