OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Decision, Movement, Consent

Ricoeur, a French Phenomenologist, discusses the three distinguishing acts of the will — each a distinct aspect of the human experience. “Decisions” are pre-movements; they remain insular and private to the persons making the decision, until it is followed with “movement” — a state of being where the decision prompts the act of an insular will to reveal itself with tangible results in the objective, phenomenal realm.

Consent, as the third type of the will’s action, is much more of a passive and restraining act; it is tantamount to an “accepting” of something — for, it can remain within the privacy of one who consents, yet is dependent upon the action of another in the objective realm of experience.

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 all of the essential elements of his or her positional duties with the Federal Agency or the Postal Facility — all three acts of the will take place in moving forward with a Federal Disability Retirement claim.

The Federal or Postal employee must consent to all sorts of things — to “accept” the change which the medical condition has brought about; to “decide” to act by contacting an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement; and to engage in movement — to actually start the process of preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application.

Remember that, even a broken clock can be right twice in a 24-hour period, and so it is with French philosophers — they can be right every now and again.

Contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and begin the process of deciding, moving and consenting to an effective Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

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 Benefits: The Balance Between

There is a balance between the extremes; and that is precisely the whole point of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics — of maintaining the balance between.

Life is full of extremes — of individuals who do nothing, or do too much; of authoritarianism or anarchy; of excessive spending or self-defeating restraint; the key is to find the median, the “middle ground”.

Some would argue, of course, that the mid-point is merely the compromise between the two extremes and thus achieves only a watered-down state of affairs; but that depends upon each individual circumstance.  Is the only option available to succumb to either extreme?

In a Federal Disability Retirement case, the balance between is to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  For, the extremes are: Stay in the job and continue to struggle and to harm yourself by working in a position which continues to be destructive to your health; or, to resign and walk away with nothing.

The balance between is to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits and seek a different kind of job in the private sector or state government.

Contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and begin thinking in terms of the balance between.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Lawyer specializing exclusively in FERS Disability Retirement Law

 

Help with Disability Retirement from a Federal Agency or the USPS: The Task at Hand

It is the task at hand which must be focused upon — not the “other” things which continue to distract and impede.  Prioritizing in life is a necessity; and if it is difficult to make the judgmental decision of which is sequentially important as opposed to other issues of relative unimportance, then begin by completing the task at hand — whatever it may be — then moving on to the next one, and the next one after that.

Life has become complicated in this brave new world of technology, multi-tasking and electronic universe of virtual realities.  How do we counter the stresses of modernity?  By attending first to the task at hand.

For FERS Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows you to even complete the task at hand — of an essential element in your work — then it is time to contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement under FERS, filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Such an attorney, if an expert exclusively in Federal Disability Retirement Law, will get the singular task at hand completed and accomplished, by getting an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and getting you on your way with a Federal Disability Retirement annuity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal Disability Retirement: SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability

Preparing an effective SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, is a daunting task.  The questions are tricky, the space within which to answer them is restrictive, and one wonders whether too much information is better than too little, and furthermore, how does one determine the extent of detail necessary, etc.  What to exclude in an OPM Disability Retirement application is often just as important as its opposite: What to include.

While most mistakes are correctible, the one mistake which cannot be amended, modified or restructured, is to put blinders on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management once they have seen something.  Thus, it is important to be able to objectively make determinations on importance, significance, relevance and necessary material.  Importance: That which is essential in proving one’s case.  Significance: If it is important, it is normally significant; if it is significant, it may not necessarily be important.  Relevance: The superfluous should be excluded.  And necessary: That which meets the legal criteria.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law — for, that may be the first step in the proper preparation of an SF 3112A Applicant’s Statement of Disability.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Confronting Reality

When are the times we try and avoid it?  Is that the line between sanity and the “darker world”?  If we avoid it more than we embrace it, does it constitute a step beyond eccentricity and fall into the category of bizarre behavior?  If that were the case, how many of us would meet that definition?  Does engaging in entertainment — whether of the couch potato type or of the active one — constitute avoidance?

Say a person binge-watches a certain television series for 72-hours straight, then sleeps for another 72 hours; such a person has certainly “avoided” the reality of life’s responsibilities, duties, obligations, etc.  But would we deem such a person to be insane?  If he were a bachelor who has no commitments or responsibilities, and acted in such a manner during “vacation time” or during a period of unemployment, we would perhaps not give it a second thought.  But say the same person had a toddler whom he neglected for those 100-plus hours — then, of course, we would consider it as irresponsible behavior, if not criminal neglect.

“Confronting reality” is often deemed the antonym of “avoiding reality”; it is something we all do — both confronting and avoiding — and crosses the diving line between “responsible” and “irresponsible” behavior.  Of course, the latter is sometimes necessary in order to refresh one’s self in order to engage in the former, and so we embrace entertainment and leisure activities in order to adequately prepare ourselves to cross over from one to the other.

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 his or her position, confronting reality is often delayed in order to try and extend one’s career with the Federal government.  Often, early on in suffering from a medical condition, it becomes quite clear whether or not the Federal or Postal worker can continue in his or her chosen career.  This is the point where “confronting reality”, however, clashes with the desire to avoid it and to instead embrace the make-believe universe of “What ifs” — What if things improve?  What if the Agency or Postal Service is willing to be patient?  What if they can accommodate me?

Consult with an attorney experienced in Federal Disability Retirement Law; for as difficult as it may be in confronting reality, it is the reality of the law that will help you avoid the pitfalls which you will surely want to avoid in the days to come.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Fight or Give Up

Those are the only two choices for most of life’s challenges and encounters: To fight for something, or to abandon it completely.  Of course, the “middle ground” is often preached — as in some sort of compromise, or to learn the “tools” of “conflict resolution”, etc.  But that all depends upon the conflict itself, doesn’t it?

Some issues of contentiousness simply do not accord a middle ground; there is no compromise for the mountain climber inching up the North Face of the Eiger — going back down is just as dangerous as struggling upwards, and so it is to either fight or give up, where the latter results in sure death and becoming a frozen corpse of another defeated detritus.

And in the Animal Kingdom — is there ever an alternative third way?  The predator who chases after its prey; flight for the prey is tantamount to a fight — i.e., to “fight” for one’s life by trying to outrun the predator; or, to give up.  There is no “rationalizing” with the cheetah or the lion; one cannot “reason” with the predator in an effort to try and dissuade it from devouring you for its lunch or dinnertime meal.

And so it is with the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job — the choice is between fighting for the benefit or to simply give up.  There is no middle ground or “conflict resolution”; either the disability retirement is granted in full or not at all.

Further, resignation or termination from the Federal or Postal employment makes the choice as clearly defined in stark terms: continuation in the job is no longer an option, and inaction merely means you have given up because you only have one (1) year from the date of separation to file for Federal Disability Retirement.

If the choice is made to “fight” as opposed to “give up”, then it is best to have an advocate on your side and consult with a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.  For, if the choice is between fighting or giving up, and the Federal or Postal employee decides to take the former course of action, then give it your best shot by having an attorney who knows the process, cites the relevant law and prepares your case to give you the best opportunity at winning.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: The shaken confidence

Tree limbs can be shaken; hands can shake, evidencing some agreement or initial salutation of a wordless sort, or even accompanied by some utterances; and the earth can shake as the subterranean tectonic shifts invisible and otherwise unnoticed, which then can result in tsunamis and other natural disasters.

The shaken confidence can take many forms; and the forms themselves cannot so easily be identified.  It presumes, first of all, that there was “confidence” to begin with, lest that which is shaken could not possibly have occurred unless it preexisted the loss of it.  Yet, too often, the evidence of its very existence is merely the lack of any contrary characteristic — i.e., a negation that fails to manifest existence and thus cannot actually be proven.  Of a person who walks about without any noticeable trace of lack — do we say of him or her, “He has confidence’?  Or is it just the one who has an overabundance of it, who struts around like a proud peacock or a rooster who takes no guff of whom we attribute “overconfidence’?

In normal discourse we just assume that, unless there are indications to the contrary, everyone who stands and walks amidst and among us possess some level of “confidence” or, in more particularized form, of “self-confidence”.  What are the events or issues that “shake” it, and what can an attribution of such an event mean?  Perhaps it is triggered by some tragic source — a trauma of a very personal nature, of death or an accident, perhaps; or can it be by mere utterance of words, of a berating boss or an insensitive spouse?  Or, how about a realization that one’s presumed immortality is simply not so?

None of us believe in immortality — at least, not in the sense that we will live forever walking about this earth.  Yet, until an event “reminds” us of our mortality, we take it for granted that life goes on as the day before, and the day before that; and so the concept of immortality resides by avoidance or ignorance, until something “reminds” us that, indeed, mortality is the nature of life, and flesh is by each instance and in incremental subtlety progressively deteriorating within the microscopic cells of slow degeneration.  And of a medical condition — can it be the source of the shaken confidence?

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 shaken confidence resulting from the progressively deteriorating medical condition is just as real as the earth that trembles and groans from tectonic shifts that moves and crumbles the structural integrity of high engineering feats.

Federal Disability Retirement is often not a choice made in confidence, but from a lack thereof; for, a medical condition cannot be viewed within a vacuum of a mere diagnosis that can be surgically extracted; rather, a medical condition is a sequence of aggregated tragedies — of the medical condition itself; the symptoms which result; the impact upon one’s personal and professional life; of the effect upon family and friends; of the triggers upon one’s psyche as well as the physical pain and mental anguish experienced.

In short, the shaken confidence of the one who used to walk about the earth as if you owned it, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is simply the first step in regaining that “shaken confidence” that was once a day before in a time now long forgotten presumed to have always been there.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: The Bully and the Beast

Yes, yes, the title is all wrong; but that “other one” is for fairytales and childhood memories, and not for the ugly reality that is faced by grownups with the cynical perspective that, by age 30, has come to overwhelm and dominate.

“C’mon”, the refrain comes back, “let’s at least enjoy the childhood fantasies that still delight and enrapture the imagination, and quit being a spoil-sport!”  Yet, just as the idealistic twenty-something becomes a crotchety-old fifty-something, so the reality of the Beauty and the Beast — of the traditional story told in so many variations involving the beast that is of beauty beneath; of the nature of appearances as opposed to the substantive reality; of pithy sayings by parents who want to spare the feelings of their unattractive children that beauty is “only skin deep”; of higher academia where such childish notions then get transformed into “Platonic Forms” or the Aristotelian “substratum” — is the cold world that we all come to know.

Somewhere in one’s mid-thirties, the conclusion is reached that, No, the world is not reflected in the fairytale as recalled, but rather, the universe is occupied by the Bully and the Beast, and we are too often caught and trapped in the middle between the two.

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 “Bully” is too often represented by the Federal Agency or the Postal Service and its manner of treating a sick employee; and the “Beast” is the alternative — of the constant harassment; the reprimands; the adverse actions threatened or proposed; and perhaps even represented as the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the entire administrative nightmare known as “Federal Disability Retirement”.

For, once upon a time we were all children and dreamed about fairytales and fantasies; but somewhere along the way as we “grew up”, we came to realize that the world was not occupied by gnomes, goblins and cute hobbits scurrying about in the wild forests of our own imaginations, but by the ugly reality that the world is populated by people who are not very nice, and that sickness does sometimes hit the nicest of us, and oftentimes filing for Federal Disability Retirement is the best choice to make between the Bully and the Beast because the Beauty and the Beast had faded long ago into the warmth of childhood memories forever faded.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Representation: Private Hells

Wouldn’t a “hell” by definition encompass privacy and insularity?  For, isn’t one of the benefits of commiserating and “sharing” (in the modern parlance) that one expiates the pains and troubles one experiences?  Thus, if a hell is to be a hell, wouldn’t it be in seclusion and in solitary confinement for all eternity; otherwise, the hell described would be less than hell because it would be a lessened state of agony and torture and thus would not be the intended deterrent that such descriptive conclusions would be?

Private hells are the worse kinds of hells, if one were to place them on a spectrum of graduated scales.  It is the hell that cannot be shared with others; cannot be complained about; cannot be dissipated by describing, telling, delineating or implicitly requesting comforting words about; such constitute the worst of torture chambers left in the chaos of one’s mind.  The social animal — the “human being” — is one who derives strength, courage, determination and the will to live by engaging in the very thing that social animals do: talk; tell stories; share troubles; commiserate.

That is often the exponentially exacerbating effect of a medical condition being suffered by a Federal employee — of having to keep it a secret; not being able to be open about it; not sharing because he or she is unable to talk about it for fear of retaliation and the evils of bad intentions.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from such a state of private hell, it is time to begin to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, to be submitted and ultimately decided by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The private hell of one’s fears and anxieties concerning the entire administrative process of Federal Disability Retirement is often partly due to the strangeness of it all, and consulting with a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is often the first best step in extinguishing those flames of agony that are described in ancient scrolls, lest the private hells become public dungeons that flog the soul beyond what the law allows, which can clearly be explained and contained with a private consultation with legal counsel who can guide you out of that private hell by explaining the process of OPM Disability Retirement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: Sunshine, briefly

Life is mostly dark clouds, with a ray of sunshine briefly upon a small patch of wet grass.  Yes, yes – such a perspective is a mirror reflection of the conflict between the “half-full” versus “half-empty” outlook; but is it helpful for young people to posit a world view, a paradigm or, in the philosophical realm of ivory towers, that king of all royalties in linguistic sophistication that is dropped nonchalantly to impress and raise eyebrows –  Weltanschauung (since when did a German word rise to the level and replace Latin phrases, when one can barely clear one’s throat in enunciating such concepts?) – when reality doesn’t quite parallel such a fairytale ga-ga-land of fantasy reserved for bedtime stories and dream-filled comforts?

Do we not restrain children from engaging strangers?  Do we not warn of criminals, conmen and conspirators and step cautiously into dark alleys and isolated parks in twilight’s eyesight because the world lurks with malevolent intentions and evil thoughts?

There is no questions, of course, that there are periods of respite; of sunshine, briefly, by rays of telescopic precision warming for a time, before the inevitable clouds rub out the finite orientation of a limited gap emitting brightness of hope.  Is balance the stain of righteousness, and if so, where on the spectrum of both extremes does one draw the line of correctness, and is there a singularly myopic perspective where no other can claim moral equivalency?

Cynicism is attributable to the extreme of the “dark clouds” perspective, and naïve idealism to the other end of limitless sunshine; and somewhere in the middle is where reality protrudes into the conceptual realms of unease:  daily living, the encounters with meanness, harassment and unmitigated callousness that must endure the diminishing dereliction of youth’s untarnished cavity of hope.

It is, in the end, that ray of sunshine, however brief, that we live for, even if it only comes about once in a proverbial blue moon.  It is likened to the 80/20 rule:  Eighty percent of people you meet are not worthy of your time; it is the other 20% that you hope to encounter and engage; the identical proportion applies with work – much of it is monotonous and mindless repetition; it is for that remaining sliver that you do the treadmill stuff in order to apply the relishing technicality of challenging concerns.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the idea of life’s sunshine, however briefly, is precisely the point, isn’t it?

The medical condition that shortens one’s promising career is but the dark clouds which have gathered and overcast upon your life, career and ability and capacity to enjoy; Federal Disability Retirement – thought as “negative” in the sense that it replaces that which you worked so hard to attain – is that sunshine, briefly, so that you can go out with an annuity, a semblance of security, and focus upon the priorities of life:  Health, family, friends and tranquility.

Now, if that is not sunshine, however briefly, no one can fathom what is.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire