Federal Medical Retirement: Resisting the Scatter Approach

Preparing a Federal Retirement application under the FERS system naturally lends itself to a “scatter” approach because it requires multiple facets in order to complete the complex bureaucratic process.  Like the tentacles on an unruly octopus, some facets must be correlated in sequential order, while others must be attended to simultaneously.

And because some portions must be completed by your Federal Agency (which is too often uncooperative and/or uncaring, and also it is sometimes downright antagonistic to the process as a whole) — and all the while being under pressure of an unreasonable timeline imposed by OPM, it is easy to despair and give up on the process entirely.

Perhaps that is how the system has been deliberately created — to make the process as difficult as possible in order to discourage as many Federal employees and Postal workers as possible.  To counter this, it is important to begin with a guiding principle — of the statutory criteria and case-law formulations which provide the overarching foundational premise — a legal cover letter which creates a successful roadmap for arguing your case.

Otherwise, the only alternative remaining is to succumb to the “scatter” approach — which is precisely what the U.S. Office of Personnel Management wants you to do so that they can deny the case based upon the incomplete aspect of any one of the unruly tentacles required.

Contact an Federal Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in preparing, formulating, and filing a coherent, cogent, and effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement case, and resist the “scatter approach”.

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 Disability Retirement: The Forever Tomorrow

We can always fool ourselves by talking about tomorrow.  For, today has a tomorrow, and tomorrow has a tomorrow, and the day after also has a tomorrow.  That is the great thing about a language game encompassing future concepts of indeterminate future tenses — they can go on forever without a pause.

We can say to ourselves, “I will take care of that tomorrow”; and when tomorrow arrives, the same can be said again, and each time it is stated, it protects itself in an intimate, cozy cocoon because “tomorrow” is always nearby.  And though the delay and procrastination may become extended over a period of months, or even years, so long as we say to ourselves, “Well, I will attend to it tomorrow”, or that things will change for the better “tomorrow”, that closeness in proximity and time articulated by the concept of an event so near to today is what delays any actions or solves any problem based upon an eternal delay in the linguistic deception contained within the concept of tomorrow.

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, consider that tomorrow is the thief of today’s life, and yesterday is the looted loss of precious time.  If you need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, also known as OPM Disability Retirement, forego the forever of tomorrow, and call a FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer today.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS: The Memory of Time

Ogawa’s novel, The Memory Police, is a dystopian narrative with an interesting theme: How long do memories last upon the disappearance of a person or thing?

In the novel itself, of course, the memory is somehow erased concurrently with the disappearance of the entity; but in real life, how long are we able to hold onto a cherished memory — of a person whom we were fond of; of an event or occurrence which was significant in our lives; of an object no longer in use?

Who remembers, for instance, those “bag phones” that we plugged into the cigarette lighter of our car?  Or of days when a horse was the only mode of transportation?  Is the art of knitting quickly vanishing because people no longer have the time to engage in an activity which not only takes time, but requires patience and sustained sedentary focus?  And even of days — if all calendars and indicia of days marked and months delineated segments were to vanish, how long would we be able to retain a memory of “time”?

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 memory of time is often a vanishing of that time before the medical condition began to have its impact upon you.  There was a time before the medical condition; now and for the immediate future, it is the focus upon that medical condition which seems to dominate everything.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and begin to consider a time before, when the Memory of Time was of a time when your Federal or Postal career was not dominated by a memory of constant harassment by your agency or the Postal Service.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Cat’s Cradle

It is the complex game of strings wrapped around the small fingers and thumbs of each hand (or a modification of that contorted vestibule of human appendages), and where each player turns the cradle of the strings into greater complexity with each move by the other.

When children play it, the ease with which each turn of transforming the cradle of strings is a fascinating experience to witness.  When grown-ups do it — or, more accurately described, mess it up royally and invert the design into a an ugly bundle of irreversible entanglements that can no longer be played — the “overthinking” begins, the hesitation blockades and the uncertainty overwhelms.

It is always the grownups who mess up the beauty of the world’s designs, while children play it effortlessly, without conscious thought and with an innocence of proceeding that reveals much about what happens to an individual when you “grow up”.

Of course, we all have to grow up.  It is a sad inevitability.  That is why when the stunted individual who never quite got over his or her high school years, and still to this day talks about that grand finale of his senior year where the glory days of football, parties and friendships that were promised to last forever — that these frozen images yet remain so many years later as the pinnacle of one’s life and achievements — we shake our heads sadly and wonder at the fragile nature of man’s folly.

Cat’s cradle is the metaphor for much of life itself — of how simple childhood is, and yet so complex like the strings that bind the hands that create.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal job, the time to “think” about the next move — like the overthinking grownup who is asked to take the next step in the game of Cat’s Cradle — may seem complex because of its very simplicity.

There is the future to think about, and all that comes with it.  One’s career, health and future security are all entangled within the strings that wrap around and throughout one’s life, but the question that remains is similar to the conundrum of a Cat’s Cradle — is it you who will make sure that the next design of strings will turn out “right”, or will you leave it up to the Federal Agency or the Postal Service to determine your future course of actions?

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a complex administrative process —much like the tangle of strings in a Cat’s Cradle —but it is the simplicity of deciding that will make all the difference as to whether the next move will be a successful one.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

CSRS & FERS Disability Retirement: Life’s silent opera

Is not much of opera a booming voice, a lingering chord and the grand mayhem of combining movement with long, loud and hanging sounds emitted from men and women who are born with a talent rarely heard?  So, can there be a silent opera?  An opera where movement and gestures are seen, but when the performers open their mouths, only silence come out?  If one-half of opera is the singing and the uniqueness of voices, while the other half is comprised of extravagant costumes and sets that tell the narration of the story through dramatic display, can life be bifurcated any more than an opera?

And, yet, isn’t that what much of life is – of a silent opera, where we notice, recognize and even sometimes acknowledge the movements of another person, but rarely listen or hear anything about that person?  How well do you know the person sitting next to you, or your next door neighbor whom you have seen for over a decade?

We ask not questions that might query and squeeze out narratives otherwise unknown and ignored, and so long as we attend life’s silent opera, we only glean half of the story, if that.  And to others, likewise, we are life’s silent opera.  They mind their own business, and we ours; and that is what we call “privacy” and the heart of individualism, as opposed to “collectivism” or, in more picturesque settings, of a “community” – something which we fool ourselves into believing exists, anyway, but spending countless hours of valuable time searching the Internet and engaging in make-believe that Facebook is a “community”.

Then, of course, life’s silent opera often includes a medical condition, or some pain or trauma experienced or currently undergoing, but of which no one else is aware.  The movements are still there, and even the extravagant settings.  Perhaps a person walks with a limp, or as he or she sits down, an involuntary grimace shadows the expression; yet, no complaint is made, no sound is emitted, and so we are satisfied with half of the storyline.

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 the Federal or Postal worker’s job, life’s silent opera begins.

It is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, because – while no one acknowledges the “voices” and “sounds” of the medical condition, the “movements” are there, of the Agency beginning to realize less-than-acceptable performance; of using too much SL or extending one’s FMLA and remaining on LWOP; and while no one may say anything, the rumblings of Agency harassment and impending termination may be just around the corner.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is the next logical step in this extravagant setting of life’s silent opera, where even the main actors are no longer interested in whether the audience hears your voice or not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Disability: The constant fight against the negative

There are different ages in different times, designated by the dominance of one entity over another. Thus do we refer to the “Age of Dinosaurs”, or the “Ice Age”; the Age of Feudal Lords; the Age of Man, of course, is a general aegis under which everything falls, once the four-peddling quadrant of living beings became dominated by the bi-pedaling progenitor of carnivorous over-consumption that prevails from time immemorial to the present “age”.

Modernity had now become the “age of therapy”, where somehow psychiatry and therapeutic intervention has come to dominate the basic necessities of life.  Perhaps that is appropriate, as the daily stresses that govern the requirements of survival have mandated a vicious cycle of inestimable pain, both in terms of physical deterioration and cognitive dissonance, by placing an intolerable level of stresses upon daily living.

It is this constant fight against the negative that we are told, holds the key to a “happier” life.  Can change in perspective, of outlook and viewpoint, simply by inserting “positive” language games into the daily soliloquy of internal voices make such a difference?  If language were non-existent, and we became a species of grunts and grumbling noises (which, if you pause and listen around you, comprises much of what passes off as “conversation”, anyway), would we be anymore “positive” than what we are today?

What if the human vocabulary were to be reduced to only positive declaratives and adjectives that only revealed “good” things – would such expunging of negative concepts result in the net effect of everyone “feeling good”?  Or, does “feeling” precede language, such that one can be negative in one’s essence before expression of that negativity, such that thoughts are merely the natural consequence of a state of negativity, anyway?

Medical conditions tend to make liars of us all; for, we can go through life imagining that we are somehow the “exception”, and those “others” who are beset with medical conditions did something “wrong” to have been hit with a medical condition – until it happens to us, as well.  Suddenly, with the reality of pain, suffering, and the general human condition of illness, sickness and debilitating injury, we realize our mortality, our susceptibility to a viral plague, and our fragile existence.  How others view us also changes.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the constant fight against the negative become a daily struggle that often takes its toll, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may become a necessary next step in such a daily struggle.

The constant fight against the negative, itself, will have its impact, and it may be that the combination of the medical condition, the adversity shown by the Federal agency or Postal facility, and the negative internal thoughts that insidiously devalue and destroy, will come to a coalescence of intolerable stress.  When that happens, it is time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as another step in the constant fight against the negative.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Bastion and Refuge

The former is a fortress of protective repose; the latter, a shelter from pursuit or danger; in either case, both provide for an escape from harm.  And there are harms beyond physical danger, which count as “real” threats.  One need not be a refugee standing in line at the borders of Hungary or Croatia, hoping to be given asylum enroute to Germany, France or the U.K. in order to be considered a person of persecutory targeting.

Whether physical harm or by psychological demeaning, the need for safe harbor should never be determined by comparative analogies of differing circumstances, but via the perception of our needs and levels of tolerance.

In logic, there is the fallacy of mereology, where the relationship of part-to-whole can lead to conclusions wrong in substantive form, and dangerous in terms of truth and validity.  One’s own circumstances may be “merely X” in comparison to the greater encompassment of tragedies taken as a whole; but that does not necessarily invalidate the reality of the desultory situation one must face, and the loss of compass, meaning and circumference of relational considerations in determining the future course of one’s life.

Medical conditions have a tendency to skew one’s perspective.  To continue on without change or repose, because the rest of the world in comparison to one’s own microcosmic universe is merely that much worse off, is to deny the reality of one’s own hurt.  For Federal employees and Post Office workers who feel that giving up one’s career and applying for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a step towards escaping to a bastion and refuge but one which fails to adequately compare to others in more dire circumstances, the need for a “reality check” is often required.

One needs to always start from the vantage point of the present.  What others do, where others are, and how comparatively one’s own situation is “merely X” in contrast to stranger-Y, are irrelevancies perpetrated upon one’s imagination through an overabundance of informational overload.  Once, there was a time when a local newspaper was the only contact with the greater world.  Now, with Smartphones and constant Internet access, we tap into the greater bastions and refuges of those in far-off lands.

But for the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who must confront the reality of the situation of contending with 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 positional duties, the “here and now” is what must be faced, and whether one’s medical condition and the situation facing the Federal or Postal worker of today “merely” pales in comparison to others in unknown wastelands, is to concern one beyond the focus and centrality of concerns and problems encountered now, in real time, in the reality of one’s universe, today and this minute.

Other parallel universes will have to deal with their own internal problems; it is the bastion sought and the refuge take by the Federal or Postal employee of today, which matters in the most personal of manners, and what should concern the hurting Federal and Postal employee in the here and now.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Employees from the Postal Service and Other Federal Agencies: Things That Go Bump in the Night

The nightmare of filing for FERS Disability Retirement in times of financial, emotional, and medical needs

Whether or not childhood fear and traumas have a long-term impact in determinable ways upon reactive capacities later in life; to what extent regularity of behaviors, consistency of habitual living, and early imprinting mechanisms influence subconscious firings of synapses, remains within the mysterious realm of esoteric knowledge investigated and analyzed by the coalescence of science, philosophy and psychology; but it is the lay person who must, during the process of unfolding discovery and wisdom, live the consequences of actions impacted by others.

Sometimes, however, it is not what others do, but rather, circumstances which manifest of untold trauma and misery, for which no explanation but a shrug of one’s shoulders can presume.  Medical conditions fall into that category.  How one reacts to it; the extent of the impact upon one’s life, livelihood and future; and the preparations one must undertake in order to secure the betterment for one’s life when once you get beyond the condition itself, if ever; these are all concerns and pathways of responsibilities which fall upon a person who suddenly finds him or herself with a medical condition of significant magnitude.

Whether physical in nature — where orthopedic pain, limitation of flexion and movement; chronic pain, profound fatigue, or neurological issues resulting from disc desiccation, internal derangement of joints, etc.; or of psychiatric issues encompassing the many complex diagnoses, including Bipolar Disorder, pain and anxiety issues, Major Depression, depressive disorders; it matters not in the end, for either and both impact those decisions which one must make in determining the pathway of one’s future.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition impacts one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, consideration must always be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For Federal Disability Retirement, preconditions and pre-existing conditions matter not; it is not like an OWCP claim where the focus of query may attempt to undermine a claim based upon the origin of the condition; and so the “how” and the “why” are not relevant issues, as in “how did it happen” or “why did it occur”?  The relevant inquiry does not encompass the “time before”; it does not delve into the deep reaches of one’s damaged psyche, or of preexistent traumas in the far recesses of damaged lives.

Whether or not things go bump in the night when once we become adults matters less, than the experiential trauma of having to deal with present issues that impact one immediately.  Taking care of life’s interruptions is a necessary component of living, and for Federal and Postal workers whose future avenue of livelihood is impacted by a medical condition, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement is of paramount importance.

Bumps always tend to occur in the night; it is what the “thing” is that we must identify and resolve, and what bodes for the uncertain future into which we must venture.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire