OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: The Extracted Tooth

It must be a difficult profession.  Every analogy from time immemorial has always compared negative experiences with the process of extracting a tooth; or, of having a root canal, drilling away a cavity, etc.  There have been, in recent times, advertisements from various dental groups attempting to change its image and reputation — that the dental procedure has attained great advancements in technological approaches and, as a result, the “dental experience” is now a pleasant, almost welcoming encounter.

But do we believe it?  After being told by everyone else, in every profession and by all conceivable marketing techniques and approaches that there no longer exists any negative consequences for anything we buy or obtain, can we be fools enough to actually believe that the “dental experience” is now a pleasant one?

Anyone and everyone who has ever experienced a tooth ache knows that the extracted tooth is an experience to avoid, and were it not for the severe pain leading to its necessity, the dental chair is still one to avoid.  The analogies are replete: every negative metaphor and analogy is likened to it.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, the analogy is probably somewhat applicable here as well: Dealing with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in trying to get a FERS Disability application approved is like the extracted tooth.  It is not a pleasant experience, no matter how you might want to characterize it.

Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and allow for an experienced lawyer in the speciality of Federal Disability Retirement Law to take your place in that dental chair where the extracted tooth is yanked and experienced.

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 Law: Perfection’s Harm

It has been stated by many, that one should never let perfection be the enemy of the good; in other words, one can always delay and delay, arguing that whatever the project being attended to, the goal aimed for, it is simply not good enough because it is not perfect.

Can imperfect beings ever achieve perfection?  Or, is perfection merely the justification for procrastination, knowing that the goal which never can be attained will forever remain as a potentiality steeped in the angst of our own imperfections?

“Good enough”, of course, is a relative standard which all perfectionists are uncomfortable with; for, an employer who accepts such a standard is in danger of relinquishing high standards replaced by an ad hoc, mediocre acceptance of “less than” — which is never a paradigm one attempts to aspire to.  But perfection’s harm is of eternal procrastination; for, we can always find a reason why something is not “good enough”, without ever asking the natural follow-up question: Good enough for what?

In the abstract, “perfection” is an admirable goal to achieve, for it involves a standard envisioned by the visionary few; but in the practical world, perfection’s harm is the aspiration of a would-be god, an idol of idiocy, an apex of folly.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition continues to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the procrastination resulting from perfection’s harm is that the Federal employee believes that his or her medical condition will miraculously resolve itself, and allow for continuation in the Federal or Postal job.  But that is perfection’s lair — of tomorrow, or the next day.

Contact a Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider perfection’s harm — of the impracticality of which you already know, precisely because the medical condition itself has already established and revealed that man’s life on earth is one of perpetual imperfection.

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 Disjunctive

In classical logic, the disjunctive can be posed in syllogistic form: Either A or B but not both; Not A; Therefore, B.  Jack lives in either Apartment A or in Apartment B, but not in both.  He does not live in Apartment A.  Therefore, Jack lives in Apartment B.

It is, in many ways, a crossroads, where the proverbial fork-in-the-road requires a decision.  What the disjunctive syllogism does not do, of course, is to take in the third option — of doing nothing; of not moving from decision-making to action; in which case, that third option often results in paralysis, further deterioration and consuming negation.

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, inertia at the crossroads of one’s career can result in the devastation of further ruination: Being placed on a Performance Improvement Plan; further deterioration of one’s own health; Termination from Federal Service.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS is option B.  Option A is to remain at the job at the cost of one’s health, and that is certainly no option at all.  And option C?  To resign and walk away with nothing after all of that vested time with the Federal Government?  That, too, is not really a viable option.

Contact a disability lawyer to discuss the further particulars of your case, and consider the syllogistic value of the disjunctive.

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.

 

Federal & Postal Worker Disability Retirement: Myths, Idioms and Old Proverbs

They exist for a reason; of a story and narrative of a people’s existence; of meaning derived from experience; of a truth handed down from generation to generation.  We may dismiss them because of their age and applicability; for, in modernity and in each successive generation, people tend to think that past generations know nothing, and that it is only the present brilliance of youth who have experienced life.

Yet, myths, idioms and old proverbs continue to remain true, and for those who believe that history is merely a regurgitation of things which have happened before, it is wise to heed and listen.

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, believing in myths, idioms and old proverbs can cut both ways.  For example: The myth of the invincibility of the ferocious dragon — the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — can be dispelled by hiring an OPM attorney who has been overwhelmingly successful in winning OPM Federal Disability Retirement cases.

The idiom of being a fool if you try and represent yourself — well, that remains fairly accurate.  And the Old Proverb of being penny wise and pound foolish — contact a lawyer who has a long track records of successfully securing your Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

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 Retirement under FERS: The Silent Troll

OPM silently trolls the Internet.  You may not think that such activity poses a risk to you, but you should be fully aware of it.  By “troll” is not meant to include posting inflammatory remarks or initiating controversial discussions on the Web; rather, they silently and quietly view any postings and activities you may be involved in.  They will “spy” on your activities and use what is online as an argument to try and undermine and deny your Federal Disability Retirement application.

Thus, if you are a Postal worker, for example, and claim that you are unable to perform your physical duties as a Letter Carrier, Mail Handler, etc., but you have an Internet Web Page which claims that you are physically fit, a Facebook photo that shows you running a marathon, or a business that involves physical labor, etc., they will use your own postings against you.  Or, perhaps you are a Federal employee who can no longer perform a cognitive-intensive job, but have an Internet-based business as a consulting firm, or some similar work requiring cognitive-intensive work.  Guess what?  OPM may use that against you.

Of course, claims made on the Internet can be quite misleading.  For example, you may be a partner for an Internet-based business in “name only” — meaning that all of the work is done by a sibling or a close friend.  Or, it may be that the “self-pacing” element of running your own business is what allows you to have such an Internet-based business.  However, be that as it may, you should be aware that OPM is the Silent Troll who collects such information for a singular purpose: To deny your Federal Disability Retirement application.

Consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin to safeguard a benefit which is your right to assert.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS: Revisiting Updike

He wrote about mundane things; of middle class neighborhoods, Pennsylvania towns in which he grew up; farmlands before strip malls replaced them against the skyline of cornfield rows; and of affairs that grew naturally out of a revolution emancipated from the Sixties; of quiet sufferings and the rhythmic monotony of ordinary lives.

John Updike was an “in-betweener” — too young to fight in WWII, too old to have been drafter for the Vietnam debacle; and so he experienced the quietude and normalcy in between the two bookends of this country’s tumult and trials.

Updike was a voice for generations who saw the post-war era, of baby-boomers and American prosperity at its zenith; of the loss of any normative confluence of moral dictum and the abandonment of constraints once imposed by Protestantism.  All, of course, with a twinkle in his eye and a ready smile.  The Internet abounds with photographs of this uniquely American author — almost all with that thin smile as if he was about to share a private joke.

The Tetralogy of the Rabbit novels (actually a quintet if you include the last of the series, a novella entitled “Rabbit Remembered”) evinces a country gone soft after the harsh period of the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam era that undermined the ethical mandates known for generations before, unleashing a liberty of hidden sins like a bubbling cauldron of untamed desires.  But in the end, he is best known for the mundane, the ordinary, and how life in the suburbs of a prosperous nation left an emptiness unspeakable except by a voice given in narrative brilliance, from an author who was a regular contributor to The New Yorker.

Somehow, he made the ordinary seem exciting, even relevant.  By contrast, modernity has focused upon the rich and famous, and of greater unreachable glamour where perfection surpasses pragmatism.  Updike was able to make the commonplace seem important, the ordinary appear significant and the monotony of the mundane as not merely prosaic.  And isn’t that all that we seek, in the end?

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 loss of relevance, the ordinary and the commonplace is what often scares the Federal or Postal employee.

The job itself; the career; the monotonous routine of going to work, yet finding relevance in the act of “making a living” — these were all taken for granted in Updike’s short stories.  That other stuff — of infidelities and dalliances — were a deviation that Updike tried to point out as mere fluff in otherwise ordinary lives; and of medical conditions, they upend and disrupt the normalcy we all crave.

Federal Disability Retirement is a means to an end — of bringing back balance within a life that has become disrupted, but it is a way to bring back order where disruption to the mundane has left behind a trail of chaos.  And to that, the twinkle in Updike’s eyes and the thin smile would tell us that he would approve of such a move which will return you back to a life of mundane normalcy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The memory of greener pastures

Are memories faulty, and are they so for a purpose?  Does the human psyche selectively extrapolate the positive and repress the negative precisely in order to preserve an optimism that will incentivize survival?  If our memory banks retain a pessimism such that the overload of negative images cumulatively dominates, wouldn’t the subtle forces of depression set in to overwhelm us?

The memory of greener pastures — are they true in an objective sense, or only in the selective and myopic perspective that has filtered the negation of subjective desires?  Was childhood as innocent as we remember?  Were the ice cream cones on a hot summer’s day better then, and the wintry winds of Christmas Eve so filled with anticipation of glee that yesterday’s joy was tenfold the truth of untold lies?

We do tend to remember the summers of yesteryear, and of thinking that the lights across the street glow a warmth of love and fidelity; and yet, we know that the room within which we stand is likely a reflection of a reality no lesser, nor no greater, than the greener pastures across the way.  Except when a medical condition hits us.  Then, the memory of greener pastures always reflect the “before” — before the condition worsened; before it began to impact my work; before it became a chronic condition.

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, it is often the memory of greener pastures that finally prompts the Federal or Postal employee into preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

For, the greener pastures that once were can still be those of tomorrow, but only if the focus of one’s life can attend first to the medical condition itself, without the greater burden of work and the harassment and constant hostility of the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

To preserve and hold sacred the memory of greener pastures is to prioritize the things that we hold dear and important, and one’s health should be at the top of the list of such priorities.  Protect it by preparing, formulating and filing an effective FERS Disability Retirement application, to be filed through OPM so that those memories of greener pastures in yesteryear’s childhood joys will not be subsumed by the worries of one’s deteriorating future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: Holding a grudge

Doesn’t holding a grudge imply a certain level of intelligence?  Do other species have the capacity for holding a grudge?  Certainly, some breeds of dogs do — of getting into a growling match, or one of those “baring the teeth and gnarling sounds”, but with very little harm done; but if it is not “finished”, will come back and engage in some more noisy combat until one or the other is satisfied that neither a grudge nor a kiss will any longer be necessary.

“Having a grudge” can last a moment or a lifetime; “Holding a grudge” is comprised of the tenure of the grudge being held, and not as to its intensity of feeling.  Some grudges may be sweet and delicious; others, a gnawing sense that does greater harm to the holder than to the one for whom it is held.  There is, in the end, a difference between a grudge and a sense of resentment, although the former may include the latter, but the latter does not necessarily entail the former.  Siblings and best friends are famous for holding grudges; it reveals the level of hurt and care that becomes deep-seated when once betrayal cuts and bruises.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is often an easy path to find oneself on where one was once the Federal Agency’s “star employee”; then, a medical condition sets in, and suddenly the congratulatory accolades become silent, and unilateral actions are taken by the agency which begins to foment resentment…and a growing “grudge match” begins.

Administrative sanctions are imposed; a PIP is initiated; perhaps, even removal from Federal Service.  Yet, all along, you are thinking: “I have a medical condition; why are they treating me this way?”  Grudges, indeed, often are held because of mistreatment or maltreatment; and it is often worse when there is no face or name to be placed with the grudge, but merely a large Federal Agency or the Postal Service that cares not a twit about your medical condition.

The best thing to do in such circumstances is to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and “move on” beyond the sense of resentment and grudge-holding that can destroy a life further than the medical condition itself.  Yes, holding a grudge does imply a certain level of intelligence, but to hold one for too long shows a significant level of stupidity, as well.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: The concise sentence

What is the difference between being concise and performing with precision?  The former is often applied in the universe of words and communication; the latter, in areas where quantitative measuring tools can be determined, such as in science or in mathematical sectors.

We say of a person who speaks voluminously but with little substance that he or she represents the antonym of conciseness; and so a comparison is often made between volume spoken or written and concepts or thoughts conveyed.  Of Literature, most would agree that Hemingway is the representative paradigm of conciseness, whereas Joyce and Faulkner reflect the very opposite, though all three are considered classic and great authors.

Do we excuse such authors as Joyce and Faulkner because, in literature, we tend to focus upon the stylistic brilliance of their writings as opposed to the “meaning” that captures the undercurrent of their works?  In other words, although they may give us “too many” words and thus are, by definition, lacking of conciseness, we nevertheless overlook such imprecision precisely because we do not attribute “amount” as the necessary and sufficient cause of determining the worth of good authorship.

Hemingway used to say that, in writing, he had already formulated each sentence before setting it upon paper, whether in handwriting (a lost art) or at the typewriter (a manual, when those contraptions existed and where the clack-clack of metal keys pounded deep into the twilight of a writer’s life).

Why do we applaud and celebrate the concise sentence?  Does it make a difference whether or not a sentence, say, with 7 words communicates a thought as opposed to a paragraph with a thousand words that conveys the identical conceptual construct?

Take the following 2 examples: 1. Lessening of debt equals wealth. Or, 2: If you have less to owe to others, then it is the same as savings; or, as Benjamin Franklin used to say, a penny saved is a penny earned, and the reality of it all is that we have more to spend and retain wealth, not so much because you have more money, but you have more because less is spent on paying other people your hard-earned dollars.

Now, both sentences convey essentially the same meaning.  The first one, however, is comprised of 5 words. The second one took…many words to communicate the same thought.  Does it matter whether a concise sentence is used, as opposed to one that is not, if the same two convey identically reflective thoughts?

It might make a difference, because of one factor that has not been discussed: Being concise often possesses the added feature of being precise, and precision is important in the accuracy of conveying thought.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are thinking about preparing, formulating and filing 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, there is a dual-key component to preparing the SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability: Be concise, but do not forego length for completeness.

In other words, being concise in order to convey the proper information is important; but, at the same time, do not sacrifice wordiness just because of the limited “boxes” that are provided on SF 3112A.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Employee Attorney

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Reference points

They are the connections by which a society maintains a fabric of commonality, whether by myths, narrations of stories handed down, religious knowledge or books and movies.  It used to be that the “Good Book” was the mainstay of the reference points, so that when a person referred to having “eaten the apple”, for a simple example, one immediately knew that the reference points between a sin committed and the origin of that sin had a commonality within a woven fabric of a community’s awareness.

Similarly, people used to refer to books – of classics and works which were generally read and assumed, and when a person made a literary reference in the course of a conversation, it was not to be presumptuous of one’s education or knowledge, but as a “reaching out” in order to establish a membership in the fabric of the greater community.  The expansion of choices, the division of classes within a society, and the fraying of that greater fabric of a society’s common interests – they are all indications of a disintegrating civilization.

Reference points were once assumed; today, they have become rarer; and as the younger generation moves on in concentric circles of technological advancement that become lost in the self-absorption of self-promoting images on Internet-based social forums, so reference points become less common except within the self-contained genres of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds.

Of course, there have always been problems with various reference points – one being the reference point of a medical condition.  For, a person with a medical condition has the private reference point of pain and suffering, and the long stays at a hospital, or the constant visits to the doctor’s office – reference points that few at the office ask about, let alone know about in any detail that would bring about any sense of empathy.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers are often the greater culprits of maintaining private reference points, because they continue to push themselves through the pain and agony of a medical condition without complaining, and so there is very little reference point by which coworkers can offer sympathy, empathy or any help at all.

Fortunately, 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, does not need any reference points, other than the legal criteria by which one must meet the eligibility reference point.  For, ultimately, the final reference point that the Federal or Postal worker needs, in order to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the one that establishes that the Federal or Postal employee is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, and that is the only reference point that matters.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire