OPM Disability Retirement: The Zigzagging Life

Every life has a pattern.  Whether of a logical progression; a life based upon personal failures resulting from passions unresolved; one of pure selfish pursuits; another of enmity, always with a chip on one’s shoulder; or of a zigzagging life, always traversing across wide expanses of empty plateaus, never touching the same field twice.

It is like the pattern one achieves in playing the Game of Go — that Chinese conundrum of a game, adopted and perfected by the Japanese, where the pattern of white against black in dominating the territory constrained by the squares on a board — and yes, when the entire board is filled, the distinctive patterns created by the white oval pieces in contrast to the black oval pieces, reveals the pattern of a person’s life.

You can tell — read — the frustrations, passions, feelings, thoughts, emotions and even psychosis, of the players based upon the patterns created.  The one who hugs the edges; the other, attempting to dominate the middle; both, creating stoppages and attempting to subvert the two “eyes” of every pattern in order to prevent the unconquerable string of oval stones on the intersecting lines of a Go Board.

The Zigzagging Life is the one most of us lead — without logic; without purpose; but just to survive for another day, to place one more stone upon an in invisible line of intersecting — but never encountering — life of emptiness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and who believe that his or her life in the Federal Government has come to a crossroads where the intersection of medical condition and inability to continue in the career of his or her choice in the Federal Government, you may want to contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, where the Zigzagging Life of trying to continue while knowing that your illness or disability will no longer allow you to keep going, and you have come to a point where you are considering resigning and just walking away — Don’t.

Instead, consider what a FERS Disability Retirement benefit can do for your life.

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: Not for Public Viewing

Whether such a statement or declaration is actually applicable today is questionable.  For, is anything left to the privacy of one’s insular imagination, anymore?  Everyone bares all — of private, intimate details; of private parts, private affairs, private moments, private thoughts; no matter, just post it onto social mediums and allow everyone into your bedroom.

Private “gentleman’s clubs” often had rooms “not for public viewing”, and in stodgy buildings hidden away with a grim-faced doorkeeper ready to bar your entrance, one learned that nothing actually of a salacious manner (or matter) occurred behind those heavy brass doors, but merely old men who wanted to smoke a cigar and read the financial papers in peace.

Medical conditions are the exception.  They are the issues not for public viewing, and that remains somewhat valid today.  For, of the privacy which we all cherish and attempt to protect, our medical conditions remain at the top of the list.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a health condition such that the health condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, maintaining one’s privacy in the face of preparing and submitting an effective disability retirement application may be a priority, but one which must be balanced between the voluntary submittal of a FERS Federal Disability Retirement application and the need to protect such sensitive information in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to a large, faceless bureaucracy such as the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Contact a Federal Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law and see whether or not preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal or Postal Service Disability Retirement application under the current Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, can be accomplished — to the extent possible — while protecting that which is Not for Public Viewing.

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 Application: The Facade

In its simplest definition, it is simply the frontal face of a building, expression or impression.  In its more insidious connotation, it is the mask which hides an ugliness within, and thus is meant to deceive.

Or, perhaps not even an ugliness, but of something secretive, of a necessity to cover, to conceal, to brush over in order that people will only notice the skin-deep impression left, the appearance upon first encounter, and not to notice the substance beneath or behind the facade.

Can a mask be kept on for long?  Will the concealment cover for long enough, or wide enough?  And long enough — for what?

Perhaps it is merely a smile to conceal grief; a smirk, to mask pain; or in reverse, of tears in order to contain disgust or anger.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, having a “facade” is most natural, if not a necessity.  You want to seem “as if” — as if you are still able to do your job; as if nothing is wrong; as if….

At some point, however, the facade may not work, and you may have to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

At that point, the facade which you wore so well may not be the mask you intended, for some may have come to believe that the facade was the actual you without the facade, in which case the facade may have been one facade too many.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement Law: Thoughts

Can they be controlled?  Or, are they independent conceptual Forms, sort of like Plato’s Ideas of Goodness, Truth, Beauty, etc.?

Aristotle, of course, thought that Plato’s Forms were a bunch of bosh; and so we have two lineages of Western Thought, neatly bifurcated: That of Aristotle’s school, leading linearly to the “scientific” methodology, and Plato’s more “artful”, cinematic approach, involving metaphorical and analogical thought-processes.  Both are legitimate ways of approaching the world, and both involve that ephemeral conceptual constructs designated and labeled as “Thoughts”.

Have you ever obsessed over things?  Worried?  Have thoughts “controlled” you throughout the day?  If you are unable to contain and control them, then aren’t they independent and separate from the “you” which “thinks” them?  Have you experienced that sensation of an “earworm”, where an unwanted “catchy” tune keeps repeating and looping itself in your mind?

Thoughts are interesting entities; for, they are the foundation of meaning in our lives; guide us in utilitarian ways, as well as in intellectual pursuits not otherwise applicable.  They are the product of worries and anxieties; of dreams and plans; of needs and wants.  They both exist independently, like Plato’s forms, and in controlled disciplines, like Aristotle’s logical analysis.

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, here is a thought: Consult with a Federal Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and let the worries of your health take the priority they deserve, by moving forward beyond your Federal or Postal career, thereby taking “hold” of your thoughts and applying them for the virtue of your own good.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Future looking

Young men and women should always be looking to the future.  It is the past which haunts and makes one stuck, unable to move forward; of memories and past hauntings that paralyze with fear and anxiety; and yet, so many of youth in modernity are stuck in the mudslides of the past that they know not the brightness of a future yet unachieved.

Do we reflect too much upon the past?  Are past hurts and slights — or worse yet, of abusive homes and horrors implicated by memories that will not go away — what freezes a person from moving beyond?

The general maxim for life should be: When young, look to the future; of middle-age, to reflect somewhat for lessons to be learned; and it is only for the old and decrepit in corners where rocking chairs rhythmically sound the memories of to and fro when reflections upon a past life should be embraced.  Future-looking is what is meant for the young and hopeful; past-looking, for the wrinkles of age and timeless eternity.

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, anymore, the future is not in lamenting about one’s past accomplishments, but in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, so that one may attend to one’s health and begin to move forward, to become once again future-looking — beyond one’s medical conditions and beyond one’s Federal or Postal career.

That must all begin by securing a FERS Disability Retirement so that one can move beyond the paralysis of the present and step into the future-looking state beyond.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Federal Disability Attorney

 

OPM Medical Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Cicatrize

It is a word which one does not come across very often; and yet, the greater question is: How many words are “out there” which we do not know, have never heard of and will hardly use?  Do words limit the universe of our thought-processes?

If paragraphs are composed of sentences, and sentences formulated from single units called “words”, do our thoughts retain paragraphs, sentences, or the singularity of words?  In our insulated monologues and soliloquies, do we hesitate because we fail to consult a dictionary, stop because we cannot come up with a synonym, or retreat because of a lack of an antonym?

In modernity, we have dispensed with the idea of memorization, precisely because — with a Smartphone constantly at our sides — there is (A) Either no more need for it, (B) It is cruel to force kids to undergo such mentally strenuous exercises or (C) There is simply too much information “out there” for memorization to be practical any longer.

I once knew a person who didn’t count sheep in order to try and fall asleep, but would recite the sonnets of Shakespeare — and would never be able to recite them all before slumber would overtake him.  Of course, “context” is important, and if there are no conditions within which a word should materialize, be utilized or otherwise applied, the need to retain such a word within the memory banks of one’s brain would never come about.  Yet, how many useless bits of information do we look up on a Smartphone on a daily basis, and “retain” much of it?

The word “cicatrize” means to heal by way of scar formation; by extension, one can become creative and apply the word in non-medical contexts, as in: “The constant taunting by his classmates resulted in a cicatrized numbness of his sense of self-worth; but in the end, Johnny could never have the thickness of skin needed to survive, and cried himself each night for the cruelty of the world that haunted him”.

That is the fun of words, isn’t it?  To take it and play with it; to retain it and fool with it, like a pebble in one’s pocket where you can feel the texture of a small remnant of the greater universe between thumb and forefinger, and fiddle without end in an insular universe that is limitless and infinite?  For, it is always the infinite that we seek; of paragraphs abounding and pages beyond the next one to turn.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, always remember that the application itself is a “paper presentation” to OPM — one which must be comprised of words, sentences, paragraphs, and even entire pages.

It must tell a “story” about your condition, your capacities and your frailties in the most personal of ways.  And while the world of such a bureaucracy may be cicatrized against an empathetic tendency of the truth of your condition, it is best to seek counsel and advice from an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law so that the cicatrization does not impede a persuasive argument compiled precisely in order to cut through the cicatrized minds at OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: Life’s Analogy

We make analogies of everything in life, but where is life’s analogy?  Human beings learn by analogy or metaphor; sometimes of a simile, but whatever the comparison or explanation, it is almost always by illustrative contrast that knowledge is gained.

How do you teach a child how to write well?  By starting with good literature.  How does one grasp the concept of a universe so small as to defy understanding of its basic molecular structure?  By use of models and diagrams.  And how does one realize the value of integrity and honesty?  Certainly, by reading and understanding definitions and concepts, but more effectively, by example.

But where is life’s analogy?  Or, is “life” too grand and unwieldy a concept to have an analogy — especially because “life” encompasses the entirety of all of the phenomenal experiences and stimuli that bombards us, and thus refuses to become segmented and bifurcated into bits of slices such that there can ever be anything of comparative discernment?  Or, perhaps its opposite is true — that in order to learn about “life”, one must compare and contrast it to its opposite, or near antonym, such as a medical condition that impacts and progressively deteriorates one’s life?

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 whether there is an analogy relevant to “life” is an easy one.

There was once upon a time a life before the medical condition — then, the life after.  As the medical condition worsens, it becomes more and more difficult to remember the “time before”, and that is when one realizes that it is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in order to regain one’s “life” and to put behind the constant and unendurable struggle against a Federal Agency or Postal Facility that cares not a twit about the quality of one’s life.

Life’s analogy is thus found in its opposite — of what it once was and still can be, by comparison.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Does reading alter?

Of course, we teach our kids to believe that it does, thinking that education is the all-important focus for future endeavors and successful careers.  And yet, the statistical studies show a consistency of denial – after schooling, whether of high school, college or beyond, the majority of individuals stop reading, unless you include road signs, directions on the back of packages (which most people disregard as well – come to think of it, of road signs, too), and the fine print on warranties (ibid).

So, is it just one of those pithy, inane phrases that fall under the general umbrella of, “Do as I say, not as I do”?  Does reading alter?  Alter what?  And does it matter “what” we read, as opposed to the act involved, “that we read”?  Would it bother someone if you saw a grown-up reading those old “Spot” books, or a collection of nursery rhymes?

If you approached the individual, or engaged in common banter at the workplace and made fun of him or her, would it make a difference depending upon the responses given?  What if the old gentleman responded with, “Well, at least I’m reading something!”  Or, what if the person turns seriously, sheds a few tears and admitted, “I never had time to read as a child, and never really learned.  I’m trying to better myself and teaching myself to read, now.”

Would such a confession instead garner a new perspective and bring out an empathetic reaction?  Or, what if that same person was seen reading a 1st grade book one day, and then tackling a complex manual about advanced logic or neuroscience – would that make you pause?

Perhaps the question itself is considered by most as rather rhetorical and irrelevant; that, it is presumed that reading does alter, but many prefer not to change and instead to remain in the constancy of monotony and repetitive stillness.  Just as the flow of a river results in erosion and soil shifting, so reading does indeed alter, and out encountering with the mind-bending activity results in the internal modification and modulation of complex biochemical structures.

Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, it is important to read the questions posed in each of the Standard Forms in preparing a Federal Disability Retirement packet, precisely because it will alter not only the responses being prepared, but how those very responses will serve to result in a successful outcome.

Just as reading alters, so the responses to the questions read, to be read by an Administrative Specialist at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is also meant to alter.  For, change is the mainstay of a living entity, and reading is that tool which is meant to alter, even when preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The Reconsideration Stage

Much time is often wasted upon rebutting incoherent arguments.  Such a statement is true in a great many sectors of life, as well as with an initial denial received from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

The first reaction in response to an Initial Denial received from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is to panic and become disheartened:  The Federal Disability Retirement applicant has waited many, many months, just to get to this point of being denied an application which was thought to clearly meet the legal standard of preponderance of the evidence, and perhaps the medical narratives and treatment records clearly and unequivocally established the nexus between one’s medical condition and the essential elements of one’s job.

What could have gone wrong?  What was deficient?  What unanticipated mistakes were made?

To top it all off, a quick perusal of the denial letter makes it appear as if the application never had a leg to stand on –  seemingly contradictory statements extrapolated; selective quotes from doctors, supervisors, etc., that tend to undermine the proof needed; deficient documentation and multiple garbled references to the “Disability Retirement Law” that has simply not been met.

How does one counter and rebut such an overwhelming denial of one’s carefully gathered and constructed information?

There is the “proper” and “effective” way, but one’s initial inclination in reactive form is normally not the way to go about it.

The Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who finds himself/herself in such a situation – of facing an initial denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management – will often want to just “give up” and try to endure the pain, anguish and cognitive deterioration by going back to work (if that is even possible and the Federal or Postal employee has not yet been separated from service), or just simply walk away from one’s well-deserved Federal Pension and early Federal Disability Retirement benefits, and forego the benefits earned and vested.

Of course, that is precisely the thought-process that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management wants you to embrace.

It is often stated (erroneously) that filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is not an “adversarial” process – and that OPM is not there to “fight you”, but rather, to ensure that all Federal Disability Retirement applications fulfill the requirements of the law.

If that were truly the case, then why does an OPM denial point out only the deficiencies, and never the positive aspects of a Federal Disability Retirement application?  Why do OPM denials always present themselves as overwhelmingly unqualified and argued as if there is absolutely no basis or chance of an approval?

Precisely – because, despite stating otherwise, the administrative process of trying to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits from OPM is just that:  an adversarial process which requires an advocate to fight for your rights.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: The collision of grammar and life

The cynic will scour each entry for just such an error of punctuation or misspelling, and declare that, indeed, the author’s own actions confirm such an event; the greater question, of course, is not that it occurred, but of what import or consequence.

There was a time, of just a few generations ago, where the number of noted authors, commentators and social giants measured by pen and ink, were counted by the hands of a single individual; now, with the diffuse pervasiveness which includes paper editions exponentially quantified by electronic media, as well as the vast array of blogs, comments and Internet “conversations” on Facebook, Twitter (who ever imaged that such a limited conceptual construct would be considered seriously in a political campaign; yet, on the other hand, the limitation of the numerical volume of words likely is proportional to the intellectual capacity of the user, as confirmed by current events), Instagram, etc.

From H.L. Mencken to Hemingway; of the age of Buckley and Vidal; the heyday of the wordsmith, replacing the blacksmith who had to work in the forge where life, the torturous heat of hell, and the reality of contending with trying to mold the harshness of nature’s metals, brought to the forefront the daunting task of trying to earn a day’s wages. But as the general rule is that quantity diminishes quality, and wider dissemination fails not to embody pervasive ignorance, so the collision of grammar and life occurs less with the advancement of technology and informational overload.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the primary focus in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is in that “write-up” of one’s Statement of Disability as required by SF 3112A.  That is, indeed, where grammar meets up with life, and the manner of prose, the punctuation advanced, and the words chosen, will all coagulate to present the force and ferocity of one’s evidentiary impact.  If represented, the lawyer will likely include a “legal memorandum” arguing your case, as well, through legal citations and references to the statutory and case-law basis upon which the Federal Disability Retirement application should be approved.

In the end, life is rarely lived in a vacuum, and hermitages of yore when medieval fiefdoms were aplenty, no longer abound with plenitude of choices; and for the Federal or Postal employee who must contend with the bureaucratic morass of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the preparation of one’s Federal Disability Retirement application is indeed a time when the collision of grammar and life may well occur.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire