Search Results for: who we

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: Stop & Go

May 29, 2019

The rhythm of our daily lives is a reminder of who we are, how we live; and so the necessity of transportation — of driving a car, riding a bus, and even of a subway or the more traditional train; of how we ride for a time, then stop; then, ride again for a further time, then stop.

The work day is set up in the same manner, with a parallel rhythmical indifference: We work furiously for a specified number of hours, then pause, stop for a while — perhaps eat our lunch, go and use the “facilities”, and then rush back to “ride” for a while by working again, only to stop again for a brief moment, eat dinner, sleep for a bit, etc. Throughout that rhythmic process called “living life”, we try and avoid all of the calamities of known origins and unknown expectations — and like the accident on the road we try and avoid, the living calamities (e.g., injuries; divorce; death, etc.) are there at unknown places and in foretold quantities.

Medical conditions, the frailty of human health, the mortality of the common person — these are all part of the dangers in the “Go” process; and when they occur, they make us stop, thereby interrupting and disrupting the “going” in life’s rhythm and forcing us to stop.

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 job, the medical condition that “stops” the goals, dreams and anticipated future of the Federal employee or Postal worker becomes the disruptive force of the rhythmic expectations of a life’s transitioning process.

The expectation is to always be “on the go”; and the frustration which is palpable is the “stop” of the medical condition.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is what is often needed to put the vehicle of moving forward and placing a person’s life back into the “go” mode; for, remember that a medical condition must be attended to, and is not merely a short break from the rhythm of one’s life; it is, in fact, of life itself, and the priorities we place upon that which is important and essential: of focusing upon one’s health, which is the engine of every person’s rhythm of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: Caught in a mold

February 12, 2019

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Not of the unwanted fungus type, growing as an organic filament in damp conditions; but of the other definition where the hollow of the inverse image is created and a liquid is poured into it, left to harden, then to lift, leave aside and discard in order for the formed creation to survive.

We are metaphors of the mold that forms, inasmuch as who we are is often determined by the casts which others have structured around us. Whether by expectations or a history of others telling us who we are, we abide by that script which was never written by ourselves.

Is that why there are secret lives? Are there those who live double, triple or even quadruple lives, unknown to spouses, children and parents, furtively lived about in shadows of other towns, cities — or just in the imaginations coveted by strangers whom we never met? Is there such a thing as an “expectation” of society; or perhaps Freud was ultimately right in our unending quest for approval by a motherly figure whom we forever seek?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are caught in the trap of a mold, where expectations of continuing in a career even though the pain of the medical condition or the despair of a constant struggle clearly point to one that such expectations can no longer be met — filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset — may be the best way to break out of the mold.

Such societal molds work only so long as the health of the mold remains intact; when the crack forms, however, then the liquid begins to leak and the figure which was expected becomes distorted in its very essence.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may well crack the mold of expectations, but when it becomes a necessary choice between one’s health and the expectation of others, it is the former which should always be the priority.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

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Federal Disability Retirement: The Pathway of Choice

December 3, 2018

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Pathways are peculiar entities; pre-Google Map times, they were a maze of forbidden routes, romanticized by a generation who were familiar with the television series, Route 66, and about hitchhiking, wrong turns, Robert Frost’s famous poem and Rand McNally road maps.

Now, of course, Google guides, directs, and (sometimes) allows for avoidance of unnecessary delays. But is it the pathway of choice, and even more importantly, is the pathway chosen the best one for each one of us, the most advantageous for us, and the one which ultimately is in our best interests? If the pathway that is chosen is simply so because all others are never known, or merely because that is the Robert-Frost-look-alike, when in fact it is delimited because of our lack of knowledge, is it really out of choice or of necessity?

Perhaps the career chosen is not turning out to be the realization of one’s dreams; or, as sometimes happens, an unfortunate set of circumstances has intervened — like a medical condition — and suddenly the pathway of choice that we thought would fulfill our hopes and dreams no longer seems possible; then what?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows us to perform all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, the pathway of choice for the immediate future may seem constricted: Stay put and suffer; walk away with nothing; or, prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

That is the tripartite fork in the immediate road on the way to one’s pathway of choice; but then, there are other “forks in the road” beyond, such as being able to work at another job after one has been approved for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether in the private sector or in a state, county or municipal employment scenario.

Don’t be restricted to the immediacy of one’s pathway of choice, for there are many forks beyond, and the pathway of choice as dictated by Google maps only tells you which turn to make in the next quarter mile, and not about what may be chosen in future lives yet unforeseen.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The person I once knew

August 17, 2018

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We all carry about that image of who we once were; or, perhaps of many of the person we once knew. Which memory-bank do we wash upon, once the shores of present images dissipate and the lapping waves of bygone days have begun to fade, like the vestiges of old photographs submitting to time’s ravages in the decay of life’s cycles of natural degradation?

The person I once knew — was it of the boy who sat upon a beach and giggled as the foam of gentle waves sang upon the tickling bare feet? Or the teenager who had acted like a fool and allowed for regrets to shadow one’s conscience for having been unkind to the unpopular girl who later turned into the beautiful swan and sang the merriment of forlorn days away? Or of the young man or woman who had hopes and unlimited dreams that somehow were closeted for a future time, never to be reopened to dust them off when the opportunities had come and gone?

The person I once knew was the one who defied danger and laughed in the face of a greasy cheeseburger, but now is fearful of the next health crisis and the pain that wrings the neck of a squawking chicken.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition where the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker’s ability and capacity to continue to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is no longer important to consider the person whom once I knew, but rather, the person who will move forward into the future.

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 an indication that the greater importance of one’s future self is being recognized as opposed to the person I once knew, thus allowing for the past to be buried in favor of a future still bright with tomorrow’s promises.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Employee Attorney

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OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Comparisons

December 8, 2017

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We like making them; somehow, it allows for hope and, unfortunately, its opposite, despair, but they are engaged in nonetheless, regardless of the potentialities pointing in either direction. Comparisons allow for a judgment of who we are, what we have accomplished and what we believe are the acceptable societal norms and standards, and whether we have succeeded or failed in meeting them.

People watch the pablum of television shows that display the ostentatious arrogance of some wealthy individuals who know not the concept of “discretion” or any sense of humility in having attained the higher luxuries of life; yet, many continue to be fascinated by such tasteless shows of comfort, and compare themselves, their accomplishments and the artificial standards of normative achievements that somehow have pervaded people’s psyche.

Of course, the corollary of such an approach to life is to redefine the definition of what it means to be “successful”, and thus to lower the standards in order to be all-inclusive, and do this each time as more and more people need to be accommodated.

Either extremes on the spectrum of man’s favorite sport – of watching, observing and comparing – constitutes the reality of that which is required to attain a level of satisfaction in life. Of course comparisons are going to be made – for, we live in a world where everything is relative, and one can only recognize and realize the multitude of opportunities and potentialities by comparing one’s own station in life with that of what others have achieved.

Concurrently, sometimes the definition that defines who we are, what is important and where one wants to go, may need some adjustments. Objectivity is achieved somewhere in the middle, between the comparative observance of “what is”, and the need to tinker with the language game that defines what “needs to be”.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact the ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the favorite past-time of Americans – of observing, comparing and judging – meets a heightened sense of anxious awaiting because of what coworkers and supervisors begin to do.

They compare your level of productivity to what others are doing, and what you were doing before. An “accommodation” is nothing more than the redefining of one’s essential elements of one’s job; but even with the linguistic rearrangement of those essential elements, the constant barrage of the other side of comparing continues – of supervisors, coworkers, etc., and the entire agency and postal facility judging whether or not you are doing as much as everyone else.

In the end, filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted ultimately to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may be necessary, as the sharpened knives of those comparisons may be too much to bear, given the innate nature of man’s cruelty in a world where medical conditions and disabilities are deemed to be comparatively unacceptable.

Sincerely, Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The protective comfort of fatalism

April 24, 2017

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There is some comfort in a perspective that is resigned to pre-determinism; for, if nothing can be changed, whatever we do in life is what would have happened anyway, and there is no changing it no matter how much we may try. Fate is thus out of our hands; destiny is designed by forces unknown or beyond our comprehension; and the future cannot be influenced by our petty deeds or attempts to deviate. Taken to the extreme, we are who we are and what we do, how we think and where we end up is purely a matter of fate.

There is, in the far reaches of the spectrum of such a belief-paradigm, a “silliness” that can accompany it – of merely resigning one’s self to sitting, eating potato chips and doing nothing, and excusing one’s slovenly self by declaring that nothing as to what one does matters, so why not just do the minimum requirement of living and allow life’s fate to preside.

The more serious side of fatalism is quite different; it is the protective comfort that, yes, we must strive and go about our lives, but in the end, in a retrospective look at what we have done, it never quite mattered whether we turned left, right, or went straight upon the narrow path, for the determinism of destiny had already been long ago decided. It is somewhat of an anti-teleological existentialism, in that the absurdity of life is exponentially magnified in a decidedly defeatist meaningless of all actions and even thoughts; for, in Existentialism the French Style, it was in the very decision against suicide that one wills meaning like the figure of Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill, only to watch it roll down the other side, and to find meaning in the repetition of absurdity one engages in by pushing it again and again, like life and the monotony of daily living.

Beyond nothingness, there is the protective comfort of fatalism – knowing that one cannot be held responsible for the fated determinism of everything from major events impacting upheavals tumultuous as well as minor, where there is a sense of defeated security in such a cloak of philosophical nothingness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, there is often a similar sense that is akin to the protective comfort of fatalism – that there is nothing for the Federal or Postal worker to do but to submit to the harassment, allow the agency to punitively demean and diminish, and ultimately to be fired.

But there is the benefit of Federal Disability Retirement, and fatalism will not prevent one’s ability and capacity to file for the benefit.

Indeed, it is the false protection of fatalism which may be the primary obstacle to preparing, formulating, and taking charge of an effective Federal Disability Retirement submission. It does, however, require an affirmative step in properly and aggressively heightening the chances of success, and that is where the protective comfort of fatalism will not be of help in fighting for one’s rights against the behemoth of agencies – the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, where the real fight against the myth of fated determinism needs to be battled.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

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OPM Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The compromised life

March 20, 2017

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We all make them, though we deny it. Iconoclasts scorn it; the extremes of either side scoff at it; and, in the end, it reflects the reality of who we are, how we live, and by what vaunted principles we purportedly possess.

On a theoretical level, it is easy to remain the stalwart – that singular entity standing on principle and commitment. The one who has never experienced war – to express beliefs of “courage”, “unwavering loyalty” and blind bravery declared in wrappings of the flag and national identity. Or of fidelity and traditional values despite personal shortcomings of multiple marital infidelities and 3 or 4 marriages, with the devastation of a trail of longing children with a hole in each heart, wishing that principles could be exchanged for a single memory of playing catch on a summer’s day.

If you are sequestered whether by wealth or capacity to ignore, it is easy to shout out principles; but, then, when the test of life intrudes, the failings of reality reconstitute an extraordinary hypothetical into a quivering crumbling of an ordinary person.

Ordinariness is certainly rarely looked upon as the paradigm to follow, and the argument often goes: You never want to dumb down deviancy (Moynihan’s famous phrase extrapolated from a generation or two ago, lost forever by events of social and cultural turmoil hence), and so, even if no one actually lives like the pinnacle of beautiful thoughts and voices stated by writers, essayists and politicians (who themselves bifurcate “personal conduct” from the espoused rhetoric emitted from hollow mouths with a dead-panned look of seriousness), the common masses are admonished by rebukes of being responsible for the “cultural rot” that dissipates throughout.

Reality has a way of compromising the apex of beautiful words, paragraphs, pages and entire narratives of a singular life.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition may be preventing the Federal or Postal worker from being able to perform all of the essential elements of the position occupied, the concept of a compromised life is now a reality. For, the sequential perspective of what is expected – of continuing until retirement age a career fulfilled, with regular promotions and deserved merit pay – may need to be ‘adjusted’ in accordance with the reality of life’s impositions.

Having a compromised life and accepting the compromises of life’s misgivings is not a sin, nor a diminution of one’s principled belief-system; instead, in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is merely a recognition that theoretical foundations were always meant to be modified, and those speechifying vanguards of social commentators never meant the fulfillment of their own words, anyway, and it was always the compromised life that reflected the reality of the boorish insistence that we were angels and gods unknown.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Myths of our own making

May 18, 2016

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What stories we carry within our own heads; the narrative of our own lives, as well as the intersecting conveyances brought by others; the web of linguistic larcenies borrowed, bought and sometimes sold, become who we are and the essence of our being within the world of our phenomenology of existence. Sometimes, when a lie is told and the piece of puzzle will no longer fit into the greater collage of the manifold tapestry we carry about within our psyche, a rearrangement of sorts must occur.

Perhaps, we discovered, through correspondence and other confirming evidentiary apparatus otherwise irrefutable, that the uncle whose reputation as the moral compass of fidelity had fathered an illegitimate child (of course, such an anachronistic term no longer applies, as marriage no longer validates legitimacy or otherwise). Perhaps, a meeting with this “family” of prior anonymity becomes a necessity, which then opens experiential doors to other discoveries and nuances of life’s misgivings.

The narrative of one’s life, the connections intertwined and the stories told, must like the piece of a jigsaw puzzle misplaced, be rearranged or otherwise left blank, like the echo of a plaintive voice in a soft hum heard through a mist of cackling geese. Are secrets worth keeping, anymore?

In modernity, where technology allows for the melding of myth and maxim; where demarcations between the creation of self and the posting of what constitutes the presentation of that being identified as the person who declares to be such, is merely one button away from the virtual reality of a gemstone shining in the moonlit cavern of a secret cave where treasures hidden from pirates of yore flutter with the ghosts of dead seamen and spinning yarns of horrors untold; what we are in the essence of our being has been replaced by the talent to tell of who we are not. And yet — truthfulness, veracity, validation of identity, and certitude of conduct; they all seem to remain as vestiges of a necessary universe.

The myths of our own making have always been so throughout the history of storytelling. Today, it is merely more so because of the plenitude of everyone wanting to tell his or her tale, and of every detail most of us don’t want to know.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from medical conditions which prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, a unique sense of duality must be conquered: there is the need, on the one hand, to “tell all” in the form of SF 3112A, the Applicant’s Statement of Disability; and, yet, what must be revealed concerns the most “private” of one’s narrative — that of the medical condition and the impact of the medical condition upon one’s professional and private lives.

“Myths” are not merely of make-believe; they are the stories told in traditional societies in order to make a larger point. Indeed, the myths of our own making may sometimes include the fears we hold onto, as well as the uninformed presumptions we grasp at in a bureaucratic process which is both complex and administratively difficult to maneuver through. Sound advice from a legal expert in the area of Federal Disability Retirement law will help to dispel the myths unwarranted, as well as validate the maxims required.

In the end, the myths of our own making often reflect the haunting fears of experiences we encountered in those days when childhood memories cast their shadows upon the dungeons of our lives, and when trolls and gnomes suspected to reside in hidden crevices scratch at the doorways leading to the most private of our inner fears.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

FERS Disability Retirement: The implication of ‘finding happiness’

May 6, 2016

5 Comments

Human beings live in a duality of universes; within the linear historicity of an objective world, daily unfolding with encounters with physical objects and other beings, comprised of interactions both superficial and intimate, combined with utilization of inanimate constructs for daily living; then, there is the insular universe of a parallel phenomena, where we are subsumed by a conceptual menagerie of language, numbers, extrapolated forms of ideas and strings of thought processes; and how we coordinate and intersect the two determines the success or failure of who we are, how we thrive and to what teleological end we pursue.

The words which we use often define who we are, as well as what motivates and moves us into action or inertia of mindless behavior as science fiction describes the modernity of automatons. In the animal, non-human kingdom, survival and the pursuit of food sources dominates to satiate the basic tendencies of the appetitive aspects of existence. ‘Happiness‘, as a defined principle, equates to a full stomach at the most foundational of sources.

For humans, we tend to make complex of the simple, and turn an evolutionary basis into a conceptual conundrum. Thus do we add the prefatory vacuity of ‘finding’ and attach it to the root of existence — ‘happiness‘. Such a concept implies that there existed a time before when something was lost, never attained, or otherwise left unsatisfied. As a result, a ‘search’ is undertaken, a lost civilization reenacted, a missing person found and a stray dog reunited with its owner. But that life were so simple as to merely search for the confounding link to fulfillment, as if the effort merely consists in the remembrance of the location of the misplaced watch by tracing the steps previously taken but somehow forgotten during the slumber of exhaustive nights.

Is life too complex to behold? Do the accoutrements of cultural rot pile upon us daily, such that the simple root of conceptual simplicity remains beyond the reach of most of us?

Happiness as a principle should always remain as a byproduct of the life one leads.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a meandering pool of daily suffering, resulting from a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Postal or Federal positional duties, the issue of ‘happiness’ is often quite simple: freedom from the medical condition and stability of purpose for the future.

The former may never be quite achieved, as it is determined by factors so complex as to encompass body, soul and emotional health; but as to the latter, 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 at least a step in the proverbial right direction. For, in the end, the insularly devoid conceptual construct of ‘finding happiness’ must be determined by the angel’s residue of sprinkled gold dust, left to sparkle with infinite radiance as we venture forth into worlds unconquered and visions yet unseen.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Attorney

Federal & Postal Employee Medical Separation: The abstract concept of “the other”

April 5, 2016

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Existentialism could only have arisen from the ashes of nihilism; Western Philosophy, spanning the spectrum of metaphysics, epistemology, Rationalism, Empiricism and the tradition of questioning origins, essences and the compendium of who we are and what it all means, does not lead to the natural annihilation of intellectual curiosity. But Existentialism, does. Why? Because Existentialism is an emotional reaction, rather than a rational rebuttal.

From the horrors of Nazi concentration camps and the denigration of human dignity reduced to mere abstractions, the philosophy of negation of which it is characterized, is more of a “sense” approach than a logical methodology of comprehension and understanding. Thus, while traditional philosophy was always denoted by a curiosity towards abstraction, Existentialism was pulled back by a retractive revulsion because of the alienating impact of conceptualization.

That is why the most powerful explication of the philosophy of Existentialism is found in a novel by Camus (reference, The Stranger or The Plague), and not in reading Sartre’s meandering explanation (Being and Nothingness) of a confused attempt to systematize the emotive side of man. Thus, in reading Camus, one gets the “sense” of abandonment, separation, distance and alienation of man from the community of others; whereas, in reading the traditional philosophical works — take any page from Plato, Aristotle or the Medievals — one enters an universe of order, systematized approach, and methodological rationalization emanating from curiosity and questioning.

The two approaches, however, are not unrelated; for, it is precisely because of the traditional training of discussing concepts in abstract form (and thereby separating the thought-process from human touch and interaction) that disregarding the humanity of a living being could be achieved. In more provincial terms, it is easier to be cruel to a concept, than to one’s own child or spouse. And, indeed, that is how we survive in advancing our purposive actions of harassment and sheer meanness; by objectifying “the other”, we can bifurcate our minds and categorize the subject into something less.

Supervisors do it to workers and underlings; no longer is the worker a fellow human being, but “that ## % !!”. For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the lessons learned and gleaned from the reactive lens of Existentialism may be twofold: First, don’t expect sympathy from the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service because you have a medical condition (that, unfortunately, is probably self-evident and a “given” already), and Second, do not expect cooperation or efficiency to suddenly prevail when engaging the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, merely because the need to obtain Federal OPM Disability Retirement should in and of itself touch a sense of empathy.

In neither case will a positive response be evoked.

Ultimately, the bureaucratic process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a surreal experience, and one in which the sense of alienation felt by Existentialism is encountered throughout. That is because, in the end, the Federal or Postal applicant in a Federal Disability Retirement case is none other than a mere “other”, and no more than an abstraction to be gotten rid of, like the distraction you became when once you were no longer fully productive on the assembly line of life’s refuse of illegitimacy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

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