OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Price We Pay

We don’t.  It used to be.  Not anymore.  Or, at least, not much.  Time was, if a military officer fraternized with an enlisted individual, the officer’s career was all but over.  Or, ages ago, if a CEO of a company divorced, there was a price to pay.  Hollywood stars took great pains to hide their infidelities, for the “public image” was all-important.

What price do we pay, these days?  Are there any restrictions, any constraints, any boundaries?

We criticize China because of their authoritarian state, but can you imagine what kind of country it would be if a country with 1.4 billion people had the homelessness population we have, the rate of suicide we have, the extent of mass shootings we have, the extent of mental health crisis we have, etc.?  It is all well and good to tout “freedom”, but at what price?

Freedom and liberty are all well and good, but they work only within the context of responsibilities and shared obligations, which we no longer believe in.  In this post-factual world, where the words one proffer need not match the actions one engages in, there is no price to pay.  If you do something wrong, you merely need to disappear for a while and reinvent yourself.

For Federal workers and U.S. Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, however, the price you pay is by your health.  The stresses of modernity, the health issues which magnify and become exacerbated with age, the deterioration into chronicity when once a medical condition was thought to be manageable — these are the basis of being eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, exclusively, and consider the price you have paid, and the price which OPM and the government should pay you in order to compensate you for your loyalty.

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.

 

Federal Medical Retirement Law: Impotent Perplexities

We live in a time of perplexities, and where we stare paralyzed with inaction, unable to move, incapable of solving, impotent to act.  “It is too complex”; “It’s not my problem”; “It’s outside of my department”; “Let those who created the problem be responsible for the solution”, etc.

We have come to think that words alone can move the world; and so people spend hours upon countless hours on computers, Smartphones, social media, etc., and stare at a blank slate and believe that by pushing buttons, some modicum of differences can be implemented.

Then, when nothing happens, nothing changes, nothing moves — in a word, perplexities abound and impotence dominates — we become paralyzed with a question mark: Why did nothing happen?  And so we become ensconced within the insularity of our linguistic conundrums, forever impotent in our perplexities, eternally paralyzed by our own inability to find our way out from the maze of our own making.

Medical conditions can result in the paralysis of impotent perplexities; for, in the end, many medical conditions remain as perplexities themselves within the very medical community which declares science as the pinnacle of human achievement.

Furthermore, for Federal employees and Postal Service workers, here is another perplexity which may confound you: How do you maneuver through the Leviathan of bureaucracies like that of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management?

Consider hiring an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and have an advocate who knows the ins and outs of maneuvering through the impotent perplexities of a confounding bureaucracy in preparing, formulating, filing and getting an approval of a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

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 for Civilian Federal Employees: Articulation

How does one convey with distinctiveness  and clarity, with impactful word-pictures, of a private experience to a person who has never endured such existential stimuli?

Pain; depression; panic attacks; anxiety of a heightened level so severe that it impacts one’s judgment, cognitive processes and mental acuity — how can they be articulated in a manner comprehensible, and with clarity and rendition of relatedness?

The realm of medical conditions is often conceptually divided between subjective/objective issues — of that which can be established by diagnostic testing, physical manifestations (e.g., spasms, bleeding, images of white matter, lesions, etc.), and those issues which are merely verbalized but cannot be ascertained in any other ways than by the articulation of the patient — “feelings”; of pain; of vertigo; of nausea, etc.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the issue of articulation — effective articulation — of one’s medical condition, is a separate matter from the medical condition itself.  Remember: an OPM Federal Disability Retirement application is a “paper presentation” — an articulation — of one’s case.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and make sure that the bridge between “having” a medical condition, and articulating that medical condition, is effectively crossed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Workers: Loneliness

The human condition is an entanglement with various emotions and encounters with stimuli responding to complex sets of reactive and involuntary states.  We create words to try and describe them, but are they adequate in representing such conditions?

Once overused, words tend to lose their efficacy.  We see it in news cycles where certain phrases, concepts, emotive words are repeated throughout a crisis or particular circumstance, and over time we become numb and immune to them.  “Loneliness” is a word/concept which is strange and foreign to many people.  This is supposedly a brave new world which has witnessed an explosion in social contexts through new technologies.  We are allegedly more “connected” with the “greater world” such that we have become a “global community”; and yet….

Medical conditions are often associated with loneliness.  It is an encounter which only the person impacted can fully understand.  When a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker needs to file a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the impact of a medical condition must be presented to OPM in a proper, effective manner, in order to potentially obtain an approval.

It is, indeed, a lonely process — because it is beyond the grasp and comprehension of all others, no matter how “connected” they may be.  Loneliness in the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS is a natural part of the process, and to counter that, you may want to consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer to blunt the loneliness part of the long, arduous and complex process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The Cadence of Life

We all “have” one, or at least sense it; and when we do not, it means that the tune to which we march is so coordinated that we don’t even realize that there is one; for, it is only when the song is “out of tune” or the marching footsteps are out of sync that it becomes apparent that the cadence of life is left askew.

There are days when the cadence of life is so perfectly attuned that we need not pause to consider it; then, there are other days when everything is out of tune — when the feet trip over one another, the dexterity of hands become all thumbs and nothing seems to work and the cadence of life has been disrupted.  Most days are somewhere in between upon the spectrum of daily living — of being in tune most of the time but with disruptions and pauses; “pregnant pauses”, at that, which make for embarrassment and disjointed agonies of trepidation and concern.

We say things like, “I feel out-of-sorts” or perhaps a slight cold or “bug” has infected us; but whatever the cause, we know that we must get back into the step of things and march along with the rest of the crowd, lest the band leave us and the quietude of isolation engulfs us with a fear of loneliness.

Medical conditions — whether of illness or injury — can likewise disrupt the cadence of life, and 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, filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits — to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — is one step towards regaining that step to bring yourself in cadence with the cadence of life once lost, and now to be found.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits under FERS: Who we are

That is a rather presumptuous title, one might declare; for, it is always the “we” that others presume to know, as opposed to limiting the declarative within the restrictive confines of one’s self, family and surrounding community.

What is the great equalizer that allows for the collective plural pronoun?  Is it television (i.e., do “we” all watch the same shows and thus form a conglomerate of a universal consciousness)?  There was once a time when one could argue that a unity of convention existed — especially harkening back to the days when there were essentially 3 networks to choose from, and where all three were similar in content, thought and approach.

In modernity, is it the Internet?  But the worldwide “web’ is too diverse to narrowly formulate a cumulative effect of similar normative beliefs.

Perhaps that is why society in general is so diverse and fractured; where even a simple consensus amidst a small community cannot be reached, and how geographic differences have become exponentially and irreversibly altered and separated from one another.

Who are we?  Yes, the inversion substitution of the second word with the third makes the declarative into a query, and changes the entire subject matter.  It is, perhaps, both a statement and a question, and neither make sense, anymore.  And so we are left with a singular voice — of a monologue and an aside, or as in a play, a soliloquy, where the character asks the universal question, Who am I?  Am I the collective consciousness of my direct descendent, and does that have meaningfulness, anymore?  Why do we seek answers by purchasing and sending away “DNA kits”, as if the spiral spectrum of cellular anomalies would be able to answer the question which haunts us all?

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 potential loss of one’s identity within the community of Federal and Postal workers is often the step that is difficult to take.

One’s identity, purpose, drive and dreams are often bundled up into an inseparable conglomeration of work and identity, and to separate from that self-identification is often a difficult venture to undertake.  But the danger, of course, is that you may be forcibly separated if you do not take the steps necessary to protect your identity.

The Agency will ultimately terminate you, and the harassment because you have taken too much Sick Leave, Annual Leave, FMLA or LWOP is inevitable.  Better that you file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits and retain a semblance of who you are, lest the Federal Agency or the Postal Service does that to you unilaterally, leaving you with the question, Who do they think they are?

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

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement Benefits: The narrative we write

The narrative we write tells much about ourselves.  That is quite an obvious statement.  What is not obvious, however, is the discretion we apply, the self-restraint we reveal, and the manifested fences we install through invisible means of editing and erasing.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal Service employee is under FERS, CSRS of CSRS Offset, the importance of the narrative we write in response to the queries on SF 3112A (“Applicant’s Statement of Disability”) is merely but a condition-precedent of the foundational evidence we must submit to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Each story is different, and should be guided by the medical evidence amassed, the experience of one’s disability and the perspective of one’s encounter with the essential elements of the position one occupies in the Federal workforce or the Postal craft one is required to engage.

Narratives comprise the coattails of human experience; they never can tell the whole story, and the reader of such a story will never be able to embrace the fullness of the information provided.  One person’s experience is but another’s mystery untold, and the nexus that the Federal and Postal Disability Retirement applicant must establish is a threefold one: Between the medical condition and the essential elements of one’s job; and between the latter two and the person who will be reading the narrative at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

How can I do that? – is the query most asked, as you will never meet, know or discern the person at OPM.  By making the narrative compelling and “alive”.  Thus should you restrain from meandering; of getting to the point and not creating an endless maze of directionless misguidance; and as discretion is the better part of valor (does that pithy saying have any consequential meaning, anymore?), so choosing the fact-scenarios to include is an important component of the information to impart.

Tangents can get you into trouble; overreaching, a re-evaluation and a second look; and inconsistencies in statements may provide for a selective extrapolation of targeted analysis.  The narrative we write should always tell the story of the experiential phenomena relevant to the subject at hand: The applicant’s statement of disability, in the context of the law, and within the confines of how it impacts, prevents and touches upon the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job.  Simple; concise; answering the questions by relevant application; and always, always, with an emphasis upon the medical conditions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Broken Promises

It is a surprise that we are constantly surprised by them.  Why should we be?  Do we elevate man to such a pinnacle of virtue as the angels who look down upon us with remorseful eyes?  Are there more of them today, like shattered mirrors or destroyed lives littering the highways of hopeful futures stretching out into a path of devastated backdrops in the history of unknown commoners who lay quietly in the tombs that speak not but in haunting whispers in muted graveyards long abandoned with the silence of church bells that no longer toll?

Promises are but linguistic constructs that are controlled by the good intentions of those who make them, and restricted by the constraints of social virtues that no longer exist, have been modified, disavowed and have now been deemed archaic in this modernity of relative moral standards.

Once upon a time (or so the fairytale goes), a handshake, a nod, a single word without the written confirmation, the 10-page fax to declare a deal made, or the fine-print of agreements incomprehensible – they constituted the affirmation of man’s purity of intent, motivation and virtuous underbelly unseen but for the flight of angels touching and tugging upon our conscience when evil forces attempted to lead us astray.

Now, we have found the power of linguistic elasticity.  It is no longer a “lie”, and perhaps it was always known, just as Eve realized the cunning of justification, persuasive argumentation and methodological coercion; no, broken promises no longer exist – instead, it is a mutual “misunderstanding”, failure of minds to meet, or just plain wrong-headedness on the part of the one who relied upon a promise made.

No one really believes anyone else’s handshake, anymore – and, in any event, who shakes hands these days?  What can it mean but a mere vestige of an arcane eccentricity that needs be relegated to those rustic movies where granddad and obscure relatives and neighbors would jump from frame-to-frame in old movies where a wave to the camera was the memorabilia to preserve, now replaced by thousands of Selfies stored in electronic devices neither for posterity nor discretion of family enjoyment, but for self-aggrandizement and public display for prurient intentions.

Like granddad’s smile that once reassured as the solid Rock of Gibraltar, promises don’t mean anything, anymore.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who think that assurances of accommodating medical conditions because, somehow, laws are in place that provide for that, think about it for a moment:  Without the laws, would a promise mean anything?  Further, do the laws really protect, or are they also just linguistic modalities easily manipulated?  Fortunately, however, laws can work both ways, and Federal Disability Retirement Law operates in favor of Federal and Postal employees with a standard of proof geared towards an approval – of a preponderance of the evidence.

No, the promises made by Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service may not amount to much, and the heap of junk piles left behind by broken promises may litter the once-beautiful landscape of arcane handshakes in years past, but the availability of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits remains a reality for those Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that there is now an incompatibility between one’s medical conditions and the performance of one’s essential elements of the Federal or Postal job.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: The voice of constructive criticism

It is rare for the individual to accept constructive criticism; rarer still, to invite and welcome it in any form, whether destructive, constructive or otherwise characterized as “positive”, “negative” or “neutral”.  The fact is that few of us accept any form of it at all, and quickly respond with the rebuttal:  “It’s not constructive”.  But why does it need to be?

Such a reaction assumes an inherent distinction that merely and preemptively places an obstacle to further engagement.  It may well be that, in the end, one can conclude as to the resultant characterization initially presumed, and perhaps even to attribute bad faith, unhelpful motivations and intended cuts.  But all of that should come at the end of the deliberative process, and not as the beginning firewall to prevent further discussion and consideration.

For some reason, the evolution of man has embraced the societal need to spend an exorbitant amount of time defending justifying, counterpunching and placing linguistic walls of protective measures in order to preserve the superficial appearances that we all deny we revere.  The irony of Western Philosophy is that, despite questions repetitively and exhaustively presented – with never any conclusive and satisfactory answers ever provided (like children and their eyes bulging with curiosity in a toy store) – the query never ends and the answers are forever avoided.

This age of modernity, however, has a new wrinkle:  as traditional philosophy has been relegated to insignificance and irrelevance by reducing it as a matter of language games and confusion in our thought-processes, so now the “new” approach is to avoid any substantive questions (and therefore any curiosity to have the answers) and, instead, to preserve and protect our superficial lives and appearances.

The beginning of Western Philosophy warned of this – from Parmenides and Heraclitus, and with the entrance of that irritant vagabond Socrates as related to us through the Platonic Dialogues – “appearances” were to be queried and investigated in order to get to the foundation of Being.  Now, we avoid even the appearance of superficiality in order to protect how shallow we are, and we do this by preemptively and viciously attacking the mere question in order to avoid any criticism at all.  This can obviously have dangerous consequences.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who want to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the key to submitting a “winning” Federal Disability Retirement application is in being open to self-criticism, whether constructive, destructive or otherwise neutral.

Vigilance in life is always the key, and refining, streamlining and formulating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application should go through a rigorous “vetting” process, such that the questions of Socrates through his dialectical methodology of getting to the “truth” should never be subverted.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire