Federal Medical Retirement Law: Impotent Perplexities

We live in a time of perplexities, and where we stare paralyzed with inaction, unable to move, incapable of solving, impotent to act.  “It is too complex”; “It’s not my problem”; “It’s outside of my department”; “Let those who created the problem be responsible for the solution”, etc.

We have come to think that words alone can move the world; and so people spend hours upon countless hours on computers, Smartphones, social media, etc., and stare at a blank slate and believe that by pushing buttons, some modicum of differences can be implemented.

Then, when nothing happens, nothing changes, nothing moves — in a word, perplexities abound and impotence dominates — we become paralyzed with a question mark: Why did nothing happen?  And so we become ensconced within the insularity of our linguistic conundrums, forever impotent in our perplexities, eternally paralyzed by our own inability to find our way out from the maze of our own making.

Medical conditions can result in the paralysis of impotent perplexities; for, in the end, many medical conditions remain as perplexities themselves within the very medical community which declares science as the pinnacle of human achievement.

Furthermore, for Federal employees and Postal Service workers, here is another perplexity which may confound you: How do you maneuver through the Leviathan of bureaucracies like that of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management?

Consider hiring an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and have an advocate who knows the ins and outs of maneuvering through the impotent perplexities of a confounding bureaucracy in preparing, formulating, filing and getting an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Fool’s Facade

Throughout our lives, there are stages of facades.  As a young child, it may be the facade of toughness; as a teenager, of not caring; of a young man, of cognitive dissonance; in middle age, the facade of contentment; in later years, of a facade of wisdom.  All throughout, we put up walls and hide the skeletons in our tightly-sealed closets.

In the end, the only person we actually fool is ourselves.  For, the fool’s facade involves the fool of the self constructing the facade that only we can make up.

There are, however, facades which cannot hide some things — such as a medical condition.  We can walk around and try to pretend, to hide, to act “as if” — but when a medical condition begins to prevent a person from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, such a facade only goes so far.

When that time comes to a breaking point — when you can no longer pretend or act “as if” — then it is time to consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement.

Don’t let the fool’s facade deny you your rightful benefits.  Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and strip away the fool’s facade.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Conveyor Belt

Some marriages are like that; life, in general, often feels of a like manner; and ultimately the question becomes: How does one get off of it?

The conveyor belt takes an item, a medium or some product along the way on rotating wheels that endlessly spin.  Once on, the entity presumably reaches a destination point, at least in factories or stores that maintain and run them.  But the metaphor of a conveyor belt evokes an image of an infinite quality: once on, unless you are the operator of the system, there is no turning it off.  Some people become involved in relationships that feel like a conveyor belt; others, into divorces where neither party is excited about it, but nevertheless go along with it because there are irreconcilable differences that cannot be resolved.

Medical conditions, too, fit the metaphor of the conveyor belt — for, once a condition appears, it is most certainly merely a symptom of something greater, and the vast conveyor belt of the medical complex — of medication regimens, surgical intervention, therapeutic involvement, etc., all serve to place you upon the conveyor belt of no return.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who feel like their lives are on a conveyor belt upon which there appears to be no return because of a medical condition that prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of his or her Federal or Postal job duties, it may be time to consider getting off from the “conveyor belt” and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Consult with a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and consider stopping the conveyor belt that seems to be taking you down a path that is no longer a destination of your choosing.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal OPM Disability Retirement Claims: Advice

The great thing about it is that most people are willing to give it out in endless streams of inarticulate bosh for free, and the rest of us are at liberty to do with it what we want.  With the advent of the Internet, and more so with the consolidation of all things electronic into a single, hand-held device — the so-called “Smartphone” — in conjunction with search engines that leave memory banks and history’s previous requirement of recall and a sound education irrelevant, “advice” has become plentiful, whereas “sound advice” has left us wanting.

Wives are more than willing to give an endless abundance of it; coworkers, perhaps less so, although you always have to watch out for those aggressive, competitive ones who want to advance at the expense of your failure wrought by following error-filled ones deliberately given for subversive motivations; and children upon reaching the age of adulthood (and sometimes long before puberty makes them into ogres refusing to accept any semblance or whiff if given by the origin of parentage alone) need not accept it and for about a decade refuse to consider any advice given by the father or mother, until one day they begin to see that, Well, Dad and Mom weren’t so dumb after all.

Advice, in the end, is something we all need but few of us listen to, let alone follow or even take into consideration.  Yet, there are times and circumstances in life when it becomes necessary and almost mandatory; for, to follow a pathway outside of the norm (as Robert Frost so poetically articulates) may be well and good for adventure’s sake and youthful moments of wayward romanticism, it is not perhaps the best route to take when engaging a technical area of an endeavor.

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, advice on the law, the procedure, the formulation and the statutory mandates should be sought and followed, particularized and tailored to the individual and unique narrative of the Federal employee seeking FERS Disability Retirement benefits.

Advice from an experienced lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law should be a given; whether taken, will depend upon the soundness of both the counselor and the one who seeks it.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The Inside View

There is the “outside” perspective as opposed to the “inside view”, and that is the mistake people make in various sectors of life: The “outsider” believes that, from a position and perspective of detachment and therefore objectivity, he or she is able to better assess, evaluate and analyze the event, situation or conditions experienced than by those on the “inside”.

By contrast, the “insider” views the outsider with suspicion, contending that he or she has no idea about the experiences and existential difficulties faced by the insider, and that a detached, objective viewpoint which fails to take into consideration the subjective, “personal” side of things misses the essential point of the issue.

It is the tension which exists between the townspeople and the “out-of-towner”; the one who lives in a community as opposed to the renter or investor; or of the person who drives around the neighborhood admiring the green lawns, the peaceful nature and the tranquility of a community, hoping to one day purchase a home there without knowing the problems inherent — say, that the water is contaminated or that there has been a rash of burglaries on the rise in recent years.

How does one break the invisible wall between the inside view and the outside perspective?  When does the demarcation between the two disappear?  Do numbers of years living within a community determine whether an outsider becomes an insider?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application because of a medical condition which has come to a critical point where the Federal or Postal worker can no longer perform one or more of the basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it often “feels” like one has all of a sudden become an “outsider” again — not only from one’s own agency or the Postal Service, but moreover, because of the complexity of the administrative procedures and bureaucratic morass of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — of the sense that the whole process is strange and detached.

Consulting with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is a good first step in bridging the gap that widens when first encountering that feeling, in order to get an “inside view” of what it takes to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Disability Retirement Attorney

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The hospital bed

It is a lonely and demoralizing state of affairs; they poke, prod and insist upon ruling out every sector of one’s body as the culprit of diagnosed maladies.  The hospital bed is a barbaric contraption next to a mediaeval torture chamber, and one can only imagine what such inventions were like in those olden days, when antiseptic means meant the possibility of washing one’s hands every now and again, and where pain and death were part of everyday living.

It reminds us, above all, of our own vulnerability and mortality; and what a blessing health and life are.

Oh, it is true – we take such issues for granted, and barely get beyond the tripe and inane statements like, “Oh, health is such a blessing,” or, “We are so thankful for our health.”  It is when one is in the hospital, alone in a bed, in the darkness of those twilight hours, that the reality of one’s own Being is revealed:  the projects we cling to; the significance we place upon the work we perform; and the extra credit we think we deserve when we work late into the wee hours.

We have heard all of those wise remarks, either in novels, essays or even movies:  On your epitaph, you do not get a special mention for ignoring your health.  Work is great, but that needs to be placed in its proper perspective.  The projects we engage and embrace – is it, as Heidegger reminds us, merely a means to avoid the inevitable outcome of our fate?  Do the gods laugh from above, pointing to our mortality and the fruitless attempts we cling to in order to avoid facing our future?

It is, in the end, the hospital bed that reminds us starkly of who we are, where we are heading, and what this all will mean.

Retirement is not meant to be a time to spend in a hospital bed; Disability Retirement is not meant to be filed at a point when a Federal or Postal employee is so debilitated that once it is approved by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, that one merely “retires” to a hospital bed.  It is, instead, a system whereby a person is recognized to no longer be able to perform some of the essential elements of one’s job, but that there is an implicit understanding that there can be a time in the future where productivity can be applied to a different vocation or another career.

Yes, there are jokes that abound – of Federal Disability Retirement annuitants being Walmart Greeters or engaged in other similarly menial and lesser jobs, but those are not the only stories to tell.  There are many Federal annuitants who have found private sector jobs where the pay scale comes perilously close to the 80% limit – and, while that can be a problem, isn’t that a “good” problem to have?

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits does not require the “higher” standard of being debilitated or “totally disabled”; rather, it is a standard which recognizes that there is an inconsistency between the position one occupies, and the medical conditions from which one suffers.  If consideration in filing is arrived at in a hospital bed, it is still not too late; but a reminder it is, and the next steps are to begin the long and complicated process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The intransigent excuse

Much of life is spent in retrospectively justifying actions; the remainder of the time, of making excuses where we can, and when we need to (which is often).  The great thing about excuses is that the reserve of them can never be depleted; like the never-exhaustive stars in the universe, we can always discover, make up, or otherwise concoct another.  Thus, to counter that a person has “run out of excuses” is to defy reality; we can always, if the need requires, go back to one that we long ago abandoned, and stick to it.

It is that intransigent excuse that tends to defy – the one that, though unreasonable by most accounts, nevertheless provides a shield of protection for the one who clings to it.  For, the one who tightly embraces an intransigent excuse never, of course, considers it as such; it is, instead, the fault that rests upon the rest of the world in a conspiracy of illogical motives that attempts to change course and offer alternatives as to facts, opinions or best avenues for future courses of action.

As to the one clinging to such excuses, it is never characterized as such.  No, instead it is an explanation in light of reasonable circumstances; a logical conclusion based upon facts as interpreted; and, even if the rest of the universe fails to comprehend the logic of the stated foundation, the intransigent excuse is the last bastion of the proverbial wall that may force us to do, acknowledge and admit to that which we vehemently resist.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are in need of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the primary concern is to get beyond an intransigent excuse.  While there are very few circumstances in which filing for Federal Disability Retirement is “too late” (other than the obvious one, of course, of complying with the Statue of Limitations of filing within 1 year of being separated from Federal Service), the key is to file before it becomes an emergency.

As OPM has a large backlog of cases and they are taking longer and longer to review, evaluate and make decisions on a case – leaving aside the problem of even first having them to assign a case to a reviewer/ administrative specialist – there must needs be some forward planning and foresight of future-oriented perspectives, and it is often the intransigent excuse which defies, builds a wall against, and creates seemingly insurmountable obstacles in moving forward.

Life is full of obstacles, and the ones we build ourselves are often the most difficult to overcome.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a big decision to make; thought, preparation and formulation of a plan is often necessary.  Just do not allow for the intransigent excuse to be the wall that prevents the reasonable approach to prevail.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Wisdom’s hold on life

We never quite “get it”.  Trans-generational imputing of wisdom is not part of modern society.  In more “traditional” societies, multi-generational families live together out of practical reasons:  Not only is it less expensive if the earnings are pooled into a single resource of means, but until marriage or an offer of economic leverage pulls a member away from the core, imparting of wisdom, experience and voices of learned care may be passed down from generation to generation.  In the West, instead, the rush is to depart and fracture; to get away as quickly as possible; for, as youth is the cult of modernity, so folly of youth is the means by which we live.

That was the point of alternative interactions, as well – of apprenticeships, internships and other similar ships moored to more experienced hands; but even those are now relics of an age no longer relevant.  And of age – old men with decades of experience in handling matters of great complexity, shuttled away into homes smelling of antiseptic camouflaging of decay and devoid of respect or gratitude; women who once gained a stature of serene contentment, now deluged in a cauldron of impoverishment and relegated to the insignificance of lost memories.  Where is wisdom’s hold upon life?

There is, in the end, no means for generational transfer of wisdom, and the wheel must be reinvented at every turn, by an ignorant and inexperienced first generation where “first” is always reenacted and “generation” is merely something to submit to have a family tree drawn in order to boast of one’s genetic predisposition towards folly and foolishness.  Yet, we have come to believe that wisdom can be equated to information, and so we hand out Smartphones so that we can mindlessly look up data, soft news and questionable sources where references cannot be verified, plagiarism may be rampant, and esoteric knowledge has been forever generalized to a point of neutrality of purpose.

Where do we get wisdom?  From advice columns, gurus of booksellers hinting of “secret” formulas and self-serving wanna-bees of Dear Abby.  Once, wisdom’s hold on life resulted in an evolution of greater growth, as generational transfer allowed for each within the greater whole to advance beyond the elementary foundations of first principles.  Now, we are solitary, isolated and disconnected.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, wisdom’s latent hold on life should not make one pause, but rather, as the dissemination of knowledge, information and guidance can be accessed through an experienced lawyer who has faced OPM many times, life need not be anticipated, but advanced beyond the folly of youth where wisdom’s hold on life is but a moment devoid of influence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire