OPM Disability Retirement: The Skill of Writing

For most, it does not come naturally.  Hemingway once purportedly stated that it “is easy to write.  Just sit in front of your typewriter and bleed.”  The antithetical concepts of “easy” and “bleed”, of course, is what makes the statement so profoundly ironic and poignantly perceptive; for, the idea of writing encapsulates a simple phenomena: the mechanical process of cursive discourse or punching of a keyboard; and yet, the complexity comes about in formulating and conveying ideas, thoughts and concepts, and transferring them from mind to matter.

Whether the computer and laptop have forever destroyed the skill of writing can be debated, of course.  There is a more contemplative component to hand writing — of a cursive discourse that is more intimate in its reflective methodology, as opposed to the ability of typing upon a keyboard, cutting and pasting, and never having to worry about editing and correcting because that can all be done so efficiently through modern technological means.

In the end, the skill of writing takes practice, and another element which many people overlook — of reading good writing in order to learn the skill of writing.

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, remember that your Federal Disability Retirement application is ultimately a paper presentation to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  The skill of writing is paramount in preparing a successful Federal Disability Retirement application.

Contact a Federal Employee Disability Retirement Lawyer who possesses an effective level of the skill of writing, for that is ultimately what will persuade, argue, and logically convey the relevant, significant and compelling story which comprises your Federal Disability Retirement case.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employees with Disabilities: Simplifying the Complex

Genius is to comprehend the complex; competence is to utilize it; adequacy is to merely get by with it; to be lost is to become mired in it.  The world is complex.  Balance in a life is complex.  Trying to survive in a complex world requires a balancing act that even the most skilled tightrope acrobat can barely accomplish.

Once, when a reporter asked a mountain climber who had successfully scaled the North Face of the Eiger “why” he does what he did, the reply was: “When I am climbing, my only focus is to survive.  I do not need to think of anything but the next step, the next hold, and to ascend inch by inch.  Nothing else matters but the moment.”

But that life could be lived within the paradigm of that philosophy — of “living for the moment.”  To do so, of course, would require setting aside the baggage from one’s past and ignoring the tumultuous considerations for the future.  For most of us, we simply cannot live like that.  In this complex world, we try and “get by” through simplifying it — bifurcating it into comprehensible and digestible components; attending to each one at a time; then starting all over again at the beginning of the next day.  To simplify the complex is a skill-set that one must attain in order to just survive.

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 complex universe of an administrative process like filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a bureaucratic morass that will often require legal advice, guidance, assistance and counsel.

It is the job of an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to simplify the complex.  Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law when preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, lest you find that the complex remains too complicated and the next mountain to climb has become too steep an obstacle, like the North Face of the Eiger.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: This upside down world

How many whistleblowers would do it all over again?  How many regrets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  The answer: Few as to the first question, and at least a dozen in response to the second.  For, as to the second query, while one person engages in the mechanical act of lighting up the room, it takes all of the others to fail to assuage the regrets of a person who has tried to do the rights thing, and has lived to suffer the consequences.

We grow up being taught all sorts of empty adages — how “truth reveals all”, or that “justice prevails in the end”; and though the old hero of simplicity has now been replaced by more “complex” characters of mixed good/bad/neutral, still the naïveté of childhood upbringings tend to haunt beyond the loss of innocence delayed.

This is an upside down world where the clear-cut demarcations that once were inviolable have now become obscured, and where leaders can argue with a straight face any and all positions, whether self-contradictory, hypocritical or just plain nonsense, and can get away with it without any regrets or loss of sleep.  Perhaps it has always been like that and we just didn’t realize it.  The wealthy have always been able to get away with more; the powerful, without much consequences; and when the combination of wealth and power become aggregated, there is little to impose any checks and balances that might have tempered the onslaught of injustice.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, where the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the fact that we live in an upside down world becomes exponentially the case because of the medical condition itself.

Progressive deterioration and chronic debilitation are often the rule of a medical condition, and just to survive another day without pain, without emotional or mental anguish — these are the hallmarks of needing to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The world is about as topsy-turvy as it can get; but when the private world of one’s health begins to deteriorate, that upside down world becomes a tumultuous maze of a conundrum wrapped within an insanity that cannot be escaped from, and that is when you know that preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application becomes a necessity in a universe that requires some wisdom, and turning to the advice of an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement is often the first step in providing a balanced perspective within this upside down world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: King for a day

There are, then, those highs and lows which everyone experiences; of days when one has successfully maneuvered through the pitfalls of the day, and where troubles, problems and difficulties have been either overcome or avoided — both of which amounts to the same thing in most instances.  To be King for a Day — is it a mere feeling that obfuscates the reality of one’s situation, or a reality based upon a metaphor hanging on a cliff of a proverb?

The world for the most part leaves the rest of us the crumbs off of the tables of the wealthy and powerful; the sense that we have any real control over our own destinies is tested when something goes wrong, and we try and correct it.  The rest of the time — of being King for a Day — is to just make us feel like we have any such control on any given day.

Take the Federal or Postal employee who struggles with 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 — some days, when the medical condition subsides or it is merely one of those “good” days, it may feel that destiny is within the palm of your hand and that the day’s brightness allows for a future with the Federal Agency or the Postal Service.

But then the inevitable “setback” occurs, and the cycle of the “bad day” comes along.  Then, one day the Federal Agency, with its co-conspirators of supervisors, managers and some coworkers, or the Postal Service with the same cabal of backstabbers, begins to initiate adverse actions with steady and incremental deliberation — of leave restrictions; unreasonable and baseless denials for extended leave or FMLA; letters of “warnings” and even placement on a PIP; and then one asks, Whatever happened to that feeling of being King for a Day?

Life is full of struggles and difficulties; we rarely are able to get a full handle on the future course of unanticipated troubles, and that is why preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is so important to get started early and well on the right track.

Being King for a Day is never the solution to the lengthy process of life’s misgivings; for, in the end, it is the Court Jester who hears all and counsels well, just like the lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  If only King Lear had listened to the Fool — what disasters he would have avoided!

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: The mysterious spark

One may never be able to pinpoint the precise time of day, the hour or minute that it occurred; but at some point, it developed, matured and became a certainty.  It is that mysterious spark or connection that occurs in every relationship, whether between members of the same species, or even of other ones; of that mysterious spark that elevates a relational connection to one not merely encompassing casual friendship, but of a special, unique and singular symbiosis that becomes identified as mysterious and unexplainable.

It is characterized by a “look” between the two, shared by no one else, allowed entry by exclusive invitation only and zealously guarded by the two who share it.  It is that special spark, the glint in the eye, the knowing stare and the longing look; and it can be shared by two young lovers, a couple of old codgers or with a cat or a dog, and maybe some other species besides.  It is by the shared joke, the exclusive laugh, the hinted metaphor and the crazed reaction; but of whatever the elements that make it up, the two who share it know when it happens, that it exists and that the mysterious spark remains unless violated by one or the other by committing some act of treachery or deceit that breaks the silent code of friendship and fidelity.

Can such a mysterious spark exist between a person and an inanimate object — or an event, a career or even a place?  Perhaps.  Think about the career one has embraced — where, once you awoke with a spring in your step, an anticipation of joy and even of rushing to get there just to immerse yourself in the day’s project, the afternoon’s conference, and even looked forward to the often-wasteful time spent in “coordinating” with coworkers and others.  And then — something happened.  The energy is drained; the joy is depleted; the profound fatigue sets in.  A medical condition can certainly do that to a person.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have lost that mysterious spark that once pervaded each morning as one prepared to go to work, it may be time to consider preparing, formulating and filing 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.  If the medical condition is preventing the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, you likely meet the legal criteria for becoming eligible to receive a Federal Disability Retirement annuity.

For, in the end, the mysterious spark that formed the relationship of special significance between any two entities — including the one between a Federal or Postal employee and his or her job and career — was always based upon a presupposition that necessitated a contingent agreement involving a silent understanding: the continuation of one’s health.  And, when once that becomes damaged or destroyed, the mysterious spark is replaced with the ugly reality that the quality of life depends upon the health of an individual.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

CSRS & FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Regarding dogs and books

They are the two default positions to happiness, loneliness and sorrowful days that can only be solved along with a cup of hot chocolate.  What is amazing and somewhat perplexing is that, as to the former, the very fact that one species of life can have such a close and interacting relationship with another existent species is an incomprehensible truism steeped in beauty.

History has established that people and dogs maintain a unique synchronism that goes beyond mere parallel existence.  We can walk among birds and hear them chirping; jog past a rabbit that freezes, then scurries away; and even have a suspicious but interactive peace accord with squirrels, cats and gerbils; but of a dog that awaits your every move and watches with loyal love, there is a special relationship and bond that can never be described by words alone.

As to the other elements in the twin concepts of the title above, what can one say?  Books are the products created by the uniqueness of language; the compendium of complexities amalgamated by first a letter, then a word, then words within sentences that elongate into paragraphs; then, slowly, page by page, they form to create a work – of fiction, non-fiction, a mixture of both, either or neither as in crime novels, “true life” extracts and the admixtures of imagination, images, memory and reminiscences.

Books allow for loneliness to dissipate when betrayal and disloyalty have reared their ugly heads; when backstabbers and plain meanness whips the urns of ashes deadened with ancestral grief upon a rainy night of groans and tears wept upon what could have been; and then we can get lost in a good book and feel the air being disturbed by the wagging tail of a dog so loyal.

Regarding dogs and books – there is no replacement for such a duality of life’s mystery.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition may necessitate filing an effective 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 feeling that the “world” has betrayed because the Federal agency or Postal Service is unwilling to accommodate and “work with” your medical condition is a true enough fact; but don’t let that fact of disloyalty dissuade you from recognizing that there are still entities out there who remain loyal – like your dog (if you own one; and if you don’t, you should get one).

And also remember that the goal of getting OPM Disability Retirement benefits is tantamount to reading a good book – it allows you to reorient yourself and regain the proper perspective by allowing you to focus upon the priorities of life – of your own health.

People often think that life is complex beyond endurance these days; but in the end, a loyal dog and a good book are about all that one needs to attain happiness – and, of course, one’s health, which is the primary reason why fighting for one’s Federal Disability Retirement is important, so that you can focus upon maintaining your health, so that you can sit with a good book beside a loyal dog: the key ingredients to ecstatic joy itself.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Twilight’s Landing

Sleep is often the category of escape; restorative sleep, a palliative prescription for a medical condition.  Upon closing one’s eyelids, the images which pervade from the day’s stimuli slowly recede as the dark chasm of one’s own consciousness begins to fade, and sleep begins to overtake, leading us into that shadow of twilight’s landing.

It is when chronic pain, discomfort, and the gnawing neurons which fail to relax but continue to send signals of dismay and distress, that the world of wakefulness and the dawn of sleep fail to switch off; or the continuing anxiety, depression or panic attacks control and jolt one into the awareness of darkness.  Medical conditions have an impact not only upon the daytime soul, but in the sleeplessness of non-sleep as well.

For Federal and Postal workers who are formulating a Federal Disability Retirement application and preparing one’s Statement of Disability on SF 3112A, one aspect of the descriptive narrative which is often overlooked, both by the doctor as well as the Federal or Postal applicant, is the role that profound fatigue plays upon performing the essential elements of one’s job.  While often implicitly stated or otherwise inferentially contained, explicit extrapolation is important in order to convey all of the elements of one’s medical condition and their impact upon the Federal or Postal employee’s inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties.

Perhaps one was reprimanded or suspended for “sleeping on the job”.  Was it mere laziness, or was the underlying medical condition the intermediate cause of an act or event otherwise seen as an insubordinate statement of defiance?  Reasons and rationales provided make all the difference in this very human universe of language games and counter-games.  For, in order to effectively submit a Federal Disability Retirement application 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, the important thing is to make sure and sufficiently describe and delineate the primary and secondary causes of one’s underlying medical conditions. This includes the inability to have restorative sleep, the profound and intractable fatigue one experiences, impacting upon one’s daily cognitive functions, etc.

Otherwise, the medical conditions are not adequately conveyed, and when one goes back to sleep in attempting to reach that twilight’s landing, the difficulties of the world will be magnified by another potential problem — a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, of one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely, Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Conceptual Relationships

Word associations are revealing.  When once a word is uttered, the immediate association of another concept provides a prelude to the cognitive perspective of an individual.  Conceptual relationships are forged through upbringing, personal experiences, and memories fulfilled through impact, trauma, significance of meaning, and attribution of value.  The thinking “I” within the subjective realm of a personal universe, is made up of ghosts of the past, goblins of present fears, and gadflies yet to swarm.

Medical conditions, and terms associated with diagnoses and disabilities, whether physical or psychiatric, tend to engender fear and loathing, precisely because of the limitations they impose, the havoc they wreak, and the problems they present.

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 the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the option of choice to resolve the impending problems of unbalance — of the growing and magnified inability to juggle work, medical care, and physical/cognitive/emotional health — is to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

No, it is not a perfect solution.  Yes, it is an option which is final, in the sense that one is retired from the Federal System.  But when alternative courses of actions are delimited within the purview of pragmatic choices, conceptual associations must be tempered within the objective realm of reality.

The moon may well be made of blue cheese, and such conceptual associations can be wrought within the realm of Platonic Forms and cognitive gymnastics; but in the real world, conceptual relationships must by necessity be forged within the iron ore of a witch’s cauldron brewing the germinations for future discourse.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal and Postal Workers: Intended Statements

That which is intended can be different from what is stated; but from the reader’s point of view, one can only decipher from the statement given, with any inferences to be logically implied, through the words as spoken or written in the linguistic encounter of any given subject matter.  But we often hear that “I meant to say X,” or that “Y was never meant to Z”; and that is a problem of word choices, and perhaps of unintended consequences resulting from a misuse of inappropriate application of stringing conceptual schemes without thoughtful input.

It is a wonder at all that meaningful communication occurs; or, when one views subject-to-subject encounters in modernity, perhaps there no longer exists substantive conversation.  People are today lost in their own insular worlds; with earphones on, smart phones connected, ipods and ipads; the world of communication is lost in a morass of silent self-reflection of parallel universes encapsulating video images and electronic verbiage. But medical conditions tend to shake one out of the proverbial tree of insularity.  And when a medical condition hits us, communication is a key both in treatment, as well as in preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application for the Federal and Postal employee who must look to the future.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits by the U.S. Postal worker or by a Federal employee of the multiple and countless Federal agencies, is a matter of limited choices; in order to effectively apply to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Federal or Postal employee under FERS, CSRS or CSRS-Offset must be capable of effectively communicating the impact of one’s medical condition upon the positional requirements of one’s job, with persuasion, legal argumentation, and connective efficacy.

No longer can insularity within parallel universes be the guiding principle in such an endeavor; instead, what is intended to be said must comport with the objective schema of that which is actually stated.  This is where the universe of intention and consequences coalesce, in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS-Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer

  

The Balance of Relevance during the Preparation and Filing of an OPM Disability Retirement Application

Extraneous information is somewhat determined by the eye of the beholder; outsiders tend to view things differently from those who hold greater and more intimate knowledge through interconnected and intersecting relationships; and implied understandings, furtive glances and knowing stares, coupled with a wan smile, are often indicative of an intramural web of knowledge.

Looking to move into a neighborhood, one may drive through an area and see the pristine cut of well-manicured lawns, but it says nothing about the inner workings of friendliness or neighborly misgivings.  What we consider as relevant information in order to make a proper decision, is determined by the goal which is sought, and the means which must be employed to direct that purposive end.

For Federal employees and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition determines the necessity of filing for Fed OPM Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the need to compile the compendium of relevant information, while including factual context and peripheral issues, must be evaluated and analyzed from the perspective of the “other” — the administrative specialist who will be reviewing the Federal Disability Retirement application at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

In any form of writing, there must always be a striking of a proper balance between information which constitutes the essence and core of a compilation, and the necessary contextual background which provides the guiding light of a directed narrative.  But some information, far from being mere extraneous narration, can actually undermine one’s stated goal.

Just as letters of bygone days and emails in modernity should never be sent in a fit of anger, so the temperament of retribution should be controlled in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability benefits through OPM, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal Worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire