FERS Medical Disability Retirement: The Reasons Given

How did we learn how to give the reasons given?

We often meander through life doing the things which we do, not because we have analyzed or assessed those things we do, but because of habit and convenience of monotonous refrain.

Did you actually ever learn how to prepare, formulate and provide a “reason”?  Or, perhaps you came from a family where your parents were too busy to provide the proper “reasons”, which is the basis of forming the “process” of adequate “reasoning”?

Did your parents say things like, “Just because…”.  Or — “I don’t know; go ask your mom.”  Or even: “Don’t bother me with your questions!”

Furthermore, if you went to college, were the classes mostly a drone of lectures, or were you subjected to the Socratic method of questions-building-upon-questions in order to doggedly require the fine-tuning of the reasons given?

And, as you entered the Federal workforce, how much of your work is merely based upon the attitude of, “This is done this way because it is the way it has always been done”, or do you have some creative leeway for your own input?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contemplate preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application under FERS because of a medical condition which will not go away, preparing such a disability application must by necessity involve reasons given which must address both the “things which have always been done” as well as the uniqueness of your particular situation.

In a Federal Disability Retirement application which has any chance for an approval at all, the reasons given to justify your FERS Federal Disability application must include a sufficient legal basis in order to successfully persuade the U.S. Office of Personnel Management as to your eligibility.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to ensure that the reasons given meet that sufficiency test, and not be denied because your reasons given are essentially the age-old failing attempt of, “Because I said so”.

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 Medical Retirement Benefits for Federal Employees: This Difficult Life

Life is difficult.  “Living” always has roadblocks, obstacles, challenges and concerns.  We try and teach our kids enough optimism to meet those challenges, with a peppering of cynicism to recognize that very little comes easily; nothing — or almost nothing — is free; and that we are not invincible beings, but vulnerable, and ultimately mortal.

The frailty of our society was always there — it is just that this pandemic brought it out into the open.  It is like our bodies and minds — it was always susceptible to illness, disease and breakdowns; and when it happens, we are too often surprised and come to realize that this difficult life presents too few options.

One option, at least for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, is to file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  It is a benefit open to all Federal and Postal employees with a minimum of 18 months of creditable Federal Service.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who Specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider that even in this difficult life, there are options to consider in order to secure a future yet uncertain.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Medical Disability Retirement Attorney

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Day After the Anticipated Time

Has anything changed?  We too often “build up” that special day, forgetting that there is the “day after” and the multiple days, weeks and years which occur afterwards.  And, perhaps that is the appropriate and “right” thing to do — to have the “special” day set aside.  For, without it, there would merely be a continuum of unbroken days without any respite from the repetition, monotony and boredom of all of the other days.

However, if the emphasis upon that set-aside day is too pronounced, the other days which follow then become all the more stark in their contrast.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who come to realize that the day after the anticipated time brings back the same as the days before, and that a Federal Disability Retirement application will still have to be submitted despite that “special” set-aside day, it may be time to contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement.

For, in the end, there are many more days before and after the anticipated time, and respites are momentary, whereas a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is for a future to secure those many days after the anticipated time.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Disability Retirement: Pragmatism

It is that branch of Philosophy which is uniquely American; and the anomaly of the unwanted cousin was clear from the outset: Philosophy by its very nature is theoretical, and most of it dabbling in the discipline of metaphysics, ceding its other branches to theology and science.  Pragmatism, on the other hand, lends to the practical — of reacting to the world in terms of present-day difficulties and problems to be solved; of shunning the theoretical and attending to the basic needs of society.

The contrast and contradiction of a philosophy based upon practical needs as against the backdrop of an academic discipline which embraces the impractical, but rather enjoys its reputation for high-minded principles (i.e., Kant, Hegel, etc.) makes for a Jamesian pragmatism to be the illegitimate cousin of a well-respected family tree.  We are all dreamers by morning’s child; more practical by midday’s youth; and pragmatists upon an adult’s late evening; for the world forces the theoretical to be squeezed, and pragmatism brings out the harsh reality of existence.

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, pragmatism may necessarily dim the dreams of yesteryear: A career in the Federal Government no longer possible, a practical approach must be taken — of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement lawyer, a specialist who can advise, guide and counsel throughout the process, and begin preparing for the reality of responding to an all too-pragmatic bureaucracy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Citing cases

The strength of a case is not further reinforced by the mere citing of legal precedents; rather, it is the use of the substantive application that makes for persuasive argumentation.  Often, cases are cited in a dizzying plethora of listings, of names and titles of legal opinions amassed in greater paragraphs of listings to impress upon the garnered support of the legal opinions allegedly providing for an unsurmountable wall of irrefutable authority; but upon further inspection, many of the cases are merely regurgitations of prior opinions and precedents, and add nothing to the substantive force of the point trying to be made.

Good things are “good” because of the goodness within them, but when one begins to believe that “goodness” comes not from the element of goodness but from the quantity instead of the quality, then we all fall into the self-contradictory trap of utilitarianism, where we fail to recognize that too much of something destroys the very goodness engendered by the good.

Just ask the kid who ate a gallon of ice cream and sat on the toilet seat for an hour with a stomach ache — whether ice cream taken to meeting one’s imagination of what heaven encompasses is still “good” in quantities that have no limitations.

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 process of amassing the complex information in order to “argue” one’s Federal Disability Retirement application should, at a minimum, include the citing of “basic” cases found in “The Law”.

This is necessary in order to reinforce the justification that one’s Federal Disability Retirement application is supported by the legal precedents that have held sway for decades on end.  Citing cases is important; citing the right cases is even more important; citing the relevant cases is very important; citing the relevant and significant cases and arguing as to why they are being cited — now, that is the most important approach of all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Service: Tarnished lives

These days, are there any other kinds?  Do saints exist, or is it merely time which erases the stench attached, and as history is recorded and memorialized by sympathetic co-conspirators attempting to preserve the sanctity of reputations and disregarding the detritus of humanity, so once the sanctification by pontifical decree settles upon a figure previously considered human, and now an idealized version of an individual lost in the complex historicity of biographical omissions, the tarnished perspective of lives once lived has disappeared into the ethereal universe of a surreal reality.

All lives are tarnished; but the moment one makes such a statement, it becomes a meaningless declaration.  For, just as stating that X is “all-inclusive” necessarily negates its opposite, so to posit that Y is “pure nothingness” undermines the very essence of “something-ness”.  If everything is meaningless, then nothing can have less or more meaning than anything else, and thus do we end up with an anarchy of language.  So, to qualify: Yes, all lives are tarnished, but some lives more so than others, and others, less so than further others (somewhat like the declaration in Orwell’s Animal Farm, where “all animals are equal; but some animals are more equal than others.”).

And thus do we live this way, where the cynic believes that there are no saints, and the naïve minority of individuals who believe in such blather repeatedly invest in purchasing the Brooklyn Bridge as a sound retirement strategy next to Bernie Madoff’s pyramid scheme.  But of what do we judge a “tarnished” life, as opposed to one that is not?  Does a minor blemish amount to the same thing as a total spoilage of the whole?

That is where people have often misinterpreted the religious teachings of entrance into heaven, where purity through the sacrificed Lamb allowed for gaining a foothold into heaven, but where – from that – people argue, therefore, God doesn’t make a distinction between a minor infraction of sin and the carnage of murder or some other equally greater offense.  But surely there is a difference with a real distinction between that which requires purity in order to enter into heaven, as opposed to judging the difference between types of moral turpitude?

Yes, we all live tarnished lives, but some lives tarnished are of greater consequence than others.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who view the onset of a medical condition as a “tarnished” smear upon one’s career, and thus resist leaving until that smudge has been erased, good luck.  The reality is that a medical condition is not a reflection of any “fault” or “negative” judgment upon a person; instead, it is simply a reality of one’s mortality.  Some people never suffer from a serious medical condition; others, with more than a fair share; and most of us fall somewhere in between.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition such that Federal Disability Retirement must be considered, always remember that the need to seek an alternative remedy through a Federal Disability Retirement is never a reflection that deems that one now falls amongst the tarnished lives of greater misdeeds, but merely a reality in this mortal world of fallen souls, no different for this generation than for the centuries of such tarnished lives in unmarked graves of yore.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The mortality reminder

When does mortality become a concern?  Certainly, not during the youthful vigor when the future holds bright concurrent with the cellular construct yet expanding and multiplying.  Is it with the first encounter that reveals vulnerability?  And what is defined as a “healthy” sense of it, as opposed to an obsessive conduit to a dementia of nihilism?  Does a “close shave” necessarily haunt everyone, or does it matter as to the sensitivity of a soul that such karma encounters?  What “reminds” one of a future terminal, as opposed to becoming an all-consuming journey to avoid the ultimate consequence?

Whether for future promises of glorious defiance of it (Christianity and similar belief systems) or of denial of the substantive reality we face by it (Hinduism, Buddhism and similar negation-bases faiths), the treatment of how it is approached, the methodology of embracing or rejecting, and the paradigms constructed in order to answer the underlying metaphysical queries, are “projects” which Heidegger has identified as those very endeavors to avoid the inevitable.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from chronic, debilitating, or otherwise delimiting medical conditions, such that the medical conditions prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the brush with the question of mortality becomes a reality precisely because vulnerability from the secure world one has previously taken for granted, becomes threatened with each day passing in the empirical experience of contending with the medical condition itself.

Medical conditions remind us of our mortality.  Certain and specific conditions tend to exponentially magnify it tenfold:  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (in nightmares, intrusive memories and recalling of traumatic events); Major Depression/Depressive Disorder (by the loss of stamina and the overwhelming sense of despair); Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which may include suicidal ideations and panic attacks (via the heightened sense of intolerance to work-place stresses); and those physical conditions which result in chronic and intractable pain, from multi-level degenerative disc disease, cervicalgia, myofascial pain syndrome; Rheumatoid Arthritis, Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, as well as the ongoing list which every attempt to become “all-inclusive” always fails to mention, precisely because there is never a single right answer to the mortality reminder.

The key is often missed because the focus is misdirected – it is not so much the medical condition itself, but the impact of that medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties:  that is the essence and foundation of a successful Federal Disability Retirement application.  But more importantly, it is that “nexus” which is the key to the mortality reminder, and that which prompts the Federal or Postal employee into a spur to action:  Prepare the Federal Disability Retirement application well; formulate the foundation for Federal Disability Retirement carefully; file the Federal Disability Retirement application in a timely manner.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Gov. Employment: That sigh of regret

It is released without consciousness of foresight, or random expectation of hope to come.  Often, merely an involuntary deviation from a carefully-guarded appearance, that sigh of regret escapes with a haunting echo of mirthless exhaustion.

Is there a time when past regrets catch up to present dismay, obfuscated by the loss of any future hope to reinvigorate?  What is regret but a deed left undone, a trepidation leading to inaction when flight of carefree abandonment embraced us for a moment, where craziness of freedom from the fetters of caution allowed one to pause and jump without fear of tomorrow?  And the sigh that follows, but a mere refrain denoting the commonality of experiences, withheld, where caution pulled us back because of pragmatic considerations we once beheld to be more important than the liberty of our means.

Rare are those lives whose self-assurance in the meandering days of feckless travels reveals not a morsel of remorse, but a fullness of memories neither unrestored by neglect nor needing any touch-up or photo-shopping imputation.  Some have warranted that to regret is to die a slow death, while others accept it as merely the general populace’s lot in life.

The sigh of regret is emitted during that lapse of unguarded exposure when vulnerability is allowed to reveal, where openness – whether because of insanity, inebriation or a raw moment of “being real” – stands in line behind the impenetrable fortress of layers carefully shielded in order to construct that wall of mystery.  But the other side of regret – like the turn of midnight as the clock strikes its 12th toll – is the knowledge that something else could have been, that better tomorrows might have been, and the “what ifs” of life keep coming back to haunt, each whisper followed by a louder intonation of incessant reminders.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who having that sensation – of a pause, a consideration or even an inkling – that it is time to begin preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS of CSRS Offset, there are “better times” than others where timing in filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management should be weighed and balanced within the greater context of all other considerations.

What one does not want to happen, is to allow for a later event to emit that sigh of regret, which is what so many people, in so many circumstances, end up doing.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee has already let loose a sigh of regret, is the best pathway forward to ensure that – whatever accumulations of life’s regrets one may already hold within the bosom of one’s soul – future actions will fail to predict the sorrowful din of tomorrow’s hope for a better future, where that sigh of regret may be muffled because an act today was taken in light of yesterday’s remorse.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Implicit Questions

In many questions, there are multiple sub-questions.  Take, for example, the question:  Why are you so tired?  You may respond first by answering the unasked but implicit question by declaring:  “But I am not tired”.  That is not what the question asked.  Such an answer is a response to the implied question within the question, of:  “Are you tired?”  To the question actually asked, the proper response might be:  I stayed up late last night reading.  The presumptive sub-question unstated and silent but implicit in the major question posited in duality of a contingent combination, is precisely what is often termed as “lawyerly”, and thus somehow deceitful, tricky and attempting to subvert by having the responder accept a non-explicit presumption of facts.

The classic example, of course, is the cross-examination query stated variously as:  “When did you stop beating your wife?”  Before an objection is launched, the unwary witness might respond, “I didn’t” – meaning (from the witness’ perspective) that he never beat his wife in the first place, when in fact such a response evokes a different meaning – that the individual never stopped beating his wife, and continues to do so up until the present.  There is, in such a duality of question/sub-question combination, the presumptive prefatory inquiry, stated as:  “Have you ever beaten your wife?”

It is, in many ways, the capacity and ability to dissect and recognize the need to bifurcate or even trifurcate linguistic bundles that require thought, reflection and insightful methodologies in order to help define existence as successful or otherwise challenging.   Life is a tough road to forge; language opens the world by allowing for avenues and pathways of communication, but it also compels constructing obstacles that deflect and defeat the reality of Being surrounding us.

In the linear historicity of language and the explosion of thought, conceptual paradigms and communication inventories, the commingling of questions, the looseness of language and the careless ways in which thoughts are provoked, may lend itself to confusion, puzzlement and an inability to solve problems.  That is, of course, the strength of argument impounded by the British Empiricists, and while their collective denial of any substantive issues inherent in philosophical problems is itself suspect, their contribution in attempting to identify peripheral, “non-substantive” issues arising from the imprecise usage of language, in contradistinction to central and essential conundrums, helps us all.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing to formulate 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, a word to the wise:  SF 3112A contains multiple implicit questions, and bifurcation – nay, trifurcation – is an important element to consider and resolve.  Be cognizant of the implicit question – lest you answer the major question without considering the prefatory query.  Standard Forms are replete with compound questions, and the unwary will inevitably fall into the trap of answering the question posed on the surface, and in so doing, admit to facts presumptively “hidden” in sub-questions unasked.

Preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application requires the effort of untangling such compounding and confounding queries; it is up to the unwary Federal or Postal employee to bifurcate and trifurcate such attempts, and to dissect, with precision of purpose, the questions unasked, and answer those which are both prefatory and sequential.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The effect of nature’s muse

The connotation is often in the quiet reflection of silence; but other references can embrace any of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus, and as each presided over various arts or sciences, so the inspiration or guidance we receive is spiritual or otherwise from an unknown source of creativity.  Have you ever walked through a forest and come upon a clearing where the light suddenly opens upon a spot of heaven?  That is the effect of nature’s muse.  Or of a sudden realization that the darkness overwhelming as a burden upon a donkey’s back, is lifted without explanation and released with but an unspoken pardon?

Much of life and living involves sadness, decay, dominance of fear and trepidation of anxiety; and so when deliverance from devastation comes in slices and paper cups of limited portions, we drink thirstily as if the starvation of life’s travails imprisoned our very existence for an eternity of hell.

We often suspect that gods and goddesses laugh at us from on high, behind corridors shuttered and tree limbs cascading; and in the hint of nature’s muse, we wonder whether it is all “worth it”, as if value is embedded in the secrets of Tibetan mountains.  But as the guru who drives a Rolls Royce but speaks the language of a spiritual monk winks at the followers who would grant comfort and bespeak of secret incantations reserved for the spirit of folly, so the rest of us suspect that there is something inherently wrong with the world at large.

There are always “dark forces” gathering, conspiracies mounting, and greater inequities planned for the lives of the “common folk” – who almost always includes you and I, but never the guy on television.  Does nature indeed have a sense of humor, a glint of glee or a mirth of pardonable satire?  Or is it as cold and impervious as Darwinians would have us believe?  Better were those days when hobbits, goblins and elves could be believed; where the moon was more than just mere lifeless rocks and dirt; and unnamed spirits roamed the earth.  But of nature’s muse, we can still attach our own joy, the inner warmth we still possess and the jewel of a private soul we still retain.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who yet seek to become released from a private hell involving a medical condition and the persistent deterioration wrought from an inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the preparation and filing of 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, is often like a realization that the effect of nature’s muse is like that sudden clearing one accidentally wanders upon in a forest full of darkness; it is only when there is a spot of light which provides for hope, that value is rediscovered, and that search and discovery may be attained in the very process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire