OPM Medical Retirement under FERS: Self Delusions

We all engage in it at one time or another; and, of course, there are different names for it, depending upon the context and conceptual application.  Some call it “positive thinking”; others, of just trying to talk yourself into something; and it is only when interference with reality poses a risk of harm that it becomes of concern when engaged in.

Self-delusions are, otherwise, harmless.  Some use it as a reverse therapeutic mode: Tell yourself X a hundred times in a day, and you will come to believe it; the “power of positive thought”; the need to constantly self-affirm, etc.

In the wilds, of course, it may not work out so well.  For, telling yourself that you can kill a lion with your bare hands, or that you can jump off of a cliff and soar through the sky, will likely result in death.  Then, too, to persuade yourself that an oncoming bus will do you no harm is taking positive thinking to a level of absurdity.

But there are less drastic forms of self-delusions, as in saying to yourself multiple times a day that you are happy; or that things will get better; or that today is the first day of the rest of your life, etc.  Such pablum of self-delusions will sometimes even provide a positive influence.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, self-delusions should be replaced with sound advice from a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Attorney today, and consider whether your expectations for the future coincide with the reality that may rebut the self-delusions of a reality gone sour.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement under FERS: The Regrets of Today

Today is a fresh start; tomorrow, although unknown, allows for corrections of today’s mistakes; and yesterday — well, we cannot do much about the past except to attempt to learn from the errors already committed.

The Age of Wittgenstein prevails in our generation.  The great philosopher of the 20th Century wiped away the problems which haunted Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, et al, by relegating all such problems as propositional fallacies confused by the inaccuracy of language.  All we have to do is correct the “language games” we play, and all problems disappear.  Fast forward to today — there are no longer any “truths” with a capital “T”, but only relative ones and even “alternative” truths, all correctible by the modification of what is said, the words spoken, the language used.

The problem with such an approach is that it often is disproven by the reality of the mistakes we make, resulting in the regrets of today.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition presents the reality of a problem which language will not erase, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS may be the best option for today.

Tomorrow will present a new set of problems; today, it is best to take an affirmative step forward and consult with a FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer and begin the process of formulating a paper presentation to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in order to make yesterday’s regrets a mere language game of the past, and tomorrows challenges as a reality that is based upon the truth of today.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Attorney

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: The Weather

We all know it is true; of clear, crisp days, when our minds are sharp with wit; of low pressure systems that loom overnight, bringing about a dark and dreary day and, along with it, our minds of dread and fogginess.

Biodynamic farmers ascribe certain days as “unfortunate” and restrict and minimize the type of activities recommended; Shakespeare, who ascribed astrological influences peppered throughout his plays and sonnets, and of weather in King Richard III, Act 1, Scene 1: “Now is the winter of our discontent, Made glorious summer by the sun of York; And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried”.

We like to think that, in our sophistication of science and modernity, such factors as the planetary movements, the seasons, the weather, etc., have little to no influence upon our feelings, emotions, conduct or thoughts.  Perhaps Camus was more right than he knew when the principal character in “The Stranger” attributed his misdeeds upon the sun.  In the end, whatever the weather of the day, we are forced to weather the storms of our lives.

Medical conditions represent a metaphor in the life of a Federal or Postal employee; like the weather, the changing nature of the atmosphere around must be accepted and, at the same time, it is a storm-like state of being that must be endured — or “weathered”.

In the event that a change of career must be undertaken, it is important to consult with an OPM Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  For, in the end, whether it is a sunny day or a stormy one, the weather cannot be blamed for an ill-prepared Federal Disability Retirement application, and if denied by OPM, it must be weathered whether the weather had any influence or not.

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

 

Attorney for OPM Disability Retirement Claims: Confessions & public domains

Why is it that confessions and public domains represent a relief of sorts, an expiation of self-contained guilt and a sense of “righting” a wrong?  In Catholicism, confession holds a prominent place in the liturgy of that which constitutes a faithful observant; in crime novels, the taunting serial criminal is said to subconsciously “want” to confess to the crime, and leave multiple fingerprints at the scene of each devastating incident in an effort to provide a trail of enough clues to ultimately lead to his or her arrest, thus in effect “confessing” to each of the acts of psychologically diabolical intrigues; and for the ordinary person, there is added stress to the body when one refuses to confess to the public domains of one’s life, those “inner” thoughts that are somehow anathema to the acceptance of behavior in the “outer” universe of public discourse.

That conflict between one’s “true” identity as encompassed by the insular universe of one’s private thoughts and the appearance of one’s character in the public domain — what some would call the hypocritical tug-and-pull of reality-versus-appearance, or of what others would admit is comprised by the true essence of man as opposed to the public face that hides the inner soul.

Whatever the origin, truth or appearance of the matter, what we often discover is that there is, indeed, a certain sense of relief in making a confession within the public domain — whether that is satisfied by talking confidentially to a close friend (which is somewhat of an anomaly in and of itself — of merely confiding with another and creating a conspiracy of two instead of one), making a public pronouncement; “confessing” to one’s spouse; going to a group therapy session and admitting to things in front of that collection of individuals; and other similar acts that somehow expiate the inner turmoil of one’s soul.

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, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application and actually filing it with the Agency or the Postal Service, then on to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is somewhat akin to making a “confession” in the public domain.

Part of the greater stresses of continuing on in this mode of secrecy — of trying to “mask” the medical condition from one’s Federal Agency or the Postal facility for fear of retaliation or harassment — is actually relieved by the “confession” of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, and it is in the “public domain” of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, or better known by its acronym, OPM, that one finally begins the long and arduous trek of regaining one’s health, by tapping into that traditional method of confessions & the public domains of life’s priestly expiation of the inner sanctum of one’s soul.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Claims: The present preference

Given the choice, it is almost always the present preference that is chosen, while the long-term goals, aspirations or necessary planning are set aside, ignored, subverted or otherwise delayed for another day.  We prefer to remain in the present circumstances, in lieu of future contexts unknown, for the familiar is always to be preferred to the strange and unrelated.

The key to change away from the present preference is often based upon the spectrum of a “tolerance/intolerance” gauge — an informal, almost unspoken manner in which we react based upon various factors that have developed over many years: tolerance/intolerance of pain levels; quality of life issues, whether consciously realized or intuitively maintained; the balance between weekends encroached and the weekdays approached; whether productivity rises or falls; and other similar factors, both involving professional goals and aspirations as well as personal perspectives upon the worth of maintaining the status quo or allowing for the tumult of change.

Medical conditions often warrant a move away from the present preference.  In reality, no one “prefers” the present when the change is imposed from external sources, or where there is simply little control or influence to exert upon stopping, hindering or otherwise slowing down the change itself.  The present preference is merely borne of laziness or the pure enjoyment of non-change, as the known is almost always preferable to instability and the strangeness of other worlds.

That is why we take short vacations and jaunts to other cultural enclaves, but return home to the safety of our known environments.  But when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, as it can with Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the changes impacted from the external forces of an unwanted medical condition may necessitate the modification of the present preference for the status quo.

Living with a medical condition itself is traumatic enough; altering the present preference of a life one is used to, is almost always a further tumultuous necessity that one instinctively resists, but recognizes the inevitability of.

For Federal and Postal workers who have come to a point of realizing the necessity of modifying the present preference, preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the first step towards conforming to an unfair external influence characterized by the medical condition itself.

Consulting an attorney who specializes in the administrative complexities inherent in the Federal Disability Retirement process will often help to buttress some of the changes that are necessary, if only because information and knowledge allows for the decision-making process to prevail with needed insights presented in order to adapt away from the present preference of an increasingly debilitating medical condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R.McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Law: The unsolvable dilemma

Most of us live linear lives.  It is a characteristic of Western Civilization that the thought-processes involve a sequential, step-by-step, logical extension and advancement.

Much has been said about this approach, in contrast to an “Eastern” philosophical methodology, where there is a “circular” mind-set that often involves the complexities of reincarnation, capacity to assimilate inconsistent, incommensurate and seemingly incompatible belief-systems – and, indeed, to even describe the “other” as a “methodology” is an oxymoron of unfair proportions, for it is more of an amalgamation of acceptance without hesitation – like the symbiosis of Shinto and Zen Buddhism in Japanese culture.

Such an approach – of a straight line from Point A to Destination X – that reflects the essence of the Western culture, including Continental Europe, the British linguistic solutions and the U.S. pragmatism that dominates, leaves us with an emptiness when we encounter and engage the unsolvable dilemma.  Perhaps that is the primary deficit in “our” approach, as opposed to the “other” one.  For, in attempting to think always in a linear fashion, we become frustrated when the solution cannot be figured out or otherwise consummated.

A problem left unsolved is one that we consider to be a failure of sorts, because the pragmatism of Western thought requires that all problems have solutions; it is a paradigm that has been ingrained in the DNA of our very being and essence.  But life doesn’t quite work in that way, does it?  There are unsolvable problems – where we just have to accept what “is” and move on with the deficit of a solution.

Medical conditions comprise one such class of such unsolvable issues.  We like to think that the “science” of medicine provides for a cure through complex and technologically modern treatment modalities for every identification of diagnosed maladies; but it quickly becomes obvious that many medical conditions simply do not have a linear resolution.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker from performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, the linear approach of Western Civilization often will not work.  There is an incompatible friction that quickly arises between the Federal agency and the Postal facility, and the Federal employee and Postal worker.

Often, the only “solution” is an exit via filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted for consideration ultimately to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Does it “solve” the problem?  Not really.  For the Federal or Postal employee, the medical condition continues with him or her after separation from the Federal workforce; and for the agency or the Postal facility, the loss of a formerly valuable and productive employee invested in for those many years, cannot easily be replaced.

But getting a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is a compromise of sorts; it allows for the Federal or Postal employee to seek other opportunities in the private sector, and to attend to the medical conditions with greater focus; and for the Federal agency and Postal facility, it allows for employment of another, more healthier worker who can fulfill all of the essential elements of the job.  Nevertheless, it remains an “unsolvable dilemma”, to be relegated to the “Eastern” approach, and leaving a void to the “Western” perspective.

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

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Day after day

Is monotony a negative trait?  How about consistency?  What is it in life that we strive for, search out and look under stones and around corners?  Is it possible that the life we already have, live by and daily “just do” is the one that is fated, meant to be, and of a satisfactory contentment such that change and disruption would be an unwelcome alteration?  Why is it that much of our time is given to complaining and picking at dissatisfaction, and it is only when unwanted intercessions suddenly turn things upside down, create a tumult and travail of circumstances, that we then suddenly “appreciate” the simple things in life?

Day after day, we enjoy the monotony of our circumstances, until one day we are hit with a medical condition.  Things change; stuff happens; unwelcomed interventions are a part of life, and make for a transcendence from the staid and stodgy; and then we wish we were back to the day after day.

Medical conditions have a way of doing that – of forcing an appreciation for things simple when we complained of boredom and the loss of excitement.  Things we once took for granted – of being able to sit for a time without the distractibility of pain; of giving and receiving a hug without wincing; of being able to focus and concentrate on a book, an article or even a few sentences without becoming overwhelmed by pure and profound exhaustion and fatigue; those simple things in life that once brought joy, now a wistful memory of remembrances past, projected exponentially into a future unknown.

Will we ever be able to recapture that which we seem to have lost?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are suffering from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for the day after day monotony of performing the essential elements of one’s Federal position, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may be the best option available in an effort to recapture that once-monotonous life of drudgery and dreariness that you so long for.

“Count your blessings”; “Appreciate what you already have”; “Don’t complain; enjoy”; they were all considered inane pearls of forgotten wisdom, but when a medical condition hits us, the truth underlying each tends to nudge us towards being a better person for it.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits won’t make you rich; but then, what has wealth got to do with it when you don’t even have your health?  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is, instead, a means to another end – to attain a place where you can attend to your medical conditions and begin to travel the road back to where you can be bored day after day.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The sweater draped over a chair

You look in the room and see the sweater draped over a chair.  You turn your gaze elsewhere, engage the ongoing conversations and the din of others distracted.  Later, you turn back your gaze again, and the sweater is gone.  You look about to try and see whether someone picked it back up, is wearing it, or perhaps put it somewhere else.

You imply and infer – yes, one must follow the general grammatical rule that the speaker implies while the listener infers; but you are both the speaker and the listener, the one who observes and the same one who steps outside of the conscious universe to observe the observed.  You imply that someone put the sweater over the chair, and that same person (or someone else) took it at a later time – all during a period when your eyes were diverted elsewhere.

You assume that the world continues to operate even outside of the purview of your deliberate and conscious observation, as we all do.  You infer the same; of a world otherwise not within the limited perspective of observation, either by visual or audio awareness.  Yet, where is the evidence of such inference or implication; and that is, of course, what Bishop Berkeley’s restrictive definition of “existence” and Being was meant to encapsulate in perfect form:  Not that there are no mountains on the far side of the moon when we cannot observe them, but that we limit the definition of Being such that peripheral philosophical conundrums created by language’s difficulty with implied Being and inferred Existence can be avoided.

Perhaps we dreamt the draping of the sweater over the chair, or had a fit of phantasm and imaginative discourse that went astray.  In any event, you never saw the person either drape the sweater over the chair, nor dispossess the chair of its warmth and concealment.  Instead, you infer and imply – ignoring the grammatical rules previously mentioned.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are attempting to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the relevance here concerns writing up an effective narrative of one’s medical condition, its impact upon one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s position, and the legal argumentation to make in order to persuade OPM:  to what extent should facts and other statements be directly delineated, as opposed to leaving certain matters presumed or otherwise to be inferred or implied?

OPM is a bureaucracy, and with all such administrative entities, is made up of varying levels of competence and acuity of observation.  For the most part, in writing up the narrative on SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, the general rule should be to make that which is implicit, as explicit as possible, and never to leave the room where a sweater is draped such that disappearance of the garment may leave a mystery otherwise unable to be solved except by implication and inference.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire