Federal Employee Disability Retirement System: Musical Chairs

Do you remember the fun of it — perhaps in elementary school or beyond?  The shrieking laugher; the methodology used; the adaptation for caution; the guarding of the few remaining chairs; the inevitable clash of 2 people trying to fit into one chair; the disappointment of elimination; and just the pure fun of it all.

Perhaps, in this day of political correctness, the game is no longer played, as inclusivity is the popular theme over elimination and exclusivity.  Yet, reality and the harsh lessons of the “real” world more than supports the metaphor of musical chairs.  It is a lesson well-learned — of life as a moment of music which suddenly ceases, and a decision must be quickly made that might alter the course of your life: To be a “part” of something, or to be forced to abandon it and to move on to something else.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the “music” of continuing in one’s Federal or Postal career has stopped and can no longer continue, and where “elimination” from the missing chair no longer available to continue in one’s career is forcing a decision to seek a seat in one’s life somewhere else, consult with a Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Elimination in the game of musical chairs is one thing; termination in the Federal Sector or the Postal Service — either because you can no longer perform your job, or from “excessive absences” or a similar reason, is a valid basis to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  It might be a good idea to make some decisions before the music stops, and to get a head start in the game of real-life musical chairs.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement Application: Denials

They come in various forms; of self-denials representing a sacrifice in order to allow loved ones to reap the benefits; of denials meant to avoid the ugliness of reality; or of denials which prevent a person from entering a premises, advancing in a career or progressing in an endeavor.  Of whatever form or content, they leave the denied applicant a sense of disappointment, a temporary state of suspension and often a profound feeling of uncertainty.

Does one “give up” when a denial occurs?  Or, does one find an alternate route, a way to rebut and with a reenergized sense of purpose?

To be denied is to be defeated for a time; to be defeated is to give up entirely; but to avoid the finality of defeat, one must regroup and counterattack, in whatever form that may take.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and who have been forced to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management by necessity of an unwanted medical condition — a denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is not the proverbial “end of the road”.  Rather, it is simply the beginning of the fight.  Who said that life’s pathways are easy?

Although OPM often makes it sound “as if” you never stood a chance, that your case was flawed to begin with or that there was never any validity to the claims you have made, that is simply their opinion on the matter.  What matters is whether your case has merit, and the merit of a case depends upon the laws governing FERS Disability Retirement Law.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and don’t let a denial automatically lead to a defeat; for, there is a reason why Federal Disability Retirement allows for various stages of appeals — precisely because a denial by OPM is not the end of the matter, but merely a beginning to the fight which must ensue.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: Hope springs

“Eternal”, of course, is the ending and attachment that most would declare if asked to fill in the blank.  How many of us know of the origin of the statement, what it means, from whence it comes (yes, yes, a Google search is only one finger button away)?  It is often an afterthought – a “throw-away” line that one scatters about in response to someone else’s statement about “hoping to do X” or having “hope that X will happen”.

The reactionary response that is commonly stated is, “Well, of course hope springs eternal.”   The origin of the saying comes from Alexander Pope’s work, “An Essay on Man”, where he wrote:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:
Man never is, but always to be blest.
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

What was he referring to?  It could be interpreted in many ways – of a reference to a life hereafter and the reason for living, struggling and being tormented in this life, with a view towards an eternal reward; or, that so long as there is hope, things will change for the better if you just stick around long enough.

Without hope, the devastation of life’s turmoil may never allow for a person to get beyond this day; it is with hope that is kept in the human breast that the eternal promise of a better tomorrow becomes possible; for, otherwise there is just fatalism to look forward to, or as Pope stated, a state of existence where “Man never is”.

The word-pictures evoked from Pope’s work are beautifully put, and provide images that allows for multiple interpretations.  The word “springs” is a carefully chosen word, for it gives the idea both of calm (as in the tranquility of a running spring) as well as a jump forward (as in “spring forward”), and thus establishes multiple meanings when tied to the reference point of “hope”.

Hope, ultimately, is the ingredient that allows for life to live for a future yet undetermined and yet to be defined.  That is what is important for Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition is beginning to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job.  For, what other hope is there than Federal Disability Retirement benefits?

As the ongoing medical condition and the deteriorating aspect of the medical condition begins to squeeze out any hope left; and the impact it is having on one’s career and future starts to question the viability of any hope to be had; it is hope from X to Y – i.e., a future with a difference – that allows for hope to foster and thrive.

That is why, for the Federal or Postal employee who recognizes that hope in continuing in one’s job is no longer a reality, it becomes important to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, precisely because hope springs eternal.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: The pecking order

Watching birds fly and cavort around a bird-feeder, one realizes that the term as applied to human conduct is not too far from the reality of the natural order of things.  There is, indeed, a “pecking order” in the world of birds and fowls aflight; it has to do with size, aggression, quickness and desire to survive. In other words, how birds behave is not too far afield from the way in which humans interact.

As children being thrown together in various institutions called “public schools”, we all recognize the concept of “the pecking order” – the sequence of priorities, of who dominates, which cliques attain a level of status and recognition, what is allowed and not, where one is invited to enter before or after others; it is the purest form of Darwinian natural selection, no matter what societal and cosmetic impediments and safeguards are put in place in order to engage in social engineering of one sort or another.

People think that this pecking order ends upon graduating from public school; that, somehow, release from high school ends this natural order of survival only for the fittest.  Yet, such pecking orders continue throughout – college; the military; the workplace; families.  They all require a pecking order of one kind or another, precisely because it is “natural” and the selection process is innately driven.

In the fowl world – both as “foul” and “fowl” – birds get to feed from the best and choicest sources based upon size, aggressiveness, and bravado displayed in standing one’s ground.  It is often the same with the human world of foul interactions, despite our claim to having become “civilized” and sophisticated, beyond reproach, somehow now asserting our independence and detachment from the genetically determined patterns of behavior.

More and more, however, it becomes clear that we are never exempted from the essence of our natures.  Aristotle may have asserted the grand stature of man with his rationality and capacity to cogitate, but the reality is that the ancient Greek civilization would soon become overpowered and dominated by the most basest of human instincts – of conquering by might and strength.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to manifest, to reveal, to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, it becomes clear that the old “pecking order” approach again will dominate.

Federal agencies and the Postal Service will assert its cold dominance and indifference to the weak of this world, and weakness is never shown with greater vulnerability than when one must admit that he or she suffers from a medical condition.  Just as the fowls begin to take advantage of shown weaknesses in the pecking order of Darwinian natural, so Federal Agencies and U.S. Postal facilities show no remorse in treating their workers who show weakness with cruelty and aggressive lack of empathy.

Filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is an aggressive step to “fight back” against the rise of the pecking order that is, unfortunately, an inevitable consequences of who we are and continue to be.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Disability Retirement: The gathering clouds

We don’t have people saying such pithy or inane things, anymore, and the death of the metaphor is the fault of Google.  And, of course, the Weather Channel and the Smart Phone apps that give us the updated information concerning that which we can see for ourselves.

Who ever talks that way, anymore?  “The dark clouds are gathering” – a metaphor for trouble brewing, problems arising or bad people getting together to engage in no good deeds.  To which everyone whips out their Smart Phones and checks the most updated forecast, using the Weather Channel app that everyone has already downloaded onto their phones, and in unison respond: “No it’s not; today is only partly sunny, then tomorrow there is a 20% chance of rain and the temperature is…”  “No, no, no…that is not what I meant by saying that the dark clouds are gathering.  What I mean is…” And you are met with blank stares by the horde of millennials who speak a foreign language, fail to understand the generation before the Internet or Smart Phones, and don’t even own a landline.  What, is that even possible?

Time was once upon a millennium, when farmers felt the bones ache from the gathering storm; that one could sniff the winds of changed directions; and noting the behavior of rabbits, birds and the mutterings of crows in the bushes, the gathering clouds would be discerned as patterns of nature’s calling.  Technology has its place and uses, but in the end, it dulls the instincts that have survived and helped human beings to last for want of realization of a civilization lost in the silent graveyards of forgotten memories.

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 the Federal or Postal job duties, the “gathering clouds” is often hinted by the behavior of coworkers, supervisors, and other agency officials; of the tone and tenor of attitudes abounding; and though the adverse action or initiation of a PIP may appear to come as a surprise, you knew it was coming long before, just as you knew that you needed to start the process of the filing a Federal Disability Retirement application long before the time made it into an urgency, or even an emergency.

The gather clouds, no matter how much we may try to stamp out the underlying instinct felt, is still the same the world around; we just have a better way of suppressing it than in countries less technologically sophisticated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: The Abridged Joyce

The extraction and extinguishment is done by unnamed others, sometimes in teams of unknown quantities, and certainly of dubious qualification of insight.  In a similar vein, writers have always complained of the artistic ineptitude of editors, and editors of the quaint verbosity detracting from the plot, narrative and captivating flow missed by writers in pursuit of “Art”; but is there ever a “middle ground” when it comes to the integrity of the soul?  But how can you cut away the content of the work, when the process itself is part and parcel of the substantive construct of the whole itself?

It would be like removing the heart itself, or perhaps even the human brainstem from the spinal cord, thereby violating the vertebral contiguity and effectively separating thought from movement, material from the spiritual, and soul from the activity which defines life itself.  Can Joyce, Tolstoy or even Scott Fitzgerald be abridged?  One can imagine the journalistic brevity of Hemingway, where incisiveness of narrative is reflected in the economy of words, but even to that, isn’t the stronger argument that the great Papa’s works are already so edited to the core that any further amputation would render the body functionally illiterate?

Yet, we accept the Reader’s Digest version of works for want of time saved and the capacity to declare a reading conquered; and others would quip, but surely it is better than just reading the Cliff Notes, isn’t it?  Not sure about that; as such cottage industries serve a different purpose — of understanding the content and context of a thing, as opposed to the enjoyment of the work itself.

But if quantity of linguistic captivation is so interwoven with the rhythmic balance of the entirety and aggregate of the whole, can an abridged Joyce be justified, ever?  Or have we accepted that, as life itself can be cut short without demeaning the relevant historicity of its linear heritage, so reading the partiality of an excised edition is just as good, somewhat as acceptable, and ultimately a pragmatic decision in terms of time saved and effort expended?

As Art reflects Life, so for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers whose careers and lives are interrupted by a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from continuing in the chosen field and career, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management allows for the abridged Joyce of a hyphenated accentuation.  For, in the end, the quip that Life mirrors Art is a limited proverb.

The Federal or Postal employee never asked for the interruption of the medical condition, but there it is — a bump in the pathway of life itself, with very little “art” to show for it.  But the narrative of one’s Federal or Postal career must be written in the Statement of Disability with care and collection of medical evidence to back it up, and the SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, is nothing but an artful way of deceitful cunning by a bureaucracy which attempts to subvert and deny at every turn, and the life of such a linguistic animal must be prepared well, formulated cogently, and submitted with confidence of purpose to maneuver into the maze of bureaucratic obfuscation.

The abridged Joyce will always be offered in this world of abbreviated concerns; filing for Federal Disability Retirement, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, on the other hand, is the only option remaining for many Federal and Postal workers injured or ill during the Federal tenure of one’s life, and should be accomplished with the care of the expanded version, and not an edited parcel to be cut and sliced like so many narratives in the trashbin of society.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Goldilocks Principle

Most of us are familiar with the fairytale; but in modernity, the principle extrapolated has been extended thus: the natural pendulum of occurrences must fall within a certain set of margins, as opposed to reaching the outer limits of extremes.  And, indeed, most things settle into a comfortable compromise of corollary constancy; it is precisely because of the anomaly of extremes that we take special note of the exceptions which develop and manifest.  And that is always the continuing hope of most individuals — for a reaching of compromise, and static settling into a middle ground, etc.

But for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition begins to impact one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal government or the U.S. Postal Service, the Goldilocks Principle will often fail to apply.  Increasing pressure is brought to bear (no pun intended) upon the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who shows signs of vulnerability; perhaps an initial verbal warning, then a written admonishment; then, the placement of a PIP within the constant environment of hostility; restrictions upon leave usage, and finally, a proposal to remove.

Medical conditions require priority of purpose and attending to the medical condition itself.  Actions by agencies and the U.S. Postal Service often serve to exacerbate the medical condition.  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, is an option which should be considered earlier, than later.

In the end, of course, the Goldilocks Principle is somewhat relatively determined by where those margins or goalposts are placed; for, in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, the realization that the middle ground of comfort is far from the fences of the extreme, depends upon where the Federal or Postal employee is standing, in relation to the medical condition, the harassment received, and the empathy shown (or more precisely stated, the lack thereof) by the agency and the U.S. Postal Service.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Medical Retirement: The Discontinuity of Wisdom

There is a reason why mistakes have a historical backdrop of repetition; as wisdom gained is neither venerated nor preserved, and as youth and folly are celebrated despite lack of accomplishment, so the latter fails to consult the former.

The discontinuity of wisdom in modernity reflects an arrogance of carelessness.  Opinions from elders are neither sought after nor consulted; “new” represents innovation, and that which constituted the radical changes of yesteryear reflect merely the boredom of todays vigor.  But reinventing the wheel at every turn is a kind of folly which borders upon insanity.  It is the reality of encountering a bureaucracy which often makes aware one’s need to consult prior experiences.

And, indeed, for Federal and Postal employees who must engage a Federal bureaucracy such as the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is a wise thing to do, to consult with an attorney who has already encountered the administrative process of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

There is rarely a need to make nascent mistakes where experience has otherwise provided an answer.  Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement benefits by a Federal or Postal worker is a difficult process in and of itself, and the bureaucratic process exponentially magnifies the conundrums and roadblocks presented by the complexities of the administrative procedures.

While society itself will eschew the wisdom of ages, within the microcosm if everyday life, it is often a good idea to consult with an experienced advisor, if only to find out where the darned bathroom is.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire