FERS Disability Retirement: Short Memories

It is good that we have short memories — or choose to, by not studying history.

Why did Hobbes characterize Man’s life as being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”, if there wasn’t some grain of truth to it?  Yes, it was a description of man in his natural and mythological “state of war” before the protective walls of government were formed; yet, even in modernity, a short look at the war in Ukraine reveals how fragile is the line between civilization and barbarism.

It is with the tool of short memories which allows for the armament industry to refer to patriotism and national pride; and it is by shuttling aside our wounded young men and women that we can continue to engage in lost causes and endless wars.  The lessons of history are never strong enough to counter the appeal to do it “better” or “right” the next time, and so the short memories we posses become the fodder for tomorrow’s persuasion.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from a medical condition, and believe that human empathy and compassion by bureaucracies ever existed in the history of the universe, short memories will likely get you into trouble.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit which is available if your medical condition prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your job, but if you think that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — the agency which makes a decision on all FERS Disability Retirement applications — will simply grant you your request without a fight, then your short memory will likely result in a Denial at the First Stage of the process.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and let not your short memory be the downfall of an otherwise viable case for Federal or Postal 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.

 

FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: Just Beyond

That is what makes you pause, yet unsure — the “just beyond”.  Maybe its a dream — but it is just beyond your grasp.  Perhaps the directions you were given — just beyond the next corner, just beyond the next town; or just beyond what even Google Maps can lead you to.

Or, in a Federal Disability Retirement case, it is the argument that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management makes in denying your Federal Disability application under the FERS system:  the insertion of a word here, an unfamiliar legal phrase there, always “just beyond” a suspicion as to whether they are correctly stating the legal criteria or the statutory authority cited in denying your case.

OPM systematically engages in such word-usage — of using phrases and inserting words which go “just beyond” the law, but in fact do not comply with the actual legal requirements.  And, as the individuals who make the decisions at OPM are themselves just beyond any accountability, they engage in such misuse and mis-application of the law with impunity, knowing very well that they will never have to answer for such mis-characterizations.

Thus, for example, does a denial of a Federal or Postal Disability retirement application often refer to the fact that “Social Security did not find you unable to be employed” — which may be true, but is a statement “just beyond” the laws governing a FERS Federal Disability Retirement application because what Social Security determines has absolutely no relevance to your FERS Disability Retirement application.

Or, OPM might say something like, “There is no evidence that your Agency could not have accommodated you beyond all possible means”.  Yes, but that is not the law; rather, the issue is whether your Agency could have “reasonably” accommodated you; not, whether you could have been accommodated beyond all possibilities within the universe of theoretical possibilities.

Again, OPM engages in legal jargon “just beyond” the boundaries of truth and integrity.  To make sure that OPM stays within the boundaries of statutory authority, contact a FERS Disability lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and always make sure that you apply the law not just beyond, but within.

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 and Postal Employee Disability Retirement Law: At Its Worst

We can all be at our best — so long as we are never tested.  We can talk, and talk some more, about what we “would have done” had we been in such-and-such situation.  And since we relegate our military to men and women who are the economically-disadvantaged — instead of a draft which would impact all sectors of society — we can talk endlessly about what we “would have done” if we were in this situation or that.

We can say we will never do X — until we are actually confronted with the circumstances which constitute X; and a person can give a vow, have children based upon that vow, and years later renounce the vow without blinking an eye.  “Well, we drifted apart”; “The circumstances changed”; “He/she didn’t want to be married anymore” — and on and on.  But what about the vow?  Silence.

The test of virtue is not mere words; rather, it is the actions which result from actual circumstances encountered.

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, you may have seen your Agency or the Postal Service at its best — because nothing has tested its response to what you are going through.

Unfortunately, experience has taught that Federal Agencies and the Postal Service reveal their true character when confronted with an issue at its worst — such as treating an individual who needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Don’t be foolish and assume your Agency or the Postal Facility will respond and treat you the same as when things were going smoothly and everyone was at their best, for such is not the test of character; it is when things are at its worst when the true test is applied.

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 Employee Medical and Disability Retirement: Changing Course

Much of life is on autopilot.  It is merely a stated fact.  If we were always in control; if we had to manually drive the engine of life without pause, cessation or temporary alleviation; if we could never take a break away from the daily chaos of responsibilities, obligations, needs and purposes — then, either the asylum of our own creations or the dictates of a dystopian universe would come crashing down upon us.

Those few moments when we believe that destiny and fate are within our grasp and control — that is the time when we may manage to “change course”.  The opportunity comes rarely in this life.  Sometimes, the outside forces necessitate it.  At other times, for those very few, a self-motivated act of the will allows for it.

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 time to change course is necessitated by the medical condition itself.

It is not something which you wanted to do, but is mandated by those uncontrollable, outside forces.  Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of changing course.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Federal Disability Retirement Attorney

 

Medical Retirement under FERS: The Internal Web of Deceit

The quote is often attributed (wrongly) to Shakespeare, when it was Sir Walter Scott in his lengthy poem, Marmion, which conceived it: “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.”  It is the internal web caught within the circular insularity of one’s thought-processes which allows for the capacity to deceive — but of or for whom?  Is it ourselves we deceive, or others, or both?

The problem with internalizing one’s thoughts is not that they are necessarily invalid; it is that there is no objective basis upon which to test their viability.  We all engage in private thoughts; carrying on conversations with ourselves, the problem lies not in whether or not we have interesting ones or not, but whether and to what extent the exaggerated absurdity of circular discourses take on a more bizarre aspect.

Fear does this; and when we fail to test our thoughts against the reality of the world, the web we weave becomes more and more tangled, until the practice of self-deception takes on an enhanced and serious result.

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 necessary to consult with an attorney before considering the difficult bureaucratic path of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Your medical condition is no doubt “real”.  The problem lies not in the medical condition, but upon the administrative procedures which must be passed through in order to present a credible case of eligibility for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

For that, it becomes necessary to break out of the internal web of deceit — of the cage within one’s insular thought-processes — and to test the strength of the web as against the laws which govern the administrative procedures involved in formulating an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Conditions of Necessity

What are the conditions that make for necessity?  At what point do we judge that an action, a set of utterances or a demand of this or that is “necessary’?  What constitutes the conditions for necessity and are they different for different people?

In other words, is there a tolerance level for Person-X that is distinguishable and qualitatively identifiable than from Individual-Y, such that what creates a condition for necessity for X may make for a yawning indifference for Y?  Do some marriages last longer — in accordance with the vows of fidelity and honoring — because of tolerance by one spouse or the other?  Are there criteria and principles that override, somewhat like what George Harrison’s wife once said in an interview that the key to a long marriage is “not getting a divorce” — meaning, no matter the extent of infidelities or breach of marital vows, if you simply tolerate all such violations, then the conditions of necessity will never arise?

Is that what happens to Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who continue to remain silent, slowly dying a quiet death because of a medical condition that few know about, fewer still would even notice, and almost no one cares a twit about?  Do they continue to kill themselves quietly, pushing themselves through the pain and agony of a medical condition, and denying that the conditions of necessity have risen to a level where tolerance isn’t even a question, anymore?

Conditions of necessity — at what point do they rise to a level where it becomes unavoidable that filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits has been reached and tolerating the symptoms of one’s medical conditions is no longer endurable?

Filing for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is a long and complex administrative process, and when the conditions for necessity arise to a level where it becomes critical, it is a good idea to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the conditions of necessity become further complicated such that the bureaucratic morass of a Federal OPM Disability Retirement application becomes further entrenched in the intolerable conditions of necessity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: DDD

It is what Moynihan said so many years ago, of constantly reinterpreting normative constructs such that the subtle, insidious reduction of acceptance allows for normalization of that which was rejected and repugnant just a few years before, a generation ago, or never at all.  Or, it may refer to a medical condition of the spine – of the condition identified as “degenerative disc disease”; but in either case, the acronym used as a convenient route for linguistic economy has some similarities involved.

For, in both cases, DDD allows for the slow and steady deterioration of a process – the former, of a cultural rot and standards once ensconced firmly in the very fabric of society; the latter, of a slow process of debilitating “eating away” that reveals a condition progressive over time, decaying by crumbling of bone, cartilage and repetitive overuse traversing time’s despondency due to labor’s unnatural pose.  Or, one can just make it up and ascribe it to a tripartite conceptual compound; for instance, “dual deficit denominations” or “dark, dim and dumb”, or other such consternations of linguistic accolades.

In any event, it is the original of the two that seems to share a common ground of meaning; for, in both, it is the essence of a slow process of change; one, cultural in nature, of an acceptance of lesser standards whether by willful determination or accidental submission; the other, the debilitating disease that – over time and resulting from old age – progressively worsens.  One could simplify the concepts by dismissing the first as “cognitive” and the other as “physical”.

In either case, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical conditions, such that the medical condition impacts the Federal or Postal worker’s ability and capacity to continue in the same position and compels one to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement, both concepts can apply.

For, an expansive and liberal interpretation of Moynihan’s argument is similar to the Federal or Postal employee’s acceptance of the lower standard both in terms of his or her quality of life, as well as in seeing the adversarial nature of the Federal agency or the Postal facility as “normal” in the treatment of its employees.  And, as to the “other” definition of DDD – of the chronic neck or back pain – whether in a sedentary job or a very physical one, the high distractibility of pain that impacts upon one’s capacity and ability to safely focus, concentrate and attend to the job itself is often a qualification for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Thus, the acronym itself – whether for “defining deviancy down” or as “degenerative disc disease” – can fit the proverbial bill in considering the option of Federal Disability Retirement benefits, submitted through another acronym of sorts – OPM – otherwise known as the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Cavalier extinctions

We focus much on lost species, forever erased at a rate of untold apocryphal dimensions, as if the deletion of undiscovered DNA material might never be recovered, and thus for once, we worry about things which we have never known ascribed as that which “could” have saved us from our own extinguishment, all the while ignoring the plight of human detritus all around us.  We do that with fading civilizations, too, don’t we?

We argue for egalitarianism, impartiality, and for all things being of equivalency in value and worth; but, somehow, the “primitives” remind us of that romanticized notion which touched our nerves, even as Rousseau created a fictional “State of Nature” in which we lived in complete harmony (but for those few who, through brutish force and uncivilized conduct, forced us into an unwilling social contract in order to aggregate our weaknesses against a Hobbsian Leviathan for self-preservation and protective numerical advantage) and to which we pay homage in childhood fantasies.  And so we strive to pursue our own environmental agendas, as if we can police the universe against the insanity of our own making; all the while, we engage in cavalier extinctions, ourselves, though we may name it by another identity.

We form and drop relationships; we friend, defriend, add and delete with a push of a button; we even divorce and break up so-called lifetime commitments, with the cavalier explanation that it is “better” to live in harmonious consonance than to subject the innocent to daily ravages of our own termpermantal tumults.  An electronic screen, whether on a tabletop, laptop or a smartphone, can easily bring the bright glare of activity as the blank blackness of nothingness.

That is why extinguishment of purported “friends” can occur just as easily as engaging artifices of friendships; the button itself determines the substance and depth of any such relationship.  It was hard enough actually know and tolerating people; it is easier still, to know them on the tablet of a screen, and not have to contend with irritants of behavioral eccentricities.

On the spectrum of human growth, we are stunting ourselves by relegating the mechanism and tools for human conduct to mere words and responsive utterances on lighted screens.  The tools which we provide to the innocents, to develop those traits for successful human interaction, are diminished by the limited resources available via distance interaction.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and who by necessity must consider preparing, formulating and 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 notion that there is a negation of estimable empathy, sympathy, and just simple human caring, becomes a glaring reality too quickly, too forcefully, and with a dosage of untold reality.

Will it only get worse?  Probably.  As the new crop of managers and supervisors who have little contact with actual relationships, but whose voided perspective has been formed by online services of gratuitous and dubious authenticity, the level of understanding and mechanisms for human compassion become exponentially diminished.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for a Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is not a mere choice of optional engagement; it is spurred by necessity and human tragedy.  But beware, as this brave new world of cavalier extinctions will bring forth the worst in the unclaimed losses of genetic materials, where the Darwinian principles seem to finally win out in a battle of fierce and unwitting conflicts for the survival of the fittest — or meanest.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Medical Retirement from Federal Government: Berkeley’s House

He was an Irishman, and if one were to “rank” philosophers, he would likely be considered a “second tier” thinker — not quite at the level of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes or Heidegger — but certainly contributed to the Western Philosophical tradition of engendering even greater questions than solving any problems or settling any queries.

A little tidbit which is not commonly known: Bishop Berkeley came to the United States and purchased a plantation at Middletown, intending upon living there, until his expectation of funding failed to be forthcoming.  That is probably what he is least known for; the Latin phrase for which he gains the greatest notoriety, is esse est percipi — to be, is to be perceived.

An absurd and uncharitable interpretation of this foundational phrase, would be to attribute to Berkeley the idea that things in the objective world exist only to the extent that we perceive them; the moment such perceptual pervasiveness disappears, then, existence becomes extinguished.

A more rational view of his postulate, however, is to attribute Berkeley to the tradition of British linguistic philosophers, and to consider the following “implied” but silent intentions:  “The definition of what it means to exist, can only have meaning if, and only if, there is a perceiver for which the object is there to be perceived, and as such, existence as a concept of any meaningful import must by necessity have a perceiver”.

Without this kinder, gentler version of interpretive connotations, all manner of ridicule and scoffing have been thrown at the good Bishop — in the form of:  “So, when I leave a room, does it vanish?  And when I return, does it suddenly reappear?”  And in the days of Star Trek:  “Beam me up, Scottie, or in philosophical circles, Bishop Berkeley”.

It is, in the end, the absurdity of linguistic interpretation which ultimately relegated Berkeley to the “second tier” of philosophical thought; and from that unintended consequences resulting from an attempt to resolve a complex issue of metaphysical discourse, we can learn and discern much:  complexity sometimes cannot be circumvented with simplicity of declarative assertion; often, there is a reason why such a conundrum of linguistic inelasticity exists.

Thus, for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal Service worker who is intending upon preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the key point here is that, yes, your case may be quite complex, but the route to making it comprehensible to the administrative specialist at OPM, is not to try and simplify the core essence of the case, but to state the complex in simple language.

That is often the greatest difficulty with a Federal or Postal applicant in preparing one’s Statement of Disability on Standard Form 3112A — the narrative in response to the various questions will often meander and fail to achieve a coherency because everything from Dickens’ childhood details (which, as you may recall, Salinger scoffed at in his famous work, The Catcher in the Rye) to peripheral issues involved EEO complaints and workplace harassment concerns are thrown in for good or seemingly better measure, when in fact a simplified version based upon good habits of editing would produce a more effective statement of compelling narration.

For, in the end, postulating a Federal Disability Retirement application is not a matter of compiling a voluminous or complex treatise for persuasive discourse; it is to tell a coherent story of one’s inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal job or Postal position, and we need not defer to Berkeley’s House — whether as a historical tidbit or as the confounded thought processes extracted from his complex works — in order to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal OPM Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Court of Sycophants

The word itself is a linear sequence of consonants and vowels which delight the linguistic palate of parallelism between sound and meaning; rolling off of the tongue, it begins with the soft purr of the ‘s’, then slides midway into the harsh and guttural clash of a germanic cough, as if something untoward has been stuck in the center of one’s throat which needs to be cleared, like phlegm gathered in the mucous membranes of the respiratory passages; then flows to the end and drifts off into a quietude of irrelevance, disregard and dismissal, as the pointed meaning of application coincides with the diminishing utterance of fading signification.

In feudal times, when kings and princes of minor fiefdoms pockmarked the divided provinces of Europe and Asia, the gathering of sycophants pervaded each hour with daily tributes of flowery adjectives added effortlessly in conjunction with backstabbing motivations; the smiles of agreement and infusion of words to puff up the royal kingdom were offset by the murderous rage hidden in the dark corridors of dungeons where the abyss of human cruelty and malevolence resided with unfettered and ravenous appetite.

Does the modern presence of such and the like represent a fading vestige of that former calumny of bacterial servitude, or merely a reflection of the true nature of man’s essence?  The court of sycophants does not exist merely in dusty books of historical irrelevance; it survives in small pockets of sibling rivalries where inheritances are favored by means of embellished compliments combined with fading cognitive capacity for recognition of the distinction between words and sincerity; and in workplaces where no hostages are taken when one’s livelihood is at stake.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are intimately familiar with the darkened hearts of sycophants, there are more colorful words used to describe them — as in the kissing of another’s behind; but whether one uses the original one or a replacement of a more informal vernacular, the meaning all amounts to the same.  Especially, when a medical condition begins to impacts the Federal or Postal Service employee’s ability and capacity to perform at the same level as before, the wide range of sycophants begin to make their appearance.

Somehow, denigration of others is believed to elevate one’s own status and stature, and indeed, the feudal court of sycophants was based upon that system of favoritism and derisive discourse.

For the Federal or Postal employee who suffers from a medical condition, however, such that filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes necessary, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the escape from the constant backbiting and backstabbing becomes necessary not only to maintain and further one’s health and well-being, but is also a recognition that one has lost the favor of the court itself, and it becomes incumbent upon the Federal and Postal employee to recognize that the Court of Sycophants has been powdering the nose not of the king’s face, but of the emperor whose clothes has disappeared and where the cheeks which quiver with frolicking laughter are at the wrong end of the anatomical map.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire