FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: Presenting the Best Case

You can only work with the facts given; you cannot make it up; you cannot fabricate it; you cannot try and obfuscate — and in the end, it is often the case that presenting the best case is “enough”.

In life, with few exceptions, we learn how to “make do” with what we have gotten:  Whether of our birth, our looks, our talents, our personality, our charm, our brains, our so-called “gifts and talents”, etc.  Some possess a great abundance of whatever is needed; others, a paltry pittance.  A short period of “overcompensation” may produce, every now and again, a 5’6” basketball star, or a scrawny football player whose talents can compete with the best of them; but for the most part, “effort” cannot exceed “limitations”, whether of a physical or an intellectual level.

And so the rest of us are relegated to live in a perpetual milieu of mediocrity, despite our best efforts to conceal it, or for however long the glow of our parent’s constant accolades to furnish us with self-esteem beyond the reality of our true talents will last, reverberating in the echos of our memories — “You’re the best”;  “You can be anything you want to be”;  “Don’t worry, you’ll do better next time”.  Indeed, Americans are known to have a high degree of self-esteem in comparison to other countries, but concurrently lag behind in test scores for the “hard sciences”.

For Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that this medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, sometimes presenting the best case possible is all that can be done.  Pain is subjective; psychological conditions are likewise not amenable to “objective” diagnostic testing; and perhaps you don’t have a fully-supportive doctor — and yet you simply cannot continue to work, anymore.

Sometimes, all that can be done is to present the best case, and if may well be that it is “enough” to get you past the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Contact a FERS attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of initiating, preparing, formulating and filing the best case possible of a Federal Disability Retirement Case.

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 Medical Disability Retirement: Problem Solving

We are not all that good at it; some, better than others; the rest of us, standing by as watchful bystanders.  Is problem-solving done by methodological discourse, or by random attempts of trial and error?

Certainly, for engineering and scientific challenges, esoteric training and background has an advantage; but did the first person who came to the end of a peninsula and observed an island just beyond — did the thought of a bridge or a boat appear because of some specialized knowledge, or simply out of one’s imagination?

In modernity, problems and their solutions tend to be compartmentalized into specialized areas of training.  Aside from problems of the run-of-the-mill character (family squabbles, teenagers, lost pets and a leaky faucet, etc.), most are challenges within a specified field of expertise.  We no longer live in a world where mysteries abound and explorers wonder (wander?) whether there is an edge at the far side of the oceans.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have a problem with a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it may be time to call an expert in the field of Federal Disability Law and prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.  For, problem solving is not merely a matter of a problem identified, but of a solution thoughtfully contemplated.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS OPM Disability Attorney

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Nonsense confiscates meaning

It obviates and nullifies it; often, it will make impotent that which once maintained vibrancy and efficacy.  That is where Orwell misconstrued the power of nonsense; for, in his classic novel, 1984, the scene which discussed the production of the newest edition of allowable Newspeak words and the reduction and elimination of certain concepts — he failed to realize that it is the greater dissemination and wide volume of words which undermines meaning, and not the other way around.

By exponentially adding — by quantitative overload — to language, we undermine the precision of language and thereby create a chaos of nonsense; and the result is that nonsense confiscates meaning.  Have you ever come across a person who takes a paragraph to convey the meaning of a single word?

By contrast, when you meet an individual who so succinctly states an idea and, with the sword of a sharp sentence, can slash a page to within a tidbit of profundity, you realize the benefit of brilliance over the darkness of ignorance.  Succinctness, precision, concise conceptual bundles — they are all important in conveying proper meaning; and “meaningfulness” is what persuades, while nonsense confounds and makes a conundrum of that which should be a vehicle of clarity.

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 Applicant’s Statement of Disability — SF 3112A — is the vehicle by which “meaning” is delivered.

Do not get sidetracked with the nonsense of too much explanation; and an overly abundant profusion of nonsense may in fact harm one’s case.  A balance between the short “bullet-point” approach and a meandering diatribe against one’s agency needs to be pinpointed.  Do not let nonsense confiscate meaning, thereby undermining the ultimate goal of a Federal Disability Retirement application: To obtain an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Lawyer

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Standard of incompatibility

How does one “prove” a standard of “incompatibility”?

Physical injuries often allow for a medical opinion to impose certain restrictions:  No lifting more than X-pounds; no standing more than 2 hours within an 8-hour period, etc.  These, then, can directly “prove” that a Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, by comparing such restrictions as against the positional requirements of a given job, and “showing” that the standard required can no longer be met.

The “other” cousin of the standard, as reiterated by cases represented by Henderson v. OPM and related precedents, allow for a “different” type of proof, where one may show that there is a general incompatibility between the entirety of one’s position and the medical conditions one suffers from.

It might be argued that such a standard is more “nebulous” and “harder to prove”, but in fact, the opposite is often true: specificity on a 1-to-1 ratio between a given medical condition or symptom and an element of one’s positional duties no longer becomes necessary.  Rather, a general showing of incompatibility between the “type” of job and the “nature” of a medical condition is enough to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement.

The trick, of course, lies in the manner of “proving” it, but it should be of some comfort to Federal and Postal employees that there is another type of standard beyond the 1-to-1 ratio standard that applies generally for “physical” duties; for, in the end, many psychiatric conditions can only meet the “incompatibility” standard, although some specificity of inability to perform a particular function of the job may be present as well.

To meet either standard is a burden of proof that must be shown by the appellant in all OPM Disability Retirement cases; to understand, apply and satisfy such standards, it is best to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Trials of error

Normally, of course, the common usage of the terms involve the combination with a conjunctive — of trial and error, implicating a process whereby the latter term triggers the former (i.e., the “error” forces us to engage another round of trials, which then may lead to further errors resulting in further trials, etc.) into a potentially lengthy repetition of attempts, each with the advancement through possession of greater knowledge gained from the errors identified and witnessed.

The concept as it stands, however, implies something further:  of the experience of each error and the process within such error and what the error may implicate.

Human beings have an expansive capacity to “move on” quickly beyond errors made, and perhaps that ability of adaptability is an evolutionary advantage for a species that makes a fair number of errors that, in other contexts and within other species, would spell the extinction of the species itself.

Errors compounded go beyond the experience of the trial itself; sometimes, errors lead to other errors, and thus the “trials and errors” in their aggregate allow for greater knowledge and adaptability depending upon the nature of each error and of many trials.  But it is the trial of the error that often needs to be paused, and allowed to ponder upon, before going on to the next trial, lest the lesson from any one error has not been sufficiently learned before a further trial is engaged.

Sometimes, of course, the trial of an error, if not sufficiently comprehended and reflected upon, is the very reason why further errors of judgment follow, precisely because not enough time has been spent upon the nature of the error itself.

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 satisfactorily performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is important to recognize the trial of an error — for, with a Federal Agency or the Postal Service, one is encountering a behemoth of intransigence when attempting to garner any sympathy or loyalty.

Medical conditions themselves are “trials” enough, and when a Federal Agency or the Postal Service begins the process of punishing the Federal or Postal employee for taking too much SL or LWOP, or even invoking FMLA rights, the “error” is not so much the trial of patience, but rather, in thinking that the Federal Agency or the Postal Service was ever on your side to begin with.

While a Federal/Postal Disability Retirement application may not be a strictly “adversarial” process, one must always consider whose “interests” are being looked after in each trial encountered:  the interests of the Federal Agency or the Postal Service, or of one’s own?

The trial of error often begins with a mistaken identification of a more fundamental error on the part of the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker, and for the Federal or Postal worker contemplating filing for Federal OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the first step in preventing the greater trials of multiple errors is to consult with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Understanding

The Master asks one of his two dogs, “Where is ___?”  If the second pet wags her tail, looks quizzically at the owner, then proceeds to go to the far end of the next room and locates the wandering misfit and barks to you that she has found him – do we disbelieve?  If the same question were to be asked of one’s child in reference to a sibling, and the identical result occurs where the first child goes into another room or runs up into the attic and locates the lost soul, would there be any doubt?

Same circumstances, identical behaviors, concurrent results; merely different mammals within the genus of species, and yet we disbelieve because of arrogance and pride of self-worth.  Why is it that we refuse to attribute understanding to non-human entities despite clear evidence to the contrary?  Is language defined by grammatical rules of construction retrospectively applied, and does that constitute a basis for refusing to allow admittance into the colony of intelligence “clubs” of exclusivity we have created based upon rules of comprehension we have paradoxically constructed?

The rules constituting grammatical comprehension and technical application came subsequent to language itself; for, no one believes that Man sat down eons ago and decided to set down rules of linguistic conveyance, upon which the growing population then began to follow.  No, conformity to such constricting paradigms were initiated, instituted and concretized when society recognized that there were differences in parochial intonations, and those who had nothing better to do decided with arrogance and ivory-tower nose-lifting that correct idioms of speech needed to be recognized, applied and adhered to.

And what of animals?  So long as the working paradigm consisted of our self-image as just below the angels and above the burdens of beasts, we refused their eligibility to the elite of elasticity in language and comprehension.  Yet, despite all of the convoluted attempts at avoiding acknowledgment and recognition that “to understand” is nothing more than the behavior following an utterance of speech, the pragmatism of daily life refutes our own methodology of exclusionary conduct.  For, in the end, it is merely the impact of speech upon behavior in a given society, whether that indicates a “human” world or a “dog” universe.

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 of “understanding” before “acting” often becomes a vicious circularity resulting in non-action:  The complexity of the legal tangles in Federal Disability Retirement law tends to make the Federal or Postal employee pause; failure to act in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application serves to exacerbate one’s condition, which leads to greater stress and turmoil; non-action results.

The key is to recognize that “understanding” – not even “complete understanding” – is necessary.  Rather, it is often the subsequent initiation of acting following a verbal commitment that is the only real test of understanding.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Catching with a net

Have you ever tried catching multiple entities with a net?  Whether more than one butterfly, or goldfishes in a pond, or even debris floating at the skimming water’s edge, the act of scooping, trapping and encircling with the tool of a net requires dexterity and unique hand-eye coordination.  Then, the one first caught escapes, and the frustration of gain-versus-loss ensues.  Is it greed which continues to compel despite the persistence of loss and diminishing return, or sheer stubbornness that we somehow battle against our own interests even when further escape occurs?

Ever the frustration of observing those once caught and get away, and chasing after those very ones we just enmeshed and caged within the netting of this ingenious deployment; and yet we insist.

How does that translate into a specific personality, or the manner in which we carry on in our daily lives?  Is going out and catching butterflies with a net the perfect methodology of determining a prospective employee’s “fit or unfit” personality and character for an organization?  Does it reveal a side of the person – for example, in the financial sector, or investment banking, if a person approaches the task by catching one, stopping, putting the insect or other entity into a bottle with pre-bored holes for oxygen, then proceeding in a sequential manner and attending to catching the next one, etc., does that tell of a prefatory commensurateness with careful investment strategies?

Or, take the very opposite, where the task is to catch 10 moving entities, and instead of stopping after each one, the future employment prospect goes about madly racing through the tall fields of grass furiously attempting to net the quota of requested numbers, despite imposing no time-frame in the completion of such a task – does that necessarily reveal a personality of lesser caution, of a person who may be rash and imprudent?  Does one revelation of acting in a particular context unmask a parallel semblance of reality in another, or do the specific circumstances themselves confine and define within a marginalized mirror?

Whether transferable or not, the imagery and metaphor of a person attempting to catch multiple entities with a single net, shows a side of human life which can be both comical as well as compelling.  For, as a reflection of parallel circumstances, it is somewhat indicative of the Federal or Postal employee who must begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Like the person handed the net, the Federal or Postal employee with a medical condition who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, must make a pragmatic determination as to the diminishing returns recognized in continuing in the same repetitive venture of living.  At some point, there comes a flash of realization that the same acts cannot continue without something else giving – and whether that “giving” is the butterfly which escapes, or one’s deteriorating health further and progressively becoming destroyed – is the flashpoint of reality revealing itself in compelling a decision for today, and no longer procrastinated for some unknown time in a future left insecure.

And like the butterfly which escapes to be free for another day, the Federal or Postal employee who cannot perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties must by necessity attempt to free him or herself from the medical condition in order to reach that place in life where pain, misery, and the sense of being “caged” will no longer apply.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Rhymeless Poems

When did it happen?  Certainly, by the time E.E. Cummings came upon the scene, with his oddity of typographical stream of consciousness, the acceptance of it had already come to fruition; or, perhaps it was in the translation of foreign such vehicles of linguistic amalgamations – when the first frustrated translator threw up his hands in disgust at a Japanese Haiku or a German verse of too numerous a compendium of throat-clearing consonants, that the advent of the rhymeless poem reached its fulfillment and pinnacle of public acceptance.  Or, maybe we just ran out of words.

Words are funny vehicles of communication.  With facial expressions, the scent of another, the movement of body or a sense of fear, anticipation and the adrenaline of life, one can discern an endless eternity of subtleties that, in their inexhaustible divining of messages sent and received, can further be conjoined, compounded and confounded by the essence of human complexity.  But words are limited to the meanings of each; and in the finite world of vocabularies existent, the rhyming words are that much more delimited.

It is not, as Wittgenstein would point out, something that we can just create out of whole cloth; for, there can be no “private language game” of one, as the very essence of it would be lost in the creation of a singular language game – communication, which is the purpose and teleological livelihood, cannot be justified if no one else understands the word, the greater concept, or the linguistic artifice intended.

Sure, sure – words are created everyday, especially in order to accommodate the growing technology of Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.; and the abbreviated forms of linguistic devices necessitated by text messaging, as well as the diversity of communicating through emoticons, etc., only prove the point:  All such such inventions and convoluted conventions of acceptability have a finite basis in any algorithm created.  In the end, we are just left with more words, and the inability to find that perfect rhyme in a verse of poetic need.   And that is the point, isn’t it?

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker, having a medical condition is similar to reaching that point in writing a poem, when the rhyming word can no longer be found.  Life itself is like an endless verse of poetry; we flow along and rhyme from word to word, with a cadence found in maturity of experiences; then, one day, a medical condition develops, and the rhyming verses suddenly pause.  We don’t know what to do.  Search as we may, we cannot find that perfect word, or that acceptable cadence of living life.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may not be that discovery of the perfect word to end the silence of a rhymeless poem; it is, however, the last word in the verse of a Federal or Postal employee’s career, which may save the day from leaving the empty space blank, and instead, allowing for the next cadence in this continuing drama of verse-filled experiences, to take a leap into a future of security and new beginnings.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: A mote in society’s dustbin

What is the greatest fear?  Is it to be forgotten, cast aside, without a mere footnote in the linear history of societal acknowledgments?  Must society now adjust to the credited observation of Warhol’s dictum, that fame’s span of 15 minutes is too lengthy, given the fast-paced nature of modern technology?  Is watching one’s self in a public forum the satisfying conduit for vicarious living, such that it makes content the populous who would otherwise revolt in the disparity of despairing livelihoods?

The Biblical reference of comparing the mote in someone else’s eye, as opposed to the beam in one’s own, is of interest beyond the failure to recognize the reflection of insincerity displayed by lack of self-awareness; more than that, it is the comparative disparity which fails to prod.  While the mote itself is the foreign substance which irritates and prompts the pointing finger, it also represents the insignificance of life’s judgments in general, to the way in which we all live.  It is the tiniest piece of substance, and yet the finger-pointing it prompts reveals a readiness to judge, and is reflective of a character defect in us all.

And when that mote is extracted and flicked away, it floats unnoticed into the greater dustbin of society, where morning mists evaporate in the rising sun of daily tumult, and where giants of men with promise and potentiality fall with a thud and a shudder for all to hear.

It is irrelevancy of which we fear; that no one will have noticed, and the imprint of our lives will matter not against the rising tides of artifices constructed in the imagination of our own awakenings.  How many nameless tombs echo the mournful solitude of an estranged life in a world devoid of warmth and snuggles?  Why are teddy bears, stuffed animals and lifeless companions purchased with purrs of gleeful delight?  We are but mere motes in the dustbin of society; moreover, we fear being extracted, even from that status of being an insignificant irritant, and flicked away where even the shadows remain unnoticed and when mice scurry away with but barely an ear’s twitch.

That is why Heidegger’s comment that we engage in projects to avoid the ultimate meaning of our lives — the extinguishment of one’s conscious soul — reverberates with haunting excess.  Of course, some would scoff at that philosopher and retort that his shame in participating in the Third Reich revealed the true nature of his philosophy; but that is for another day to reflect upon.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who believe — nay, “feel” — that their work is not “done” with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, and therefore must endure the humiliation piled upon the progressively worsening medical condition despite the self-immolative process of remaining, the real fear is the underlying, subterranean seething of man’s refusal to be cast aside as a mere irrelevancy, like a mote in society’s dustbin.

In the end, however, does it really matter whether the “mission of the agency” has been accomplished (remember that bureaucracies and their foundational rationale for existence never comes to a terminus; a new one is always adopted as perpetual replacements in the linear eternity of a behemoth’s lifespan), or the last truckload of mail has been delivered?

Federal and Postal employees are known for their “dedication” and conscientious resolve; but when 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, becomes a hindrance because of an unfounded and unjustified adherence to a principle which does harm to one’s own health, then the mote in the eye of one’s brother becomes more than an simple comparison to the beam in one’s own eye; it becomes itself a mote which should be flicked aside into the dustbin of society’s joke, where the laughter is directed upon all who have fallen for the epic comedy of life itself.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Systems: The mindful gargoyle

In architecture, they serve a pragmatic purpose of duality:  they divert unwanted seepage of water by redirecting it away from the side of a structure, but moreover, they serve the equally important spiritual task of keeping evil spirits at bay.

In everyday life, the concept can take on multiple meanings; of a grotesque figure unattractive on the outside, but encompassing an unseen beauty within through his or her thoughts, concerns and conceptual constructs; or of the monster which stays hidden within a tortured soul, where the fantasy of our own imaginations loom larger than the realities we may face; or, further, denoting phantasm from Medieval days where knights and dragons slayed have returned in more subtle forms of windmills left churning in the fields of fear of our own making.

All of them are barely noticed, now; onlookers pass by the structures which jut with such figures of antiquity; of monsters and grotesque figurines, we barely notice in this technological universe of pragmatism where fantasies of spiritual fears are dismissed as mere shams abbreviated from the shamans of yore; and of those looming monsters which haunt us in the nightmares of sleepless hours?

Pharmacology and the innane science of hope have become the masters of our fate, as Darwinian determinism has replaced the Oracles of ponderous paths.  There are no more mindful gargoyles; only materialism and the tactile reality of a virtual universe we have created in repose of empty caverns, where vacuity of thought is mistaken for profound moments of cognitive clarity, when in truth it is the dissonance of our own creation which leaves us trembling in the corners of our own fears, paralyzed with haunting thoughts and haunted imaginings.

But that we could return to the days of Tom and Huck, and win the heart of Becky Thatcher in braided pigtails of forgotten innocence; but, then, we would have to give up all of those “advances” we are lectured about by insistent voices booming in megaphones of self-interested diatribes.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, of course, the mindful gargoyle is of utmost importance.  For, it is that symbol and pablum of life that interjects and disrupts; the fears which prevent us from progress are precisely those which loom larger in the creativity of our own minds, where such phantoms preventing steps taken to move forward are the ones which need to be slain in mind first, then in the world outside.

That is why, often, the first step in the long bureaucratic process of preparing, formulating and 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, is to speak with an Attorney, in order to “objectively” assess one’s chances and develop pragmatic steps towards a potentially successful outcome.

For, in the end, preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits should reflect a pragmatic purpose — somewhat like the architectural utility of the gargoyles seen on structures of Medieval contortions, and not left in the dusty attics of fearful minds and monsters unslain in the deep recesses of cringing thoughts.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire