Federal Disability Retirement: Different Approaches

There is a difference between the ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of things — “How something is done” is quite different from “Why something is done.”

One can argue that the ‘Why’ of something should logically precede the ‘How’, for the meaningfulness attached will motivate as to the mechanical doing of it; whereas, others will propose that one should simply follow Nike’s oft-repeated logo — “Just do it” — and in the act of doing it, the meaningfulness of the activity will naturally follow and be discovered.

Ultimately, they represent different approaches, and may even be characterized by different personalities.  The one who simply charges forward without purpose or meaning may be superficially identified as a ‘pragmatist’ of sorts, while the one who first ponders the “Why” of everything may require a ‘spiritual’ source in everything before proceeding.

In the end, however, the underlying source of everything returns us to that what Viktor Frankl identified as the central human motivational force — the paradoxical search for a life’s meaning.  The importance of the ‘Why’ cannot be ignored; and as science can only point to the ‘How’ of anything, the emptiness of an unanswered ‘Why’ will often paralyze us.

Life is difficult as it is, with calamities and unexpected twists and turns along the way, and the fragile state of our health can be devastating without having an answer as to the ‘Why’ of everything.

For FERS Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from an chronic injury or other condition and are forced to make a major decision moving forward, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may be one of the biggest fights of your life, and while a FERS medical attorney may not be able to answer the more important question as to the ‘Why’ of what has occurred, it is the more pragmatic ‘How’ which may be needed, for the time being.

Sometimes, the different approaches require a priority of answers in a sequence less than optimally answered, and in the case of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system with OPM, it is the question of ‘How’ which must take precedence.

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 for Federal Employees: Agency Actions

Agencies possess a great deal of power.  When a Federal or Postal employee is subjected to the actions of an agency or the postal facility, future consequences yet undetermined may reverberate without full knowledge to the employee.  The results may be subtle, but just enough to minimize the chances of successfully obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement.

The same goes for Federal and Postal employees who go through the First and Second Stages of a Federal Disability Retirement application process without an attorney.  OPM, as a Federal Agency, wields a great deal of power over an individual — determining the future course of a Federal Disability Retirement application, for one; and just as their actions can impact the decision-making process of a Federal Disability Retirement applicant, so too can other agencies during the procedures of processing a Federal Disability Retirement application.

How an SF 3112B is completed and the language used; what is stated or attached to SF 3112D; what the applicant says in response to the questions posed on SF 3112A; all of these can have subtle reverberations down the line.  Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer before you go down another rabbit hole that may result in agency actions which negatively impact you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The Lie of Agnosticism

Bertrand Russell was famous for it (who would not be — of a tall, slender intellectual with a shock of white hair with that image of a long-stemmed pipe puffing with short bursts of tobacco smoke trailing pervasively behind between haltingly muttered sentences of profound logical confusions?); most of us are lulled into it; and the unwary may think that it is a more intellectually honest position to take, where neutrality stuck between traditionalists and the fervency of iconoclasm is preferable if only because avoidance of unpleasantries often directs of intents and motivations.

Yet, look beneath the surface: Russell certainly wrote and lectured enough against the existence of a supernatural being, as opposed to advocating on behalf of evidence supporting the existence of God.  Countless essays and arguments critical of the illogic inherent in Aquinas’ famous “5 Arguments” or Anselm’s Ontological Argument and — of more modern vintage, Kurt Godel’s formal argument (that is if we can even understand the mathematically complex propositions posited by Godel, who stands apart, along with his friend Einstein, in comprehending the mysteries of the universe) are propounded by Russell, with nary a sentence in support.

Most agnostics are atheists; they just don’t want to be bothered by being confronted with that fact.

Medical conditions are like the clinging to agnosticism: We want to avoid the direct assault and confrontation, and so we keep procrastinating, avoiding and delaying.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS is like the conversion of an agnostic to the reality of atheism, or its antonym: The reality of recognizing that we can no longer avoid.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law; at a minimum, you can see whether you are truly an agnostic, or merely ensconced in the Lie of Agnosticism.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Circumstances and choices

When is it too late to begin reflecting upon one’s circumstances and choices?  Do we already do that daily, and does the length of rumination engaged depend upon where one’s station in life has reached? Do old men and squeaky rocking chairs justify such reflective modes of behavior, or do the young as well take the time to ponder upon choices made, circumstances encountered, and the spectrum of clashes in between?

Do we formulate a fauna of false representations of ourselves, and depict upon the screen of a mind’s inner movie of the “self” with edited versions so that, when queried, we can make those “bad mistakes” of past choices appear to fit into circumstances where we can innocently declare, “I had no other choice!”?  We “make the bed we lie in”; suffer from the “messes we make of our lives”; or of what other adage or declarative falsehoods may we come up with to excuse our own choices in life’s travail of valleys full of mournful echoes?

Circumstances often dictate the choices we make; or, at least the metaphor of “dictation” leads us to believe.  For, the very idea of “X dictates Y” as in the previous statement, “Circumstances dictate the choices we make”, removes us of the responsibility in making the choice, by making it appear as if the choice made is not really a choice at all, but merely an action that is necessitated and you are therefore merely an unwilling agent.

What is lost in such discourse, of course, is the lengthy history of sub-choices previously presented and ignored, where choices that could have been made before circumstances became so dire that the narrowing of alternatives dissipated until a crisis point came to the fore — that is where circumstances and choices require careful analysis before the alternative juncture of varying pathways disappear.

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, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is important to early on recognize the circumstances unfolding and the choices presented, before the multitude of “forks in the road” begin to disappear, and life’s circumstances begin to impose — not binary choices — but choices that begin to dictate.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may not seem like a choice that one wants to undertake, but it is often the circumstances that one has no control over that dictates the future course of choices, and not the choices themselves.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The light in someone else’s home

Walking the dog out past dusk, or perhaps standing in the backyard after the sun sets; or, in an apartment complex looking out beyond; a light turns on in someone else’s home; we wonder, who is it, what are they like, and how different are they?  Do others, upon seeing the light switched on in your home, wonder at the owner — the possessor of the finger that flicked the contraption that illuminated the room and altered it from darkness into a visually acute arena of human activity?

Why do we spend so much time pondering about alien lives in other worlds, in faraway universes beyond our very own, when scant little attention is paid to knowing about our next door neighbor?

Some would give a quick scoff at such a thought and quip, “If only you knew my next door neighbor — you wouldn’t want to know!”  And yet, it is always the one that is “just beyond” that attracts our attention — not the person sitting next to you on a train, or the woman with three screaming children on public transportation; rather, it is the unseen stranger who flicked on the light switch afar, whom we cannot see but by shadows that pass behind the blinds that veil; that is the person who sparks an imagination that there are other lives, other ways to live, and who remind us that the light in someone else’s home means that there are other ways of seeing things, living life and having different opinions, goals, dreams and conversations.

The objectivization of other human beings is the basis by which murders are committed, wars are justified and slogans are written; it is only when the warmth of a light that suddenly illuminates the darkness that prevailed begins to permeate one’s consciousness of what it all means, is when human empathy and compassion begins to form.

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 light in someone else’s home is the one left unlit, and that is often why the harassment begins, the coworkers remain uncaring and the agency seems oblivious to your deteriorating health.

It often seems as if the world cares not; that, despite your years of loyalty shown, late-nights expended to complete an important agency project, or staying beyond the hours to finish the sorting, distribution and delivery — now it is supposed to be someone else’s turn to switch on the light and carry forth the mission.

Preparing 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, may be the only option left.  Whatever the conditions, it is no longer the light in someone else’s home that should be of concern, but the darkness left in your own that needs to change, by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The traveling troubadour and trobairitz

There are vocations and careers which once were, and now forgotten.  Life cycles in endless streams of dying embers and regeneration of growth; and like the mythical Phoenix which arises from the ashes of destruction, so we tend to romanticize that which once was, is now forever lost in the forgotten residues of concealed fingerprints in timeless memories once secluded but dissipated as storytellers no longer found an audience for tales left untold, and children turned to self-amusement with videos, technological blank stares, and smartphones which glow well into the night.

Troubadours of the middle ages (and for those wondering, since this is now a gender-neutral universe and we dare not fail to include the binary aspect of such identification, the female counterpart known as the “trobairitz”), traveling under the patronage of princes in fiefdoms who showed the first signs of supporting “the arts”, and thus would allow for actors, performers and lyric poets to entertain and provide a respite of asides from a world which knew poverty beyond modernity’s capacity to comprehend, plagues which spread quickly and with devastating tenacity, and amongst rogues who cared not for the intellectual conscience recorded by scribes and religious orthodoxy of the Aquinas tradition.

They came onto the scene of history, and disappeared by the end of the High Middle Ages.  Do we even think about them, today — their careers, their imprint upon a fellow human being’s life, and even of the shadow which appeared but for a whispering moment, and with the light of day left not even a hint of prior existence?  Is that what Heidegger meant, when he described human existence as an avoidance out of fear of the ultimate fate of each man?  And so we look upon our own careers, and the choices we have made in life, and that to which we look into the crystal ball for the future.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating 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, must by necessity feel trepidation for the unknown.  That is natural.  But as necessity is the mother of invention, so the end of a Federal or Postal career should never bring pause to a hopeful perspective for a future yet undetermined, whether unknown or barely discernible.  And like the traveling troubadour and trobairitz of a past age, the career itself is but a whisper in time, and it is the substance of the life lived, and not the sacraments of a vocation we had chosen, which make for value in a life of plenty.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The bonds we forge

As a verb used with an object, the meaning is lost because the context of antiquity remains as mere pages in the history books of a former era, when horses needed shoeing and the hammer and anvil heard the rhythmic pounding of sweat and hard work from the center of town; and without the combined usage with an object, it can include the act of imitation and fakery, as in illegitimately replicating documents without the originator’s consent.  The former sense implicates a vision of strenuous input; the latter, a meticulous care to reinvent or mirror that which fools a third party into thinking that it is the original, as opposed to something likened thereto.  In either case, the toil of effort is required.

Those bonds we forge — whether over a lengthy period, or within a short while — require just that:  time.  And beyond, maintenance in order to secure the togetherness cemented.  The concept itself necessarily implies the prerequisite of first being apart, then coming together.  Once bonded by the labor of forging, care needs to be taken that we not put too great a stress upon the once-fractured point; for as the link which binds is only as good as the strength of its weakest remedy, so the glue that casts the inseparable pair must by rights be allowed to coalesce.

What people fail to realize, however, is that the true and strongest bond which is forged, must be carefully maintained over time.  Left unnoticed or unattended, the disrepair which re-fractures the covenant of unity can easily fray despite the historicity of that red-hot steel that once glowed in the hearth of reddened embers.  That knowing look evinced from the wince of shared pain formerly acquired in memory’s cradle; the sidelong glance of a joke shared between two islands of thoughtful reflection, turned into mirth by a fading laughter like a cup which clinks ever so gently when the ice cubes melting in the heat of day shifts the microcosmic glaciers of a summer’s delight awash in the bitterness of cold tea.

In modernity, we mistake the quantification of people pushing the button of “likes” with the inviolable encounters between fellow human beings.  And, indeed, it is often because of those friendships forged and relationships embraced, that Federal and Postal workers often pause before considering the necessary breach resulting from the needs imposed by a medical condition which prevents the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For, often, it is time itself which cements and solidifies without the notice of effort expended; and the camaraderie and relationships developed over months, years and decades can be the defiance of surrender, if only to extend the moments of memories passed.  But at some point, even the bonds we forged may not be enough to contend against the forces of time, nature, health and fate; and when a medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to continue on in the job or position of professional choice, then it may well be that the bonds we forged may need to be severed, as time allows only for a moment’s grace in the floating ships we think we steer, when in fact, all along, we were mere passengers biding our seats with but a temporary pass occupying for a limited time.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: A penchant for excess

Do the historicity and context of a given time determine the individual’s proclivity for behavior otherwise deemed unnatural?  Does that concept even apply anymore, as normative constraints are denigrated, societal conventions become ignored, and new frontiers bypassing the ethos of communities are no more than mere irritants to swat away?

There has always been, of course, a penchant for excess inherent in the human essence; the British Royal Family, the French aristocracy, the Russian Czar and the modern totalitarian state where wealth and abundance allows an opening for the limitless reach of man’s appetite and predilection for excess.

Does the quiet neighbor next door — that meek and unassuming character straight out of the parallel universe of Walter Mitty’s caricature, of the bespectacled individual always referred to as “growing old with grace and a potbelly” — become a tyrant upon winning the lottery?  Is it inevitable that he files for divorce the day after his bank account becomes flush with an astronomical sum, abandons his responsibilities, denies his lineage to aunts and uncles who suddenly want to become the proverbial long-lost cousins who always loved him but were too shy to previously approach — is there an identifiable genetic code of wrap-around dimensions coiling within each of our cells waiting to embrace an inevitable penchant for excess?

And what of our behavior towards our fellow men and women — is human nature so predictable that we fear the unravelling of ourselves, and thus do we cloak our ugliness and conceal our inner motives precisely because, like the largest organ covering our bodies — the skin which provides layers of protection to make our appearance presentable and unblemished — we require constructs of artificial boundaries because we ourselves cannot abide by the liberty we are granted?

These thoughts are nothing new for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who encounters man’s penchant for excess once the Federal or Postal employee shows the signs of weakness which accompany a medical condition.  Suddenly, the camaraderie and comity previously shown by coworkers becomes an unconcealed bevy of whispering conspiracies, like the silence of horrific quietude of a man drifting in a shark-infested ocean upon an overturned boat, waiting for that first bump of a forewarning to test the reaction before the initial attack.

For that Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition must by necessity lead to 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, the penchant for excess as revealed by actions of the Agency, coworkers and people you once thought highly of, is really nothing more than the unravelling of that which was always there, but forever hidden but for that invisible thread which holds the fabric of society together — of self-restraint, like the distant echo of a forgotten discipline, lost in the meditation of a Zen monastery.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire