Federal Disability Retirement: The world of others

Sometime between birth and self-awareness, there comes a point of consciousness where recognition that this is a world of others becomes unavoidable.  Perhaps it is that critical juncture where an adjustment is then made, or not, which determines whether or not children revert back to the insularity of inner worlds, or compromise and allow for greater interaction with the outer universe, despite the inherent dangers presented.

The sense of “I” as opposed to the outer universe likely comes first, but the two are so intertwined that they cannot develop without one another — the self is unable to distinguish the distinction unless there is the “other” to posit as a contrast to the self.

The World of Others is a frightening thought; for, the implications are that control of one’s own world is potentially endangered by active agents uncontrolled by one’s own will; when a foreign will is introduced into the equation, we lose control of our ability — and as importantly, our confidence — that events small and great can be shaped with predicability.

As adults, we take for granted the world of others; we are thus taught at an early age to worry only about things that we have control over, and let the rest go — lest the unfettered universe of the world of others, so expansive and without boundaries, would place so much stress upon our cognitive capacity to worry and be concerned, that a mental breakdown might occur as a result.

Look at people who are deemed “control freaks” — they are constantly anxious because they must always maintain the world around and manipulate each and every aspect of tangential lives.  In the end, the microcosm of control is of limited means; the will of others can only be boxed in when weaker personalities submit to stronger ones, but even then, the unpredictability of human nature reveals the ineffectiveness of unfettered dominance.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and must necessarily “deal” with the World of Others — Agency actions; Postal harassment; adverse actions and retaliatory impositions — in a manner that distracts from the singular goal of trying to regain and maintain one’s health, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits may be the best solution.

The World of Others cannot ultimately be controlled; what you have is the ability and capacity to control your own fate and destiny, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM is one such step that is within your control.  Now, as for what the U.S. Office of Personnel Management does and doesn’t do — that remains in the World of Others, and perhaps you should consider having an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law handle that aspect of the World of Others.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: The Resistance

The initial reaction to such a title is the obvious one: To what?  Of course, Newton’s Third Law of Motion comes immediately to mind — of every action having an equal and opposite reaction; thus, when one posits a “resistance”, the natural query must refer to its opposition, as in, “What is it that we are resisting?”

Throughout our “stages of life”, we either comply, conform, “go along with the crowd” — or resist doing so.  There are “middle” ways, of course, and yet to compromise and resist “half-way”, or in a half-hearted manner, often seems to ruin the whole point of any resistance, doesn’t it?

If one is to be a revolutionary, the point is to be one completely, or not at all.  During the Sixties, there was the famous line (often misattributed to Abbie Hoffman, the Beatles and others) which declared that the movement’s participants would “never trust anyone over 30” — spoken by Jack Weinberg in response to a hostile interviewer.  The underlying point of the statement is quite clear: By the age of 30, most people have “sold out”, conformed, lost their youthful vigor to resist; or, put more simply, accepted the status quo and have become cynical.  Yet, isn’t there a natural inclination to “belong”, to not stand apart from the crowd, and to be able to live a quiet, unassuming life?

“Resistance” can thus have a duality of meanings — it can imply that one is part of a movement involving resistance to the status quo or, even its opposite; that one resists change and is integrally a participant of the status quo.  Resistance to change is the greater dominating force.  Change is a fearsome entity where the unknown is to be avoided at all costs.  To be a part of “the resistance” that refuses to conform — well, that is best left to those under 30, unattached and without obligations and responsibilities.

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, resistance to change is often the factor that procrastinates, and keeps a person in a “muddle of the middle” where conditions deteriorate but one stubbornly insists upon maintaining the status quo.

But as medical conditions deteriorate and as the Federal Agency or the Postal Service persists in seeking change — by forcing the issue and initiating adverse actions in order to fill the position with a person who is able to perform all of the essential elements of the position — resistance to change must be replaced with becoming a part of the resistance: By preparing and submitting an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with OPM and forging ahead into a future yet unknown.

Remember —even Jack Weinberg became a class of individuals that he resisted, and went on to become a consultant and an adjunct faculty member; in other words, he was once in the “Resistance”, then became that opposite and equal force to fulfill Newton’s Third Law of Motion.

Sincerely,

Robert R.McGill,Esquire

 

Early Retirement for Disabled Federal Workers: The approximation

How do we learn to approximate?  Or, more approximately, how do we learn when it is appropriate (or inappropriate) to approximate?

When and how did we learn that there is a distinction with a difference between an engineer constructing a tall building and a chef adding a few more spices than what the recipe calls for — that consequences derived from the difference between approximation and precision make a world of difference?  Or even the amateur chef in mistaking a sprinkle of salt for a cupful, or of a judge in the Olympics who shrugs his or her shoulders and says, “close enough”, when the difference between a fraction of a second or an approximation thereof means the awarding of a gold, silver or bronze medal?

How close is the enemy?  Approximately a mile or so away, give or take a few hundred yards…could mean the difference between victory or defeat.

How old is the earth?  Multi-billions of years, give or take a few, or count the genealogy of religious texts and multiply them accordingly.  Any consequences for believing one paradigm over another, and aren’t both merely approximations, anyway?  How precise can a science be when the claim is made that X is 500 billions years old?  Could it not be 499 or 498 billion years old, instead?  In terms of percentages of being “off”, it is minor; but in gross numbers, a billion here or a billion there could mean quite a difference; just look at the investors of Facebook who recently lost a good portion of their portfolio.

Approximations are fine, but they need to be tempered by conditions and circumstances, and for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where 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, to “approximate” where precision is required may not be the best approach in putting together one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.

Of course, “the law” is never a precise endeavor, and cannot come close to requiring an engineer’s reliance upon mathematical calculations nor even of an architect’s blueprint for constructing an archway.

However, precision of legal argumentation; proper wording of medical narratives; careful positing of legal citations — these are all approximations which, in their aggregate, accord a greater precision in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in enhancing the greater chance of an approval for each stage of the process, as it is precisely the greater approximation of precision that allows for lessening the imprecision of that which comes closest to the approximation of a science in a non-scientific discipline.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: How words matter

They do, don’t they?  Otherwise, how else to explain the endless plethora in the course of a single day, heard from every corner and source imaginable: The radio; the television; DVD; streaming; other electronic mediums; bystanders; on the telephone; written forms in email, texts, Facebook postings; everywhere, the insular words of a private-public conversation — public because much of it is accessible to everyone, except for those whispered soft nothings in the privacy of bedrooms and lips upon ears, but throughout acted upon “as if” each exchange of communication is between the sender and receiver, the declarative and the reply, the conversationalist and the lecturer; and so the infinite stream of words flow back and forth like the ebb of tides that have washed the shores of this earth from the beginning of time, or so it seems.

But what if actions never follow upon words; do they still matter?  When a person condemns another and shouts out, “He’s just full of it!” — what exactly do we mean?  A person makes a promise; words are spoken; perhaps even a “contract” is written up and entered into.  But then, nothing happens.  No actions are taken; a lawsuit is filed, and more words are entered into the database of the “justice system”; a trial is held, and more words spoken, this time in front of a judge.

At what point did the words originally spoken or written fail to matter, and when did they then again matter?  What is meant by “matter” — is it only in conjunction with actions taken, or do the words themselves, hanging in the suspended universe of the ethereal, have some impact despite no one taking any notice of it?  Is a “vow” or a “promise” something more than mere words?  If a person makes a promise and marries, takes the traditional vows of fidelity and honor, do the words matter, or only by the actions that follow, or both?  And what of the person who says nothing — in past ages, there were men (and women) who had a reputation of “being a man (or woman) of few words” — but always follows through on his or her commitments?  Do the words not spoken matter?

Yes, yes — the linguistic philosopher will observe that the very lack of words was telling all the same, but we are not talking about that — not of silence, but of words spoken, and not of those unspoken.  Thus do we say of the person who keeps his promise — “He is a man (or woman) of his/her word”. But what if he/she breaks every promise spoken, and says upon getting caught, “But I never meant a word of it anyway”?  Does that make a difference?  Or of the boring lecturer who no one listens to, but then when a fire breaks out and a small child yells, “Fire” and everyone listens and exits safely — how did the action following upon the words spoken matter?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition has come to a point where preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, what must always be kept in mind is that the entire administrative process of the bureaucratic methodology of “Federal Disability Retirement” is based entirely upon “words” — of meeting the legal criteria with words; of describing the nexus between the medical condition and one’s positional duties with words; of making persuasive legal arguments with words.

Words matter by being effective, where actions follow upon the singularly unique encounter between the insular world of subjective words and the objective reality of “others” listening, taking it in, then acting upon them — as in granting an approval for a Federal Disability Retirement application upon a submission of a bunch of effective words that comprise a successful Federal Disability Retirement compilation.  That’s when words matter, and the manner in which words are put together.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits for Federal Employees: The bugle

Unlike its cousins, it has no valves or pitch-altering devices, but must be modified through the movement of the lips, the extent of breath exhaled and the undulating modifications of combined muscles in the lips, tongue and throat.  Perhaps from the days of riding a horse in the cavalry, where playing an instrument while charging full force ahead on a horse stumbling across rough terrain forced the instrument’s player to modulate through strain of keeping one’s self from falling; in any event, its very lack of complexity belies the simplicity of the bugle, as appearances are indeed deceiving.

Whether playing Taps in that mournful tone, or reveille in that jarring sound as the signal to awaken for morning roll call, or the charge to execute a cavalry or infantry advancement — that frightening sound to Indian tribes signifying the destruction of a culture long awaiting death – its class of variety extends well beyond most choices provided.

Trumpets of all sorts may be included in the family – from Piccolo trumpets, slide trumpets and multiple others from A to G and beyond; but the bugle stands alone in its structural simplicity and reliance upon the creativity of the holder who dares to attempt to master its range of pitches by the vocal creativity and lips pursed in controlled spurts of exhaling the intricacies of man’s attachment to inert objects to fill the air with sounds unnatural but for the beauty of music.

That range of pitches – from the morning call to awaken with energy reverberating from a cadence of jolting magnitude; to the charging rampage of a galloping horse; to the sorrowful tears of life’s end represented by the draping of a flag upon the coffin; these, in their collective entirety, depict the spectrum of life:  Of youthful exuberance; to middle-aged hope and faith; to the black veil of a life well lived; the sound of the bugle encompasses all.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find themselves in that twilight of life’s stages – somewhere beyond the youthful enthusiasm, but well before the illumination reflected by the funeral pyre – perhaps it is the sound of the bugle in the last stages of reveille, before the first note of Taps is emitted; and the medical condition has blanketed the tone, quality and loudness of the music of life, and a further stanza of a narrative interrupted must be composed.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is like the bugler’s call to order, and sometimes the sound of music must be heard at the end of a piece, and a pause must be endured, before the beginning of the next.  That is the challenge and the beauty of the bugle – an instrument for all stages in the pendulum of life’s musical quality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire