Federal Disability Retirement: Different Approaches

There is a difference between the ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of things — “How something is done” is quite different from “Why something is done.”

One can argue that the ‘Why’ of something should logically precede the ‘How’, for the meaningfulness attached will motivate as to the mechanical doing of it; whereas, others will propose that one should simply follow Nike’s oft-repeated logo — “Just do it” — and in the act of doing it, the meaningfulness of the activity will naturally follow and be discovered.

Ultimately, they represent different approaches, and may even be characterized by different personalities.  The one who simply charges forward without purpose or meaning may be superficially identified as a ‘pragmatist’ of sorts, while the one who first ponders the “Why” of everything may require a ‘spiritual’ source in everything before proceeding.

In the end, however, the underlying source of everything returns us to that what Viktor Frankl identified as the central human motivational force — the paradoxical search for a life’s meaning.  The importance of the ‘Why’ cannot be ignored; and as science can only point to the ‘How’ of anything, the emptiness of an unanswered ‘Why’ will often paralyze us.

Life is difficult as it is, with calamities and unexpected twists and turns along the way, and the fragile state of our health can be devastating without having an answer as to the ‘Why’ of everything.

For FERS Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service workers who suffer from an chronic injury or other condition and are forced to make a major decision moving forward, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management may be one of the biggest fights of your life, and while a FERS medical attorney may not be able to answer the more important question as to the ‘Why’ of what has occurred, it is the more pragmatic ‘How’ which may be needed, for the time being.

Sometimes, the different approaches require a priority of answers in a sequence less than optimally answered, and in the case of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system with OPM, it is the question of ‘How’ which must take precedence.

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: The Proper Perspective

You can gather all of the available facts, and yet still make the wrong decision because you fail to have the proper perspective.  To have the right perspective, you must assess and evaluate the facts as presented and arrive at the best judgment based upon a proper perspective.  The “proper perspective”, moreover, is often based upon a lifetime of habits formed in how one engages the facts amassed.

Do you allow for emotional prejudices to cloud your judgment, or have you cultivated a habit of dispassionate review?  Are you able to set aside the overwhelming sense of panic which can lead to a reactionary course of response, or can you set the issue aside and come back to it with a reserved approach of greater objectivity?

In most cases encompassing a variety of facts, a requirement of interpretive analysis must occur, and that process of arriving at the best course of action in determining the comparative and superlative degrees of a judgment does not necessarily mean that there is a singular “best” course, for reasonable people may differ on that.

And, of course, that is the proverbial “rub” of the issue — that the proper perspective arrived at the time may not lead to the best action to be taken, but merely that, given a set of facts analyzed at a given time and place, it is the “proper” one for the moment.  Other facts and circumstances may come into play if left to ponder, but because an imminent decision must be made, it is often enough to rely upon one’s best judgment in moving forward.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a chronic illness or injury such that an application for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system must be considered, arriving at the proper perspective will often be clouded by the medical condition itself.  As such, it is important to have the assistance of a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to provide the proper perspective in fighting against OPM for your rights.

The perspective of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is always that no Federal or Postal employee qualifies for Federal Disability Retirement, and will often deny a case by making it appear that you had no chance for success, to begin with.  However, that approach is not the right or proper perspective, and the way to counter OPM and arrive at the proper perspective is to apply the law.

Contact a Federal Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and respond with the proper perspective.

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 Disability Retirement Law: The Finite Life

The concept itself may connote multiple meanings: That we have a set amount of time within which to live out our lives; and, additionally, that what is in our power is limited, contained, restrained, and bounded by our nature, our born-with talents, our circumstances, and likely the most significant factor — luck.

Are some people just “lucky”?  And, what does it mean to “have luck”?

Certainly, if you are walking down a street and you come upon an abandoned briefcase which no one claims, and you open it and find a large sum of money within — that would be considered “pure luck”.  But that doesn’t happen often in life; instead, the merging of various circumstances and events occur, where opportunities are presented to Subject-A but not to Person-B; and then, we declare of the former, “He was just lucky”, and of the latter, “She just never has any luck.”

That we have a set amount of time in this world is a concept of inconsequential results, for that is true for everyone.  But of the concept of a finite life which means that we are limited in our potentialities — well, that clearly has dire consequences, especially when it belittles and diminishes the human imagination.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition reminds us of the finite life — both in terms of our mortality as well as the limitations of what we are able to do — preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) may be the answer for releasing the Federal or Postal employee from the conceptual constraints of what that definition entails.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and release yourself from the Finite Life resulting from the greater sense of mortality brought on by your medical conditions.

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: Thinking Ahead

The natural query as an addendum would be: Ahead of what?  What is the intervening cause, issue, obstacle, etc., beyond which the thinking must anticipate in order to overcome, and where the necessity arises in order to avert the troubles prognosticated?

We can, of course, think ahead in a general sense, and that is often a wise activity to engage in.  We all know of those whom such a process never becomes a part of their routine — always running late; often missing commitments because of scheduling conflicts never resolved; of living entirely and exclusively “in the moment” without an aforethought involving consequences of tomorrow’s needs, let alone the day after or the day after that.

Thinking ahead involves and requires planning; anticipating what will likely occur; a realistic assessment of events that can be reasonably predicted; and to act in preparation for the inevitability of near-certain occurrences.

Medical conditions in a Federal Disability Retirement case often involves such a necessity — of anticipating what will happen within a few months’ time, or a year hence.  Yes, and there is the requirement that your medical condition must last a minimum of 12 months; but that can almost always be in the doctor’s prognosis based upon past treatments of similar medical conditions.

More than that, the preparation itself of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS will require much thinking ahead, and that is when turning to an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law becomes important — in the planning, assembling of evidence, and the execution of an effective filing of a Federal Disability Retirement Application under FERS — it all requires thinking ahead.

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.

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Agency Actions

Agencies possess a great deal of power.  When a Federal or Postal employee is subjected to the actions of an agency or the postal facility, future consequences yet undetermined may reverberate without full knowledge to the employee.  The results may be subtle, but just enough to minimize the chances of successfully obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement.

The same goes for Federal and Postal employees who go through the First and Second Stages of a Federal Disability Retirement application process without an attorney.  OPM, as a Federal Agency, wields a great deal of power over an individual — determining the future course of a Federal Disability Retirement application, for one; and just as their actions can impact the decision-making process of a Federal Disability Retirement applicant, so too can other agencies during the procedures of processing a Federal Disability Retirement application.

How an SF 3112B is completed and the language used; what is stated or attached to SF 3112D; what the applicant says in response to the questions posed on SF 3112A; all of these can have subtle reverberations down the line.  Consult with a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer before you go down another rabbit hole that may result in agency actions which negatively impact you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Persistence versus giving up

The latter should never be an option, although it is too often contemplated; and the former requires either a dull sense of reality or an in-born stubbornness that refuses to acknowledge defeat.  Both are often the result of the countermanding characteristic of the opponent who relies upon the fact that a certain percentage of the population either lacks the characteristic of persistence or otherwise will ultimately give up with nary an effort or will to fight on.

How many battles in history’s billfold of forgotten memories resulted in defeat because of a ruse portrayed by the enemy?  It is the bold pretension that tests the resolve and allows for victory or defeat; the knowledge that there will always be a certain number of people who, upon facing any resistance or adversity, will simply “give up” and surrender.  Thus is it left up to those who will persist no matter the challenge, where adversity and contention will be endured no matter the cost.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who enter the arena of a Federal Disability Retirement process, one should always expect and prepare each stage “as if” the battle at the next stage will ensue.  If a denial is issued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for a Federal Disability Retirement application, of course it is going to be written and conveyed “as if” the case never had a chance, “as if” none of the medical evidence had any relevance or significance, and “as if” you don’t even come near to meeting the criteria for eligibility for Federal Disability Retirement.

By sounding “as if” you never had a chance and failed miserably to meet any and all legal criteria for eligibility, OPM is banking on your lack of persistence and the concomitant reaction of simply giving up.

However, persistence is the key to success, and giving up is merely a prelude to a victory near at hand if only one steps back, takes a deep breath, and realizes that, from the very beginning, Federal Disability Retirement was never going to be an easy road to bear — but a consultation with an experienced attorney may well lift the burden of the beast where persistence is the key and not giving up is the pathway to a successful outcome at the next stage of the administrative process called “Federal Disability Retirement”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Maintaining a schedule

We all abide by them, strive to meet them and toil to achieve them.  We claim that we control “it”, but in fact, it often becomes the monster which completely constrains and restrains, overpowers and undermines.

Maintaining a schedule in life is important.  Some, because of unknown past issues or current difficulties, cannot stand by and allow for a violation of it; others, with more daring personalities and flighty egos, defy it deliberately and result in floundering about without a purposive intent or constructive content.  Maintaining a schedule is often essential to the daily lives of all; for those who have certain learning disabilities, it allows for a structuring of a universe which would otherwise appear chaotic and undisciplined; for others, the very structure imposed restricts the inner creativity of brilliance, and we are left with the genius who follows no man’s path.

Babies and children do well with it; the creative genius who is always distracted by the brilliance within his or her own subjective world, often cannot abide by it; but the rest of us follow a fairly monotonous routine and stick close to it, if only by excuses given of being “five minutes late” or the sorry excuse that the bedside alarm clock failed to rouse us.

Then, there are companies and agencies that seem to fall apart at the seams, where overwork, underpaid staffers and unreliable workers seem to disrupt that most important of schedules – meeting deadlines.  Then, there is the incongruence between one’s personal schedule and the schedule of another entity, and when the two fail to agree or work in consonance, then frustration begins to develop.  The tumult of frustration is often based upon the chasm that occurs between what one expects and the reality which unfolds.  Closing that “gap” is the solution to one’s growing frustration in this world.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to, are about to, or have already filed a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the key to containing one’s frustration over the time-period that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is taking, extending, violating and ignoring in performing their duties in approving or denying a Federal Disability Retirement application, is to recognize that their “schedule” is one of complete and utter power, and that the Federal or Postal Disability Retirement applicant is in a position of complete powerlessness; and, on top of that, to maintain a schedule apart from what OPM does, while one waits for an outcome that is hoped to be favorable.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

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 Government Employee Medical Retirement: The missing comma

To what extent does language influence life?  As a mode of communication, sounds and utterances can certainly be restricted to a minimum, without threatening survivability; and in the history of our vast universe of words, thoughts and conceptual constructs embedded in dusty warehouses of discarded books, manuscripts and love letters tucked away in drawers once meant to safely keep where memorabilia of treasures remain unrevealed, does the competence of applying grammatical rules matter, anymore?

Do the dominos of historical reverberation fall in fated inevitability — like the missing comma which resulted in a lesser grade for the boy who would be king, but because of the diminished mark, failed to meet the expectations of a royal family who favored the second child, anyway, and beheaded the law of primogeniture; and thus did inevitability fade, history alter, and the child-king who would not be turned to savagery and the took revenge upon the world by becoming a little-known mass-murderer but to those whom he slaughtered.

Can the course of history be altered by the lack of placement of such a curved indentation of fate?  Where, just a fraction of a distance above, it is but an apostrophe which betrays the possessive embrace of a noun standing beside, but for the careless droppings which turn it into a comma?  Sometimes, of course, the misplaced comma can change the entire context and meaning of a sentence, and then the question becomes, do such misinterpretations have any force of impact, anymore, to the extent of interceding in the life of an individual?

Language is a peculiar invention; among other species, we recognize sounds, murmurings and signals to communicate; but to constitute the higher level of combining thought with words spoken and concepts written, requires an advancement of evolutionary uniqueness not discovered by fellow beings of other natures.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must communicate and convince because of a medical condition, where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, trying to maneuver through the administrative chaos of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management with an effective Federal Disability Retirement application — as ensconced in SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability — is the highest of tests in the usage of language as a tool of persuasive activity.

It may not seem so, as any encounter with a bureaucratic maze will often appear to be merely an arduous chore of necessity; but, in fact, engaging a behemoth and arguing it from its slumber of overwhelmed caseload is a reflection of man’s penultimate destiny of a chance meeting between grammar and life undeservedly faced:  Of whether the missing comma is of relevance, anymore, in this age where the possessive pronoun no longer matters when a computer can delete the words left unsent.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: A penchant for excess

Do the historicity and context of a given time determine the individual’s proclivity for behavior otherwise deemed unnatural?  Does that concept even apply anymore, as normative constraints are denigrated, societal conventions become ignored, and new frontiers bypassing the ethos of communities are no more than mere irritants to swat away?

There has always been, of course, a penchant for excess inherent in the human essence; the British Royal Family, the French aristocracy, the Russian Czar and the modern totalitarian state where wealth and abundance allows an opening for the limitless reach of man’s appetite and predilection for excess.

Does the quiet neighbor next door — that meek and unassuming character straight out of the parallel universe of Walter Mitty’s caricature, of the bespectacled individual always referred to as “growing old with grace and a potbelly” — become a tyrant upon winning the lottery?  Is it inevitable that he files for divorce the day after his bank account becomes flush with an astronomical sum, abandons his responsibilities, denies his lineage to aunts and uncles who suddenly want to become the proverbial long-lost cousins who always loved him but were too shy to previously approach — is there an identifiable genetic code of wrap-around dimensions coiling within each of our cells waiting to embrace an inevitable penchant for excess?

And what of our behavior towards our fellow men and women — is human nature so predictable that we fear the unravelling of ourselves, and thus do we cloak our ugliness and conceal our inner motives precisely because, like the largest organ covering our bodies — the skin which provides layers of protection to make our appearance presentable and unblemished — we require constructs of artificial boundaries because we ourselves cannot abide by the liberty we are granted?

These thoughts are nothing new for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who encounters man’s penchant for excess once the Federal or Postal employee shows the signs of weakness which accompany a medical condition.  Suddenly, the camaraderie and comity previously shown by coworkers becomes an unconcealed bevy of whispering conspiracies, like the silence of horrific quietude of a man drifting in a shark-infested ocean upon an overturned boat, waiting for that first bump of a forewarning to test the reaction before the initial attack.

For that Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition must by necessity lead to 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 penchant for excess as revealed by actions of the Agency, coworkers and people you once thought highly of, is really nothing more than the unravelling of that which was always there, but forever hidden but for that invisible thread which holds the fabric of society together — of self-restraint, like the distant echo of a forgotten discipline, lost in the meditation of a Zen monastery.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire