Federal Medical Retirement Law: The Dogmatist

It is easy to fall into being one; and, one need not be overtly (or overly) religious in order to be considered as such.  Ultimately, it is not the opinion held or the inability to see different perspectives or “angles” on a matter; rather, it is the attitude which defines the dogmatist — the arrogance; the refusal to consider other viewpoints; the intransigence of thought.

Now, that is not to say that being “dogmatic” is always a negative thing; for, there are instances in life where “sticking to one’s principles” is a good and necessary thing.  Sometimes, when the winds of change and the malleability of ethical or moral convictions seem to reactively alter as quickly as the weather, it is of some comfort to find a dogmatist in our midst.  But context and content combined, always matter; and it is the “when” as much as the “what” which determines whether being a dogmatist is justified.

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 duties, being a dogmatist may be a detriment.  Never think that your own case is a “slam dunk”; for, to be unequivocally adamant about the strength of your disability case is often because the one who suffers from a disabling medical condition cannot think otherwise — in other words, like a dogmatist would think.

Consider, instead, contacting a Federal Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to get a more balanced view of your case, and leave your dogmatic views on more pressing moral or ethical issues which may necessitate the strength of your convictions in order to retain the antiquity of intransigent thoughts.

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 Employees Retirement System (FERS) Disability Law: The Arbitrary Discount

When it is to one’s favor, of course, the arbitrary discount is a welcome benefit.  Every now and again, it happens — more often in an independent store, where the owner will say, “Well, you’ve been a great customer; I am going to give you a 10% discount just because…”.  Just because what?  No reason — just because it is Saturday; just because you are pleasant; just because I wanted to, etc.

That is the nature of an arbitrary discount.  However, what about an arbitrary discount when it is not in your favor?

In a Federal Disability Retirement case, the OPM “Medical Specialist” may deny a Federal Disability Retirement application with the following reasoning: “Your treating doctor is not a specialist in treating X.  The restrictions placed on you are therefore invalid and you have not shown that you are disabled.”  WHAT?  And yet — it is just another arbitrary discount — the discounting of your treating doctor as a valid person to make reasonable medical decisions; it just so happens that such an arbitrary discount is not in your favor.

Even though, of course, the law supports you in every way and even though OPM’s opinion should be discounted entirely.  But hey — OPM is the independent owner of the “store”, and they can do what they want, right?

Contact an OPM Disability Retirement Attorney who can and will fight against such arbitrary discounts.

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 Medical Retirement from the OPM: Loss of Perfection

Is the human species the only one on earth that holds within it a paradigm of perfection?

That is, of course, the argument used by Medieval Scholastics in arguing for the existence of an omniscient being — that, in order for an imperfect being to possess and have the very idea of perfection, there must by logical necessity exist an objective Being who manifests the characteristics of perfection.

This is a much-simplified version of the Scholastic Philosophers — one such example being St. Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, which begins with the rather confusing linguistic pretzel of: God is that than which nothing greater can be thought of….  Such linguistic complexity makes one pause and consider the conceptual conundrum of defining an X which is beyond the thought process within one’s capacity, but that is, indeed, the major premise in the syllogistic proposal.

The minor premise, of course, is the statement posited in an offhand, understated way: That “to exist” is greater than “not to exist” — and how many of us would deny such a self-evident proposal?

And the conclusion that would follow naturally is that, because existence is self-evidently better than not to exist, therefore that than which nothing greater can be thought of must by logical consequence “exist”. Beyond the simple positing of such a syllogism, however, is the problematic follow-up that has beset our society and modernity — of perfection’s damaging residue upon a society which demands nothing less than perfection.  Or, rather, in today’s universe, it is the appearance of perfection that matters, and the destructive effect of such bosh.

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 the appearance of perfection will mean that the Federal Agency or the Postal Service will begin to (if it hasn’t already) punish, harass and demean; for, one of the greatest sins since Eve’s misdeed and Adam’s deficiency is of being mortal, of showing vulnerability and revealing weakness; in other words, one’s appearance of perfection has been shattered.

That is when preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes a necessity — for, the other syllogism for Federal employees and Postal workers suffering from a medical condition is thus: Imperfection is a reality of life; health conditions are an inevitability for most; Therefore, filing for Federal Disability Retirement is the next logical step.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement under FERS: Those cracks we avoid

Remember the superstition of cracks in the sidewalk?  How we used to avoid them for fear of calamity, and worse yet, of the hand that reaches from beneath the bed late at night when parents are fast asleep and the screams that curl the midnight silence may never be heard because the world is not quite what it appeared to be?

Or, as we are walking along the normal route of direction, to get from point A to destination B, our thoughts as a child were: If I hop over the pebble on the road, suddenly and without any notification of precursor in judgment, the fate and destiny of the entire universe would be altered, because what was meant to never happen was changed by the course of my behavior that was never predicted, never meant to be, and failed to follow the normal course of a destined future.

And so, the child who nonchalantly walks with his parents suddenly, and without explanation, jumps up into the air and lands on the other side of the cracks we avoid.  In that moment — did the future change? Did the fate of mankind become altered forever?  How would we know?  Is the child who steps over those cracks any different from the adult who believes in falsehoods — and who poses the greater danger?  Where did we get those beliefs, and how did we come to accept them?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who by necessity must file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the care which one must take when making decisions in preparing, formulating and filing for an OPM medical retirement can be likened to those cracks we avoid: is the information gathered and relief upon “true”?  Have you been told the “right” things?  Are your sources dependable?  Or, are you proceeding along a path and stepping upon those cracks that should be avoided?

Consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is a decision which each individual must make based upon particularized circumstances; and if it is only to avoid those cracks we see — or cannot foresee — it is well worth it to separate the superstitions from the truth of an unavoidable reality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement from the Office of Personnel Management: Predictions

How did the first person accurately predict the oncoming change of weather?  Of course, some would contend that no one has accurately predicted such a thing, and would scoff at the thought.  Was it merely by observation?

Why did logic not overtake the attempt at prediction — of Hume’s contention that there is no such thing as a “necessary connection” between cause and effect, but merely a repetition of events that can be defied when, in the next instance, what one expected may turn out to be wrongly presumed?  Or of other events — of the outcome of a contest between two teams; of great horse races, the Triple Crown, or even of Olympic events: Can accuracy of predictions be statistically enhanced by observation, analysis, careful scrutiny and always with a bit of luck included?

And in the field of medicine — is a “prognosis” the same, or similar to, a “prediction” of sorts?  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 requirements necessary in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset includes a “prediction” of sorts — a prognosis that the medical condition will last a minimum of 12 months from the date of the application.

This does not mean that a Federal or Postal worker must wait for 12 months to establish that the medical condition itself will last that long, but merely that the medical condition itself will last a minimum of 12 months from the time one applies for Federal Disability Retirement — which, as a practical matter, makes sense because it takes about the same amount of time, on average, to get an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and there would essentially be no point in filing if, upon an approval, you no longer suffer from the medical condition itself.

A “prognosis” is, indeed, a type of prediction, and most doctors will be able to provide “within a reasonable degree of medical certainty” as to the lasting effects and enduring nature of a medical condition, based upon experience, analysis and clinical encounters.

Now, as for the weather…

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Conversation of one

Are we the only species which engages in it?  Do we ever see a dog standing aside and participating in such a phenomena?  Or a cardinal pausing in its morning melody of exuberant sing-song in order to address a non-existent other?  And, it isn’t even an artifice or convention for which the actor is being paid, as in an “aside” or a “soliloquy” where private thoughts are spoken aloud for the benefit of the audience, but where others in the drama act “as if” such thoughts are unspoken and shared not.

But we engage in such dialogues of diatribes:  with friends whom we practice in order to share; of spouses concerning the most intimate of matters; of bosses and coworkers to whom we failed to respond at the crucial moment, but now vent by a conversation of one of that which we wished we had said, desired to rebut, and cared to ponder.

The proverbial quip, of course, is that we are “okay” so long as we have such unilateral dialogues; it is only if the imaginary “other” begins to respond, that we then must consider the state of our own sanity.  But such colloquies occur daily, and throughout life; in quiet moments of reflective self-searching; of what we “would” have said, could have uttered, and in retrospective fashion, desired to have conveyed.

The conversation of one is often never shared; once exhaustively vented, it withers away like the ashes from a once-roaring bonfire, consuming all of the human detritus piled in anger, disgust and resentful remorse, then with watchful eyes applauded as the engulfing flames consume the aggregation of the collective angers, hurts and inflicted bruises of a shattered inner self.  It is sometimes the tool in preparation for a necessary confab; or an exchange with a worthy opponent; and where ad libbing without proper preparation is acknowledged to result in likely disaster.

The conversation of one — we have all had them; with parents and siblings; of sons and fathers; and for cardinals who chirp in the morning glory of a dew-filled mist in the obscured world of linguistic artifices constructed upon vacuity of purpose, it is the beauty of a filled universe without the complexities of human drama unfolding, that makes for worth and value.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, however, the need to have that conversation of one is often a prerequisite precisely because medical conditions comprise the most private of concerns, and absolute confidentiality must be adhered to and the strictest of trust kept.

Attorneys have an inviolable rule for trust, confidence and confidentiality, and privacy concerns should never be a question.  At some point, that conversation of one needs to be expanded to include an exchange involving proper medical documentation, the statutory criteria, the legal strategy to pursue, and the content and context of what must be included in order to prepare, formulate and file for an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, will often begin with a conversation of one, and that is understandable; but if it remains a mere soliloquy, as in a Shakespearean play where each in an audience believes that he or she is the sole soul who heard it, then it will remain merely as the unconquered thoughts of countless past warriors who gave up lives for a cause left in futility, and where the present is never confronted, and the future left unsecured.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS: The carefully crafted life

But that we could just write the narrative of our life, reflecting briefly upon our past, describing the present condition of being, but most importantly, to carefully craft the anticipated future of our lives in process.  What is revealed from one’s past is telling of a person’s character; of the present, a manifestation of the compass of one’s heart; and to the narrative of one’s future?  If the cultivation of one’s soul is the essence of the teleological process of life, the content of what we insert into the delineated poetry of future actions will uncover the truth in being of our damaged and tortured souls.

Would the script include fame and fortune?  Encounters with the common and ordinary, or of the arrogant dismissal of all but the beautiful and fortunate?  Would money always be written into the narrative of a future life, or ignored and instead replaced by peculiarities of fantasies, such as time travel, the ability to fly, or defiance of mortality and vanquishing of fear?

What one wishes for, like the genie who grants the dreams of youth, casts aside the veil we walk about with, and reveals all.  But the operative concept often overlooked is not about a crafted life; rather, that “extra” descriptive adverb which denotes painstaking caution and conscientious execution:  How does one “carefully” craft a life?  For, when wishes are offered and granted without constraint, the crafting itself becomes cast away as a mere byproduct and of irrelevant concern, like the human detritus flung out from a window of a speeding car down the highway of reckless disregard.

The care that one takes in crafting a life — now, that is an undertaking few of us attend to, despite every opportunity at every turn in the linear sequence of even the ordinary life of an individual.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, of course, 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 the Federal or Postal employee’s positional duties, that opportunity is offered in a limited and defined manner — in the form of 2 pathways.

First, by being required to write one’s narrative on SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability (where the Federal or Postal employee must describe, delineate and prove a sliced portion of one’s life concerning the medical condition and its impact upon one’s capacity and ability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job); and Second, by preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application and submitting it through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset — thereby formulating the narrative which will determine the future course of one’s life and livelihood.

No, in either case, the Federal or Postal employee will not be able to receive a genie’s grant of unfettered wishes and requests; but that was always the thoughtless residue of a childhood fantasy, anyway.

For, in the end, the carefully crafted life is not one which has any room for the misspent daydreams of a forlorn childhood; rather, the truly substantive content of a carefully crafted life necessarily involves the Triumvirate of the T:  Trials, Triumphs, and some sprinkling of Tragedies; just refer back to Shakespeare, or of Milton and Melville; anything else was merely the storybook fairytales of a bygone memory left behind in the dustbin of a forgotten era.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Tolstoy unedited

To read his works often entails utilization of descriptive metaphors, such as “tackle”, or “spend the summer” doing it, or even, “It has taken me a year to reach the midpoint”.  To have read Tolstoy’s major works is a kind of initiation into the upper echelons of cultivated sophistication; how many fakes and phonies there are, can only be guessed at, but some would estimate that nearly half of those claiming to have read “War and Peace” or “Anna Karenina” either failed to complete the rite of passage, skimmed or skipped major portions of either or both, or simply studied carefully the Cliff Notes in the secluded corner of nefarious midnight travails.

But consider the original, unedited version; what the Editor of such works must have had to contend with, just to get it sorted, compiled and drafted into a coherence of acceptability — all before the time of computers, cut-and-paste buttons, and leaving aside the untenable temperament of the author for whom suggested changes meant a challenge to a duel and likely emitting as a response a stream of unedited vitriol spiced with torrents of epithets unheard of in polite company.  But even Tolstoy must have known that his own works required further care and attention, like a child soiled and helpless in self-care; that no form of Art — regardless of its egomaniacal source and unmatched brilliance of the narrative creativity — could be stomached without correction, crafting and splicing of untethered verbosity.

Tolstoy, left unedited, would have required greater metaphors than those we already adopt, and perhaps would have been thrown into the dustbin of untranslated works stored in the vast warehouses of uninterpreted voices.  The parody to a life lived, of course, reflects a parallelism which everyone recognizes, but few undertake.  How one lives a life, also, requires constant perfecting, further editing, and persistent splicing.  The unedited version of any life would be left with an undisciplined mess, unfettered calamity and unconstrained egomania of purposeless vacuity.  Meaning can always be discovered in every life, but it is the cultivated perfection of a disciplined self which constitutes the essence of human uniqueness.

But there are interruptions in living, beyond the control of one’s will and fated determinism; a medical condition is one example, and for the Federal employee and the U.S. Postal worker who suffers 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 the Federal or Postal job, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application becomes of utmost importance.  However, one must take care in preparing, formulating and filing an effective SF 3112A — Applicant’s Statement of Disability — as so many people believe that the Tolstoy format of an unedited diatribe is as effective as the abridged version of a work of Joyce.

There is always a balance and a “middle ground”, whether in Life, Art, or in the effective submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  Art often reflects Life; Life is too often lived in an unconstrained fashion; but in either case, in preparing an OPM Disability Retirement application, it is important to recognize that Tolstoy unedited is as onerous an undertaking as a Federal Disability Retirement application left unfettered by purpose, application, and the careful compilation of meeting the criteria of law and life itself.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The labyrinth of human psychology

Daedalus, in Greek mythology, constructed the complex maze for King Minos of Crete; it is reported that the multicursal patterns were so elaborate that even the designer himself could barely find a pathway out.  That is, indeed, reflective of the complexity of human beings.  Cynics are quick to dismiss our own species as predictable, untalented in any specific category but only in general terms; boastful beyond a simpleton’s ego and successful in self-promotion and propagation only because it is too lazy to do otherwise.

Repetition, the need for habituation of purpose, and forever seeking a quietude of reflective pastures in solitary reserve, the human animal both and at once can be definitionally reduced as a mere afterthought in the Animal Kingdom, yet cunning in its predatory mastermind in a universe otherwise devoid of sophistication.

Human begins are nothing if not complex; and the psychology of humanity in the linear history of conflicts, wars, greed and hatred of group behavior, only touches upon the depths of a labyrinth that even Daedalus would not have been able to figure out.  And yet we try; and despite our best attempts, the moment humanity deems to have declared the discovery concluded and forever ensconced in determined coordinates, whether as genetic material established with certitude or some mythology of a variation of a Freudian narrative, Man pauses for a moment, then surprises to turn upside down the paradigm of conventional explanations of behavior.  It is only the hermit who, within an iconic security of an ivory-tower observatory, can issue declarative narratives establishing uncontested truths of unequivocal certitudes.

The rest of us who must interact and maneuver through the unmapped waters of societal upheavals, are left to daily hiccups of unpredictable encounters with fellow human beings.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must — in addition to dealing with mercurial managers and unpredictable outbursts from supervisors, coworkers and unnamed (and unnamable) agency heads — “deal” with a medical condition, such that the illness or injury results in an inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties at the U.S. Postal Service or the Federal agency, the daily encounters will often quickly take their toll through exhaustion and profound fatigue beyond mere tiredness from a rough day’s work.  You become “pigeonholed” as that “unproductive employee”, and thereby reduced to a category, a name, a label and a farce.

But the labyrinth of human psychology can never be constrained within the convenient categorization denounced by fiat; the complexity may become repressed, but like the boiling pot gurgling to explode, will remain simmering in the quietude of suppressed restraints.  Then, and probably long past and overdue, it is time to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  It is the only and best option available, lest the unpredictable and complex labyrinth of human psychology boil over into an uncanny cavern of a despairing tidal wave yet to be revealed.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire