FERS Medical Retirement: Abandonment of Methodology

Modernity denounces methodology.  Suspicions abound when it comes to traditional invocations of previously-tried methods.  The young denounce method; “on the fly” is considered the nouveau appetite in “basement-beginning” internet start-ups; of young geniuses who can do no wrong.  Systematized business models; the way things have always been; the need to know one’s place and to wait for one’s turn; these, and many more, are considered  the antiquated detritus of past misgivings.

While no one needs to invent the wheel each time, the trend has been to celebrate creativity and innovation, and in the process, to abandon tradition, old ways, and thus old people.  This is a culture of youth, and so the plastic surgery industry and cosmetic do-over trends have exploded into successful business ventures.  Even “rational thought” is being abandoned — of the outmoded logical structures in proper argumentation, the Aristotelian model of symbolic logic:  Out the Metaphorical Window!

Yet, in some corners of rational discourse, methodology must remain essential.  For, the “law” depends upon methodology; of a logical, linear manner of argumentation.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where initiation of the Federal Disability Retirement process must be engaged, do not think that merely gathering up one’s medical records and submitting them with the SF 3107 and SF 3112 series of forms will get you by the eagle-eyes of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Yes, the rest of culture may have accepted the abandonment of methodology, but in the Federal bureaucracy, a sound legal approach steeped in methodological minutiae is still the successful articulation needed to win a Federal Disability Retirement case under the FERS retirement system.

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 Employees Retirement System (FERS) Disability Retirement: Metaxu

In Plato’s Symposium, it is a Greek term meaning, “in-between”.  Above mere beastly and appetitive desires, yet not quite transcending to the angels, we are stuck between lofty thoughts and mundane chores.

What we do in life is a paradigm of anomalies reflecting who we are: the construction worker who comes home and turns on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony; the merchant who haggles daily in money matters only to spend his weekends in museums and art exhibits; the young man or woman who loves, but dreams of a monastic life of prayer and refection.

Throughout, Man is caught in-between.  Perhaps that is how Roman Catholic theology came up with the concept of Purgatory — of that state of being in perpetual hold until the prayers of others releases you from the captivity of your own doing.

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 your Federal or Postal job, the concept of Metaxu is familiar and intimate: of that “in-between” state of being.

You can’t do your job but you keep struggling to act as if you can.  You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone today or this afternoon.

Contact a retirement lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of releasing yourself from the state of Metaxu — that “in-between” state of perpetual agony.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Harsh Reality

Medical conditions force the facing of a harsh reality: Mortality is just around the next corner and the youthful belief of invincibility needs to be set aside.  Obituaries are no longer for others and somewhere down the distant future; hospitals, built in remote areas on the outskirts of towns and cities, have become concrete structures constructed with prison-like walls to hide the ravages which the human body reveals; and while tragedy may be averted for a season, it always comes back with a forceful vengeance when least expected.

Instagram and Facebook — they are the meager counter-attempts at upholding the fiction of our lives: That youth will survive forever, that health will last another day, and that perfect lives can be lived despite all of the evidence to the contrary.  The harsh reality is that the facade we attempt to maintain is but a thin veneer easily destructible.

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 harsh reality should be faced early and with the full weaponry of knowledge: Consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, lest the harsh reality of life begins to take on a larger form of destructiveness than is otherwise manageable.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Medical Retirement from the OPM: Who Pays the Price?

In a certain household (left unnamed) somewhere in the Eastern part of the United States, a father gave this piece of advice to his children: You can do anything in life, so long as you are willing to pay the price.  He would go on to expand upon that concept by illustrating the various situations in which such advice might apply: You can commit crimes, but you must be willing to pay the price of incarceration; you can disregard your studies, so long as you realize that your future will be undermined because of your decision not to study; you can ignore your obligations, so long as you are willing to sidestep the pangs of conscience which will haunt you.

Age has many downsides; a deteriorating body, loss of stamina; slow and progressive decline in all areas of body and mind; and yet the upside, hopefully, is that some wisdom is gained along the way.  The price we are willing to pay reveals a person’s inner soul; how far you are willing to go; what cost you are able to endure; of what you are prepared to sacrifice; these, and many more factors determine the character of a person’s life.

For Federal and U.S. Postal employees 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 price you are willing to pay by continuing on is the singular and unique value of your health.  Consider whether you are eligible for Federal Disability Retirement by consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider who ultimately pays the price, and what price is worth the cost?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The shelf

The various components of our lives reveal the type of species we are, and the reflected anthropomorphism that parallels cannot be avoided.  Is the clutter in our life an expression of functionality or of an ostentatious display to stand out and apart?

The car we choose to drive; the clothes we wear; the expressions we adopt, undertake and use with aplomb like so many water balloons thrown from around the corner in anonymous chuckles once the projected implements explode upon the shameless lives of unexpected strangers.

What do we place upon the shelves that line the walls of our own personalities?  The shelf is a strange contraption of human invention; what other animal or species of alien origins has invented such a thing?

It serves a purpose both of functionality, practicality in storing effects, and at the same time, satisfying a human need to display and present to any who visit and succumb to the curiosity of watchful eyes. Or, is it to store and forget?  Where the shelf is placed is telling; is it in the basement where relics are stored, or out in the living room against the wall, or the foyer, the recreational room?

What do we place on the shelf — photographs, and if the photograph lies face down, does it mean that those who posed for it are now in disfavor and no longer merit the studious appreciation of all who visit?

Is the shelf lined with books, and are they in alphabetical order, or in some semblance of genre-driven or other means of clean and logical categorization?  Are they first editions, signed, hardback or paperback, or just a bunch of books bought at a used book store to impress any who might peruse the shelves of you?

And what of our “mental shelves” — what do we line upon them, what storehouses and warehouse are collected in dusty bins and small knickknacks that clutter the inner thoughts of our lives?  Have we placed certain memories upon “the shelf” and forgotten about them?  Or do we reach for them when we are lonely, abandoned and left to our own devices?  Have we come to a point where we consider our own lives to be “shelved”?  Or, do we submit quietly as others have determined to “shelve” our own careers as we sit quietly upon the shelf of living and wait for the dust to collect?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where one’s career has been placed on a metaphorical shelf — one where you are now relegated as a nonentity and barely recognized, much less acknowledged to even exist — it may be time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Agencies and the Postal Service tend to do that to their fellow human beings — of treating them as mere displays upon the shelf otherwise placed in a corner or down within the basement, and often, it is the medical condition and the loss of productivity or efficiency that determines the order of where you are placed on the shelf.

Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application can take your off of that shelved status, and return you back to the world of the living, where dust and detritus may not be the order for the day; at least, not yet.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: Sad stories

Is sadness relative?  Are there sad stories that are so sad that even the ones that were considered sad prior to the sadder story being told, somehow nullify the lesser sad stories and make them into not sad stories?  Do we, after hearing the sadder tale, turn to the first story teller and say, “Yours was not so sad, after all, and in fact you have it pretty good”?

If a person tells of having just buried his mother, and you ask, “How old was she?”  He responds, “She was 95”.  Then, someone else says, “I just had to bury my 5 year old daughter.”  There would be a dead silence, would there not?  Surely, we say to ourselves, the death of a person who had a long life is not nearly as sad as the ending of one so tender in years, and as death is merely a part of life, there is something inherently sadder about the child’s life ending than that of a person who had a long life?

Both represent a life ended, but it is the knowledge that the former had fulfilled the natural course of a life while the latter was the victim of an early tragedy, unnaturally ended and interrupted for all of its promise, hope and anticipation for the future – surely, there is a qualitative difference between the two sad tales?

Or of someone who was recently fired from a job and is desperately trying to seek new employment; say that person is looking through the want-ads in the employment section (yes, yes, that is entirely outdated nowadays with special apps for resume-sharing and online submissions, etc.), and in the course of searching, reads a story about a far-off country where war, famine and general devastation are ongoing, and discovers with interest a sub-story about a family that is homeless and is being hunted down by enemies, etc.  Does one at that point straighten one’s posture and declare, “Wow, even though I am jobless, I have it pretty good in comparison to that family in country X”?

Yet, if sadness is relative, does that necessarily negate the sad tale completely, or does it merely reduce its impact and value until another comparative judgment is made?  Do we go and search out a less sad tale after debunking the sadness of one’s own with a sadder tale, in order to “restore” the sadness of our own?  Or, does each sadness remain a sadness in isolation regardless of the comparative sadness to another’s?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the sadness of that medical condition becomes such and to an extent where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, it may become necessary to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, ultimately filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sadness aside, every tale of ending a career is a sadness in and of itself, but the key to getting beyond any such sadness rests in the next steps, not in the footsteps of one’s past or those of others, but in getting good legal advice and moving on into the next phase of one’s future.  Anything else would, whether in comparison to another’s sadness or not, be the truly sad tale of sadness defined.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Agency’s Options Letter

Options presented in life often depend upon the preparatory avenues previously correlated over months and years in reaching such a point and destination; alternatives and the plenitude of opportunities rarely “just happen”, and like the football team which seemingly seamlessly executes its game plan, the practiced work left unseen behind the scenes is what allows for the openings to occur, both in sports jargon as well as in business life.

Whether the limits of available alternatives are constrained by the apparently known universe, or continue without knowledge, matters little; for, in choosing from a list of openings, one must know the menu before placing an order.  Thus, can a person choose a sixth option when presented with only five?  Or does lack of knowledge and negation of foresight delimit the available resources untapped and unencumbered?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, there is often that dreaded “options letter” which the Federal agency or the Postal Service issues, as if the universe of actions to be considered is restrained by the content of the issuance serving the needs of self-interest, and not with concern for the Federal or Postal employee.  Such options presented by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service are often 3:  Come back to work; seek accommodations; or resign.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has resulted in exhaustion of Sick Leave, Annual Leave, and all FMLA benefits, the refusal by the agency or the U.S.P.S. to extend the granting of LWOP is often accompanied by the threat of sanctions, punitive actions and placement of the Federal or Postal employee upon AWOL status.

The options presented are thus onerous and unreasonable; for, as Option 1 is untenable (the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from coming back, and the agency and the U.S. Postal services knows this, as otherwise Sick Leave, Annual Leave and FMLA would not have been unnecessarily exhausted), and Option 2 (seek accommodations) is somewhat of a “given”, it is Option 3 (resignation) which the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service hope and expect the Federal or Postal employee to initiate.

Such an option allows for the least amount of thought and effort by the Federal agency, and it is this expectation, along with the threat of placing the Federal or Postal employee with imposition of AWOL status, that often wins.  But are there other options besides the ones presented by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service? Perhaps.  But as life’s choices are revealed only through knowledge and wisdom, it is the one who seeks the avenues of counsel who discovers that universes besides the insular one within the parameters of the Milky Way portend of other life on planets yet undiscovered.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The View from the Balcony of One’s Soul

It can only be in metaphorical terms by which we express such sentiments; and some recent essays have contended that true comprehension within the context of any language game requires, by necessity and tautological argument, metaphors.

The concept of one’s “soul” itself may be entirely metaphorical — or a simile of sorts — and placed within the context of the physical terrain of a balcony, the combination of the immaterial with the material presents an image beyond mere fanciful flights of the imagination, but taxes the capacity of the human intellect to corners of comprehension stretched to its outer limits.  For, the balcony is that arena of observatory quietude from which the vantage point of reflection occurs; and the soul represents the essence of a person’s being.  Thus, for the soul (the core of one’s humanity) to view the objective world from a balcony (the vantage point of reflective quietude), is to present a moment of profound insight.  It is, indeed, for those rare moments which make life worthwhile.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties within the Federal government or the U.S. Postal Service, it is this loss of “balcony-perspective” which often compels one to act.  Or, conversely, there is sometimes a moment of such vantage-point realization, seen through the onerous veil of pain, stress, cognitive cloudiness or downtrodden days of breakdowns and distress depleted through progressive deterioration of mind, body, emotion and flat effect; in a moment of cohesive clarity, one can come to the recognition that life cannot be defined by work, and the worth of one’s humanity should not be determined by how much one can withstand the humiliation incurred by supervisors, managers, coworkers and hostile environments which refuse to let up or cease in their incessant poundings.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often only the first step towards recovery from a process which began years ago.  Some time ago — and time becomes a maze of forgotten refrains when one must contend on a daily basis with a medical condition which impacts one’s capacity to engage in gainful employment — there were moments when the view from one’s balcony provided that momentary quietude of reflection; and then the erasures of life began to rub away the humanity of one’s essence, to a point where one’s soul began to hurt, to suffer, and to sob in silent shudders of dry heaving for that loss of self.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may not be the ultimate solution for every Federal and Postal employee, but it is often a start.  That start will, at a minimum, allow one to again view the world around us from the balcony of one’s soul, which is the true vantage point for all of us who still retain a semblance of humanity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Attorney: Avoiding the Pedantic Prophet

Doomsayers are everywhere, and in every generation and region of thoughtful pronouncements, prophets foretelling of anticipated events await to ring the ears of those who desire future confirmation of that which was already expected.

Beyond the general prophesy of future events, however, is the one who focuses upon minutiae and details irrelevant to the greater paradigm of events.  It is like the man who was informed that major surgery would be necessary, and oh, by the way, the scalpel to be used is made by a German manufacturer whose great uncle was related to Lord Byron.  Interesting tidbits may be relevant in limited circumstances; one should avoid the pedantic repetition of facts, events and details which detract from the main theme of a narrative.

In preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, part of the process must involve the preparation of a Statement of Disability as required by completion of Standard Form 3112A.  Certainly, details can be important; but a meandering rambling of peripheral issues detracting from the centrality and essence of one’s case, can not only become a self-undermining proposition, but annoying as well.

Begin the narrative with the focus upon the condition, then build upon that with reverberating ripples of riveting prose of significance and tactile tenses entailing direct links to positional requirements.  For, in the end, a Federal Disability Retirement application is a person’s story, told in narrative form, as a paper presentation to OPM which must be singularly focused, coherent and comprehensively conveyed.

When the world is foretold of coming to an end, one does not want to know the color and make of the undergarment to be worn by your neighbor; at best, it distracts; at worst, it may well reveal a privacy concern you did not want to stomach.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire