OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Poet’s Choice

What is it about poets that so many die young?  There are various studies “out there” (just Google it!) which reveal that the suicide rate amongst poets is significantly higher than in other professions.  The emotional tragedian — of the person who views the world through a lens of subjective creativity yearning for romanticism in a reality of harsh ugliness — is a person who cannot fathom the contrasting loss of beauty.

Is there, within the profession of a poet, those who engage the traditional iambic pentameter as opposed to some formless, free-flowing approach (i.e., E.E. Cummings?) where the statistical significance varies?  Or is it indiscriminately indifferent across the board?  Is it because constant rumination within a subjective universe of human thought leads to greater mental instability, or is it something more fundamental and elementary— like the frustration of trying to find the “perfect word” to rhyme?

Do poets search for rhyming words like the rest of us do?  You know — where, for example, take the word “fought” and then in our minds we go down the list of the alphabet — bought, caught, (skip D, overlook E because it is a vowel; “fought” we ignore because we just used it; got, hot, skip I, etc.) — or does the word naturally flow for the poet?  In the end, is it rumination which leads to a state of being distraught, or the realization that the art of poetry cannot be reconciled with the chaos of this universe?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have realized that a medical condition will not go away, and where the poet’s choice of words to describe the frustration in dealing with one’s job, career and inability in reconciling the medical condition with continuation in the Federal or Postal career cannot be grasped, it may be time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Most of us realize that poetry exists not amongst people, but within the ethereal universe of hopes and dreams, and when a medical condition jolts us into the realization that beauty resides not in a job or a career, but in the human relationships we form over a lifetime, then we also come to understand that health is more important than a Federal job or Postal career.

Consult with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and focus upon the beauty of health, and not the poet’s choice of despair.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Not the storybook tale

It has been widely commented upon, by naysayers, essayists and various commentators upon life’s winding course of pessimism, cynicism and some rarefied sprinkling of optimism, wherever the “isms” will take us: we are crippled from an early stage of life by being fed Fairytales and Fanciful Fantasies, and then pushed out the door to deal with the reality of the real world, which are NOT like the storybook tale.

Why the disconnect?  Wherefore the disjunctive between what we grant to our children in contrast to the objective world?  Do we witness any of the other species in this Kingdom harm with such aplomb their youngsters – where birds “cruelly” push their young tots out of the nest to force flight even if not quite ready; where predators abandon their herds and hoards to survive on their own – by first saying: “Now, now, kids, I am going to tell you a lie, then have you live in the early phases of your life only to be disappointed by the reality of what you will be facing”?

No, the human species is one of a kind; but then, we have the capacity of linguistic elasticity – a tool that others are (fortunately) not weighted down by.   Isn’t that the story of politics – of saying things that will never come to fruition, promising acts that cannot be accomplished, and declaring facts that are merely alternatives to objective reality – just so that votes can be accumulated and enemies can be identified?

It is well that human beings can fantasize and live in an imaginary world, because otherwise we would all go insane if we had to encounter the reality of the objective universe around us.  What of Marx’s dictum that religion is the opiate for the masses – if true, where are we today, inasmuch as religion is no longer a cohesive foundation in most people’s lives; and, if false, what has replaced it as the dulling effect for survival’s continuation?  Is it the flag, the Constitution, the hope founded upon a Lottery Ticket, or perhaps the greater indication of that which is not an analogy or a metaphor, but the reality of heroin addiction that is a growing menace?

Perhaps, after having tried everything else, the opiate itself is not just some proverbial reality, but the real thing itself, and that is why the problem grows exponentially.  Perhaps, we have come to a point where we realize that the fairytales told and the reality faced cannot be reconciled.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have had a long and productive career, but where medical conditions have more recently impeded, debilitated, and ultimately prevented the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, perhaps the realization has come to the fore that the storybook finish line doesn’t quite match up with the reality of one’s present situation.

That’s okay.  You’ve earned the right to view reality “as it is”, as opposed to the fond remembrances of fantasies and fairytales.  Yet, don’t become too entrenched in a negative perspective; for, the objective reality is more likely somewhat involving greater balance, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is not the end of one’s professional career, but merely another beginning.

Many have gone on beyond a Federal Disability Retirement and started new careers, initiated fresh vocations and enjoyed a second or third phase of life. It is somewhat like a marriage, a divorce and then a remarriage. Perhaps it is not the storybook tale written by some, but it can be one that is written by you.

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

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The cadence of coherence

There is truth, then the ring of truth.  The former may extract a pound of flesh or a quart of blood from the reader, yet allow the subtle entrapment quietly releasing the cornered soul merely by being unpersuasive.  The latter, despite often lacking in some essential details, will nevertheless engulf the audience, whether intended or indirect and unaware, into a comatose purring of half-conscious slumber, where acceptance of an argument because of a danger of violating the pleasantry of the moment is more important than embracing the facts themselves.

That is, of course, what is ultimately “wrong” with the writing style of a diatribe; it is the seething, subterranean anger in the undercurrent of a volatile eruption like the bursting lava from an unconstrained volcano where civilizations perish and survivors flee with but the clothes on their backside, which fails the purposive teleology of a barrage of words.

The persuasive outlier must possess the heart of a musician, the humor of an invited conversationalist, and the soul of a philosopher; otherwise, the dinner audience may begin to yawn and request to excuse themselves for various reasons, including an early exit for want of company.

The truth is, truth itself is boring.  It needs sugar, spice and all that is nice; wrapped in paper which stands out, but refuses the ostentatious condiments of vulgarity in a universe surrounded by stellar vacuity.  Convincing truth, on the other hand, possesses a disposition of a rhythmic melody, orchestrated with precision by a master with a conductor’s baton not made of any particular wood, but where the waving and weaving flows in consonance with the confluency of nature, artifice and linguistic pablum.

In any effective narrative, there must always retain the cadence of coherence.  That is often the “trouble” with Federal Disability Retirement applicants who formulate his or her own narrative of persuasive concoctions; will the U.S. Office of Personnel Management drink of the vitriol seething beneath the surface of turmoil?  Will the obvious diatribe translate into a persuasive cadence of coherent ideations?

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, have a dual whammy of obstacles to face:  They themselves must be the focus of the narrative; and, moreover, they themselves must present a voice of objectivity.  Both are immediately undermined when the medical condition itself is the very reason, rationale and underlying foundation for which the entire Federal Disability Retirement application must be prepared, formulated and forwarded to one’s Agency (if not yet separated, or separated from the Federal sector but not for more than 31 days) or directly to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Preparing the answers required on SF 3112A (Applicant’s Statement of Disability) requires a quiet, rhythmic cadence of coherence; to do so, the origin, source and inception of the narrative must emanate from a composite core made of materials tougher than metal, yet sensitive enough to touch upon that human yearning which defines the empathy of timeless angels.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Adaptable Criterion

If a criterion is advanced at the outset, one expects that the details of its applicability will result in a fair outcome so long as the requisite subsets are adhered to.  The problem is one of generalizations, however, and the linguistic malleability of hermeneutic interpretation, and in the end, the honesty of the individual.

There may have been a time when the sin nature of man was contained, and Pandora’s box was sealed, or at least somewhat secured; but once relativism creeped into the general populace, the game of restraint was lost forever.  Once, when man was left to individualistic devices, and information concerning the world was considered esoteric and reserved for the ivory towers of science and theological hoods of mystery shorn by Jesuit Orders of secrecy and cavernous enclaves of furtive whispers echoing down dark chambers in secluded corners, the application and usage of criteria demanded knowledge beyond the commonplace. Now, with Google and other search engines, everyone knows everything, or nothing at all.

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, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the “trick” is to review the legal criteria, amass the information in a manner which fits the applicability for eligibility, then to “make the case” for an approval.

Is it a science?  Or, more precisely, are the regulatory subsets “open to interpretation”?  And more to the point:  Do the Administrative Specialists at OPM adhere to the “letter of the law”, or is hermeneutics less than an honest methodology these days?  Where human nature is concerned, one need not stray too far from the general knowledge of the masses.

If one has lived long enough, you know that you should always walk through the busy streets of a city with one hand on your back pocket, protecting your wallet.  Pickpockets are everywhere, and in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, the Federal and Postal worker should always be cognizant of the fact that the adaptable criterion is not the fault of the agency or the promulgators of legal standards, but merely reflects the fact that Pandora’s box was left open long ago, and the serpents of horror and dishonesty were left to roam the earth like never before.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The 1956 version of the film (the only one worth watching) was in black & white, and created a sensation among French Existentialists for the greatest horror committed upon a human being:  to strip one of all human emotion, and transform the person into a robotic automaton of sorts.

Camus’ novel, The Stranger, reveals a similar theme through the titular character, Meursault, where the absurdity of life, the indifference of humanity, all serve to compel him to commit a murder without reason or rationale, in a universe without emotion — until the very end when, faced with the certainty of the guillotine, he responds with rage at a chaplain who wants him to atone for his sins.

Life itself can be the slow drip-drip-drip of stripping one of emotions, somewhat like spores which fall and turn into seed pods, and slowly attaches, drains, and diminishes the uniqueness of the individual; or like the greater absurdity of performing apparently meaningless tasks, where a sense of separateness and division occurs as a chasm between worth and work, as when Sisyphus rolls the boulder up the hill, only to see it slither back down the other side.

Medical conditions sometimes awaken us from the slumber of absurdity.  It is in and of itself an anomaly of sorts, to have to face the mortality and fragility of one’s life, thereby unraveling thoughts of worthiness in a world devoid of care, empathy or concern.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, for the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker, is a step taken to climb out of that chasm or void of dissipating meaningfulness.  For, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s capacity and ability to continue bringing meaning and purposefulness to a job, within a context of an agency which shows indifference and outright animosity, it is time to escape the alien pods and devise an escape route from the invasion of the body snatchers.

It is like Sartre’s quip that Hell “is other people” — of that moment when a person looks through a keyhole and views another as a mere object, then senses someone else behind, and realizes that you were being watched watching others as an object, only to be considered as an object as well.  Similarly, when a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service begins to treat the Federal or Postal employee as a fungible object of nominal worth, it is time to seek and monetize one’s worth at another location, another context, a different venue.

Medical conditions demean and diminish in multiple ways:  one’s own consciousness recognizes the devaluation of being “less than whole”; others begin to approach and treat with trepidation; and Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service fail to accommodate according to the laws already in place.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a means to an end.  The “means” requires an affirmative step by the Federal or Postal employee to traverse from the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service by beginning the preparation and formulation for filing of an OPM Disability Retirement application; the “exit” is the concerted effort to run afar from those spores from heaven, as the body snatchers who drain life and vitality through the keyhole of sanity where absurdity and meaning clash in a titanic battle for human worth.

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

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Fool’s Gold

Pyrite is often the element mistaken for gold, with its bright yellow appearance and shiny, reflective compound.  Why a given mineral is determined of greater value than another of similar appearance is a complicated affair, encapsulating economic principles of supply and demand, the fungibility and replacement feature of one over the other, and the plain fact that the elemental differentiation itself constitutes “real” versus “fake”.

It is, in history books, novels and plays, a metaphor for greed, corruption, ill-fated endeavors, and motives which propel obsessions of determined failure and futility.  For that which we seek with a blind eye, we end up becoming blinded to.  During the course of a career, one can often lose sight of why we were working towards a goal, the values which we once cherished, and the reasons for our very essence and being.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suddenly finds himself or herself with a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the metaphor of the fool’s gold is an instructive one.  For, to pursue one’s career at any cost, is ultimately a fool’s errand; and when the price to pay is one’s own health, such a continuing act of futility can result in greater calamity than necessitated by one’s progressively deteriorating circumstances.

Priorities in life always have to be readjusted, in order to accommodate the unexpected vicissitudes of life’s challenges.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers, the work is important for most, and is a “high priority” in order to accomplish the mission of the agency or the Postal Service; but when one’s health contraindicates the priority of one’s Federal or Postal career, a change of venue should be considered, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is an important first step in making sure that the proverbial pot of gold one once sought, has not been replaced by the mirage of fool’s gold, lest the leprechaun who mended your shoes is caught during the process, in which case the three wishes granted may override the need to reshuffle one’s priorities.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Law: Avoidance

It begins with a subtle turning away, perhaps; reduction of contact, lessening of coincidental interactions, etc.  The fact is, in an office environment, or out in the proverbial “field” of employment, if a coworker or supervisor wants to get a hold of you, they normally can, and with aggressive intent, quite quickly.  But suddenly and in a spiral trajectory of avoidance, people begin to shun and shove aside.

It’s not like the medical condition is contagious, or will by some mysterious process of osmosis spread like a viral wildfire merely by standing next to you; but that is how it is perceived and attributed.  When a medical condition impacts one’s ability to perform the essential elements of one’s job, whether the person is a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker, the palpable sense of ostracizing begins immediately.

Loss of productivity; being placed on a PIP; developing a reputation for being on the wrong side of an agency’s favor; these are all of the ills which portend; and the greater the degree of avoidance by fellow workers, the increasing pressure of evidence to begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Disability Retirement.  Federal Disability Retirement is a process which can take many months, and is ultimately filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The inevitable is written in the rosters of future events; avoidance merely delays that which will come about, anyway; and procrastination exponentially compounds the cumulative problems aggregated by neglect.  Thus does avoidance work to wound, and rarely to enhance, the fragile future of the Federal or Postal employee in securing one’s financial stability, by filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Predictable Pantomimes

Most of life is simply lived.  One engages, works, plans, deliberates, initiates, completes chores, gets up in the morning, goes to bed at night, etc.  Little reflection or thought is required; much of it, like an automaton on a conveyor belt of cursory convenience, requires but mere human movement.

Perhaps in the mythological State of Nature, as described by Rousseau or Locke, the predatory environment creating a necessity of alertness just to survive, required greater cognitive involvement; or, as a corollary, an utopian condition of peace and tranquil coexistence with other forces of nature.  It is when one pauses for a brief moment, reflects, and has a sudden awareness of one’s self in the presence of others, that the very knowledge of acting within the confines and context of “doing”, becomes a consciousness of self-realization.

Self-awareness — that level of consciousness beyond mere recognition of one’s surroundings, but involving a direct acuteness of “being” but simultaneously “being in the world”, is what makes for human uniqueness.

Heidegger tried to describe it through linguistic mechanisms which turned out to be beyond the common realm of understanding or comprehension, and thus became relegated to the esoteric halls of academia.  Sartre and Camus attempted to capture it through fictional depictions, and indeed, it was more the texture of the novel, The Stranger, than the actual words, which came closest to successful conveyance of the experience of the absurd.

For the daily person, medical conditions tend to starkly bring out the reality of the experience.  Medical conditions suddenly reveal one’s vulnerability, and the fragile nature of one’s being.  Mortality becomes a reality beyond mere distance-reflection of some unknown future intent; it becomes the freshness of the now for a being within a body of decay.

For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suddenly realizes that life, career, future and the boredom of constancy can be but a moment in time because of an impending medical condition which threatens one’s security and livelihood, 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, becomes a reality of immediacy, precisely because of the urgency of the medical condition upon one’s life and livelihood.

Suddenly, the priority of “being” presents itself.  What one did before the crisis of vulnerability was merely a predictable pantomime; the reality of life and the significance of relationships becomes the true being of living.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may seem like a mere act of administrative convenience, but for many, it becomes the avenue of necessity in order to deal with the reality of illness, disability, and medical urgency.  And, as with all aspects of life and being, other predictable pantomimes will become apparent:  the agency’s hostile reaction; the looks of suspicion from others; unfriendly attitudes displayed by coworkers and supervisors; they are all merely actors on a larger stage, but yet to realize that “being” and “being-in-the-world” are one and the same, when tragedies befall and humanity acknowledges the fragile nature of life, like the soft petal from a dying flower which drifts soundlessly upon the earthen dust from which we were born, and to which we return.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire