FERS Disability Attorney Legal Assistance: The Intended Goal

Every now and again, we see a video clip of the goal NOT intended — of a running back turned around and making for the wrong end zone; of a basketball player stick his or her leg out to block a pass, only to have the deflection make an arc and swish into the wrong basket; and other similar deviations from the intended goal.

Later in life, people forget to evaluate and analyze first what the intended goal is, before hazarding a lengthy trek towards the conclusion — i.e., years later, do we look at it and say to ourselves, “I should have…”.

OWCP under the Federal Department of Labor is one such animal where the intended goal is often overlooked.  OWCP is not a retirement system; instead, it is a benefit meant to return the Federal or Postal worker back to work.  FERS OPM Medical Retirement, on the other hand, is a system where one’s medical condition will allow the Federal or Postal worker to become eligible for early Federal or Postal Disability Retirement.

You can actually obtain an approval for FERS Disability Retirement while receiving OWCP benefits; you just can’t receive TTD and a FERS annuity concurrently, but you can have the FERS Disability Retirement approved but inactive.

The process for both is rather complicated, but if the intended goal is to retire early because you will never be able to go back to your former Federal or Postal job, you may want to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Yes, yes, OWCP pays more — for the present — but FERS Disability Retirement continues to build your retirement system by counting the years you remain on Federal Disability Retirement until age 62.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement, and begin to process of evaluating and analyzing the intended goal.

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.

 

FERS Employees with Disabilities: Implicit and Explicit

Say a person is playing golf, hits the ball badly and yells out loudly, “Fore!”  In his mind, however, the individual has the word spelled wrongly — say, as “Four” or “For”, or any number of alternative ways.  When first heard, he had thought that it was spelled in the commonplace, conventional way.  Does it matter?  Doesn’t the fact that homophones exist become an issue of “right” or “wrong” only if the implicit clashes with the explicit? (What a terribly and awkwardly stated question).

Homophones not only “sound” the same, but may also be spelled differently.  They are in the “family” of homonyms because they sound alike but have different meanings; similarly, there are words that also sound the same, are spelled the same, but have different meanings, as in: “She rose from her seated position to smell the rose.”  Here again, what if the person repeated the sentence but thought that the first “rose” was somehow referring to the flower while the second rose concerned the manner of posture (if such transfer of meanings is even possible) — would it make a difference?

The “implicit” world of understanding encapsulates the privacy of our insular world; the “explicit” brings forth and unveils that previously-unrevealed universe, and tests it against the objective world of contending ideas.  It is somewhat akin to pain — that subjective phenomena which may or may not be capable of being ascertained, verified or confirmed by diagnostic testing or reactive muscle spasms.

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 becomes necessary to make the “implicit” explicit in order to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Gathering the necessary information in order to formulate properly one’s Federal Disability Retirement case is to make explicit that which may have remained deliberately implicit.

That is where consultation with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law becomes crucial in properly making explicit that which remained implicit, in order to “test” the viability of a very private and confidential matter.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: Changes we resist

It is almost a tautology; two words placed together as synonyms; and, indeed, the word “change” and its neighbor, “resist” have a commonality that cannot be avoided: Both imply an alteration and a sense of life’s modification never to return back.

We resist it, precisely because we want it to remain the same; but change is inevitable, and to resist is to often engage in acts of futility against a tide which resists resistance.  Few of us welcome, let alone savor, changes in our lives; and when they first appear on the horizon of potentiality, we try and resist, to stop it, to alter the course of history’s onward march.

Perhaps we merely refuse to join in with the change; or have an inner attitude of non-acceptance; or sit gloomily and pout throughout the remainder of days simmering with resentment that we were forced to accept that which we never wanted.  It is like the divorce that shattered one’s childhood and from which we never recovered; the stepmother or stepfather who entered our lives only added salt to the wound where change was resisted but no one listened to our protestations and pleas, asking, “Why can’t it be the same as always?”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, “change” and the “resistance” to change are inevitable dualities of life’s misgivings.

Perhaps you were once at the “top of your game” and considered the best at what you do; or, perhaps you thrived on anonymity and were happy to work in a quiet, unassuming way.  Regardless, the very thought of change is something you resisted, but a medical condition forced such a change whether you like it or not.

Change itself is always difficult, but there are ways to mitigate the vulnerabilities that accompany change: Consult with an attorney before engaging battle with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  For, while change may be like the uninvited stepmother or stepfather into one’s life, the change that truly becomes a tumultuous event is the one where you step forward into the unknown without any guidance or assistance.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal and Postal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: Purposive sequence

Are all things in a sequence “purposive”?  If you are walking in the countryside and come upon a horse, a man and a pig, in that order, was there any “purposive” meaning in the sequence met, or was it random and a reflection of the chaos of the universe as a whole?  If it had been in a different order — say, you first came upon the pig, then the horse, and finally the man — would there be a question as to either the sequence or the meaning of the sequence?

Now, take a different hypothetical, where you come into a child’s room who is engrossed in fantasy and play, and the child has a sequence of stuffed animals: Again, they are in a line of a stuffed horse, a doll of a man, and a large plastic pig, in the very sequence you encountered while out in the countryside.  You laugh and say to the child, “Oh, that’s very peculiar, I just came across those three in the identical sequence you have them in.  Of course, it is just coincidence, but nevertheless odd.”  The child smiles, turns to you and says, “Of course it’s not a coincidence.  The horse is the most beautiful creature in the universe, and therefore comes first; the man is the cleverest, and therefore should be second; and the pig is the smartest, but since intelligence should come after beauty and be placed below being clever, he comes third!”

In such an instance, did the fact that a purposive assignment of intent change the sequence and the meaning ascribed?  In other words, did the “human” explanation as to the sequence presented alter the objective foundation behind the orderliness of the universe, or does it yet remain in chaos except for the subjective ordering by the child?  Or, is Kant correct in positing that the chaos of the universe is internally ordered by human categories structuring the outside world, and left without such subjective impositions, we would never be able to comprehend the disordered universe?

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 important to engage in a purposive sequence of completing the Federal Disability Retirement application.

The medical condition itself is chaos enough, as it impacts one’s life and livelihood, but it is the medical condition that becomes the center and foundation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  From the chaos imposed from the objective world, a purposive sequence must be countered from the subjective universe of the Federal or Postal employee, and that purposive sequence must begin with the chaos of the unordered world itself: The medical condition, from which all else naturally and artificially proves the case to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Games

How do we learn how to play them?  If we play Game-X, must we follow “all” of the rules ordinarily known and ascribed in order for Game-X to still be recognizable as such, or does it become “Modified Game-X”.

If little Toby plays his first game, but doesn’t know the rules, yet nevertheless realizes that games are “fun” because everyone else is smiling and seemingly excited, does the fact that the kid-who-knows-no-rules plays without knowing the limits and boundaries of the game make him into a participant, or a pariah?  Of course, if he stamps his feet in the middle of the game and declares that he doesn’t like the game, and walks off (even taking with him the proverbial ball), can we declare him to be a poor sport, an okay-sport, or any sport at all if he never knew the rules of the game in the first place and therefore never quite played the “real” game?

How about dogs — do they “play” games?  The dog that chases the ball but doesn’t want to bring it back to the ball-thrower, and instead runs away with it — has he broken the “rules of the game”?  How is it that dogs play games with their masters without ever being able to explain what the parameters of the rules are?

Then, of course, there is the slight modification in the term “games”, as in “games that people play”.  We all know what that means — of being insincere, fake, or otherwise putting on a double-face.  Why is that called a “game”?  Is it because it is not real, and constitutes a copy of “make-believe”, much like playing a game when we all know that it is not reality that is being rehearsed; and yet, isn’t playing a game — any game — just a part of the reality of the world we live in?  Why, then, is life bifurcated between “games” and “reality”, when in fact both are real in the sense that we are living a life of surviving, making a living, etc.?  Yet, we constantly distinguish between “playing” and “living”, as if there is a difference to be identified.

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 any longer performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal worker’s job, career or craft, the preparations needed to come to a point of realizing that an effective Federal Disability Retirement application must be filed, often requires a recognition that the proverbial “game” is “up”.

Whether the Supervisors and Managers at the Federal Agency or the Postal Facility are up to their usual “games” or not — of harassment, derisive comments, making your life “hell” by increasing the levels of pressure or stress, is really besides the point.  What matters is that life itself is not a “game” at all, and those who separate games from the daily living activities don’t really “get it”.

Medical conditions bring to the forefront the reality of living, and the harshness of how people treat other people.  Yes, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may seem like just one of those other “games” that have to be “played” — but the reality is that an effective OPM Disability Retirement application is a necessary part of life’s many facets of games and reality-based endeavors, such that the “rules of the game” always need to be consulted in order to “play” it well, and thus the first step is to learn the rules by consulting with an attorney who can advise on the rules themselves.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The work left unfinished

If life were merely a series of projects attended to, completed and accomplished with a declaration of unassailable certitude, like a period at the end of a sentence, the final paragraph of a novel, or silence upon a speaker’s conclusion; of a linear progression forever with movement on a horizontal graph; but it is not.

Instead, the circularity of life’s problems, of concerns regurgitated and revisited because unattended or otherwise reappearing, like the aunt who visits unannounced and the uncle exhaustively referred to as the “black sheep” of the family who appears at one’s doorstep with suitcase in hand; it is the boil behind the leg that keeps resurfacing, where the ill winds of unexpected vicissitudes keeping getting a second chance when redemption is unwanted and uncalled for, but nevertheless reappears for the salvation of one’s soul.

And, in some sense, it is a salvation, isn’t it?  For, if life were a series of work completed, never to be revisited but always working without need for repairs, we would realize the finite nature of the world and care not to attend to the past.  Instead, it is precisely the work left unfinished which compels us to keep plugging along, to rewrite the list by the items we crossed off and the ones we reordered; and it tells something about one, in the manner of how that list is reorganized.

Do the items yet remaining get full status at the top of the yellow pad in the new order of priorities, or does it remain again relegated to those unwanted and undesired categories, like the illegal immigrant somehow existing but forever ignored and unnoticed, without the full rights and privileges of the legitimized constructs arriving by arbitrary choice?  We were taught as children that the work left undone reflected a character flaw, but somehow, as we grew older, we realized that but for those things left asunder, the incompleteness of life would have no value, no meaning, and ultimately no reason to live for.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents him or her from performing all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the work left undone often presents a dilemma of sorts: the completion of one’s career becomes untenable; each day, one falls further and further behind; and of life’s lesson ingrained from childhood, that we should always finish the plate of food we are served, cannot be fulfilled, and so we ruminate and worry, fret and flounder in this farcical mythology of linear fiction.

For such Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the best alternative and only real solution available.  For, what we were never told is that the work left unfinished is merely in the eye of the beholder, as beauty depends upon the perspective of the audience and worth upon the buyer who desires; and that the Westerner’s world-view of a linear-based universe is certainly not shared by the Easterner who comprises the greater part of the infinite panoply, as represented by Shiva’s circle of fire.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Of possessions and possessives

Does a noun transformed into a possessive form transfer deed of title, or is it merely a declarative mechanism of grammatical ascription, de-linked from any fact in reality?  If a person points to an individual in a photograph and states with certainty, “That is Edna’s sister in-law, the fourth cousin of King James III” — and thus implying some relationship with royalty and a connection to a very narrow uniqueness of historical lineage — does actual possession occur, or is the grammatical possessive merely an empty claim with no “real-life” consequence?

And, what if it turns out that the woman in the photograph is in fact not the person or heritage claimed, but merely a stranger whose presence in the one-dimensional format was simply a convenience whose image happened to defy the momentary identification?  What, then?  Does the discovery of this new set of facts expunge the previous claim, or was the initial declaration null and void and of irrelevance, anyway?

It reminds one, and is somewhat parallel to, the issue of names and their historical derivatives.  Take the name, Wilson, for example, which is a variant of the surname, Williamson — derived from the conjunctive, “Son of William” — from a time in history when lineage, direct descendants and being “X of Y” established a certain identification mired in simplicity of relationships.  Yet, today, the connection is entirely lost, and one no longer implies or denotes from a name the relational connective inherent in such linguistic designations.

Of course, the name itself can attach to the female gender, rendering the connective tissue of such language meaningless; and perhaps that is just as well, as antiquity founded in bias and discrimination is in modernity thought to be the greatest of sins.  But that is precisely the point, isn’t it?  We still cling to the nominative case in habits formed longed ago, and refuse to give up that which we are comfortable with.

Take titles of workforce significance, for instance — we cling to them as identifiers with substantive content.  That is why, for many Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are intending to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through their Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, the thought of giving up one’s self-identification by moving on to a Federal OPM Disability Retirement annuity means that one has lost one’s “self” in conjunction with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Thus, the “letter carrier“, the “Supervisor”, the “Air Traffic Control Specialist”, and the “(fill in the blank)” — that is the nominative case which goes well beyond mere grammatical form.  It gives us the false sense of purpose, derivation of who we are and what is of relevance in a society which has lost its collective connection to lineage and relationships.  Is this “brave new world” any better?  Does the Federal or Postal employee who may now become a “Federal Disability Retiree” or “Federal Disability Annuitant” change the substance of the person, the content of his or her character, or even the essence of who he or she is?  But then, discovery of “essence” has also been expunged and extinguished from this antiquated mode of thinking.

In the end, for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who is considering 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, it is not of possessions or possessives which should determine the course of future actions, but rather, the prioritizing of health and human happiness — those ingredients which have always made for a better tomorrow, whether in past times, the present, or in preparation for the future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Disability for Federal Employees: Waiting upon life

Being “pro-active” is a feature of modernity born of necessity when survival and the basic needs for human existence are essentially met; in days of evolutionary antiquity, when Darwinism ruled the moment and the growling pangs of hunger rumbled through the darkened streets of industrial ghettos and slimy slums of toxic waste dumps where hutches made of cardboard and corrugated tin put together effortlessly in a collage of unregulated stream of consciousness as a counterrevolutionary statement of defiance against pristine lawns and ordered houses designed by the evil eye of a home owner’s association — in those days of yore, being anything “less than” meant that you perished.

You see it in the eyes — Plato’s window to the soul — of shell-shocked dullness in a watchful glare of passivity, wide and seemingly alert, but failing to see beyond the fears and thoughts of angst like a permanent screen door shut and forever blocking.

If we bifurcate the world into doers and thinkers, it is the former who scoff and shrug their shoulders at the contributions of the latter, when it is thought which must precede action, where action performing too presumptively may leave a residue of meaningless accomplishments.  There is a middle ground, of course, where thinkers and doers coordinate and cooperate, in conjoined effort to plan, coalesce and complete a mapped task of purposive teleology; but that is a rare effort, indeed.  Most people wait upon life; it is not a criticism, but a reality which is reflective of a truism undaunted in this age of virtual reality.

The powerless grumble that there is a conspiracy of malevolent forces which hold the ordinary man down; the powerful, on the other hand, sip their wine and look condescendingly down upon the common populous, noting how they smell, think not, and must be watched lest the last true societal upheaval — not the American Revolution, but the French one where beheadings were rampant and horror became a mainstay for the ruling class — revisit the echoes of modernity.

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 positional duties, the cost of waiting upon life can be costlier than the cost of doing; for, to wait upon the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service to “do the right thing” by you, is to wait upon the moon to drop from the sky in order to feed us cheese; bureaucracies, Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service are not entities of empathetic concerns; they are what they are, and must be dealt with in the manner purposive to their existence.

Thus, if a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of the positioned duties, then the next logical step would be to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether that Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

To merely wait upon life is to petition for starvation, deprivation and declination of a rightful existence; to await a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service to accommodate a Federal or Postal employee’s medical condition is to hope that democratic elections will be held by North Korea’s vaunted leader — but then, there may still be some hope, if you are either an accomplished barber or Dennis Rodman (if you are unsure of the references made as to either, look up (A) Kim Jong-un’s hairstyle, and (B) the strange travels of that former basketball star).

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire