Federal Medical Retirement: Resisting the Scatter Approach

Preparing a Federal Retirement application under the FERS system naturally lends itself to a “scatter” approach because it requires multiple facets in order to complete the complex bureaucratic process.  Like the tentacles on an unruly octopus, some facets must be correlated in sequential order, while others must be attended to simultaneously.

And because some portions must be completed by your Federal Agency (which is too often uncooperative and/or uncaring, and also it is sometimes downright antagonistic to the process as a whole) — and all the while being under pressure of an unreasonable timeline imposed by OPM, it is easy to despair and give up on the process entirely.

Perhaps that is how the system has been deliberately created — to make the process as difficult as possible in order to discourage as many Federal employees and Postal workers as possible.  To counter this, it is important to begin with a guiding principle — of the statutory criteria and case-law formulations which provide the overarching foundational premise — a legal cover letter which creates a successful roadmap for arguing your case.

Otherwise, the only alternative remaining is to succumb to the “scatter” approach — which is precisely what the U.S. Office of Personnel Management wants you to do so that they can deny the case based upon the incomplete aspect of any one of the unruly tentacles required.

Contact an Federal Disability Retirement Attorney who specializes in preparing, formulating, and filing a coherent, cogent, and effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement case, and resist the “scatter approach”.

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 Worker Disability Retirement: The Unresolved Problem

It won’t go away on its own.  We might wish it did; we might try to “will it” away; or, one might consider just ignoring it.

There are, to be sure, some problems which resolve themselves.  Children and their emotionally-fraught years of teenage problems — they often resolve themselves through age and distance; although, in this day and age where greater danger lurks in the dark web of the ethereal world, the job of the parent often is to make sure the problems don’t compound themselves into irreversible calamities.

A limp, too, might resolve itself.  And if you step in some dog-doo — yes, over time, walking with it on different surfaces will eventually scrape it all off from the soles of your shoes.  But as with children and dog-doo, it is often a good idea to take the time and initiate some action which is aggressive, positive and deliberate.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS requires just such an approach, because in the end, the chronic and debilitating medical condition is one of those unresolved problems.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and begin the deliberative process of tackling the unresolved problem.

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 Benefits: Puzzles Which Need Solutions

We are taught that life is a series of puzzles which need to be solved.  Puzzles — whether a jigsaw puzzle that requires finding and fitting the right pieces together; a word-play puzzle requiring thoughtful conceptual input; or a “dimensional” puzzle which requires remnants of knowledge we once learned in Geometry Class — necessitate thoughtful input on our part.

A medical condition, too, triggers a puzzle — how to deal with it; how to respond; how to adjust; whether and to what extent it will impact our lives; and there it is again: a Puzzle which needs a solution.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers who suffer from a medical condition which impacts your ability to perform one or more of the essential elements of your Federal or Postal position, the solution to the puzzle is to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Contact and consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin to solve the puzzle of a medical condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Closet of skeletons

It is a metaphor that is familiar; of secrets, or near-secrets; of those cluttered past incidents and events that need to be kept in the hallway closet, perhaps even locked for safety and security, whether of embarrassment, regret or shame.

Yet, modernity has less of them.  With the disappearance of shame, of openness of societal mores and normative values disappearing, almost vanishing, there is then no need for the closet to exist, and skeletons are fewer and far between because we have redefined what is shameful, what should be regretted, and that which is deemed unworthy of public display.

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”  That quip is attributed to Mark Twain, of course; the grand humorist of American society, and the author of books that have touched the conscience of an unsettled people.  How does a species stop blushing?  By rearranging that which triggers such a characteristic – the words that touch, the concept that shames, the sentence that embarrasses and the paragraph that pushes.

There are, of course, positive consequences, as well; for, the openness of society and the suppression and obliteration of normative standards have allowed for silent crimes that were once unspoken to be openly displayed and cauterized.  Perhaps, sometimes, “talking about it” opens things up, allows for the public airing of that which was hidden because polite society did not want to deal with it; but since it existed, anyway, we might as well open the closet of skeletons as a society and let everyone see whatever it is that we were ashamed of.

Sometimes, or more often than not, those monsters within are greater than the reality of the objective world.

Medical conditions often relate to such a concept.  We tend to hide them, be ashamed of them, and make of them larger than what necessity dictates – except for old men and women standing in the line at the post office who openly discuss the details of their last operation and procedures, of course.

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, remember that 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, is often like the closet of skeletons; once they are out in the open, the agency and the Postal Service will have to deal with it, just like the Federal or Postal worker who had to “deal with it” – the medical condition – for all of these many years, fearful of the shame of revelation and the reaction of the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Stamina

The Latin origin refers to “threads” and the foundation of a fabric; of endurance, strength and the power to resist.  It is the energy that is sustained, propelling the essence of a person’s illuminated core that lasts despite the destructive tears and moth-eaten wear that may slowly deteriorate the woven fabric that slowly untangles the aggregate of the cloth.  Fabrics are peculiar entities; there are enough analogies made of them, of the correlative concept that the singular threads poses the threat of weakness and inability to survive, but the collective aggregation with each additional reinforcement provides an almost invincible compendium of strengthened stalwart.

How does one cut through such a wall or obstacle?  By going back to the origins and roots – by cutting one thread at a time where the fray is shown or the weakness manifested; and thus do illnesses, viruses and medical conditions begin to deplete the human stamina that once possessed the power of endurance and energy to resist.  It may begin with a short period of illness, where the system’s immunity is attacked.

At first, the body still has the collective energy of reserve to easily fight off the infection.  Then, however, work, life and responsibilities compel one to do the very opposite of that which the body requires in order to recover – instead of resting and allowing the reconstruction of one’s immunity, the body is forced to undergo the stresses of modernity by going back to work, being compelled to endure despite the weakened state, and by sheer power of will, to ignore fatigue, sleep and the call for peaceful rest.

Then, by the body’s internal mechanism of using stored spurts of petrol, with the internal coursing of adrenalin to become the lifeblood of fueled turbo-infusions, a functional state of recovery is felt; except that, by chance, fate or bad luck, a regressive second stage is brought on by a subsequent attack, a recurrence of the illness or some other foreign invasion, and further debilitation occurs.  It is at such a critical juncture that we often make the mistake of trying to get a “quick fix” to the problem, and either ignore it, push through or fail to recognize the danger-symptoms.

Stamina requires rest and restoration in order to maintain the warehouse of vitality; it is meant for the long haul and the constancy of endurance for the period of human life.  By abusing the privilege of the woven fabric gifted, we allow for the edges to fray and the vulnerability to become exposed.  The natural need for rest is a luxury we can no longer afford in modernity, and so we push onward despite the warning signs imminently cautioning such paths of self-destruction.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are contemplating 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 dual challenge must be faced:  First, the acceptance of one’s medical condition and disability, and the use of one’s stamina to endure that new state of acceptability; and, second, to push through the lengthy process of preparing, formulating, filing and waiting upon the administrative morass of a Federal Disability Retirement procedure.

In the end, the Federal and Postal employee who by necessity of a medical condition must undergo the complex bureaucratic process of filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, will have to utilize the stored stamina that is the fabric of life, and continue to maintain the frayed threads of that vital energy which is the essence of beginnings.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire  
OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer

   

Federal Employee Disability Retirement Benefits: Writing a life

It is lived; or so we attempt to do so.  This thing called “life”; neither an art form, and forever unaccompanied by instructions or even a cheap compass; most are abandoned at the junkyards of forgotten corners, where the trifecta of raw sewage, mistreatment of body and spirit, and the crass exposure to the detritus of human discontent coalesce to present the irony of birth preceding an inevitable death.

Heidegger taught that we engage in projects in order to avoid the ultimate outcome; for Nietsche, nihilism opened doors for optimism contrary to the preceding generations of convoluted castaways; and while Zen and Hindu mysticism explained away the agony of the body, the remaining torture of living the reality of the now somehow wasn’t enough to extinguish the suffering groans of an impervious universe devoid of feeling, empathy, regard or constancy.

If the implements to create are not provided, and cannot be afforded no matter the toil from birth to death, of what use is the life given if living it cannot be achieved?  Moreoever, how can one engage in the writing of a life, let alone the living of it?

Autobiographies are mostly forgotten narratives undertaken merely to dispose of haunting ghosts of passing groans; and biographies, only for those who become a footnote in the dustbin of society.  And thus are we forsaken, like the cross abandoned on the hilltop where agony was first embraced in an effort to expiate the sufferings of our forefathers.  And then we are asked to write a life — no, not merely to live it, but to engage in art as reflective of ugliness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are attempting to prepare an SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, the arduous expenditure of describing even a slice of it can mean the difference between securing one’s future or losing a lifetime’s career of investing in the Federal sector or the U.S. Postal Service.

Whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the labor of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application must by necessity describe the impact of the medical condition, its nexus to the Federal or Postal worker’s inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, and to “prove” it by a preponderance of the evidence.

Such a daunting task is tantamount to writing a life — perhaps, one could appease, merely a slice of one, a portion of a greater whole, and an abbreviated compendium in an abridged form.  Nevertheless, the task involves the aggregation of descriptive narrative, a coherent structure of prose encapsulating facts, evidence and a legal argumentation with a focus towards meeting a statutory criteria for eligibility; indeed, some could argue that the entire project is one demanding something well beyond the mere writing of a life; it is, moreover, to convey and communicate the most private of concerns before a public forum in a maze of bureaucratic complexities amidst an administrative nightmare in a sequence of conundrums.

Yes, living a life is hellish and unaccompanied by direction or explicit purpose; writing a life is even worse — for it entails the remembrance of things past, the present undone, and a future filled with uncertainties but for the successful execution of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Hug That Wasn’t

Regrets are priceless; they lack both a marketplace value, as well as a worth beyond applicability of accounting principles.  The conceptual void of negation; the paradox of non-existence and nothingness; the chasm of obsolescence and absence where once perceptual conformity allowed for the revelation of a thing; these are all within the imaginative mind of the human puzzle.

What possible evolutionary utility can be ascribed to things that did not happen, could have, but never did, and where the pit of void in one’s stomach leaves a dissatisfying wanting of that which could have been?  In the quietude of a sleepless night, when images of past concerns invade and prevent that final lull into a dreamworld of peaceful intent, those thoughts of missed opportunities, bumps in the night of moments forgotten by interludes of dusty memories once enlivened but now deadened with time and fading photographs darkened by degeneration of remembrances once clung to; in a twinkle of twilight, a sense of regret can pervade.

It has often been said that, on the eve of one’s deathbed, one never remembers the time of work unfulfilled; rather, we recount the time lost of things we did not do because we were too busy with work.  Regret does not cull the graveyards of memories lost about parallel universes involving work left undone at the office; instead, it reaches into the bottomless chasm of simple recollections, like the hug that never was.

Medical conditions often serve as a reminder of important priorities, and tend to impose the sequence of one’s lives, reordering them into a listing of priceless artifacts, like uncut diamonds lost in the sands of time.  Suddenly, one’s mortality is in question, and more than getting meaningless tasks done, the vitality of relationships come to the fore.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suddenly recognize that a medical condition is beginning to prevent one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the sense of regret often accompanies the realization, but is also and just as often a misplaced case of loyalty.  Why should fealty be sworn to an agency which is impervious to human suffering?  How can a guilty conscience pervade when the Federal or Postal employee has already given beyond what is required, for years and decades already lost?

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit open to Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition impedes continuation with an agency or the U.S. Postal Service based upon a legal criteria of proof of preponderance of the evidence.  Guilt and regret should never be a part of the process.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is an employment right, accorded by statute, and should be done once the Federal or Postal employee recognizes that one cannot perform at least one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is a benefit tapped into only through proof by evidentiary sufficiency.

And like the hug that wasn’t, the failure to file for Federal Disability Retirement is tantamount to the negation of rationality when continuation in circumstances of employment only exacerbates the pain, prolongs the suffering, and extends the nightmare; leaving to wonder the capacity of the human animal, the quietude of regrets and the forlorn despair of the empty space left, when once we tried to embrace a loved one, but instead spent that time serving a master who had long since gone home to his family.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer: The Scent of Decay

Animals steer clear of it; the growing stench is a warning, a harbinger for the wary; it is only an attraction to vultures and other scavenging birds of prey; civilized societies deal with it by slapping an FDA food label on items, long before the bacteria of decomposition begins to cannibalize and self-immolate.

The reality of the olfactory response is to curl up one’s nostrils; the metaphor encapsulates the recognition of weakness and vulnerability, and the herd mentality of attacking the weakest in the evolutionary race of disseminating one’s greater gene pool by diminishing the population of the weak, thus providing a justifying basis for extermination and dominance.

In the microcosmic context of a Federal workplace, the scent of decay compels a reconstituting of loyalties and forgetfulness of past accomplishment; what you did yesterday, matters little; what you have the potential to do, matters most; what you can no longer do, destroys all mattering.

For U.S. Government employees and Postal workers, the time for change comes not necessarily with the seasons of nature, but when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties.  Medical conditions represent vulnerability; and whether the Federal or Postal employee has the best of relationships with one’s supervisor, coworkers or the agency and department as a whole, the scent of decay immediately follows upon a diminution of productivity and potentiality.

The evolutionary human instinct to follow the dominant and ignore the vulnerable is one which defies replacement by artifice and societal niceties; suddenly, the star employee has found disfavor, and it matters not whether the fault can be attributed to laziness, incompetence — or a medical condition which cannot be controlled or helped.

OPM Federal Disability Retirement is an employment benefit which accompanies all Federal and Postal employees who are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset; it allows for Federal and Postal employees who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, because of a medical condition, to obtain an annuity in order to move forward in one’s life.  Once obtained, there is a possibility for a second vocation, and to earn up to 80% of what one’s (now former) Federal or Postal position currently pays, on top of the Federal Disability annuity itself.

As man lives no more in the wilds of pure survivability, where beast and burdens of hunger have been replaced by white collars and polite salutations of meaningless vacuity; so the appearance of empathy and magnanimity of intent may mask, for a time, the scent of decay; until the pounding hoof prints fade in the settling dust of that herd which sensed the vulnerability, where the howling pack of wolves and wild beasts come gathering in the twilight of snarling tensions; and standing still in a forest of wild beasts will not save the doe from the savagery of civilized society; for, while headlight hunting may be outlawed, it is the frozen deer in the headlights which waits upon a desolate tundra while the scavengers await the reaching arms of the scent of decay.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire