Federal Disability Retirement: The Strange Mixture

It is, indeed, strange.  What is it about Man — neither can he run as fast as other animals; nor does he have the brute strength to dominate the other; but he has the cunning to lay traps, to create diversions, and to possess the strange mixture of God and Brute.  It is that strange mixture which makes for uniqueness — of never a pure predator, for empathy and kindness can make him pause before hunger (or greed) leads to extinction of another species.

We have created civilizations which span the earth and beyond, and in the process, have destroyed the fern and fauna necessary for the survival of other species; and yet, we pause with regret, and make some feeble attempts to preserve and conserve.  We are a strange admixture — of brash and self-doubt, of the exclamation point, and the comma to pause.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a debilitating 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, that strange mixture is the chemical balance which compels survival, and preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS is what will result in the aggressive, dominant side of you to get through this bureaucratic conundrum of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, under FERS.

Contact a Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and see whether or not preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may endeavor you to fulfill the promise of potentiality residing in the strange admixture of God and Brute.

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 Disability Retirement: Knowledge & Application

We tend to separate the two, and have generally been taught that the former — even without the latter — is a “good” thing.  Our grade school teachers certainly repetitively pounded it into our thick skulls; and higher academia relies upon the belief that knowledge, “in and of itself”, is a valuable thing.  Application — or utility — is of the “business” world, and for academicians, somewhat sullies the purity of knowledge.

Perhaps it began with Plato — on the other hand, doesn’t all of Western Civilization begin with Plato (and by fiat, Socrates)?  Knowledge of the Forms; the metaphor of the famous “Cave”; the conceptual ideal of the purity of ideas; the Socratic method of questioning for the sake of attaining wisdom — all of it, without the worth based upon application or utility.

The first poor fellow who discovered a vein of gold — certainly, the beauty of the glitter must have astounded, but even with that “knowledge” of beauty, did he understand the future application of value in the commodity markets?  And of those oddball individuals who love to collect bits of information — of knowledge — without any practical application — we have all met them; of people who suddenly spout statistical data just to show off their knowledge, etc.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who, because of a medical condition, need to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, be fully aware that both knowledge (of the laws pertaining to Federal Disability Retirement) and application (of the persuasive authority of statutes, regulations and case-law) are needed to win a Federal Disability Retirement fight against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Knowledge is good; knowledge and application, in the “real” world, are better.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of not only knowing about the complex laws governing Federal Disability Retirement, but moreover, to have the powerful asset of applying that knowledge where it really counts — in the application itself.

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 Government & USPS Disability Retirement: The Volume Appearance

It cuts both ways; and we all do it.  The “substance” of X can be either qualitative or quantitative, but rarely both.  If it lacks in substance, we believe that it can be made to look good by increasing its volume — i.e., heftiness = substantive relevance.  If it possesses inherent substance, on the other hand, it rarely requires greater volume.

The disjunctive rule is often applied here: Things rarely contain both.  Modern novels are a testament to the rule: Hundreds of pages with little to say.  Then, look at Hemingway’s greatest work — The Old Man and the Sea.  A short book; a masterpiece.  Shakespeare is the best example of containing both — quality of work, quantity of work.

In modernity, volume gives the appearance of substance, even when there is very little of it.  In a FERS Disability Retirement case, don’t think that gathering your decades-long medical records is sufficient to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  A qualitative medical report is often necessary.  The converse is true, as well: OPM will write a long and meandering denial letter which has no logical or substantive input.

It is, again, the “Volume Appearance” — of trying to make it appear as though the volume of their denial letter accounts for its validity.  It does not.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law in order to counteract the volume appearance — both for yourself in preparing the Federal Disability Retirement case, as well as in preempting OPM’s attempt to bamboozle you with a Volume Appearance Denial Letter — and no, the term “bamboozle” is not a legal/technical term, but it is what it is, as the modern colloquialism goes.

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 & Postal Disability Retirement: Of What We Do

It is the pause that a comma compels, a reflective moment which a period forces upon us.  There are times in life when we pause or stop, and we ask ourselves: What is all of this for?  Why are we doing it?  What is the purpose of it all?

At some point in our lives, we became automatons in the pursuit of just maintaining the life which we have chosen.  Throughout, there were multiple proverbial “forks in the road” — After high school, we could have done X instead of Y; after college, A was a choice, but instead we went with B; and each step of the way, we failed to ask the question: Of what we do, what is the purpose and why am I doing it?

And then, beyond the fork of that road which we have chosen, life takes us along a treadmill of which we have no idea where the on/off switch is located.  But there are moments when the pause button suddenly appears, or the period ends the sentence and the last sentence completes the paragraph and we ask: Of What We Do, What is the purpose?  Medical conditions tend to do that.

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 question “Of What We Do” becomes relevant because, in the end, is it worth sacrificing one’s health?

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation on Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Proof

What constitutes it, and how do we learn of its sufficiency or relevance?

Take the following scenario: A group of boys are gathered together along with Billy, the “town bully”.  A discussion of sorts ensues — who is the toughest kid in town?  Some of the boys offer that “Dave” from across town is the meanest and toughest — a black belt in Hapkido, a state wrestling champion and a middle line backer for the high school football team.  Some others counter that Dave was once beaten up by Joe back in February, and doesn’t that “prove” that Joe is the toughest?

Then Billy suddenly stands up and everyone else becomes quiet.  He starts slowly and deliberatively pounding his right fist into the open palm of his left hand, and juts his prominent chin out in an intimidating manner, and says, “Okay!  Enough of this talk!  How ‘bout me?  Which of you weaklings says that I’m not the toughest guy in town?”

There are multiple sounds of gulps and fearful drops of sweat begin to trickle down the backs of each, and one of the other kids — a skinny little weasel with thick, black-rimmed glasses, suddenly shouts, “That’s proof enough for me!”  Following was a loud and unequivocal consensus of unanimous agreement.

In such a scenario, two things occurred: One — Billy “proved” that he was the toughest kid in town, and Two — all of the other kids took the lesson to heart that the proof of a physical presence and the threat presented was “sufficient” proof, as well as relevant as all get-go.

Thus are all of the components necessary to establishing verification of a propositional truth established: the town bully’s declarative utterance, backed by the force of a metaphorical persuasion (for one would argue that no overt coerciveness was used, but merely an innocent act of pounding one’s fist into the open palm of one’s other hand, and if asked whether Billy “threatened” anyone into declaring him as the toughest kid in town, he would and could innocently declare that there is “no proof” of any such accusation established or verified), and further reinforced by the scientific consensus of his peers and fellow students.

Proof was offered, considered, and accepted in full by a persuasive methodology of a succinct and effective form.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the systematic and methodological “proof” which must be gathered and presented to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in establishing the Federal or Postal employee’s eligibility and entitlement to Federal Disability Retirement benefits must, of course, be somewhat more sophisticated than the rudimentary — but effective — amassing of proof portrayed by Billy the Town Bully.

Of course, some of the characteristics may still be relevant — of what constitutes “effective” proof; of what works as “persuasive” proof; of what is comprised of proof itself.  But the difference is that, while proof that leads to an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management should last for the lifetime of the Federal or Postal employee, “proof” for the kids who agreed that Billy was the toughest guy in town lasted only so long as the threat presented kept everyone convinced.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: Purposive sequence

Are all things in a sequence “purposive”?  If you are walking in the countryside and come upon a horse, a man and a pig, in that order, was there any “purposive” meaning in the sequence met, or was it random and a reflection of the chaos of the universe as a whole?  If it had been in a different order — say, you first came upon the pig, then the horse, and finally the man — would there be a question as to either the sequence or the meaning of the sequence?

Now, take a different hypothetical, where you come into a child’s room who is engrossed in fantasy and play, and the child has a sequence of stuffed animals: Again, they are in a line of a stuffed horse, a doll of a man, and a large plastic pig, in the very sequence you encountered while out in the countryside.  You laugh and say to the child, “Oh, that’s very peculiar, I just came across those three in the identical sequence you have them in.  Of course, it is just coincidence, but nevertheless odd.”  The child smiles, turns to you and says, “Of course it’s not a coincidence.  The horse is the most beautiful creature in the universe, and therefore comes first; the man is the cleverest, and therefore should be second; and the pig is the smartest, but since intelligence should come after beauty and be placed below being clever, he comes third!”

In such an instance, did the fact that a purposive assignment of intent change the sequence and the meaning ascribed?  In other words, did the “human” explanation as to the sequence presented alter the objective foundation behind the orderliness of the universe, or does it yet remain in chaos except for the subjective ordering by the child?  Or, is Kant correct in positing that the chaos of the universe is internally ordered by human categories structuring the outside world, and left without such subjective impositions, we would never be able to comprehend the disordered universe?

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, it is important to engage in a purposive sequence of completing the Federal Disability Retirement application.

The medical condition itself is chaos enough, as it impacts one’s life and livelihood, but it is the medical condition that becomes the center and foundation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  From the chaos imposed from the objective world, a purposive sequence must be countered from the subjective universe of the Federal or Postal employee, and that purposive sequence must begin with the chaos of the unordered world itself: The medical condition, from which all else naturally and artificially proves the case to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Fair Games

It depends upon how you read the concept, which word or syllable you place the accent or emphasis upon, doesn’t it?

In one sense of the concept, it has to do with games found at the county or state Fairs — you know, where cotton candy is sold and prizes are awarded for the largest potato grown or the fattest pig shown.  In another sense, it is in contrast to its opposite — of games where you have a good chance because rules are imposed and upheld, as opposed to “unfair” games where the proverbial deck is stacks against you.  It is in this second sense of the term that we apply.

Fairness itself is a difficult concept, precisely because of its malleability.  One concept of fairness is an arguable delineation based upon rules, perspectives, and even perhaps of cultural backgrounds.  Rules themselves can be attacked, and are “fair game” when it comes to disputatious boundaries, where there are essentially none to circumvent.

You can argue that such-and-such a call was unfair, and that obnoxious fan sitting next to you might counter, “But that’s within the rules of the game,” and you might then counter to the counter, “Then the game is rigged and the rules are unfair!”  What would be the counter-answer to the counter of the counter?  Perhaps, to say: “Listen, buddy, I don’t make up the rules.  It’s fair by definition if everyone who plays the game has to play by the same rules.”  Is that the silencer — the conversation-stopper — that cannot be argued against?

But what if everyone theoretically has to “play by the rules of the game”, but the rules are administered in a lopsided manner?  Is that what makes the game “unfair”?  Isn’t that what fans the world over complain about when the umpire, for example, sets the “strike zone” (or in other contexts, the “foul zone” or some such similar animal) too wide for some pitchers and too narrow for others?

Or, wasn’t there something like the “Jordan Rule” where a certain player was allowed to take an “extra step” (or two or three, for that matter) and no “traveling violation” was called, because the beauty of his fluid movements surpassed and transcended any “rules” that might disrupt the mesmerizing effect of such human defiance of gravity right before our eyes?  Could you imagine what an uproar that would have caused, where the player-in-question flies through the air with such acrobatic display of gravity-defying beauty, slam-dunks the ball to the rising wave of appreciative fans, and a whistle is blown — and the basket is disallowed?

That awkward motion that the referee engages in — you know, where both hands are balled up into a fist and made into a circular motion, indicating that a traveling violation has occurred — and then pointing to the scoring table and telling them to subtract the 2-points just previously awarded…is it “fair”?  Should fairness sometimes be overlooked when beauty-in-mid-flight entertains us to such ecstatic delights?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, life often begins to appear as if “fairness” is no longer an applicable rule — for, is it “fair” that one’s health has deteriorated despite doing everything to take care of it?  Is it “fair” that others seem to have lived a life of excess but seem not to be impacted at all by the abundance of maltreatment?  Is it “fair” that others appear to be receiving favoritism of treatment, while your Federal Agency or the Postal Service appears to be targeting you for every minor infraction of the “rules”?

Life, in general, is unfair, and when a Federal or Postal worker seems to be the target of unfair treatment because of a progressively deteriorating medical condition, it may well be time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Life is often unfair in general; but when it comes to applying and enforcing “the Law”, it is best to consult with an experienced attorney, especially when seeking to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.  And like the “Jordan Rule” concerning extra-rule-violation treatment, it is best to make sure that your attorney makes the Rules of the Game enforced — and fair.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The anomaly of insularity

Society’s steady progression towards greater insularity has been accepted as a mere inevitability that must be tolerated, resigned to, and ultimately embraced with little resistance and no objectionable diatribes, except by those madmen and social commentators who defy and decry and parade and parody of innovation as the essence of civilization’s manifest destiny, replacing the previous paradigm that engaged in the systematic genocide of the civilizations encompassing the plenitude of American Indians in a past century or so – but let us not digress and focus too much upon such a path (i.e., a small hint:  read the tragic but necessary work recently released, by Peter Cozzens entitled, The Earth is Weeping, if you want to understand the true heritage of our past “westward progress”).

Insularity goes against every grain of Darwinian truths:  Look around you (if you are not already distracted by your own Smartphone, laptop or other electronic device); who among you and surrounding you are looking at a screen of one sort or another?  Are heads pasted between eyes glazed and a few inches or feet beyond, to a fluorescent screen of inestimable attraction?

Concurrently, what is occurring in that “real world” that we so decry – of a reality that includes “others” in true flesh; of nature’s blossoming or closing, depending upon the season we are in; of planetary alignments and weather changes; and, in the end, of actual people reaching out in a world where virtual reality has replaced humanity’s quest for love.

Man has always had a differentiating and unique feature – of the Shakespearean aside in uttering a poetic soliloquy; of reflecting upon inner thoughts and seeing no further beyond than the mind’s eye as one wanders through an impervious universe; of reminiscing about a past already lost, calculating for a future which may never arrive, and foregoing present pleasures for delayed contentment.  But modernity has changed all of that.

The past is no longer relevant as old men and wisdom of what once occurred as generational transfer of lessons learned are shuttled into nursing homes where dementia prevails upon wasting souls; where future predictions of dystopian fantasies dominate through electronic entertainment and virtual realities that have replaced that singular tree that grows in Brooklyn; and how the world of the Internet, Skype, Instagram and Facebook constitute the entirety of one’s insular world.

Yet, insularity has its consequences.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers contemplating 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 reality of the medical condition still maintains that anomaly of insularity, in that the world of pain, anguish or anxiety-stricken psychiatric conditions reflect back upon the individual suffering, and the “outer” world cares not a twit about the individual circumstances.

But reach out, one must – for, in order to escape that anomaly of insularity, the Federal or Postal employee must step outside of him or herself, and begin to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, and that is precisely the “key” to breaking that vicious circularity that encompasses and engulfs one in the very anomaly of insularity, within a conundrum of an uncaring universe, amidst a sea of unsympathetic drones within the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Employee Retirement Attorney

  

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The bonds we forge

As a verb used with an object, the meaning is lost because the context of antiquity remains as mere pages in the history books of a former era, when horses needed shoeing and the hammer and anvil heard the rhythmic pounding of sweat and hard work from the center of town; and without the combined usage with an object, it can include the act of imitation and fakery, as in illegitimately replicating documents without the originator’s consent.  The former sense implicates a vision of strenuous input; the latter, a meticulous care to reinvent or mirror that which fools a third party into thinking that it is the original, as opposed to something likened thereto.  In either case, the toil of effort is required.

Those bonds we forge — whether over a lengthy period, or within a short while — require just that:  time.  And beyond, maintenance in order to secure the togetherness cemented.  The concept itself necessarily implies the prerequisite of first being apart, then coming together.  Once bonded by the labor of forging, care needs to be taken that we not put too great a stress upon the once-fractured point; for as the link which binds is only as good as the strength of its weakest remedy, so the glue that casts the inseparable pair must by rights be allowed to coalesce.

What people fail to realize, however, is that the true and strongest bond which is forged, must be carefully maintained over time.  Left unnoticed or unattended, the disrepair which re-fractures the covenant of unity can easily fray despite the historicity of that red-hot steel that once glowed in the hearth of reddened embers.  That knowing look evinced from the wince of shared pain formerly acquired in memory’s cradle; the sidelong glance of a joke shared between two islands of thoughtful reflection, turned into mirth by a fading laughter like a cup which clinks ever so gently when the ice cubes melting in the heat of day shifts the microcosmic glaciers of a summer’s delight awash in the bitterness of cold tea.

In modernity, we mistake the quantification of people pushing the button of “likes” with the inviolable encounters between fellow human beings.  And, indeed, it is often because of those friendships forged and relationships embraced, that Federal and Postal workers often pause before considering the necessary breach resulting from the needs imposed by a medical condition which prevents the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For, often, it is time itself which cements and solidifies without the notice of effort expended; and the camaraderie and relationships developed over months, years and decades can be the defiance of surrender, if only to extend the moments of memories passed.  But at some point, even the bonds we forged may not be enough to contend against the forces of time, nature, health and fate; and when a medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to continue on in the job or position of professional choice, then it may well be that the bonds we forged may need to be severed, as time allows only for a moment’s grace in the floating ships we think we steer, when in fact, all along, we were mere passengers biding our seats with but a temporary pass occupying for a limited time.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The mere asking of a question

In modernity, the asking of the question in itself raises a suspicion.  Being curious no longer kills the cat in some obscure, proverbial manner; to inquire immediately brands the individual and categorizes the questioner based upon the query of conventional consciousness.  Thus is debate of any kind quelled; for, to engage in a dialectical process requires a prefatory landscape of imaginative fertility; but in an atmosphere of poison and shallow interests already consecrated, there can be no classic form of “give-and-take”, of a level of intellectual inquiry required for the pursuance of excellence, improvement or uncanonized thought processes.

Can society ever escape from this cycle of self-immolation, where intellectual integrity is questioned, when speakers are shouted down at quiet lecture halls of solicitations for a teleology of thought, and at a level of purposive questioning, as in the days of yore when the pestering Socrates questioned every convention of the powerful and influential?

It will be difficult, if only because the widespread de-coupling of thought from information, separated by the force of modern technology, where deviation from identity is difficult to maintain, has made drones of us all.  Fortunately, law is, and remains somewhat in a sacrosanct manner, an arena which allows the simple query to survive, if only within the compound of argumentation for a cause.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who becomes the victim of one’s own bureaucracy, where a medical condition requires an accommodation but the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service is unable, or unwilling, to pursue avenues to allow for the continuation of one’s chosen career, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the best and only alternative to pursue.

The battle of inquiry and improvement — for, if you think about it, they go hand in hand in that the only way to “improve” anything is by questioning the status quo — may have to come to an end; and as it takes effort to expend to question and contend for greater heights and levels of excellence, so the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for the Federal or Postal employee to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service — the energy expended in other areas must now be preserved to attend to one’s medical condition and the deteriorating health of the employee’s body, mind and soul.

Sometimes, the mere asking of a question must be left alone, where silence is the golden ray of future radiance, and where youth may be the proper province to leave behind a generation of upstarts who never had the opportunity to ask that ever-childhood query, “Why?”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire