FERS Disability Retirement Law: Philosophy Gone Awry

Philosophy was always about asking universal questions.  What is the meaning of life?  What is truth?  What is Being?  Does God exist?  Are there eternal principles of moral import?

Philosophy self-imploded when it exhaustively asked such principled questions, failed to answer them, then questioned itself for failing to arrive at conclusive answers.  But the questions left unanswered were never meant to present an unfinished query.  Universality in the question itself did not mean that universality in the answer would ever be achieved.

The questions were to be answered for the individual; the universality of the question was merely meant to indicate a wider sense of applicability — not to fit every circumstance, everywhere, for everybody.

Philosophy took a wrong turn when Wittgenstein mistook the need for relevance greater than for the individual.  To that extent, he was correct to abandon philosophy in his early days and instead to become a primary school teacher in a small town in Austria — Trattenbach — for, the experience of daily drudgery, ending finally in striking a poor student for not being able to answer a question posed, then lying about it.

A logician who cannot abide that a conclusion reached in the particular can follow from a premise of a universal, philosophy had gone awry when the answer became more important than the question.  In the end, not all questions need to be answered; for, some questions are important merely in the questioning itself.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need answers to questions concerning the particulars in a Federal Disability Retirement application, you need not worry about the ‘universals’ concerning OPM Disability Retirement Law — for, it is the ‘particulars” of case laws, decisions from the MSPB and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals of precedents already established, which become the “arguing” points in putting forth your application.

Let philosophy die, as Richard Rorty used to say, its quiet death, but let Disability Retirement Law be argued by those who are competent to do so.  Contact an attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, and do not concern yourself with Philosophy gone awry.

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: Joy

It is the cousin of happiness, the nephew of contentment; or, the shadow to a smile and a residue of pleasure.  Joy is what we are supposed to experience, as evidenced by the seasons of Christmas and the New Year.  The smile which is forced; the laughter that sounds hollow; the caricature of the Norman Rockwell painting — and by contrast, the life which most of us live and encounter.

Much of life is a struggle, strangling the pop-up moments where joy might peek around the corner.  It is a wonder that most people don’t all become Buddhists, and will themselves to believe that the world around them is merely an illusion, given the sadness which prevails in most lives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a chronic and increasingly, progressively debilitating medical condition, “joy” is often the last cousin to enter the household.

Contact an OPM Attorney to discuss the possibility of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, especially where joy is no longer the nephew to embrace because he has already left for other, happier circumstances.

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.

 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Disability Retirement: The Agony of Purgatory

Of course, it is only strictly applicable in Roman Catholic doctrine, as the Protestant set rejects the existence of such a concept.  Whether one accepts such a precept or not, one must be forced to acknowledge the creativity of it.

It is like a fairytale story of a son who loves his parents who are atheists and, upon their death, comes up with the following idea based upon logic: God is good; my parents, despite being non-believers, were essentially good people.  God would not punish good people.  Therefore, there must by logical necessity be a place where good people can have a chance to expiate their “sins”, and that place is deemed “Purgatory”.  It makes sense.

The Agony of Purgatory, of course, is that you are stuck in a middle kingdom. — like quicksand or the fear we all had as children when we went into a department store or a hotel where there was a revolving door — you know, the ones with small, V-shaped sections that you had to quickly squeeze into, and where you feared your older brother or sister would jam it at the precise moment, and you would be stuck while everyone watched you, laughing uproariously at being caught in purgatory.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where you can no longer perform all of the essential elements of your job, you understand and feel the Agony of Purgatory.  The medical condition has you stuck; your Agency is contemplating letting you go or doing something to get rid of you; and you don’t quite know what to do to expiate those “sins” you have allegedly committed.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider getting yourself out of the Agony of Purgatory, whether you believe in Roman Catholic doctrine or not, and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Anticipation

It is an exceptional inkling; a necessary premonition so helpful in multiple ways; an instinct based upon — what?  How do we anticipate?  What is it based upon?  Is it merely a characteristic which some have and others are at a disadvantage because of the lack thereof?

How is a tennis champion able to anticipate the moves of his or her opponent?  Or a football team, the plays next to be called (excepting those who have been found to cheat); a baseball team able to anticipate the pitcher’s next type of pitch (again, excepting those who have stolen the catcher’s signals given)?

Or, in a Federal Disability Retirement case, how does one anticipate the arguments which will be made by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and preemptively answer them with greater efficacy?

It all comes down to: Preparation.  The better tennis player watches countless hours of his or her opponent’s prior moves; the football and baseball teams study films of their opponents; the lawyer who wins against OPM takes the experience of all prior cases and preemptively argues the case on behalf of his client.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of anticipation in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement case.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Medical Retirement: Stupid Mistakes

Of course, one can argue that all mistakes, by their very definition, are “stupid”; but, of course, that would then make the entire concept differentiating between “mistakes” and “stupid mistakes” disappear, as the distinction between the bifurcated differences becomes one and the same.

It is a difficult concept to define; yet, we know when we or others have made them.  When we make them, we slap our forehead and say, “Duh!”  When another person makes one, we try to put a gentle cover over it — if we care at all for the person; if it was made by a child; when we know that the other person is “sensitive” to criticism, etc. — and try and say things like, “Oh, it’s okay, anyone could have made that mistake”.  On the other hand, when it is made by someone whom we dislike, is arrogant or condescending (or all three), we get the joy of “rubbing it in” and say offhand things like, “Boy, not even stupid ol’ me would have made a mistake like that!”

“Stupid” mistakes are distinct from “common” errors; the former is made without thought, while the latter is often made with thought, but without knowing the inherent consequences contained.

For Federal employees and U.S Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and where the medical condition may require the Federal or Postal employee to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, one wants to — if at all possible — avoid not only the “common” mistakes, but the “stupid” ones, as well.  Mistakes happen; we all make them; but the one mistake that cannot be corrected once a Federal Disability Retirement application is filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the one where “blinders” are placed upon OPM once OPM sees something.

It is thus important to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the “common” mistake turns out to be a “stupid” mistake that cannot be corrected.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: The story

Everyone has one; some, more interesting than others; others, less interesting than most; most, told in disjointed streams of subconscious dilemmas often coopted by deceitful tellings that leave amiss the juicier elements that would otherwise offend.

Is there “the” story, or just many little details comprised of “a” story here, a story there, and in the aggregate, it makes up the total picture of a person?  Can one ever know a person in his or her fullness, or must there always be left out an element of surprise, mystery and a deficiency otherwise not noted?  Can people be married for 50 years and still be surprised by something in the other spouse’s past?

How are memories triggered to begin with — say, for example, a couple has been married for half a century or more, and one night they get a carry-out from a newly-opened restaurant in their neighborhood that serves a special Moroccan dish from the menu, because the restaurant owner’s wife’s late husband’s third cousin twice removed recently visited the country and brought over a recipe that could not be resisted.

The two older couple (yes, you may infer from the fact that they have been married for over a half-century to connote that the couple are rather elderly) sit down for this delectable dish, and as they begin serving the various food items and transferring them from the paper boxes onto dinner plates, the wife takes in the aroma of the vegetables, cooked in a certain sauce, and declares to her husband, “Oh, this reminds me, I was in Morocco when I was younger.”

Now — for fifty some odd years, this couple has been married; they have had children; they have shared the many stories to tell, both included and some where each experienced a slice of life separately; and one would think that such a detail as having been to a foreign country which not many Americans visit in the first place, would be something that was told during the course of their long and lasting relationship.

What would be the explanation for not having told?  How about: “Yes, I was kidnapped and held for ransom for months, and I repressed the memories these many years”; or, “Oh, I was just 2 or 3 and don’t really remember much about it, other than my parents dragging me to Morocco just to get away”.

Such explanations might be understandable; but how about the following: “Yes, I was there for 5 years, from about the age of 10 – 15, and it was the most impactful experience of my life.”  Now, this last explanation — one would wonder, of course, what kind of a marriage this elderly couple could have had if the spouse had never related the most “impactful” period of her life, would one not?

“The Story” of one’s life will always contain some omissions (that is a conundrum and an oxymoron, is it not — to “contain” and “omit” at the same time?) about various experiences encountered, but that is a natural course in the very “telling” of one’s narrative.  Most narratives have a beginning and an end; some are interesting, others not; but in the telling, the narrative itself must be coherent and comprehensible, as well as containing relevance and significance within the meat of the narrative 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 performing one or more of the essential elements of ones’ Federal or Postal job, it may become necessary to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

During such an administrative process, it is necessary to “tell one’s story” by completing SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability.  It is a “slice of life” story, and should be as compelling as the aroma that triggered the admission of one’s Moroccan past — for, every story is a unique one; it is in the telling that brings out the mystery of a person’s singular tale of painful experiences, and this is one more slice that needs a coherence within a narrative required in order to obtain a Federal Disability Retirement benefit.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Tone and tenor

In music as well as in grammar, the first word remains somewhat constant, in that it refers to the sound itself – how it sounds, the decibel level, the texture and coherence, etc.  Between the two, it is the tenor that alters, for in music, it refers to the male voice intermediate between the bass and the alto, while in grammar it is the content and substance of that which is said.

Thus, in either manner of usage, whether in music or in grammar, the combination of both is a bifurcated distinctiveness that goes to the duality of the following:  How it is being played or said, as opposed to what is being emitted or posited.  Both in verbal communication, as well as in written delineation and presentation, each are important.  In the former, one can often modulate the first upon the second, and even adapt the second in order to “soften” the first.

Thus, a person might say, “Go take a hike” in an angry, unforgiving manner, and the words spoken are consistent with the tone granted.  Or, one can say it in a joking, soft-spoken manner, and suddenly the tenor of the words take on an entirely new meaning – for, no longer do you actually mean the words themselves, as in “Please go away, I don’t like you and I don’t want to see you”; rather, stated in the second manner, it can simply be a cute retort, a friendly quip or a joking gesture.

In writing, however, one must be quite careful – for the tone of a sentence is encapsulated within the tenor of the written statement; the two, being entangled by the written mode of communicating, can easily be misinterpreted unless carefully crafted.  That is why texting, emailing and other written modes of delivery can be dangerous vehicles easily misunderstood and taken with offensive intent that otherwise was meant in a different manner.

The “tone” of a written sentence, paragraph or page must be intimately woven with the context of the “tenor” presented; and how the reader or recipient reads it, what internal “tone” is ascribed, can be misguiding.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who must prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the tone and tenor of a Federal Disability Retirement packet is important to consider.

Will a somewhat “third-person, objective” persona be assumed?  Will the SF 3112A, the Applicant’s Statement of Disability, be presented in a cold, clinical manner, where the tone is set “as if” someone else is describing the personal issues of the medical conditions, as well as their effect upon the Federal or Postal employee’s capacity and ability to perform the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, or will it be more likened to a weeping bundle of hysterical cries begging for approval, or even closer to an angry shout that deafens the ears of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management’s assigned “specialist”?

Tone and tenor need to be decided upon early on in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, and it may well be that consulting with an attorney who specializes in preparing such applications will ensure the proper modulation in both the tone and tenor of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Annuity after a Disability in the Federal Workplace: Formulaic writings

It is both of predictability and boredom that we seek when enjoying such genres of form and content – of the “formula” in a who-dunit, or a love story that brings together two unlikely individuals in their awkwardness and geekiness, but somehow overcomes the considerable odds and obstacles placed in their way (and we don’t ask, in a 2-hours snippet, how can so much happen to two people when not even a smidgeon of such events were faced in our entire lifetimes?) and ending with an orchestral crescendo that brings tears that raises handkerchiefs throughout the audience, which we all quickly stuff into our back pockets with embarrassing quickness when the lights are turned on.

But that formulas could be applied to real life, and not just in presentations that appear slick, without error and marketed with such efficiency that we think it is just that the “other person” is naturally good at it, and we are not.  But that’s the point, isn’t it?  Formulaic writings, formulaic plays, formulaic movies, formulaic – lives?

Perhaps it exists in the fictional world of fairytales and corporate pathways where certain individuals – whether because of the family name, the tradition of old wealth, or those “connections” that the inner circle depends upon for their very survival – are groomed towards reaching the top in some predetermined formulaic manner.  But for the rest of us, our lives are more likened to the undisciplined ocean where storms come at unexpected and unpredictable moments; strong surges and wind currents destroy that which we have so carefully built; and our ship’s rudder suddenly fails to guide or lead us towards our intended destinations.

There is no formula.  We are left without a map, less a compass, and more and more without the guidance of our parents or grandparents because, they, too, have become as clueless as the rest of society.

And for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suddenly find that a medical condition has interrupted their career goals, hope for the future and dreams of security – preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may become a necessity.

Then, when one researches and looks at SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, one realizes that the questions posed are the same posed to everyone who files – and so the information requested is based upon some “formulaic” approach from the agency’s side of things; but what about the individual Federal or Postal employee’s side of it?  Is there, also, a “formulaic” approach to winning a Federal Disability Retirement case?

Like everything else in life, it always seems as if the slick advantage that the large bureaucracy possesses is overwhelmingly in favor of going against the Federal or Postal employee.  However, there is, indeed, a “formulaic” response – and that is the “laws” that govern Federal Disability Retirement.

Life in general may not always have a winning formulaic approach, but in preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is best to at least garner the formulaic support of the laws that protect and preserve.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Government Disability Retirement: The Best of Mediocrity

There is an overriding principle that, where excellence is sought, higher expectations are exceeded.  Acceptance of a given human condition and resignation to that which is less than the best, is to embrace the heart of banality and to reject that august status reserved for the human species, of being above the animals and just below the angels.

There is a syndrome for that; of thinking and believing that one’s situation is all that one can hope for, and this resignation to life’s circumstances occurs when mediocrity becomes the meddlesome cousin to dashed hopes and dreams, and when the toxicity of one’s surrounding environment will not widen the narrow imaginations once the muddle of the middle prevails upon human potentiality.

It is like the parental fight which tumbles unchecked into an ugly shouting match of epithets and unbridled accusations of meanness and vicious ferocity, flung at each other out of frustration and fatigue, and then the realization that the children are watching, ever so observant, and you ask, Who are the grownups in this morass?  Where did the emperor’s clothes go?  What happens to a couple when there are no longer control mechanisms and neighbor’s noses to sniff the air for scandal, and when destruction of stability is accepted, any and all sense of obligations are thrown out the proverbial window, and the visiting aunt is no longer there to lend a critical eye, but instead has been shuttled to a nursing home where decay, death and dementia of purposeless existence remains in the antiseptic stench of lifelines and plastic tubes draining the life out of a society’s level of excellence?  We accept our “station in life” when hope is vanishing in the degeneration of societal decay.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who sense this morass of loss, especially when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties and there comes a recognition that one must prepare, formulate and file 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 time to shed tears for the loss of mediocrity comes when affirmative steps are taken to recognize that there can be something “more” than merely the best of mediocrity.

Never think that filing for and obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is merely to accept “less”; rather, it is a recognition that there is an inconsistency between the medical condition one suffers from, and the limited positional duties of the Federal or Postal job for which one is positioned.  There can be further opportunities for work and vocational advancement in another job in the private sector, while still retaining one’s Federal OPM Disability Retirement annuity (as long as the type of job one chooses to engage in is somewhat substantively distinguishable, and if one remains within the “80% rule” of earned income).

The best of mediocrity is to accept the loss of one’s Federal job or Postal work, and to not see that the proverbial corner one cannot yet view, is but road yet untaken, an opportunity unseen, and a future to behold as the golden dust of an angel’s flight may yet sprinkle upon elevating the best of mediocrity into a stratosphere of excellence, beginning with preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The idealist, the skeptic and the cynic

The idealist possesses the dreams of hope and promise; the skeptic, the singe of hurt enough to dampen the spirit; and the cynic, well, he is the grumpy old man who has seen it all, been battered about by the reality of experiential confrontations where tales make the sweat pour from salted wounds too hurtful for words to embrace.

Do they represent a tripartite spectrum of thoughts, feelings and motives, or merely unconnected differences demarcated by time, encounters and length of procrastinated envy?  Do we all begin with the zeal of idealism, pass through the comfort of skepticism, then end up bedridden in the cocoon of cynicism?  Does generational wisdom conveyed by the old to youth ever pause the bursting bubble of naive relish, where mistakes foreseen and palpably avoidable allow for the wounds of time to be delayed, such that skepticism never enters into the unwelcome gates of a soul’s purity?  Or, does destruction of the essence of a person necessarily result in a society where generational transfer of wisdom is scoffed at, and youth and its folly is celebrated merely because beauty is defined by age, sound judgment by pharmaceutical ingestion, and where mistakes made are linguistically altered by clever euphemisms which extinguish not the pain of experiential confrontation, but the narrative which meekly follows?

Whether as inevitable stages of growth and decay, or dots on a graph of spectral divergence, either and all are extremes which reflect the stage of life, experience and historical context which an individual has encountered.  For the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker whose calloused soul has already been deadened by time and degree of harassment, the additional burden of a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one, if not more than one, of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, the time may have come to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, once the Federal or Postal employee reaches the minimum years of eligibility criteria, the proof by a preponderance of the evidence must be shown.

For such a Federal or Postal employee, it matters not whether life has yet to dampen one’s idealism; nor that experiential harassment in the workplace has failed to turn one into a skeptic; or if cynicism has already prevailed, all the more reason to file for OPM Disability Retirement before the pain of the medical condition consumes to the extent that life’s despondency has already wrought.  In the end, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is a necessity because of life’s encounters, and no man or woman can escape the scars of time, truth of weariness of soul, where the idealist lives on in the forgotten youth of our memories, the skeptic in the hardening callouses of our experience, and cynicism in the dying disregard of one’s mournful essence in losing the sensation of one’s inner being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire