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.

 

FERS Employees with Disabilities: Implicit and Explicit

Say a person is playing golf, hits the ball badly and yells out loudly, “Fore!”  In his mind, however, the individual has the word spelled wrongly — say, as “Four” or “For”, or any number of alternative ways.  When first heard, he had thought that it was spelled in the commonplace, conventional way.  Does it matter?  Doesn’t the fact that homophones exist become an issue of “right” or “wrong” only if the implicit clashes with the explicit? (What a terribly and awkwardly stated question).

Homophones not only “sound” the same, but may also be spelled differently.  They are in the “family” of homonyms because they sound alike but have different meanings; similarly, there are words that also sound the same, are spelled the same, but have different meanings, as in: “She rose from her seated position to smell the rose.”  Here again, what if the person repeated the sentence but thought that the first “rose” was somehow referring to the flower while the second rose concerned the manner of posture (if such transfer of meanings is even possible) — would it make a difference?

The “implicit” world of understanding encapsulates the privacy of our insular world; the “explicit” brings forth and unveils that previously-unrevealed universe, and tests it against the objective world of contending ideas.  It is somewhat akin to pain — that subjective phenomena which may or may not be capable of being ascertained, verified or confirmed by diagnostic testing or reactive muscle spasms.

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 becomes necessary to make the “implicit” explicit in order to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Gathering the necessary information in order to formulate properly one’s Federal Disability Retirement case is to make explicit that which may have remained deliberately implicit.

That is where consultation with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law becomes crucial in properly making explicit that which remained implicit, in order to “test” the viability of a very private and confidential matter.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The difficult good-bye

It is always difficult to say good-bye.  Whether of a long duration, or with a quick ending to an already fast-deteriorating relationship, the good-bye that brings sorrow, tears and a sense of unease is the one that once was never thought of.

Separating from loved ones; the end of a stay that may have begun with trepidation, hesitation or even loathing, but which turned out to be an embracing of past memories forgotten, revitalizing conversations and enlivening moments of collective reflections; or even of a chance encounter with someone, or with the lengthy last moments with a bedridden relative who wants the warmth of human contact nearby before departing into the netherworld through gates of wandering souls.

Whatever the circumstances, the good-byes we fear, the ones we think will be a relief, and even those that turned out to end merely with a half-hearted wave of the hand — it is the difficult good-bye that echoes within the hollow of one’s mind, squeezing between schedules full and memories touching upon a conscience that will not abide.

Careers have good-byes, as well, and not just between people; for it is the career that defines so much of who we are.  It is never just the “what do you do for a living” part of it, but the title that comes with it, the identity that is attached to it, the camaraderie that accompanies it and the past memories that haunt one; these are the cementing tributaries that form one’s personhood.

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, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the difficult good-bye is the one that separates the Federal or Postal employee from the Federal Agency or the Postal Facility — not necessarily because of the circumstances compelled by the medical conditions themselves (although that is admittedly difficult enough), but often because the job itself was and has been an integral part of one’s life, livelihood and identity, and because any change in one’s routine is hard enough.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is essentially saying good-bye to a good chunk of one’s daily routine of life and living — of spending about 50% or more of one’s life (including preparing for the day, commuting, doing work-related emails and similar activities, etc.) — and thus will be, even under the best of circumstances, a difficult separation and departing.

But always remember that the difficult good-bye is the one that retains an abiding meaningfulness within the souls of worthwhile characters, which then forms the seeds of hope for a future yet untold, as opposed to the half-hearted wave of the hand that dismisses so casually that we remember not even which hand with which we waved good-bye.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Games

How do we learn how to play them?  If we play Game-X, must we follow “all” of the rules ordinarily known and ascribed in order for Game-X to still be recognizable as such, or does it become “Modified Game-X”.

If little Toby plays his first game, but doesn’t know the rules, yet nevertheless realizes that games are “fun” because everyone else is smiling and seemingly excited, does the fact that the kid-who-knows-no-rules plays without knowing the limits and boundaries of the game make him into a participant, or a pariah?  Of course, if he stamps his feet in the middle of the game and declares that he doesn’t like the game, and walks off (even taking with him the proverbial ball), can we declare him to be a poor sport, an okay-sport, or any sport at all if he never knew the rules of the game in the first place and therefore never quite played the “real” game?

How about dogs — do they “play” games?  The dog that chases the ball but doesn’t want to bring it back to the ball-thrower, and instead runs away with it — has he broken the “rules of the game”?  How is it that dogs play games with their masters without ever being able to explain what the parameters of the rules are?

Then, of course, there is the slight modification in the term “games”, as in “games that people play”.  We all know what that means — of being insincere, fake, or otherwise putting on a double-face.  Why is that called a “game”?  Is it because it is not real, and constitutes a copy of “make-believe”, much like playing a game when we all know that it is not reality that is being rehearsed; and yet, isn’t playing a game — any game — just a part of the reality of the world we live in?  Why, then, is life bifurcated between “games” and “reality”, when in fact both are real in the sense that we are living a life of surviving, making a living, etc.?  Yet, we constantly distinguish between “playing” and “living”, as if there is a difference to be identified.

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 any longer performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal worker’s job, career or craft, the preparations needed to come to a point of realizing that an effective Federal Disability Retirement application must be filed, often requires a recognition that the proverbial “game” is “up”.

Whether the Supervisors and Managers at the Federal Agency or the Postal Facility are up to their usual “games” or not — of harassment, derisive comments, making your life “hell” by increasing the levels of pressure or stress, is really besides the point.  What matters is that life itself is not a “game” at all, and those who separate games from the daily living activities don’t really “get it”.

Medical conditions bring to the forefront the reality of living, and the harshness of how people treat other people.  Yes, 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, may seem like just one of those other “games” that have to be “played” — but the reality is that an effective OPM Disability Retirement application is a necessary part of life’s many facets of games and reality-based endeavors, such that the “rules of the game” always need to be consulted in order to “play” it well, and thus the first step is to learn the rules by consulting with an attorney who can advise on the rules themselves.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for Federal Disability Claims: “Too busy to…”

It is the accent and the inflection upon a syllable that sometimes makes all the difference.  Take the following examples:

“I am too busy to…”

“I am too busy, too.”

The extra consonant in the last word makes all the difference; for, in the former statement, if it is stated in response to a call for help, it dismisses the request by informing the other person that one is simply unable to offer any assistance.  In the latter response, the subtlety of the answer should not be overlooked.  For, it is a statement of one’s own conglomeration of activities; it is not a refusal or even a rejection of a request; rather, it merely describes the current state of parallel universes that may or may not still allow for lending a hand.  Thus:

“Hey, Jim, can you lend me a hand?”

“I am too busy to.”

(Outright rejection)

Or:

“Hey, Jim, can you lend me a hand?”

“I am too busy, too.” Nevertheless, Jim walks over and lends his assistance.

Can a single consonant make such a difference?  Without the written word, can the mere inflection, intonation and syllabic accent of a lingering “o” allow for the subtlety of differences otherwise unseen except with the written word?  Would it make a difference, if it was stated in a southern drawl, a foreign accent or in “broken English”?

When one pauses and considers the consequences of language and its effects upon discourse, it makes one pause and shudder, that even in this age of Twitter and abbreviated language compositions and the irrelevance of grammar upon our daily lives, that distinctions can still cause a difference.

Are such modulated intonations significant?  Perhaps they are rarely, if ever, “life changing” events, but nevertheless can effectuate confusion or miscommunication such that disagreements may arise.

Language is the tool of communication and the effective conveyance of thoughts and conceptual paradigms.  This is important to remember for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and 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, in the end, it is the written word that is the sword of a triumphant Federal Disability Retirement application, or the injury that defeats the same, and whether the extra consonant may make the difference depends upon the effectiveness of the rest of the application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS: Junkyards

It is the latter in the compound word which is left forgotten and unnoticed, precisely because of the screaming blare represented by the former, demanding attention by the sheer nature and character of its breaching sensibilities, like the spoiled cousin refusing to abide by the conventions imposed upon uninvited visitors and customs curtailing unwanted guests.

Once, before time forgotten and memories untarnished, the landscape was perhaps a pasture green with wildflowers and vegetation overgrown; then, a possessor who perhaps put up a fence to demarcate the beauty by identifying acquisition, tending to the weeds, creating a vegetable garden here, building a house over there, and all the while trying to maintain the beauty and solitude of a picturesque scene of pastoral quietude.

Initial intentions are rarely malevolent; it is time, circumstances and disrepair of incremental decay which, in their unnoticed aggregation of cumulative disregard, suddenly fall upon us like a tidal wave of gloom.  Perhaps it began more with the invention, creation and abundance of implements and industrial tools; or just the defect of human essence and the inherent laziness of the species.

An automobile which refused to throttle one early morning can certainly become the foundation of that linguistic pose at the forefront of the compound; later, a refrigerator where the condenser fan or the compressor, or some other such component which refused to make the proper sounds and conduct itself in a manner befitting cold air in the heat of a summer day, suddenly gives out, and what do you do with a monstrosity taking up valuable space within the limited dimensions of a cramped kitchen?

And thus, over time, where once the carefully tended landscape of pristine greenery unscathed by the clutter of unwanted debris, begins to dominate, as do most creations of human refuse.  The detritus of discarded wreckage scattered in the afterthought of one’s castle, as represented by the backyard of a home, is telling of a lengthy history of accumulation, decisions, riffraff of rubble unwanted — sort of like the history of human experiences comprised of emotional baggage gathered and garnered.

The outer reflects the inner, and the essence which expands within the soul of a tormented individual requires release and revelation, if only for a fortnight before an exponential explosion of psychic need claws to escape from the restraining membrane throughout.  Ugliness begs for concealment and a veil of hope; and so the grass and weeds which grow to cover the rusting wreckage in a junkyard of despair, often parallels the anguished inner being of the one who cries silently in hollows where no one can hear, or is unwilling to listen.

Junkyards are interesting case studies of the history of individual lives, otherwise undiscovered except perhaps by archaeologists who mistake an ancient site for a bevy of linear rationality.  But it is often the forgotten part of the junkyard which remains unnoticed — that of the inner component of man, left untended to and forgotten for fear of releasing the box which Pandora was entrusted with, containing all of the evils of the world, and what more to consign but the turmoils of human emotion and psychological scars, otherwise camouflaged by smiles and entreaties of normative concealment?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition — whether physical, emotional or mental — the junkyards most concerning are comprised of the illness and pain hidden from full view, perhaps left in the rear and avoided by others, which burdens the soul beyond capacity to endure.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is often merely a first step in the process of clearing out the debris which accumulated over a lifetime of attempting to conceal and contain; for, in the end, the Federal or Postal worker who needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is at a point in his or her life, when the wreckage mounting in the unseen privacy of junkyards left unattended, requires help to haul those heavy components of human detritus away, and in the process, a forgotten jewel carelessly discarded in a time once known with laughter in the pasture of one’s past, may again be discovered for future joy and hope.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Annuity: The mindset resulting in a witch’s brew

We can often dismiss antiquity with ease by relegating personalities to caricatures and stereotypes.  Thus, of the Crusaders, that they were merely simple folk unsophisticated in the evolutionary Darwinism of modernity; of Roman legions, fearful of punishment and brought up to bear the cruelty of his environment; or even of more recent vintage, the gunslinger out West — of Billy the Kid or Wild Bill Hickok, where legend surpasses the individual and becomes fact.

But a slight alteration of a vantage point can skew the perspective; and thus, when we focus upon the cauldron of the witch’s brew, as opposed to the personality who stirs and skims the steaming pot and tastes with a silent laugh the compilation of herbs, incantations and bones of lizards extinct but for the ghostly aura of a hand which discovers the mist of superstition, then we begin to truly understand the nature of human beings.

Even the modern day “curandera”, or traditional healer who must speak to the Andean underworld and mix the exacting drops of bat’s blood and seek out the plants and herbs in the harsh mountainous enclaves, possesses an aura of mystery unable to be discerned, unless one averts the eyes from the window of the soul and instead transposes upon the metal source from whence the steam arises.  Then, there in the transfixed embrace switching from the deepened riverbeds of facial ravines of the one whom we cannot comprehend, and corners instead upon the objectified universe out of the contextual historicity of predetermined ideas, we begin to understand.

We put faith in others, and repetitively so, and when the self-flagellation wrought by dependence upon the kindness of others is crushed beneath the weight of rejection and rebuttal, then and only then are we able to “move on” and pick ourselves back up in order to advance towards goals abandoned and dreams unfulfilled.

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 realizing the fruition of one’s career as a Federal or Postal employee, and must by necessity forego the compensatory benefits of job, career, TSP build-up and years of in-service accumulation; it is, then, time to consider 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.

Once a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is obtained, the time that one is receiving a OPM Disability Retirement annuity counts towards the total number of years of Federal Service, so that when recalculation occurs when the Federal or Postal employee reaches age 62, those years of Federal Service while receiving the Federal Disability Retirement annuity counts towards the recalculated annuity.

But first, the refocus of one’s perspective must occur, in order to alter the mindset from whence to proceed.

The Federal employee or U.S. Postal Service worker must begin to think “differently” from the personality occupying the identical space as “before”.  Like the mouth agape with wonder and the eyes of disbelief, the parameters of transfixed minds must change in order for change itself to occur.

Focus not upon the personality in history, but the object which remains constant throughout.  For, the cauldron which bears the aroma of a witch’s brew is not the same as the hand which stirs the pot; though, the ingredients of mystery and secrets unrevealed are lost in the historicity of timeless knowledge, and that is why the thought-process resulting from the witch’s brew is often as important as the personality who gathered the aura of potency lost in the steaming mixture of life’s hidden darkness.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Pension Annuity: Today, life is good…

It is the set of 3 periods at the end of the sentence, identified in grammatical terms as an ellipses, allowing for a trailing thought or a hesitation of motive, and here which differentiates from a singular finality of a period postulated to prevent a purposive punctuality of partition from a postscript.  If the last two periods were extracted and deleted, the delineation would connote a declarative assertion, unhesitant in conclusion, and confident in execution.  With those two additions, it implies and denotes hesitancy, a pause leaving the impression of loss or lack of confidence, and unable to determine the cogency of opinion formulated but for the ellipses.

In the end, however, how is grammar tied to life itself?  Do mere additions of two dots in a sentence reflect the reality of that which we live?  Do the bundles of human complexities, emotional upheaval and physical pain, cognitive dissonance cut us off from nature’s impenetrable divide?

How often do we walk around, and stop and realize that we remember nothing about our surroundings, who we passed, what buildings we strode by, because the inner thoughts we became a hostage to allowed only for sight by the eye of our own minds, and not for the purposes attributable to all other species on the planet — for observation and judgment to determine the course of future destiny, in surviving a predatory world.

What makes us unique, but the linguistic divide that confronts us daily; and thus is it that the 3 harmless dots dangling at the terminal confinement at the end of a sentence is more than a mirage of grammatical repose; no, it defines who we are.  For, the reality of the ellipses is contained in the reflection of the truth manifested; insert an emotive adjective, and the dots disappear; yet, the changes wrought will remain beyond the grammatical addendum, the deletion of the dots, or the conversion from hesitancy to declarative assertion of utmost confidence.

It is, in the end, the “today” which is the operative word, and not the trepidation engendered by the ellipses; and it is the unstated “tomorrow” which can bring about changes to the substantive undercurrent of life beyond linguistic elasticity.  It is real life, and not grammar, which must ultimately determine destiny, fate and the whims of gods playing with human caricatures with arbitrary thunderbolts and childhood cruelty with breaths of unexpected pillars placed as obstacles within our paths.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that the gods of fate have placed the burden of a medical condition upon life’s lottery of challenges, the need to prepare, formulate and apply 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, becomes an encounter where the linguistic divide between life and living, on the one hand, and language and grammar, on the other, coalesce and the the chasm must by necessity be bridged.  For, it is precisely the medical condition itself (life and living) which must then be formulated into a declarative state of disability and linguistic evidentiary postulate (language and grammar), in the form of an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, that makes for the differentiation between failure or success.

Beware of the pitfalls of grammar, and note the ellipses, as well as the dangling participle, lest either unveil a true hesitancy in living, as opposed to a mere red mark from a teacher in a fictional classroom, either in one’s mind or in the eye of one’s mind.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire