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 under FERS: The Price We Pay

We don’t.  It used to be.  Not anymore.  Or, at least, not much.  Time was, if a military officer fraternized with an enlisted individual, the officer’s career was all but over.  Or, ages ago, if a CEO of a company divorced, there was a price to pay.  Hollywood stars took great pains to hide their infidelities, for the “public image” was all-important.

What price do we pay, these days?  Are there any restrictions, any constraints, any boundaries?

We criticize China because of their authoritarian state, but can you imagine what kind of country it would be if a country with 1.4 billion people had the homelessness population we have, the rate of suicide we have, the extent of mass shootings we have, the extent of mental health crisis we have, etc.?  It is all well and good to tout “freedom”, but at what price?

Freedom and liberty are all well and good, but they work only within the context of responsibilities and shared obligations, which we no longer believe in.  In this post-factual world, where the words one proffer need not match the actions one engages in, there is no price to pay.  If you do something wrong, you merely need to disappear for a while and reinvent yourself.

For Federal workers and U.S. Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, however, the price you pay is by your health.  The stresses of modernity, the health issues which magnify and become exacerbated with age, the deterioration into chronicity when once a medical condition was thought to be manageable — these are the basis of being eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Contact a FERS Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, exclusively, and consider the price you have paid, and the price which OPM and the government should pay you in order to compensate you for your loyalty.

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 Medical Disability under FERS: Memory

There have been many recent works of fiction involving the issue of memory — The Memory Police, by Yoko Ogawa; The Buried Giant (Kazuo Ishiguro); Tell Me an Ending (Jo Harkin); just to name three right off the bat.  Why has it become a recurring theme?

Is Google the culprit — that memory is no longer a skill cultivated; where conversations are suddenly terminated because someone has whipped out their Smartphone and looked up the name of the movie, the meaning of a word, or the line from a book of poetry?  Is rote learning even needed?  Does anyone memorize a poem, a line from a novel, or even a stanza from a rhyme?  Has an angst developed, an anxiety left unexpressed, an educational concern subtly evolved?

If we can Google anything, is there ever a need to memorize?  If we fail to cultivate the tools of memory, will we make more of the same mistakes than ever before?  Wasn’t it some philosopher who said that history will forever repeat itself because short memories spawn the ignorance needed to forget the horrors of war?  Didn’t WWII follow upon a generation who had forgotten that the “War to end all wars” — WWI — was fought to achieve an eternal period of peace?

And Vietnam was forgotten, followed soon thereafter with Afghanistan — and how the media attempted to capture a scene depicting some helicopter evacuating masses of civilians from the top of a building — that imagery of a former time, a forgotten memory, a repetition of history.  But did anyone remember?  Was there any resurfacing of memories?

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, “memory” is precisely what the U.S Office of Personnel Management wants you to forget:  That there is case-law which applies; that the law and statutory authorities require application and compliance; that eligibility for Federal Disability Retirement benefits must follow the regulations overseeing OPM’s decisions, etc.

The U.S Office of Personnel Management often needs some “reminders” of what constitutes legally-sufficient evidence for an approval; and while OPM’s memory may often fade, it is the job of a competent attorney to “remind” them, to shake their forgetfulness and to emphasize that past case-laws still apply in the current state of society’s amnesia, and thus, you should contact a competent and effective attorney to make sure that OPM “remembers” what the law is.

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 Benefits: The Trick Question

There are many.  In the media, it is often described as the “Gotcha” question — where the reporter springs upon the unwary target a query which cannot be answered without placing one in a negative light.

Or the lawyer’s cross-examination barrage beginning with, “So, Mr. so-and-so, Yes or No — did you ever stop beating your wife?” (Such a question, of course, is rather laughable and should be immediately objected to; but the “fun” of the question is that the answer becomes a quandary: If you answer, “Yes”, it means that you are admitting to beating your wife but that you merely stopped at some point; if you answer, “No”, it means that you continue to beat your wife.  Either way, you have shot yourself in the proverbial foot).  And there are many others — of “trick” questions to get you into the proverbial hot water.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal job, the Standard Forms contain many and multiple trick questions.  They may not be intended to actually trick you, but the manner, form and content of your answer may become problematic in the way in which they are answered.

Contact a Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and make sure that the “trick” question doesn’t do what it is meant to do: To trick you into answering it in a way which you don’t intend to, or otherwise shouldn’t need to.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: The Preparation

There is enough success by merely “winging it” — of coming into a “situation” without adequate preparation; of stories where luck just happened to accompany the moment, etc.  The vast majority of “other” success stories, however, are accounted for by hard preparatory work, long hours of training, research, review of the evidence, etc.  Perhaps there are some of those who can walk into a meeting and immediately impress the participants; or to cut short a practice and still dominate on a basketball court or field of play; but in the end, it is the preparation which insures the success of the “after” — of the actual game, the real deal, etc.

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, preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is a necessity which likely cannot be avoided.  It is that first part, however, which will be the most crucial step — of the preparation involved, before the final formulation and filing.

Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer as the first step in the preparation of your application; for, in the end, it is the proper beginning which always counts the most.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
FERS Disability Attorney

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Virtual Reality

Say a person says to you, “I was in Japan last night.”  You had just seen him the day before, and so you might quickly calculate how many hours it would take for a flight to Japan, how long he could have stayed there and then flown back; and, perhaps you would unduly confuse yourself by thinking, “Perhaps the time-zone shift is such that yesterday is today and today is actually tomorrow’s today because of the international time-zone shift”, or some similar nonsense as that which often confuses and confounds us all (in fact, isn’t that how we always feel when we must change the clocks for that “Spring Forward” and “Fall Back” period?).

You study the person’s features and determine that he looks refreshed, without a hint of sleeplessness.  Upon coming to the conclusion that, No, it is not possible that your friend had actually gone to Japan and back, you say to him or her: “What do you mean by that?”  The person says, “Just what I said.  I visited Japan last night.  I went on a tour of Kyoto, a couple of shrines, saw the cherry blossoms and had a couple of meals and drank some sake and then went to bed.”  And you take that sliver of an opportunity — that phrase, “I visited” combined with, “then went to bed”, and with suspicious deliciousness as of a genius private detective who has singularly uncovered a mystery, declare: “Aha! You mean you were on your computer and took a virtual tour of the country!”  To which your friend says: “You can put it that way.  I say that I was in Japan last night.”

In this world where virtual reality and reality itself has been conflated, the words we use have similarly broken out of their previous state of rigidity.  Whether of “alternative truths” or misstatement of facts, the malleability of language has had to adapt and conform to the changes of reality.  Is there a distinction with a difference between a person who takes a “virtual tour” of a country, as opposed to actually, physically flying there and walking about the lost ruins of Peru?  To the question, “So, did you visit the Sistine Chapel while there?” — both and either may provide a detailed description of their independent and individual experiences, and do so convincingly; and even to the question, “Were you really there?” — the answer can be identical and yet truthful.

Yet, there are some things in life that still defy conflating virtual reality with the “real” reality — such as injuries or disabilities.  For, “virtual” injuries and “virtual” disabilities do not impact the identical experiential phenomena of the “real deal”, and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a real medical condition such that the reality of that condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, you may want to consider filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits.

Before you do that, however, consult with a “real” Federal and Postal Disability Retirement Lawyer, lest a “virtual” one provides you only with virtual advice, in which case it won’t be worth any more than a virtual dollar used to pay for a virtual meal.

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

 

Attorney Representation Federal Disability Retirement: Bureaucracies

It is an amalgamation of penultimate collectivism; based primarily upon the concept that centralization constitutes efficiency, bureaucracies exist for the sake of a mission long forgotten and forever compelling the existence of its own justified creation.  They have histories, and often historians to record and annotate the accomplishments of their own beings; and the people who work for them speak about them in objective tones of third persons.

Every now and again, a newly-hired employee will bring about a fresh sense of enthusiasm, of new ideas and different ways of doing things; but after a time, each such newbie of fresh growth begins to wilt, like flowers that bloom for a season and then die an expected and predictable death, only to wait for another to take its place.

Bureaucracies tend to do that to their own population – wilt them, kill them, stamp out any newness that might sprout for a brief moment.  And to those outsiders who require the services of a bureaucracy – well, always remember that the bureaucracy will always last longer than even the great period of the dinosaurs.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits because of a medical condition that prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the exposure to a bureaucracy may be the first time; or, perhaps the Federal employee (and certainly the Postal employee) works within a bureaucracy him/herself.  In either event, suddenly being an “outsider” looking in, as opposed to an “insider” looking out, will be a new experience.

It is good to remind one’s self during this process of preparing, formulating, filing and waiting upon the “bureaucracy of bureaucracies” –- the U.S. Office of Personnel Management – that long after the Age of Dinosaurs passed and became extinct, and long, long after global warming or other such identifiable calamitous event will have altered the face of the universe, OPM and other bureaucracies will still be here.  What a thought to ponder.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The inchoate life

The problem is often the perspective, and not the reality.  Somehow, human beings walk about this earth with the expectation that fulfillment is in the “now” and development is merely something ascribed to babies, yogurt and African nations on a far away continent of timeless immaturity.  Potentiality; the consistency of growth; and, even in old age, despite the deterioration and degeneration of cellular expansion, our lives represent an inchoate and rudimentary structure such that we have to constantly strive to grow.

Yet, somehow, we mistakenly believe in so many fictions; that the senior prom is the fulfillment of all things important; that graduation from college represents the pinnacle of our education except for those few who go on to graduate schools (which is now more common than even a decade before because of the intense economic challenges and competition); that the present job is the treadmill upon which success or failure reflects; and that, in old age, decrepitude and endless agony awaits us all.

All of us, in the end, are imperfectly formed and in the constant process of becoming formulated; yet, by our impatience and desire for fulfillment, we deny the very existence of the part-existence of our very Being.  And so we cry out in protest when a medical condition hits us and prevents us from being or doing that which we believe we were destined for; and like the shrill screams of hungry coyote in the wind-swept plains of a desolate landscape, we dream in solitude as the howls of time obscure the pain of suffering.

What dreams we once held; the journey from form to content; the need to accomplish, excel and fulfill; these are all human characteristics which bring out the best in us.  But reality is also a discourse where interruptions and interludes occur, and the reality is that most of us never fulfill the potential of our lives, and that is okay, especially when the circumstances intervening are beyond that which we have the ability or capacity to control. The inchoate life is seen throughout the many unmarked graves and tombstones lying in quietude of silent anonymity.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who realize that careers chosen, dreams yet unfulfilled and goals unachieved, the medical conditions that interrupt are merely reminders to us all that the inchoate life cannot be avoided.  Priorities must be set; a different path may be required.

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 merely another step in the many steps of a Chinese proverb, and the inchoate life is just another movement, a stir and a wrinkle in so many lives yet to reach the completeness of a destiny still to call in the wilds of a lone wolf speaking to the full moon of purposeful lives.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire