OPM Disability Law: The Fatigue of Profundity & Requirement of Repetition

Profundity is overvalued.  With the advent of the internet and information technology, the widespread dissemination of seemingly esoteric array of knowledge and know-how (yes, there is a distinction with a difference between the two), everyone is vying for the heard voice, and the break-out from the herd.  One becomes easily fatigued by seemingly deep insights, or “new” data and facts upon otherwise mundane concerns.

Repetition is considered as a trait of boredom; but the longer one lives, the more one recognizes that there is truly little new under the sun, and the apparent newness of X is merely a regurgitation of the old Y of yore.   But repetition does have its own uniqueness of value, and inherent strength of significance.  For, often, a person who turns the same corner as thousands, and tens of thousands before, may be encountering the next block for the first time, and what those before him or her did has little to no significance to the epistemologically privileged experience for that singularity of uniqueness.

Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who experience a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s job, the knowledge that many, many Federal and Postal employees before were able to file for, and get approved, Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, so long as one is under either FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the comfort of which one may partake rests in the fact that one is not alone; yet, it is not purely a “repetition” of sameness but a genus of similarity; for, as each medical condition and every circumstance reveals a uniqueness which must be dealt with individually, so each Federal Disability Retirement case must be handled with care.

At the same time, however, it is of value to recognize that repetition of relevant laws, statutes and regulations, cited in the ordinary course of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, is necessary for success in obtaining the benefit.

From the standpoint of OPM, the fatigue of profundity comes in failing to view a particular case with “new eyes”; from the viewpoint of the Federal or Postal worker who is filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits for the first time, it is the inability to recognize the requirement of repetition which often results in an ineffectual formulation of one’s case.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Beyond Forms

Providing evidence and proving your case

Some of Plato’s works elucidate concerns which belie clarity of thought, where conceptual confusions become enmeshed with absurd abstractions and unnecessary complications beyond the parameters of linguistic capacity to provide technical comprehension; in a word, he was complicating matters.

The Republic embraced a bold insight into human nature and the political apparatus of power; some of his later works provide fodder for those who allege esotericism; for, even Aristotle quipped with ironic sarcasm the plenitude of conceptual confusions inherent in the system of Forms having an “objective” reality apart from the physical universe.  But even today, we must contend with forms — forms in the form of bureaucratic mandates.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who finds themselves in a state of necessity because of a medical condition, following the requirements of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is something which must be embraced.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement is not simply a matter of filling out forms, however; it is the combination of gathering sufficient evidence such that it meets the burden of proof; of coordinating the evidence with formulating persuasive argumentation such that the law supports the evidence compiled; then, to present the whole as a coherent pathway to a successful outcome — an approval of one’s Disability Retirement claim issued by OPM.

Just as within the dusty notebooks of Plato’s lectures, the linguistic concepts of Forms can be confused with the physical manifestation of appearances within the perceived world, so the Federal and Postal employee can become confounded and confused by the modern day requirement of forms within the Leviathan of a bureaucracy; but all forms required, whether the SF 2801 series for CSRS employees, the SF 3107 forms for FERS employees, and the SF 3112 series for both CSRS and FERS employees — all merely constitute the minimal requirements.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is not merely a matter of forms; it must go beyond such standard forms; and as Plato’s Republic is not merely a form of government, but a blueprint for the elite to take power, so the proper preparation and presentation on OPM’s Disability Retirement forms must follow the dictates of totalitarianism, lest one is left in the shadows of that proverbial Cave in the allegory of appearances.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire