FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: Second Chances

In the wild, there are few such second chances.  Every now and again, one sees a documentary where a prey somehow escapes the grasp of the predator, but it is a rare sight.  When survival depends upon a meal, nature does not relent in favor of the weak.

In the human sphere, second chances are more common because a greater sophistication of higher human characteristics are involved (at least, sometimes), not the least of which include kindness, empathy, and selfless generosity.  We are capable of rising above the beast and acting at a level just below the angels.

Shakespeare and Milton recognized this greater capacity, as have many other authors (is it a contradiction that the English, known for their ” stiff upper lip” approach to life, would embrace such a worldview?).  And when a government passes legislation empowering its citizens with second chances, it is reflective of a higher and more civil spirit.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a disabling injury or illness which requires a second chance, FERS Disability Retirement under the FERS system provides just such an opportunity.

To have greater assurance that the bureaucratic machinery of OPM will comply with the letter of the law, however, you may want to contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, for — even in the human sphere — there are still predators in the wild who fail to regard the spirit of the higher laws.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Federal Lawyer exclusively representing Federal & Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Disability Retirement: Doubt

Is it an emotion.  Or, is it an “instinctive sense”?  Perhaps a cognitive level of reasoned thought?  If the latter, do animals doubt?  Why do we often qualify it by adding the term, “a sense of”?

The dictionary definitions often avoid the doubt of doubt by including both: “A feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction”.  Note the inclusion of both: Emotion (“feeling”) and Reason (“conviction”).  Whether of a feeling or of a rational basis, it allows one to pause, to ponder, to consider the various signs and symbols of life’s intractable problems, and to consider whether or not to move forward.

As you enter your house or apartment, does the door slightly ajar make you doubt?  Do certain indicators at work — of furtive glances, of avoidance by your supervisor, of closed-door meetings excluding you: Do they in the aggregate create a doubt?

Or, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are not quite sure as to the qualifying criteria in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — is there a doubt?

Whether of a “feeling” or of a rational basis, you should contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to cast aside any sense or idea of a doubt.

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 Disability Retirement: The Successful Equation

Remember those days in school when — not only did you have to know how to figure out the answer to a question — you actually had to know what the right “equation” was?  Without the proper equation, you could never solve the “problem”.  Yes, yes, you could do some tinkering around the edges — of “figuring out” in some unique way, but ultimately the only way to solve the issue was by rote memorization (something not required, anymore, in this day and age of computers and smartphones) of that mathematical statement on the near side of the equal sign.

If only life were like that — of simply memorizing the equation, then proceeding forward and solving every problem.  But that’s the nub of it all, isn’t it?

Life brings forth encounters and circumstances, “problems” and difficulties that refuse to respond to an equation pre-planned for the vicissitudes of life’s misgivings.  Are mathematicians better at adapting and responding to life’s travails?  Or, do philosophy majors and those who embrace dictums to live by (e.g., that all of life is a “river” and we can never step into the same one twice, and other such Chopra-like platitudes that carry us through difficult times) better sail through the trials that everyone inevitably faces?

The fact is, equations are often best left for mere theoretical applications, and rarely conform to the changes of life’s encounters.

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 search for an “equation” in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application should begin with a consultation with an FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

While there may not be a pre-set equation to follow, there are certainly important steps to take in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation on Federal Disability Retirement Claims: The Privy

As a verb, it allows for sharing in information secretive within confidences kept closely held; as a noun, an antonym of sorts — of a most public facility where privacy is needed, but which everyone uses for the most common of needs — of a place where we relieve ourselves and perform bodily functions that redden our cheeks with shame when spoken about.

Are we privy to the intimate thoughts of friends and loved ones?  Do we ask where the privy is when in London, Tokyo or Idaho?  Of the last of the tripartite places so identified, the response might be: “What’s that, hon?”  Of the middle, it could likely be: “Nan desu-ka?”  Of the first, with a neat British accent or the melody of a cockney dialect: “My good chap, just around the corner over there!”

Confidential information or the toilet; how many words in the English language allows for such duality of meanings depending upon where the word is inserted into a sentence?

That is how Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition often feel about their situation when a 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: For years, like the noun because he or she was a “valuable asset” to the Federal Agency or the Postal Service, where all confidential details were passes by you and you were always “in the loop” of everything important going on within the agency; then, when the medical condition hit and you began to take some Sick Leave and perhaps even a spate of LWOP, you were relegated to being a “noun” — no longer privy to the inner workings of the Agency or the Postal Service, but merely a privy on the outskirts of town.

When that happens — when you are no longer a verb, but an outcast noun — then you know that it is time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, so that your place in the sentence of life will once again become an active verb, and not merely an outcast noun to be abandoned and forgotten in the grammar of vital living.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The daunting process

Many Federal and Postal employees call an attorney for an initial legal consultation because of the “daunting process” involved in filing for Federal Disability Retirement.  And, indeed, the complex administrative process involved in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application is a confounding, confusing and complicated process.

From the “how” of responding to the multiple questions on SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, to the quantity, volume and substance of “what” to include; to the issues surrounding what constitutes a viable and legal “accommodation” that may determine the truthfulness of a Supervisor’s Statement (SF 3112B) and Agency’s Efforts for Reassignment and Accommodation (SF 3112D); as well as peripheral issues that often intersect but may not necessarily impact or influence a Federal Disability Retirement application, to include (but not be limited to) EEO filings, a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) implementation, “Fitness for Duty” evaluations, OWCP/Department of Labor filings that may be concurrently initiated, as well as the reason, rationale and impact of a Social Security Disability filing, etc. — they are all relevant, significant and consequential issues that, in their aggregate compendium of concerns involved, both ancillary and some central to the primary concern of Federal Disability Retirement, should be analyzed, evaluated and considered carefully.

For any Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who is considering preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted (ultimately) to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the question of what to do with this “daunting process” can be allayed by first consulting with an attorney who is experienced in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and allowing the “daunting” part of the process to become nothing more than the squeaky mouse hidden in the corner that, before discovering the facts, once sounded like a burglar attempting to break in.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The negative of a photograph

In this digital age, the disappearance of the negative in photography is quite appropriate; for, this is an age that has attempted to expunge everything negative, both in form and in substance.  That thin strip of plastic film that was always retained, and carefully coupled with the “positive” prints, was preserved with the idea that the more valued sets of prints may become lost, distributed or otherwise disseminated, and in that event, so long as the negative of the original was retained, more could be printed out.

Just before the digital age, there were “do-it-yourself” machines – monstrosities that received the film, processed them and spit out two-prints each; or is that just the faulty memory of this writer? The double-prints were meant to allow for giving of one and keeping the other, just in case grandma or grandpa wanted one of those cute pictures where everyone simultaneous said the universal word: “Cheese!”

Yet, the concept of the negative still retains some fascination, despite its obsolescence in the modernity of the digital age; for, it is the reverse order of reality, where the lightness of images retains the darkness of reflection, and vice versa, because of the chemical sensitivity in processing the film.

And who among us recalls the ghoulish search when we actually did want to get another print made – of searching through various negatives, seeing the hollow images of figures staring back, trying to discern whether multiple negatives that appeared similar but not quite the same could be the one, by matching the angle of the face, the tilt of the head, or some mysterious figure in the background not shown in the original?

Have we all had that experience – where there is something that appears in the negative but not in the print, and attribute it to the ghostly mysteries that somehow and by mistake captured the supernatural world otherwise banished from this day and age?

The romantic world of the unknown has now vanished, along with the negative of a photograph; now, we are left with the virtual reality of a mundane universe, with nothing left for our imaginations.  For, the negative of a photograph is the mystery itself that always spurred us onward and upward, trying always to achieve the next level of accomplishment.

For the Federal employee and 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 one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, the concept of the negative of a photograph should be quite familiar; for, once upon a time, that image beheld on that strip of plastic was the “real” you, preserved and retained for posterity as the valuable essence of a being otherwise forgotten.

Federal agencies and Postal facilities only care about the print that stays forever in the same pose and manner, unchangeable and forever identical.  The mere fact that a medical condition has “changed” a Federal or Postal employee is somehow rejected by the Federal agency and U.S. Postal Service, and that is why filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management becomes so important.

For, just like the negative of a photograph, it is the medical condition in its negative aspects that always seems to be the sole focus of the Federal or Postal facility in determining the worth of an individual.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Of venal and venial injustice

That a single vowel can radically alter the meaning of a word is not surprising; rather, it is the simplicity of the reduction – from one constituting an onerous sense of the corrupt, to a mere insignificance of action – that demarcates the chasm of definitional differences between the two.  Both are adjectives; but of the former,  often associated with corruption involving bribery and characterized by a mercenary motive, while the latter is of a pardonable offense, minor on a scale of wrongdoings, and merely bordering on the barely noticeable spectrum of sins acknowledged – it is the difference of the singular vowel – the “i” which constitutes the reflection back upon the personal “I” who acts upon the violation that determines whether the offense is minor or major, that divides the two.

The originating context of a venal act almost always involved corruption relating to an exchange of consideration – and, for whatever reason, it was that underlying motive of engaging in an act of illegality for the sake of money, that exhibited a greater evil by the participant.  Perhaps such an origin of retreating repulsiveness is Biblical – of that treachery committed in exchange for the thirty pieces of silver.  Translated into English, the personal pronoun inserted in lower caps in the middle of the word, stuck between two consonants, evinces a guilty conscience inflamed deep within the troubled recesses of a soul’s agony.  And what of the noun which the adjective modifies – does it add, amend, enhance or otherwise alter?

Injustice is a malleable concept.  Words were once confined by strict adherence to meanings; no more, as society has allowed for the gymnasts of linguistic pole-vaulting to tinker unabatedly.  As the negation of the root term “justice”, it has become recognized as any feeling of unfairness encountered, as opposed to the more concrete embodiment of society’s clear mandate in a process of upholding a morally superior stance, confirmed by age-old rules and procedures, inviolate as reflected in the symbolism of a blindfolded lady impervious to the winds of bias, prejudice or venal means.

For the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal Service worker who is daily being bombarded with harassing conduct by the agency or the U.S. Postal Service, both forms of injustices are encountered:  Venal injustice, at the hands of an agency which may be plotting to dismiss and terminate; and venial injustice, at the daily toil of enduring slights and demeaning whispers by coworkers, supervisors and others unnamed.

Medical conditions occur through no fault of the Federal or Postal worker suffering from them; yet, Federal agencies and U.S. Postal Service employees treat such Federal and Postal workers as mere fodder for committing injustices otherwise unaccounted for.  Perhaps there is a heaven where ultimate justice prevails and where venal sins and venial acts are sifted between to determine who is issued a valid passport for migration through those pearly gates; but, until then, there is the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, and where obtaining an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is neither a venal act, nor a mere venial outcome, but an injustice turned around for the Federal or Postal worker who cannot otherwise perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Poetry’s death

By the title is not meant the terminus of the literary genre; that would be too great a claim to consider.  No; instead, it is the more subtle manner of thought, the perspective of viewing, and the approach to living.  We live by metaphors and analogies; that is what the rise of language has accomplished, where the raw violence of predatory insights in nature’s setting of surviving could no longer tolerate, but where some amount of leisure, such little calculation of foresight, and a crumb of thoughtful reserve allowed for a world of mythological beauty.

Materialism killed the purring cat.  For a time, Charles L. Dodgson – whom we all know by the pen name, “Lewis Carroll” – attempted to stem the tide of decay, and succeeded for a generation or so.

Once upon a time, parables could be understood; elven creatures and angels with wings releasing residues of golden dust, tinged with faith and tinctures of mysterious delights would pass by windows left ajar for welcoming strangers; and sleeping beauties, knights in shining armor riding upon white horses to rescue were but assumed and accepted, and not the rattling ugliness of windmills mistaken for dragons no longer existing.  We believed.

But then came science, logic and the Darwinian distance of antiseptic explanations, and we all embraced it because of its allure of pragmatic promises.  But has it brought us any greater joy or insight into life’s misgivings?

Shakespeare referred always to the alignment of the stars, and of gargoyles behind the fool’s mask; and while the inquisition of religion’s past haunts still in the corridors of forgotten subterranean memories, it is the loss of inquisitiveness which makes for greater sorrow.

Words and explanatory concepts must abide by the correspondence they convey to the greater world about; and whether the world is deemed flat, or the earth is no longer a geocentric universe but a reversal to an upside-down world constituting a heliocentric perspective, unless the believer is a seafarer or an astrophysicist attempting to calculate the incalculable in geometric complexities beyond our present concerns, what difference does it make – except that we no longer embrace the wonderland lost to the science of inchoate values.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the present pain and anguish suffered is something experienced in “real time” and impacted in actual terms, it is often poetry’s death which compels one to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Think about it:  it is work in order to play; play is the time of leisure in order to engage in the poetry of life.  But when a medical condition forces one into a life of drudgery, where the “play” part of life is merely more work in order to get enough rest or sleep to continue in the “work” portion of living, then life as a whole becomes unbearable, and no amount of poetry can soothe the pains of this life.

That is why preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Employee Disability Retirement application – in order to circumvent the agony of one’s medical condition – becomes important in order to reach that plateau where one can attend to the medical conditions themselves, and further, to forestall the inevitability of poetry’s death.

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

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Another Test

Peel an orange, and you have the fruit; skin a nut, and the unmasked food is revealed; but how does one get to the essence of a person?  Schools do it repetitively; job interviews count on it; security clearances rely upon it.  Life is one set of tests after another; and whether through formalized questions designed to reveal the extent of rote knowledge, or of more subtle encounters to discover one’s character, the attempt to unravel the essence of an individual comes in many forms, in multitudinous appearances, and in engagements which never fully define the person tested.

Some see it as merely a necessary irritant; others, as a challenge to be faced with relish; and still others, an angst to be avoided, like the proverbial plague which leaves scars of motley disfigurement to the heart of one’s soul.  Whether to avoid or to directly confront, life presents a series of challenges, and the test of relevance is not necessarily the score to achieve, but rather the responsiveness which engenders cause.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are daily “tested” because of a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the job requirements of the Federal or Postal employment, the issue becomes one of survival, or not.  At some point, the test itself becomes irrelevant, and must be replaced altogether.  Whether the agency views it as such — or, more appropriately, it has now turned into harassment and hostility — the basis of such testing becomes an absurdity.

That is when the Federal or Postal employee, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, must consider filing for Federal Employee Disability Retirement benefits.  There again, it is likened to another “test” to be faced and undertaken.  For, the bureaucratic morass which must be tolerated is inextricable entangled with the preparation, formulation, proving and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement case, where the evidence must be gathered, the test of viability of the case itself becomes of concern, and the next steps in encountering and facing the “test of life” must be faced.  Oh, but that life would refrain from the constancy of death, taxes and tests.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire