Federal Disability Retirement Process under FERS: Silent Despair

Despair is bad enough; silent despair, her cousin to avoid.

Sometimes, sharing the trouble, “talking it out” with someone else, complaining to a spouse or friend, or even just venting — helps to expiate the cumulative stresses which grow relentlessly within the body and mind of the individual.  Perhaps that is what social media is ultimately all about — an outlet for expression, however imperfect, which satisfies a very basic human need.  For, silent despair is that desolation of one’s spirit which has no avenue leading to human contact, and that is the worst type of despair.

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, talk to a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer about whether or not Federal Disability Retirement benefits is an avenue for your despair.

Silent despair never leads to a solution; speaking with an expert in the field of Federal Disability Retirement Law, at the very least, allows for you to consider options which you may not have previously considered.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: The Cadence of Life

We all “have” one, or at least sense it; and when we do not, it means that the tune to which we march is so coordinated that we don’t even realize that there is one; for, it is only when the song is “out of tune” or the marching footsteps are out of sync that it becomes apparent that the cadence of life is left askew.

There are days when the cadence of life is so perfectly attuned that we need not pause to consider it; then, there are other days when everything is out of tune — when the feet trip over one another, the dexterity of hands become all thumbs and nothing seems to work and the cadence of life has been disrupted.  Most days are somewhere in between upon the spectrum of daily living — of being in tune most of the time but with disruptions and pauses; “pregnant pauses”, at that, which make for embarrassment and disjointed agonies of trepidation and concern.

We say things like, “I feel out-of-sorts” or perhaps a slight cold or “bug” has infected us; but whatever the cause, we know that we must get back into the step of things and march along with the rest of the crowd, lest the band leave us and the quietude of isolation engulfs us with a fear of loneliness.

Medical conditions — whether of illness or injury — can likewise disrupt the cadence of life, and 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, filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits — to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — is one step towards regaining that step to bring yourself in cadence with the cadence of life once lost, and now to be found.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Structure and Content

The former provides the form; the latter, the character of the entity.  It is the duality in combination which creates the ability to identify the particular being in an Aristotelian manner — as opposed to the more generalized definition of “Being”.  Without the largest organ of the human body — one’s skin — the “content” of that which separably identifies one individual from another would be lost, and we would all be mere aggregations of various organs not necessarily organized in any coherent way.

Similarly, in any presentation of a written form, it is important to plan the structure and content such that the former allows for coherence and ease of understanding while the latter compels the force of persuasion to impact upon the reader.

In preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS, it is important to provide both structure and content in order to enhance the chances for an approval at any stage of the process.  For, the Federal or Postal applicant who is preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, one must first recognize that such an application is a “paper presentation” to OPM, and thus does structure and content both matter.

To merely focus upon “content” — i.e., medical records; the words in the Statement of Disability (SF 3112A) is to overlook the persuasive nature of the structure of the application itself.  Conversely, to concentrate too heavily upon the structure of the FERS Disability Retirement application — the forms to be filed; the “checklist” of necessary and required paperwork — is to underestimate the power of content.

The two must be formed [sic] in tandem; and a persuasive and powerful legal memorandum that provides both a roadmap as well as content-filled legal citations is a “must” in every FERS Disability Retirement application, and this should be formulated and prepared by an experienced Federal Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in, and is fully knowledgeable of, Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Lawyer

   

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: Happiness revisited

What is it that makes people happy?  Is it constituted by generic categories (like “wealth”, “fame”, “friendships”, “popularity”, etc.), or is it specific to each individual (i.e., for Joe, it is to have sufficient time daily to become lost in reading; for Alice, the opportunity to go out with friends at least once a week; for Mary and Steve, to be in one another’s company, etc.) such that, while specific conditions can be described as the prerequisite for individual happiness, they can nonetheless be categorized into more generic forms while never losing the unique content of that which constitutes the essential ingredients for such individual happiness?

If generically-based, can it be “bottled” — i.e., advertised and sold?  Isn’t that what much of commercial advertising is all about — not the product itself, although that is the ultimate goal, but of the underlying message that by means of the product, the end will result in happiness?

Thus, teeth whiteners and dental conglomerates don’t just sell straightened teeth or gleaming smiles; rather, they sell happiness.  Otherwise, why else would everyone be smiling stupidly and pretending (for that is what actors and actresses do) that they are ecstatic in their roles?  And car insurance, life insurance, reverse mortgages and financial institutions — what are they selling but happiness through security and a sense of peace?

More importantly, should happiness ever be a goal, or is it best to allow it to remain as a byproduct and a natural consequence of a worthy life’s endeavors?

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, the issue of one’s happiness is always present in stark contrast to the current human condition of deteriorating health: for, misery is the flip-side of happiness, and to that old standardized testing torture we all had to undergo as school children, happiness is to health as misery is to ___?  What would be the appropriate word used to fill in the blank?  Ill-health?  Sickness?

When one’s health deteriorates, the priorities of life suddenly come into sharper focus, for health is the foundation from which all else flows. Happiness, one begins to realize, cannot be the center and foundation; it is, instead, a byproduct of good health, solid relationships and productive careers, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement is a means to an end, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Thus, for the Federal or Postal employee who begins to 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, serious consideration should be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, to be submitted, reviewed by and approved by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Claims: The race that wasn’t

Does it often seem as if one is in the middle of the race, but that all of the rules have been abandoned by all other participants except the one that keeps struggling — you?

The term itself has had a long history of proverbial applications and overused metaphorical usages — of the “race” against time; the “race of life”; of marathon runners, sprinters and the various specialists in the metered world of measured distances.  It is the race that wasn’t that is the one forgotten, however; of the false starts, the disqualifications, the one’s discovered to have used illegal steroids, and the villains who cut across back trails when no one was looking in order to save an extra couple of miles from being detected.

Most races are unfair; they are stacked against one from the very beginning, and the end result is almost always predetermined in one fashion or another.  Is a race that is predetermined as to the outcome of individuals to reach the finish line, truly a race at all?  Do any of us ever enter a “race”, actual, metaphorical or otherwise, and say: Well, I know I am not going to win because the rules won’t allow it, but I am going to run, anyway?

Of course, one may not have a choice in the matter; and, in that case, when the whistle is blown, the flag is brought down or the blank round of the gunshot is fired, one begins to trudge along and try one’s best.  That is how one feels when a medical condition begins to creep upon a person’s health — of the slow, insidious deterioration, where the generality of “life’s unfairness” begins to dawn upon the consciousness of one’s livelihood.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent, impede, interrupt or otherwise diminish the ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it may be time to reconsider the “rules of the race”, as the metaphor is often applied, and begin to 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.

As with all government bureaucracies, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management applies the “rules of the race”, and in order to qualify for the race that wasn’t, you will likely need to consult an attorney who knows all of the relevant rules of the race, including the start time, the length of the process, and what needs to be done in order to reach the finish line.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Persuasion

What does it mean to “persuade”?  Is it an outcome-based event?  Can one be “persuasive”, yet never persuade anyone to act upon a commitment made, perhaps verbally or with a nod of the head?  What of a person who everyone agrees makes the most persuasive arguments, turns everyone’s heads with accolades of “wow” and “boy!”, yet no one can find a single person who has been persuaded to change one’s mind or follow?

How about in battle – of that skinny little runt of a captain who nervously spoke, but who charged the troops up with great words and ideas and said, “Let’s go!”  But no one really was convinced to follow him because of his diminutive appearance and lack-of-self-confidence demeanor.  Contrast that to the big, hulking leader who never spoke much but, when he said something, people believed and followed him to the death – it wasn’t words that persuaded, but his very air of reliance, dependability and self-assurance of being right.

Thus, does “being persuasive” always have to do with logical thought processes, relationships between words, ideas and the reality of being – or, can it also include one’s tonality of voice, air of confidence and seeming self-righteousness?  Can one be persuaded by fear alone, or must there be a conceptual connection – a “belief” in something – that must accompany in order to be validly persuaded?

Can an army that is comprised of a loose connection of mercenaries persuaded only by money, looting potential and promises of riches be as fearsome (or more so) than one that believes in a “cause”, is rooted in discipline and love of country?  At what point does persuasion even come into play?  In other words, can a person be completely unpersuaded throughout the course of an argument, say, and then at the very end declare, “Okay, I’m convinced”, when no part of the final five minutes of the argument contained any basis for such a change of mind?  Is “being persuaded” merely a logical connection of rational argumentation, or is there some emotional element mixed therein?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering 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 question of persuasion is an important one.

First, the Federal and Postal employee must be persuaded that filing for Federal Disability Retirement is a necessary next step.  Then, doctors must be persuaded to be supportive.  Further, legal and medical documentation must be provided which must contain persuasive evidence.  And finally, the evidence submitted must be compelling enough to persuade the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Thus, whether fully logical, or containing some elements of the emotional, persuasion is an essential component of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The intransigent excuse

Much of life is spent in retrospectively justifying actions; the remainder of the time, of making excuses where we can, and when we need to (which is often).  The great thing about excuses is that the reserve of them can never be depleted; like the never-exhaustive stars in the universe, we can always discover, make up, or otherwise concoct another.  Thus, to counter that a person has “run out of excuses” is to defy reality; we can always, if the need requires, go back to one that we long ago abandoned, and stick to it.

It is that intransigent excuse that tends to defy – the one that, though unreasonable by most accounts, nevertheless provides a shield of protection for the one who clings to it.  For, the one who tightly embraces an intransigent excuse never, of course, considers it as such; it is, instead, the fault that rests upon the rest of the world in a conspiracy of illogical motives that attempts to change course and offer alternatives as to facts, opinions or best avenues for future courses of action.

As to the one clinging to such excuses, it is never characterized as such.  No, instead it is an explanation in light of reasonable circumstances; a logical conclusion based upon facts as interpreted; and, even if the rest of the universe fails to comprehend the logic of the stated foundation, the intransigent excuse is the last bastion of the proverbial wall that may force us to do, acknowledge and admit to that which we vehemently resist.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are in need of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the primary concern is to get beyond an intransigent excuse.  While there are very few circumstances in which filing for Federal Disability Retirement is “too late” (other than the obvious one, of course, of complying with the Statue of Limitations of filing within 1 year of being separated from Federal Service), the key is to file before it becomes an emergency.

As OPM has a large backlog of cases and they are taking longer and longer to review, evaluate and make decisions on a case – leaving aside the problem of even first having them to assign a case to a reviewer/ administrative specialist – there must needs be some forward planning and foresight of future-oriented perspectives, and it is often the intransigent excuse which defies, builds a wall against, and creates seemingly insurmountable obstacles in moving forward.

Life is full of obstacles, and the ones we build ourselves are often the most difficult to overcome.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is a big decision to make; thought, preparation and formulation of a plan is often necessary.  Just do not allow for the intransigent excuse to be the wall that prevents the reasonable approach to prevail.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Avoiding the repetitive in a narrative

Why do we believe that adding the repetition of words, especially adverbs, will create a compelling narrative?  If you ascribe an adjective to an object, then ad an adverb – say, “very” – does repeating and inserting another magnify the significance of the narrative itself, or detract by placing a grammatical marker by bringing attention that the very necessity of the addition undermines the efficacy of the noun to which all of the additions point to, in the first place?  May not the noun itself stand on its own two feet, so to speak; or, at least with the supportive crutches of an adjective?

If a person posits that things are “very bad”, does the person responding who adds, “No, things are very, very bad” contribute to the discourse in that singular addition?  And what of the third in the discussion, who says, “Yes, I must agree, things are very, very, very bad”?  And what if a fourth person – unassuming and generally unemotional, who puts a sense of finality to the entire conversation by declaring:  “No, you are all right.  Things are bad.”  Did the last statement without the adverb and the repetition of additional tautological ringers, say anything less in the utterance, and conversely, did the third contributor add anything more to the discourse?

Often enough in life, that which we believe we are enhancing, we are merely detracting from in the very repetition of discourse.  It is like a signal or a marker; the red flag that arises suspicion is sometimes waved through the unintentional attempt to bring about attention through repetitive enhancement, and it is often the noun with the singular adjective that evinces the quietude of force in grammatical parlay.  Pain, anguish and medical conditions often seek to descriptively reveal through unnecessary repetition.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who is working on preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted through one’s own agency or the H.R. Shared Services Center (for Postal employees) in Greensboro, N.C. (if the Federal or Postal employee is still with the Federal Agency, or not yet separated for more than 31 days), preparing adequate and sufficient responses on SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, must be embraced with care, fortitude, forthrightness and deliberation of factual, medical, legal and personal weaving of a compelling narrative.

Inclusion of too many adverbs may be a distraction; meanderings of thought and unnecessary information will undermine the entirety of the construct; and while the linguistic tool of repetition can be effective and compelling, too much of a “good thing” may undermine the singularity of a narrative’s natural soul.

In the end, the Statement of Disability prepared by a Federal or Postal Disability Retirement applicant should be a compelling narrative delineating a discourse of bridging the nexus between medical condition and one’s positional duties.  It should be descriptive.  It should be very descriptive.  It should be very, very descriptive.  It should also include the descriptive, the legal and the personal, just not very, very, very so.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Natural empathy

Is there such a thing, or do we just fake it even when we do not naturally “feel” it?  If the official, technical definition fails to make the distinction between “feeling” and “understanding”, does it not discount the differentiation of the traditional bifurcation – that of rational capacity as opposed to part of one’s emotional quotient?

Further, if it is merely an emotion, do some have a greater capacity because of a genetic predisposition, while others at a minimal level acquired through accident of birth, and thus can one be held responsible for merely being who we are?  On the other hand, if it has a closer affinity to an “understanding” one possesses, then can it not be cultivated and enhanced, and therefore within the purview of an educational system that includes “empathy instruction”?

How would one “teach” empathy?  Would you present slide shows of unfortunate events, and by instructional imprinting, have the teacher or headmaster unravel with emotional turmoil and manifest tears of sorrow, and hope that the students will by some mysterious osmosis embrace that capacity to experience such travails “as if” one were in the other’s shoes?  And, what do we mean when we attribute empathy as a “natural” course of human characteristic – is it counterintuitive to the distinction made of its opposite, of an “artificial” construct?

In Darwinian parlance, of course, there is little room for Natural empathy – the weak merely dilute the sacrosanct genetic pool of the strong and those fit to survive, and time wasted in trying to protect the weak or to understand those less fortunate will only succumb to the inevitable devouring by prey otherwise in waiting.

In the “civilization” of the human animal, there are certainly historical instances of unexplainable natural empathy, but whether there was always even therein a hidden agenda, a personal motivation, or a self-centered glint of purpose, we shall never know.  The naïve will posit that natural empathy is central to the human character; the cynic, that it is neither natural nor a tendency discovered in any species known, but just another societal construct forced upon the strong as part of the social contract to defend the weak.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the health condition has resulted in testing the natural empathy of coworkers, supervisors and managers at the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, there may well be a division and diversity of opinions on the matter.

Whether natural or artificial, unfortunate events do indeed test the capacity of human character, and when the Federal or Postal employee prepares a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the uncaring and impervious attitudes of those encountered along the long and arduous process in attempting to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits, can indeed test the attitudes of a generation yet to experience the cruelty of an otherwise imperfect universe.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire