FERS OPM Disability Retirement: Subtlety’s Disappearance

Was there ever a stabbing seen?  Or, was it the raising of the knife, the shadow of the woman behind the shower curtain, the chalkboard-fingernail-scratching music; and blood; and of the psychotic stare of Anthony Perkins.

Or from that classic Western — not the gore of modernity, but the sudden scream and the terrified, bulging eyes of the older daughter as dusk was setting and the mother didn’t want the lamps to be lit — or later when John Wayne began shooting repeatedly at the buffalo in anger; we saw not the slaughtering of those beautiful creatures, but the facial expression of a rage-filled searcher.

Where is subtlety?  How is it that we came to know fear and terror without seeing the actual gore and blood, but by the facial expressions seeing and experiencing it for us?

In modernity, of course, everything must be made explicit, because when the current audience has already seen the extremes of violence and murders, including “real-time” violence from mass school shootings and other group mayhem, there can be no subtlety left, and subtlety’s disappearance is merely the reality for those who grow up in a surreal reality of virtual un-reality.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition where that medical condition will no longer allow you to continue in your career of choice with the Federal Government under FERS, “The Law” is an aggregation of subtle differences.  Often, it is the citing of a particular case-law which will persuade the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to approve a disability case.  Arguing that law will often make that subtle difference, but the lack of such argumentation will likewise result in subtlety’s disappearance.

Contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and let not subtlety’s disappearance be the basis of failing to get an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, lest subtlety’s disappearance lead you to the blood and gore of modernity’s obsession with explicit violence on the screens of our minds.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement Legal Advice and Guidance: Addressing and Rebutting

Much of lawyering is artistry, as opposed to science.  As discretion is to experience, so choosing which issues to address is a matter of instinct and judgment based upon past experience.

There are those in life who are “bulls in a china shop” — an old adage which refers to people who just barrel through without considering the consequences.  Another familiar saying is: “Discretion is the better part of valor”, which can mean many things and contains some nuances, but essentially refers to judgment of action in the face of issues to be confronted.

We no longer live in the middle ages where knights and other warriors engage in duels and valor-filled defenses of honor, but the saying itself can still be relevant in terms of discretionary judgments as to which battles to confront, which wars to engage and when to retreat, or leave “well enough alone”.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the number of issues to tackle — whether preemptively at the First Stage of the process, or in rebuttal form at the Reconsideration (Second) Stage, or even before an MSPB Judge at the Third Stage of the Process — is overwhelming.

Addressing and Rebutting each and every one is almost impossible, but nevertheless must be done.  How is it done?  By breaking down the complex into the simple, into manageable numbers, then addressing the overall issues and rebutting by citing the relevant case-law.

Addressing and Rebutting — the two ends of a bookcase which constitute the essence of a winning argument.  Contact an OPM Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in Federal Medical Retirement Law, and make sure to address and rebut the legal and medical major issues in every 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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The need to belong

Is there?

The brashness of youth in the misplaced arena of self-confidence when one first encounters the reality of the world after being sequestered in schools, from High School to College, but yet to be tested by the reality of the surrounding world; and so the young person says thoughtlessly: “I don’t need anyone; I will go it alone.”  And so the story goes: and like Harry Chapin’s song, “Cat’s in the Cradle”, of little boy blue’s father who never had time to belong because he was always too busy; but then, we feel most comfortable in situations of familiarity, though we may deny it.

The need to belong is not a peculiarly human need; it is shared by most other species, although there appear to be exceptions within the subset of every species, where the loner presents with contentment, and even an antagonism towards the collective community.

Is it fear that compels the desire, or an innate sense of wanting to belong (a more positive characteristic than fear)?  Can the need be quashed and dismissed, set aside and disregarded as mere convention to be ignored and diminished?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is it the loss of community that often makes one pause — i.e., the need to belong?

Certainly, the camaraderie and being “part of the team” — though one may scoff at the very idea — allowed for one’s identity to thrive within the community of Federal or Postal workers; and identity-tied-to-career and work is an important component in belonging to anything, for everyone.  Yet, the health condition itself is the very element that separated and excluded in the first place; the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service is the “community” that begins to shun, to exclude, to make an outcast of the Federal or Postal employee, and that is almost an inevitability that must be faced.

At some point, that “community” called the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service begins to lose its patience, and begins to restrict the use of Sick Leave or LWOP; or, when the FMLA runs out, a “demand” to return to work, to maintain a regular work schedule, etc., is imposed.

Unfortunately, the “need to belong” has to be a two-way street: The desire to belong on the part of the Federal or Postal worker, and the comity of interests shown by the Federal Agency or the Postal Service.  When one or the other begins to wane or vanish altogether, it is time to file for OPM Disability Retirement benefits and to look for other communities in which to satisfy the need to belong.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The never-ending series

Once upon a time, the three seasons of the sporting world seemed fairly defined into three neatly-trifurcated periods; of Summer to Fall for Baseball; Fall to Winter for football; Winter to Spring for basketball; and so the seasons followed the general consensus of a happy delineation for the enthusiast, the couch-potato and the sounds of rhythmic lull, where the major sports aligned in sequence upon the seasons of change like nature’s bugle that toots the horn with nary a break between.

Then, greed set in.  Advertising dollars could be extended just a few more days, perhaps even weeks, and maybe even into further months.  An extra “wild card” to be added; an “inter-league” period in the middle of the season; let’s also change it from the “best of five” to the “best of seven” — or, maybe for the future, the best of nine?  What difference did it make that seasons overlapped — with widescreen television sets and simultaneous multiple-screens streaming, one could watch regular-season games and season-ending series combined without missing a heartbeat or a blink that forgot the fumble of the century; we can “have it all”.

Then came the problem of “soccer” — that hated foreign-born immigrant that kept insisting upon pushing into the American conscience, mostly through the public schools that boldly continued to inculcate our kids with an incomprehensible game that wouldn’t let a person do that which instinctively we are all born to do — of touching the ball with one’s hands.  What kind of a sport doesn’t allow you to hold the ball and run with it?

Basketball requires ball handling, with letting go of it to move forward, except by milliseconds of palm-to-ball dribbling; football requires large hands that, until one grows older, results in that wobbly spiral that is laughed at and scorned; and baseball follows the snugness of the glove, the perfect pitch by the positioning of fingers upon the stitching that propels the beanball into a fastball or the sudden drop just as the batter swings to miss, and the thrill of the umpire shouting, “strike!”  To not even be able to touch the ball?  What kind of a sport is that?  And where does it fit in to the never-ending series?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition prevents the Federal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, the never-ending series may include three “major league” games — the Initial Stage of the application for Federal Disability Retirement; the second, Reconsideration Stage of the process, if denied at the first level; and the third stage — an appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.

There is, if necessary, a “Fourth Stage” — a Petition for Full Review before the MSPB; but like soccer and the never-ending series of the first three sports, the key is to make sure that proper preparation is completed for each of the stages of the process, before anticipating the outcome of any of the others; and like soccer and a Petition for Full Review, the best bet is to prepare well for any and all of the 3 stages of the process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Life sensations

That’s a slice of the old stand-up routine, isn’t it?  Where the old man is asked about whether this or that hurts, or whether he can feel such-and-such sensation, and he declares, “At my age, I’m lucky to feel anything at all!”

Life sensations – it is too general a concept to retain any meaningful applicability.  Instead, we are merely satisfied with portions and slices – of a cramp that is rubbed away, a paper cut that heals and a sense of love for a child, a hug received or given to placate hurt feelings.  But what about the greater sensation of “life” in general – of living daily, of being overwhelmed with awe by that sense of mystery that living in this organic, enlivened world brings to the fore, or at least it did when you were a child, once with dreams and an imagination filled with hope for the future.

There were times when you tingled with excitement for this or that activity; of an anticipatory eagerness that filled your day the very moment you woke up; and the antsy sense that you needed to get to a certain age in order to accomplish this or that, and if not at that age or the age itself passed by without much notice, that there would arrive another milestone but none too quickly because life needed to be lived in the here and now and there was no time to lose.

Somehow, those life sensations became dulled; life itself became a constant struggle, a weight of burden that began to slowly, incrementally and almost imperceptibly deteriorate.  Then came the medical condition, and the sense that everything was always going to be a struggle.

Hope for the future is a necessary prerequisite for life sensations in the present, and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are daily harassed by their Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service because they 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 position, it may be time to consider filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

All Federal Disability Retirement applications are ultimately filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the waiting time itself is a daunting prospect.  But, in order to regain that lost coin of Life’s Sensations, where there is some hope left for a future yet to be secured, it may be time to begin preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, instead of waiting around for the Federal agency or the Postal Service to declare your “worth” by beginning termination proceedings with that same careless and indifferent attitude they have shown since first you began experiencing the life sensation of the medical condition that brought you to this point.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The best we can do

We enter into a race; we finish in the bottom third.  We take a course for advancement of learning; we barely pass the final exam.  We often ask ourselves throughout the montage of life’s challenges:  Is that the best we can do?  Sometimes, the answer is a quiet but simple, “Yes”; at other points, perhaps it is a time for reassessment and revamping of the approach, the methodology, and even the key ingredients of who we are.

Self-congratulatory utterances and inane emptiness of self-esteeming servitude has often been described as the enemy of modernity.  The best we can do is always achieved if, after every project completed or half-heartedly attempted, the punctuations that follow are repetitively predictable:  “Good job!”; “Attaboy!”; “Fabulous”; and other such interjections of enthusiastic expressions.  But that misses the point – both for the spectator who cheers on, and the participant who must endure the consequences of such emptiness devoid of fortitude.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits because of a medical condition which has worsened, become exacerbated, or otherwise has reach a point where it prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, must often contend with the “concern” of performance reviews and ratings which have remained stellar throughout one’s Federal or Postal career.

That is often a misleading and inconsequential concern.  Here is why:  the system itself consists of a duality of misleading indicators – from the “agency’s” viewpoint, it has been set up so that the least amount of acrimony and confrontation is “best” for everyone, because camaraderie and passing everyone through with flying marks is encourage for the cohesion of the greater unit; and from the Federal employee’s viewpoint, he or she has silently attempted to endure the pain, suffering and debilitating conditions without complaining, for fear that he or she would be “thought less of” by coworkers, supervisors, managers and the rest of the cauldron of the agency and department.

But when the Federal or Postal employee comes to that critical juncture where the medical condition, the positional duties, and the tolerance level for pain and suffering all coalesce to a point of terminal considerations (i.e., resigning, filing for Federal Disability Retirement, or both), then all of that hard work in the quietude of silent suffering seems to haunt us.  That is why the foundation of a case – a narrative report of excellence that addresses and rebuts each point of potential concern – is crucial as the linchpin of a Federal Disability Retirement case.

For, in the end, sometimes the best we can do has been an overreach that comes back to pinch us; and though a rarity in the age of modernity where everyone gets a prize for coming in last, for the Federal or Postal worker who is intending upon filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is the best we can do with what we are left with, in the residue of timeless anguish.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Alliteration of Life

Cathartic calamities caused creatively cannot cooperatively contain characteristic contents clearly coordinated contumaciously.  Sometimes, the insistence upon form can result in the nonsensical loss of clarity in substance; life often reflects the absurdities we establish by convention and societal imposition, and we pay the price for it.

Life is like being a letter in a series of alliterative words; we are helpless in being attached, but cannot dissociate ourselves, separate one’s self, or otherwise excise the offending aspect.  We are forever wedded like the proverbial two peas in a pod, with an incessant but futile search for a seam to burst out.  The problem, too, is that it may all sound proper and profound; but beneath the surface of consonant melodies and mellifluous motions of letters harkening back with pleasantries of sound, sight and solace, the reality of it is that the emperor with no clothes needs to be called out, lest the closeted secrets remain dormant.

Medical conditions tend to make of life an alliteration of sorts; squeezed between the implanted word in front and crushed by the one behind, we are left without choices in being a pawn in the cycle of life’s fate.  Like the word that sounds melodious as it rolls off the tongue of the creator, we keep trying to fit in despite the absurdity of the substance and content.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, such a metaphor of life is well-known.  Despite being stripped of dignity and design, the Federal or Postal worker suffering from a medical condition is treated as half-human, half-worth and half-baked.  They are relegated to the corner office, the basement of windowless reserves, and raked over the proverbial coals to perform menial tasks meant to humiliate and defeat.  But it all “sounds nice” — the courageous attempts by the agency to accommodate; the superficial empathy shown by supervisors and managers; it is all meant to soothe.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is often seen as just another daunting task, an obstacle placed in front of the already-stretched limits of the Federal or Postal employee; but then, what choices are there?

Like the alliterative words caught between others just because of the consonant attached, the Federal or Postal worker with a medical condition represents the alliteration of life, and preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is merely another reflection in the pond of life, provided productively as previous payment portending possible potentialities progressively purchased.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Medical Retirement Lawyer: Drawers and Other Hideaways

Whether cabinets and chests were created for neatness of housekeeping, or to bifurcate the clutter of consciousness, should be left up to anthropologists and social commentators.  Facebook, too, and Social Media, the inability to resist adding to the clatter and superficiality of what we say, what we collect, and how we amass, both information and items we choose to gather; does it all reveal the historical backdrop of the Mesozoic era, from whence we all originate?

We are all, ultimately, left to the devices of our own unmaking and insufficiencies; and that which we neatly hide in drawers of convenience, and close, become tantamount to sealing our fate when once we conceal that which needs to be maintained.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit which Federal and Postal workers seek to obtain, when a medical need arises and the medical condition, injury or trauma begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with a Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service.  Once obtained, the Letter of Approval received from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, often declares to the (now former) Federal or Postal employee, that a linear process from start to finish has now been concluded.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Like cars and children, maintaining the sufficiency and viability of an ongoing Federal Disability Retirement benefit is as important as the effort expended to win an approval.  And, like the car which needs a periodic oil change in order to extend the life of the internal mechanical apparatus by an exponential multiple, so the quality of effort needed to retain and maintain a Federal Disability Retirement benefit is minimal and uncomplicated; but necessary.

For Federal employees and Postal workers, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the cost of continuing care of one’s Federal Disability Retirement benefit, once achieved, should never be cast out of mind and consciousness; and rather than neatly setting it aside in some drawer or other hideaway, it should remain on full display in the centrality of one’s livelihood, lest the mice, goblins and other unwelcome creatures begin to gnaw at the ripeness of one’s Federal Disability Retirement benefit.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire