Federal Disability Retirement: Casting Aside the Armor

The armor we refer to is the shield we all wear.  It is for protective purposes.  But not every armor is suited for every kind of battle.  Sometimes, the very armor we wear becomes an impediment, and weighs us down so that we become a danger to ourselves.  We speak, of course, of such armor in a metaphorical sense.

Sometimes it is referred to, in other contexts, as having a “thick skin”; of being standoffish or reserved in order not to allow for hurt in our lives; or to always put on a facade of knowing what to do, being the “leader” even when the conundrum of life’s puzzles creates chaos and confusion.  How many conflicts could have been avoided if we set aside the armor we have chosen to put on?

Casting aside the armor is a difficult act; for, it then allows for vulnerability to overtake.

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, casting aside the armor becomes important — of recognizing that you cannot continue as before — and to consult with a FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer and consider the next important steps in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The Picture We Want to See

Most of us think that we are the opposite of the designated, “Photogenic Individual”.  Setting aside those who crave to be in every picture (including the egomaniacal and perversely pervasive “selfies” which are posted daily and minute-by-minute), the picture we want to see, the photograph we would care to share and the image we would want to be presented to friends, family, third parties and others — they are rarely captured accurately, or at least to our satisfaction of how we see ourselves compared with “what” or “who” we see captured within the confined borders of an image depicted.

Similarly, we all hold an image of who we are within the framework of our own egos — whether of a successful individual or a failure; of self-confidence or lacking in great measure thereof; and of the little boy or girl we remember, before entering into the harsh reality of the world at large, with a past and background of security or insecurity, with loving parents or of cold, dispassionate and distant fathers and mothers; in the end, the picture we want to see is often at odds with the ones we actually hold on to.

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, perhaps filing for disability retirement benefits under FERS is not the picture “we want to see”, but rather, is the picture depicted and represents the reality of what we must see.

No one wants to see the picture — and least of all the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition necessitating Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  However, it is often the picture which we least want to see that represents the reality which we must see, and that is what consulting with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Employee Disability Retirement Law is there for: To paint an objective picture which depicts as accurately as possible whether you qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM FERS Disability Retirement: Coordination of Elements

There is no question about it: It is a complex process.

Administratively, it must be passed through multiple levels of agency review in order to get a completed packet — the Supervisor’s Statement (SF 3112B); Agency’s Efforts for Reassignment and Accommodation (SF 3112D); effectively answering the Applicant’s Statement of Disability such that it provides the proper nexus between each of the questions on SF 3112A — for, although it may not be so obvious, the questions must both be answered separately as well as viewed in the totality of each as being a component fitting in with each other, in order to answer it to completion.

Then, there is the coordination of internal and external elements, and the intersecting impact within and without — of a medical report effectively prepared and consistent with the history of treatment modalities; of a nexus persuasively argued establishing the connective impact between the medical condition and the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job elements; and the interconnectedness of essential elements to the physical or cognitive inability to perform one or more of the essential elements, etc.

Throughout the process — whether for a denial and a rebuttal response at the Reconsideration Stage, or at the initial preparation stage in the First Stage; or, even of an appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board — the coordination of elements is important in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Consult with an attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law in order to more effectively establish the coordination of elements.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement for FERS Employees: Future Planning

Planning itself, of course, by definition necessarily involves the future, but fails to delineate the span or the nature.  A life involving strictly the present and nothing of the future is considered reactionary.  Animals appear to live in this manner: of sleeping when tired; eating when the food appears magically in a bowl and placed upon the floor; and going outside when either the need arises or the master begins to bounce a ball for no other reason than to throw it afar with an expectation that the dog will go and chase it.

An unplanned meal is often disastrous and the option availed will normally be the default position: a carry-out.  One cannot without thoughtfulness go through the day until, sometime around 6 or 7 in the evening, suddenly perk up and say, “Well, what shall we have for dinner” — and expect a three-course meal to suddenly appear, unless you are of the wealthy-class and pay for a chef somewhere in the south wing of your mansion.  Or, again, the default position for an unplanned future is to engage the convenient route: to access the services of others.  Thus: if you don’t have a butler or a chef, then a carry-out from a nearby restaurant may be the best next thing.

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, future planning beyond the next hour may be a necessary mindset in order to successfully maneuver through the bureaucratic morass of the administrative procedures encapsulating and controlling the multiple stages of the process.

Part of that planning should involve a consultation with an Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Law.  Future planning involves actual planning; and it is the “planning” part that secures the stability of one’s future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Moments of clarity

There are those moments, aren’t there?  It may come as a flash, in the middle of the night, while walking quietly in the woods (or in one’s back yard, pretending that it is in the middle of somewhere’s nowhere, despite the loud humming of lawn mowers and air blowers whoosh-whooshing in the distant yonder over the fence beyond); and it need not be because of some eureka moment or because of problems faced and meditated upon.

There are moments of clarity in life, and they may be identified and described in various ways – of periods of inspiration; of a heated splice of madness; an awakening from a dream despite lack of sleep.  Or, perhaps a spark of genius came about.  A childhood memory, a dream once vanquished, a feeling of regret later in one’s life; these are the crumbs that gather in the corner of the dinner table, left behind like the ghostly apparitions of yesteryear’s hopes and unfulfilled cannibals of thoughtless mimes; and yet they can haunt or stir.

Such moments of clarity can bring about change; or, we can repress, suppress and ignore them, and allow them to wither away like flowers left in the pot of life’s mish-mash of events, and slowly they die, weakened by lack of care and ignorance of beauty.  Medical conditions themselves can bring about such moments of clarity; of the futility of trying to maintain appearances, and instead of facing a reality that is sharpened by pain, anguish and society’s definition of what it means to be productive.

Health is indeed a gift; poor health, or deteriorating health, brings about a different kind of gift – one that sometimes allows for those moments of clarity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition brings about a realization that the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to carry on as before, and that preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is now a necessity, it may well be that such a conclusion of a necessary change in one’s life came about because of one of those “moments of clarity”.

Don’t ignore it, as it may not come about again.

Instead, like warnings, clues and prognostications of impending necessities, the need to listen carefully to one’s health and mind may be just a moment of clarity that your body is simply telling you something.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Life can change in a day

A wise person once quipped that, If you don’t like the weather in this area, wait a day and it’ll come around.  The greater meaning of such a kernel of wisdom, of course, is that it is a microcosm of a wider reflection concerning life itself; wait long enough – sometimes a week, a month, a year, or a few years – and circumstance have a tendency to alter the course of one’s life and therefore one’s perspective.

Life can, indeed, change in a day; one day, you are happily drifting along, believing that nothing could be better; and the next, a calamity ensues, the human experience becomes a “topsy-turvy” matter and suddenly sours upon the smiling demeanor we carried just a moment before.

Or, one may begin the day in a negative and foul mood, but something changes, alters, moderates and impacts, and we come home despite the turmoil of work and daily problems with a smile on our face, and when asked “what is wrong?” (as opposed to, “What is right?”), we smile distantly and refer to the sunshine, the weather, the flower smelled on the road home, or that Frost-like metaphor of having taken the road less traveled on the way there.

Or, perhaps it is the simple recognition that there is more to life than one’s own narrow perspective, that suddenly creates the change in the day of 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 positional duties as assigned, the idea that life can change in a day is as real as the sun rises and is expected to rise.

The process of filing a Federal Disability Retirement application is a long, complex and bureaucratically difficult process, and often the process itself can be a defeating proposition as one awaits for a positive decision.  A denial from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management can have a devastating impact, and a second denial at the Reconsideration Stage can have a further deleterious effect.

With each decision, life can “change” in a day.

On the other hand, an approval effectuated from OPM can also have that same effect – of a change in one’s life, all in a day.  That is the ultimate goal – change, but in a “positive” sense; for, to remain static is to become an inert substance, and life, if anything, is a continuum of constant flux and change, like the weather that can never be correctly forecasted, and the life that can never be accurately predicted.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Reversal of Fortune

Life itself rarely reflects a steady, linear progression on a graph; the zig-zagging representing times of economic turmoil more accurately profiles a person’s span of existence.  Moreover, one’s career is not necessarily the essence or paradigm of a given life’s experience; there are multiple factors, including emotional, births and deaths, marriages and medical conditions.  How does one quantify an experience?

The methodology we seek is often purely in monetary parallelism:  if one receives pay raises and cash rewards, then one’s career is considered to be on an upward trajectory; if one gets a reduction in salary (with or without a concomitant demotion in position), then the loss of linear progression is deemed a failure of sorts.  But like marriages, and life itself, careers never merely reveal a positive path of progressive purity; ask Elizabeth Taylor, who skews every statistical analysis of marriages and divorces.  And then, of course, there is the interruptive influence of a medical condition.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the daunting doldrums of a medical disability reveals many things not reflected on a graph of life:  the bother; the interruption of a career; the fear imposed; the dealings with coworkers; the reaction of the agency or Postal Service; the need for surgical and other procedures; a whole host of activities not previously contemplated.

For the Federal and Postal employee who finds that a medical condition begins to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, consideration then needs to be given for filing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether one is under FERS or CSRS, or CSRS Offset, of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Yes, unfairness is a characteristic of life not reflected in the graph of microeconomics; yes, sometimes experience teaches us that the proverbial cards are stacked against us; and yes, reversals of fortune constitute a reality rarely taught in classroom social studies.  But as life’s experience is never accurately or fully represented by mere lines and numerical paradigms, so a biography of a historical figure can never be captured, as fortunes and reversals thereof can never embrace the complexity of human folly.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Horizon of the “Other”

The horizon is that demarcation between earth and the heavens; in days of yore, it was the navigational calculus extracted from the curvature of the visible sea in determining distance, time, and the impending cliff over which the ship’s captain would fathom monsters of devouring delights.  It is where appearance emerges.

What is shown; what becomes visible to the naked eye; that which is unconcealed and revealed; what the “other” allows for, and manifests, is the horizon of personhood.  For some, the superficiality of one’s persona becomes evident quickly and early; others, boredom sets in after a few encounters; for a rare few, the horizon fails to unfold despite a lifetime of inquisitive hunting.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the question often entangles the time to judge the other’s horizon, when to emerge from the curvature of anonymity; and the timing of dissemination of information to the agency or the U.S.Postal Service.

In Naval warfare of days gone, it was the ability to view through the powerful monocular from the vantage point of the crow’s nest, which gave the strategic advantage when first sight of the enemy’s position and direction appeared at the horizon.

The revelation of one’s medical condition is likely to already have been a subject of whispered discussions at the workplace; but actually declaring to the Federal agency, its managers and supervisors, of the intent to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, is nevertheless somewhat of a “cat-and-mouse” play, where the bifurcating moment of significance is somehow delineated in that very admission of submission.

Preparing and formulating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset takes time and care; the filing of it, a timing to take care.  Whether and when to inform the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service; obviously the filing itself will inform them; but as to whether to declare to the horizon of the other before appearing at that dividing line where earth and the heavens meet, is something which should be done with sage advice and a view towards legal implications.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Making the Legal Argument

Legal arguments are merely a subset of ordinary ones; as variations of the facetious quip goes, if the facts are not on the lawyer’s side, then he will argue the law; if the law is not, he will argue the facts; if neither, then he will attempt to confound and obfuscate both.

By sequence of logical argumentation, it is self-evident that “facts” must be the first order of presentation; then, persuasive discussions concerning those facts, forming and molding a given perspective (for there is surely a distinction to be made between that which “is” and that which “is seen” by a particular individual, bringing in the subjective component of interpretation and conveyance of information); and only after the facts have bespoken should persuasive efforts follow; and then, the legal argument to be made.

Thereafter, the question of how aggressive a legal argument; of pounding like a hammer, or the subtle tap of the constant but insistent drumbeat, guiding the listener with a roadmap as to why a decision should be made pursuant to persuasive force, or threats of further legal action.

For the Federal and Postal worker who is trying to have a Federal Disability Retirement application approved, the art of persuasion, the effective use of legal argumentation, and the delineation of factual roadmaps must be coordinated with the utmost of care.  Administrative processes are often replete with frustrating procedures to follow, and it is a dangerous endeavor to allow for one’s frustration to erupt when dealing with a bureaucracy which is rarely responsive, and normally unaffected by the most dire of circumstances.

Thus, in sequence of logical argumentation: The facts as portrayed in as objective a manner as possible; the interpretation of the facts, such that the subjective perspective is insightfully applied, but without the overuse of the “I’ or “me”; argumentation; then, and only then, the applicability of the law.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit offered to all Federal and Postal employees who meet the minimum eligibility requirements of time in Federal Service, age and a level of medical evidence which must be carefully and thoughtfully presented.

As such, for the Federal or Postal worker who intends on filing for the benefit of OPM Disability Retirement, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS-Offset, the art of factual and legal argumentation must be presented with persuasive force, often like the slow dripping of an unconstrained faucet, as opposed to the break of a dam.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Delaying the Filing of Your OPM Disability Retirement Application

Delay temporarily suspends for a time in the future; sometimes, at the cost of immediacy of pain, but the human capacity to ignore and obfuscate allows for procrastination to be an acceptable act of non-action.  But certain issues defy the control of delay; medical conditions tend to remind us of that, where attempted suspension of dealing with the pain, the progressively debilitating triggers, or the panic attacks which paralyze; they shake us to the core and pursue a relentless path which betrays procrastination.

For Federal employees and Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, filing for Federal Disability Retirement becomes an employment option.

When to file has some room for delay; it is, after all, the underlying issue which must be attended to first and foremost — that of the medical condition.  But the Statute of Limitations in a Federal Disability Retirement case imposes a structural administrative procedure which cannot be ignored.  The Federal and Postal worker who is separated from Federal Service must file a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, within one (1) year of being separated from Federal Service.

So long as the Federal or Postal worker is on the rolls of the agency, the tolling of the statute of limitations does not begin; but once separation from service occurs, the 1-year clock (with some exceptions, but ones which you should not rely upon to subvert the statute of limitations) begins.

Delay for a specific purpose is sometimes acceptable (if one is still on the agency rolls), as in undergoing a medical procedure or seeing if a treatment regimen will work; but delay beyond the bureaucratic imposition of a statute of limitations is never one which should be allowed, as the benefit of a OPM Disability Retirement annuity will be barred forever.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire