OPM Disability Retirement: The Fabrication of Certainty

There are innumerable truths of certainty, mostly of fabrication and artificiality, and much of it meaningless and of inconsequential inanity.

For example, you can join a local chapter of the Flat-Earth Society, and so long as you contain your discussions about the flatness of the earth within the confines of the society’s reaches (however limited that may be), your conviction that the earth is flat can be maintained, reserved, and with vigorous belief, sustained.  You can even go out into the greater world and retain such a conviction, and believe it with certainty.

On the other hand, it would be unwise to entertain certain types of fabricated certainties — such as the belief that you are a super-human being who will incur no harm if you run in front of a bus traveling at 50 miles per hour — leaving aside even a lesser speed.  The test as against the objective world and the rules of force and biology simply will not cooperate or comply with such fabrication of certainty.

Human beings have an unlimited capacity to create and manufacture fabrications of certainty, even if they have absolutely no correspondence or connection to the outside world.  You can even believe, with absolute certainty, Russell’s statement that the “King of France is bald”, and as there is no King in France, and thus the individual without a referential-point in the universe cannot be bald (because a non-existent person cannot possess the characteristic of “baldness”) — and yet, because the “sense” and “meaning” of the statement can be comprehended, we can walk about the world with the fabrication of certainty without any consequences in the real world.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition compels and necessitates the proper and effective preparation, formulating and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the recognition that fabrications of certainties can defeat a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS is important.

Always be clear on the certainty of “the law”; review the medical records and reports for any inaccuracies which may defeat your disability retirement application; and make sure that there is a correspondence between your Statement of Disability on SF 3112A and on the medical documents to be submitted.

For, in the end, the fabrication of certainty is fine only so long as the insularity of one’s world doesn’t extend beyond the tip of one’s growing nose.  And one more thing: For all Flat-Earth Society members, it is not recommended that you travel too far on a ship, lest you fall off of the edge of the earth.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer exclusively representing Federal and Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

OPM Disability Retirement Application: Appropriateness

Wives insist upon it; youth ignore it; the old display it without thought because that is the way they were brought up.

Often, people don’t even know that there is such a thing as “appropriateness”, thinking in this age of modernity that anything and everything is acceptable.  It used to be that foul language was appropriate only in bars and Sunday get-togethers for football games; nowadays, we think its cute when a toddler emits long dissertations of 4-letter words like a dog vomiting following a feast of eating leftover scraps from the garbage bin.

If you say to your spouse, “I put the scissors away,” the appropriate response to expect might be, “Thank you”, or even, “Where?”  But as spouses always confound, instead, the question might be, “When did you put it away?”  Now, the excitement of marriage is that one’s spouse should always keep you on your toes, and the inappropriateness of the question is only a reflection of that, so long as the context is misunderstood.  For, the question, “When did you put it away” is a puzzling one, and mystery is the foundation of excitement when it comes to a marriage.

However, if you query back with: “Why did you ask that, as opposed to the appropriate counter-question, ‘Where did you put it away?’”  And the answer back: “Because I looked for it an hour ago and it wasn’t there.”  Context is important in appropriateness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS must be filed by necessity through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, appropriateness is a factor which always must be considered — the appropriate tone to convey; the appropriate case-laws to cite; the appropriate arguments to make, etc.  For, the cousin of appropriateness is “effectiveness”, and that is the goal to focus upon, unlike the spouse who asks the mysterious question of “when” as opposed to “where”.

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 Disability Retirement from the OPM: Telling a Tale

We all have one to tell; it is the telling of it that becomes the question, and not the answer.  The tale itself is the unspoken journey of one’s life, until the telling of it leaves it spoken and revealed; but until the tale is told, the un-telling of it leaves a silence within a cavern of echoes where memories flourish but the story remains unfinished.

Why do famous people hire ghost writers to tell the tale of glamorous lives yet untold?  Is it because their own telling would fade the sheen of glory in the very telling of it — like a monotone in a soliloquy where heads begin to nod off into a slumber of boredom because the very telling of the tale failed to be the vehicle and vessel of excitement and adventure?

Why are some Olympians able to “cash in” on commercial endorsements, while others cannot seem to form or articulate a single sentence of coherent authenticity?

That is the real “rub”, isn’t it — of being “authentic” in the telling of a tale?

What if a former president (who will remain unnamed) whose sexual exploits in the various rooms of the White House (isn’t that giving too much of a hint?) were to tell a tale of moral uprightness and gave a lecture about the importance of fidelity to marriage, self-control of one’s desires, etc. — would it “sound” authentic, and does the person who tells the tale make a difference in determining the truth or validity of the tale?

Does it matter, in an audio-book (which is apparently becoming more and more popular these days, where reading is waning and people no longer have the time nor the interest to lug around great works of literature, leaving aside the actual reading of them) — say, an autobiography — whether the author him/herself reads it, or whether a “famous voice” does the reading?

Can an autobiography of a president be read by a comedian who is good at mimicking the actual voice, and does it add, detract or make no difference who tells the tale, even if the “telling” person is different from the actual person who told the tale?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the telling of one’s tale is necessarily prompted by SF 3112A — Applicant’s Statement of Disability — and it is important that the “voice” which tells the tale is both authentic and persuasive.

It is perhaps the single most important component of the Federal Disability Retirement application, and you might want to consider getting the guidance, counsel and experience of an Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the telling of your tale concerning the progressive deterioration of your health “sounds” less than persuasive.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The compelling reason

What makes a “reason” to do something “compelling”, as opposed to voluntary or optional?  Is it when the choices given are no longer existent and one must by necessity or default act — not out of choice but by being forced to?  Is it the unwillingness of the individual that defines the act, or the lack of alternatives remaining that determines the defined moment?

Or, perhaps it is a “feeling” of involuntariness that justifies the declaration that there was a “compelling reason” to do X or Y, which would create an oxymoron of sorts, to breathe the utterance of “feeling” alongside “reason” in the same sentence.  Is there ever a compelling reason to do or to say something, or is it all voluntarily undertaken, just some acts or declaratives taken with better reasons than others?

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers 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 oner’s Federal or Postal job, is there ever a compelling reason to inform the agency prior to a submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application that one has an “intention” to do so?

If the Federal or Postal employee is under pressure because he or she has already exhausted all SL and AL, and has used up the weeks of FMLA that have garnered some semblance of protection, is it a good idea to inform one’s Federal Agency or the Postmaster of one’s facility that you are gathering the necessary information to prepare a Federal Disability Retirement application?

The general rule in such matters is: Unless there is a compelling reason, Don’t.  However, each individual case is different, and unique and particularized circumstances may well define what the “compelling reason” is — as to whether it is indeed “compelling”, or even a good enough “reason”, as opposed to a “feeling” that one possesses.

In the end, the compelling reason is the one that is made without alternatives to consider; but alternatives are the reason why you should consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, precisely in order to consider those options which you may not even be aware of.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Comparisons

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

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The spam of life

Have you ever been amazed by how much “spam” there is?  Consider how many individuals, organizations, groups of individuals, people sitting in their bedrooms with a laptop, etc., trying to scam and spam, for whatever nefarious reasons hidden; it is as if the whole world has gone mad.

Is it true that the great majority of such leftovers often filtered by computer software dependent upon the dubious intent of those who would infect and harm, is produced for the most part by a single individual, group or entity, and the rest and residue by the remainder and leftovers less calculating and invidious?

How is it that we have accepted such human detritus as a normal component within our daily lives, such that we even have a special “folder” that is designated for “spam”, where the software mechanism kindly identifies and re-routes such unwanted crumbs into that neatly identified space, so that in the morning we can just click upon the icon next to it that deletes it into a “garbage” can.

In “real life”, is there such neatness?

But that there would be a software mechanism that rerouted all of the annoyances and irrelevancies in life itself, like the spam that is cordoned off, isolated and singularly quarantined so that we never have to actually deal with it.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  A person who you do not want to speak with begins to approach you.  Bam!  He is immediately carted away and placed into an isolation cell.  A problem within the family arises that is distasteful and irritating.  Slam!  It is summarily solved by swiftly being designated as a spam of life.

Symptoms of a medical condition begin to impact your health.  Pause.  Somehow, you cannot always equate the spam of the computer world with the spam of life; not everything can be simply rerouted and discarded, forgotten forever.  It would be nice if such were the ingredients of life, like that in the world of computers; unfortunately, some things have to be dealt with in a different manner, by a differing approach.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers needing to file 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, the spam of life is the medical condition itself, and despite our desire to have a computer software somehow make it go away like computer spams that try and infect the technological creations of modernity, there is no special manner in which it can neatly be tucked away into a separate folder.

Instead, the spam of life must be dealt with as with all other similar problems in life’s complexities – by careful preparation, fastidious formulation and timely filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, so that other computer spams and unwanted spams of life can be more easily dealt with for a better tomorrow free from the junk mail of a future yet unknown.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Motive and Motivation

The similarities are almost indistinguishable; yet, the slightly nuanced distinction makes for the differentiation between intent and desire, and while both are nouns, it is not the grammatical identifier by which we seek their impetus.  The former is often unknown, hidden, deliberately concealed, such that a kind gesture or an act of empathy may have an ulterior basis beyond the mere surface of revelation.  Think about Vito Corleone in the movie, The Godfather; when he granted a favor, did he ever reveal his underlying motive?  The latter constitutes that ethereal quality, unable to be grasped but which, if the secret ingredients were bottled as merchandise to be sold, would grant the inventor untold wealth beyond those who market pills to boost testosterone levels in a society overcome with virtual madness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the distinction between motive and motivation may be the difference between remaining static or advancing in life.  To remain in place and attempt to decipher the former in the impending or anticipated actions of one’s agency, the U.S. Postal Service, or of Supervisors and Managers who daily connive and consider in furtive whispers of confidential backbiting, is to forever waste precious time upon the unknowable and indeterminate.  To possess the latter, whether in spurts of ephemeral wisps, like time which once seemed as the fortress of youth but left behind in the residue of an angel’s wings fluttering into the universe of the fantasy of unknown caverns, is to release the last vestige of rational import and move forward into a life beyond a career with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.  Sometimes, to accept less is to gain more.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement through OPM may not always seem like an act of advancement, especially given that one is giving up a career, cutting one’s income, and relying upon an agency for a lifetime annuity; but when a medical condition cuts short the presentation of alternatives to consider, preparing, formulating and 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 often the best motive in a universe constrained by the motivation of self.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: For Want of…

It is the lack which often compels motion, and thus do we observe that “necessity is the mother of invention”, a proverb derived from a centuries’ old Latin phrase denoting that hardships result in unique ways in which to compensate for deprivation.  The opposite perspective — of plenitude and overabundance of indulgence — also reflects a lack, but one which which identifies the predicate based upon the negative subject:  of being spoiled and wanting of motivation and desire to succeed.

Necessity, indeed, is often a prompting and incentivizing force, as well as fear of the unknown, a desire to secure a foundation of predictability, and a motivating factor to escape from the destructive jaws of a hostile work environment.  Whatever the underlying force urging one’s intent, the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker who finds him or herself within the confines of a progressively deteriorating medical condition, and one which impacts and prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the dual-meaning of the phrase, “For want of…” is often the basis for action.

It can mean that there is an innate and compelling force or desire to attain something; conversely, it can denote the lack of a core need, which propels the Federal or Postal worker to begin to act, and in pursuing a 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, it is necessary to begin by taking some affirmative step in order to begin the process.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits can be a long and arduous bureaucratic process — one which depletes the soul, dampens the spirit, and denigrates the psyche.  But what are the alternatives?  We already know the destructive force of remaining where we stand, but it is precisely the incentivizing conditions of such deplorable circumstances which compels the Federal or Postal employee to consider filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement in the first place.

For want of future security (used in the positive sense) or for want of one’s health (used in the negative, “lacking” sense), the options are limited, but the end-goal can be rewarding, as wanting requires action and initiative, and want of one’s circumstances may be the compelling force necessitating alternate routes of inventive compulsions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Insular Delusions

The advantages of holding one’s own counsel are multiple:  little internal strife; dictatorial rule; decision by fiat; complete control and dominance; no blame can accrue to others.  The downside, of course, are just as numerous:  no input from others; the limitation of new ideas, constrained by the perspective of one’s own thoughts and concerns; the fool’s impropriety of listening and following one’s own judgment; little to no brainstorming.

Judgement and decision-making by singular counsel has worked well in countries, corners and civilizations which respond subserviently to dominance and domineering.  But when the populace begins to realize that the emperor is not as wise as once thought (or declared by fiat to be by the dictates of the royal palace, issued in blaring tones and trumpeted daily in printed leaflets used by the peasantry for bookmarks and beddings), then the rumblings of a hunger beyond mere need and wants begins to pervade.

Insular delusions occur because the holding of one’s own counsel ultimately results in a circularity of logic and judgment, and unless new and fresh perspectives are allowed in, self-immolation is the resulting loss of vigor and vitality.  Further, when a deteriorating force begins to gnaw away, such as an unexpected medical condition, then sound judgment and rational perspectives give way to exaggerated and exponential quantification of fear and paranoia.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file 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, the decision-making process should always include counsel outside, above, beyond, and objectively-attained, in making decisions about one’s future and security from the ravages pending by one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Federal Disability Retirement is not just about securing one’s future; it is, moreover, a matter of establishing a capacity of reaffirming one’s potential in becoming employed, without penalty, beyond the Federal sector; of making sure that one’s accrued Federal time in-service is not for nothing; and to ensure that one’s rights have been protected in order to move forward into the future.

Insular delusions occur when an individual retains the sole counsel of one’s own accumulated wisdom; but as wisdom is not merely the aggregate of one’s own opinions and perspective, the delusions which follow are like the windmills of old where knighted grandeur resulted in the myth of Sisyphus, where the toil of rolling a boulder up the hill of agony left one depleted in the soul of the absurd.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: Ritualistic Behavior

We persuade ourselves that only children play those games; of turning suddenly left, instead of right; of pretending to be asleep, only to unexpectedly open one’s eyes to test the reality of our surroundings; and other discordant acts in an effort to defy the predetermination of fate, as if the karmic principles governing the universe are subject to the vicissitudes of private thoughts.  But the anomaly of the unexpected is that, once a pattern of disjointed behavior itself becomes a monotony of the routine, the corridors of ritualistic behavior become entrenched and often prevents one from taking steps necessary to step outside of the proverbial box.

Conventional thought processes can themselves become ritualistic; thus do we believe that by neglect or avoidance, medical conditions will just “go away”; or that the increasing hostility and initiation of adverse actions by an agency will cease if we just “ignore” them; or if we just continue maintaining a semblance of competency, the incompetents will recognize and acknowledge the superiority of motives, and desist from the constancy of interruptive actions.  Such ritualistic behavior, however, has little to no impact upon the reality of the world, no more than when the child in us attempted to defy fate and the karmic gods which rule the universe.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, the route of exit from the madness of the universe is to file 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.  The plain fact is, no one cares for one’s health or well-being except the person who suffers from the medical condition, as well (one would hope) one’s family and spouse.

Reflection upon the priorities of life must always be reengaged; and continuing onward with vestiges of child-like ritualistic behavior, against all sanity telling us that things will not change despite our best efforts, will only prolong the agony and the angst of life’s unfairness.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is available for those Federal or Postal employees who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, and while continuation with one’s agency or the U.S. Postal Service may be a laudatory goal revealing an undying sense of loyalty, it is the dying portion of our better selves which whispers the lie that ritualistic behavior can alter the course of human history within the microcosmic universe of karmic incantations.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire