OPM Disability Retirement under FERS: Hope

Apathy is the cold pail of water which extinguishes the glowing embers of hope, while hope is the warmth that maintains the light needed for the expectation of a better tomorrow.  It is easy to extinguish that flame of hope, and fall into the cobweb of despair; for, thoughts of all that can go wrong are easily conceived, especially when considering the negativity which pervades the daily news feeds bombarding us each day.

There is comfort to be found in apathy; for apathy merely confirms the taste of normal life for most — where communities fail to provide any semblance of cohesion and families live not together as an organic singularity but in dissipated independence of apprehensive indifference.  Few can count on communities when calamity destroys, for we live in solitude mired by our own set of problems without regard for our neighbor’s troubles.

Thus is apathy the next step from hope as we see indifference to be the natural response of our neighbor and the greater community in modernity, despite the avalanche of words posted on social media and electronic forms.  For, in modernity, people have come to believe that words can be substituted for actions, when in fact the loss of human interaction is what allows apathy to prevail.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the FERS system to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, you may want to consider contacting an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in order to secure your hope for tomorrow before the apathy so pervasive in modernity begins to undermine the still-burning embers of a brighter tomorrow.

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: The Space Between Reality and Fantasy

We can live within a world of fantasy, so long as it does not abut against the world’s reality.  We can fantasize that we are “super heroes” — so long as we do not jump out of the window thinking that we can soar through the clouds.  Both worlds can be juggled without an internal — or even an external — contradiction.

Some indicators touch upon the edges of conflict — as when we are caught daydreaming; or a person begins to act too much in the “as if” universe of thoughts and dreams; and we become concerned when someone we know begins to express beliefs and theories which step outside of the spheres of acceptable and normative systems.

Medical conditions, however, tend to keep people “real”; for, the pain and debilitating symptoms do not allow for any space between fantasy and reality.  Rather, they jolt one into being “real” each and every day — except when it becomes necessary or prudent to conceal one’s condition, resulting in a smiling face which masks the pain, the energetic look which covers the fatigue, or the clarity of words which hides the confusion.

Federal and Postal workers often have to straddle the line between reality and fantasy when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.

When the two lines begin to blur, you need to contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement.  For, in the end, the reality of a medical condition cannot be concealed for long, and the fantasy that the medical condition will simply go away cannot be endured.

Federal Disability Retirement benefits are there for the Federal or Postal worker who can no longer perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job.

Contact an OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and make sure that the space between reality and fantasy is maintained.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Postal & Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Firewalls

We all have them.  The original intent was to build a structure that would impede or prevent a fire from reaching a particular building or home, but in modern usage, it refers to the technological security device which prevents intrusion, hacking, vulnerability of sensitive information, etc.

In real life, we have personal firewalls — through our behavior, the stories we tell, of not responding, not picking up the telephone, of not being “real”.  They are the personality devices we have developed in order to protect the inner vulnerabilities we all have.

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 firewall you need is a Federal Disability Retirement annuity.  It will protect you against future insecurity and financial disaster by providing a set annuity.

Contact a Federal Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest the firewalls that you have created in trying to extend your career fails to protect you from an eventual termination because you can no longer perform all of the essential elements of your job.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Blinders

We all have them; whether on windows, around our eyes or upon our minds, they are meant to deliberately obscure and obfuscate.  Can others put them up without our noticing them?  It is theoretically possible, one supposes; but more often, blinders are placed with the consent of the blinded, either by the person wanting them or in conspiracy and collaboration with another.

Originally, they were for horses, attached to the bridle so that the animal would be prevented from being able to see to the side or behind.  This allowed for riding a horse, say, in a congested area in order to limit the spooking of the animal, or merely to maintain a forward-directional focus and helping the animal to cope with the dizzying activities surrounding.  Once the prominence of the horse lessened and depreciated in daily use and value, the metaphors that surrounded the obsolescence of that which was once of utilitarian dominance often became transferred to other linguistic arenas; and so we refer to “blinders” on people or circumstances.

We all walk around with blinders to some extent, of course, and Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition, such that the 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, often by necessity must walk around with blinders securely placed.  Blinders to the future; blinders as to the growing debilitating effects of the medical condition upon one’s ability and capacity to continue in one’s career; blinders as to what the Federal agency or the Postal Service are doing and initiating — of memorandums and paper trails beginning to put the pressure upon the Federal or Postal employee; and many other blinders besides.

In the end, the inevitability of preparing an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may force one to take the blinders off.  Always remember, however, the importance of those blinders that cannot be put upon another — like, once OPM sees something in a Federal Disability Retirement application and denies a case because of that certain “something” that should have been caught before submitting the Federal Disability Retirement application, you cannot afterwards put blinders on OPM.

To make sure that such an unfortunate circumstance does not occur, you may want to consult with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement law, so that you are not left with the blinders that need to be placed, as opposed to those that need to be removed.

Sincerely,

Robert R.McGill, Esquire
Federal & Postal Disability Lawyer

 

Legal Representation on Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Pelagic views

It is a view that few of us ever experience – of the deep part of the oceans where land cannot be seen even on a clear day. Most of us remain near waters adjacent to land or inland waters; and even taking a transatlantic cruise doesn’t quite count, because we remain within sight and sound of a moving community – the ship itself – no matter how much we may lean over the railing to obtain the sensory deviancy from reality.

It is that depth of a perspective that is constantly warping by a myopic view from the “human” perspective; for, we have language, first as a barrier, then thoughts and conceptual constructs that become obstacles that cannot be banished or otherwise decoupled from the moment we are born into this universe.

We can, of course, try and imagine a nakedness of reality separated from the language games and Kantian constructs of imposed categorical imperatives we walk about with, and imagination can take us quite far.  But that “noumenal” reality can never be fully experienced, unless you are born and brought up by the apes like Tarzan of that jungle reality, but even he could not fully divorce his upbringing from the neurological wiring that defined and differentiated him from companions.

It is, instead, a viewpoint and perspective that is unique, rare and inconsistently insightful; those pelagic views open up the universe for us in dark times; in times of turmoil when a sudden expansiveness reveals to us something more than that which we muddle through; and when those “eureka” moments approach a human revelation that sometimes allows for an escape beyond the caverns of a Platonic shadow we become chained to, it is often the oxymoron of reality when the depths of the proverbial despairing allows for an uplifting pelagic view to occur.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are trying to escape from the belittling, demeaning and often cavernous despondency of a chronic medical condition that seems to be inviting constant harassment and targeted administrative sanctions that are becoming increasingly unbearable, including threats, restrictions on leave-taking, and a stranglehold of a PIP that is merely a pretext for firing, beginning the process of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, may be the best route towards attaining that pelagic view that too often escapes us all.

No, a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is not the gold pot at the end of a rainbow; and, no, OPM Disability Retirement does not give us the liberty as Tarzan in the jungles felt; but like being on a cruise ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, it approaches the nearest and best next thing to a pelagic view when you pause and consider the alternative – of the increasing choke-hold of the Federal agency or the Postal Service to ignore a medical condition and destroying your health for the sake of paying homage to what they want.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Workers: The lost ball in the field

We come upon it, and it sits gleaming with partial concealment in the tall grass beyond the river’s edge.  Whose was it?  Was it a child who threw it, or a parent, grandparent, or maybe even a sibling?  Did the child search for it, or was it forgotten soon after a futile search in directions otherwise unaccounted for?

Was there a party gathered, a picnic prepared and a blanket covered upon the grassy knoll; and were gloves included in the melee?  Was there laughter rumbling through the forest beyond, slowly dissipating in voices joyfully warmth in the sunlight of mumblings incomprehensible and lost among the groves of wildlife hidden behind and beyond?  Was the chatter of children full in the morning air, or lost in the heat of a midsummer’s dream?  From a lost ball in the field, can reality be reconstructed, or are the imaginations of dreams forgotten and hopes still hinting of a future unfulfilled, forever to be a wistful memory of what could have been, was, or even might have been?

Perhaps, some over-exuberant father threw the ball and it sailed over the head of the child; the child, watching as it travels overhead, then behind, then beyond where the periphery of limits placed in a universe that has been foretold of dangers and mysteries, watches as it bounces a few times, then disappears.  Perhaps there is a shout – something like, “Sorry, Tommy…let’s go find it!”  Then, a rush and rustling of footsteps, and a made-up race to the finish line: “First one that finds it is the winner!”

Gleeful shouts and joyful shivers, even in the sunlight of warmth and happiness, because for this moment, in this slice of time, a lost ball is bound to yet be discovered, and it is merely a temporary delay in yet an incomplete day’s fun.  But the search reveals nothing; the world conceals and refuses to cough up and unravel the mysteries of hidden meanings; and after a time, further voices calling for the consumption of picnics prepared and sandwiches to be unwrapped, and the sagging shoulders of a disappointed child must needs be the focal point of a universe otherwise uncaring and impervious.

Is this what happened, or did an old codger have a ball in his back pocket, was taking a walk with his dog, and it dropped silently out and rolled into the field, leaving behind any such creative imaginings to another page, an unfinished chapter, or a novel unpublished?

Things can be created out of whole cloth, or not at all.  What we include in the narrative of our meanderings is a choice, of sorts.  The child that walked away that mid-summer day’s loss – of what sorrow did he carry, and what tales did he tell tomorrow to his friends at school?  We all carry around narratives; what we choose to relate is up to us.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are preparing SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, in formulating a Federal Disability Retirement application to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management – remember that, like the boy’s experience of the lost ball, the content of the narrative is important, and the delineation of the tonal quality of the facts is significant; choose with discretion the substance of the responses, lest the lost ball becomes found again, and it turns out that it was the old codger, after all, and not by the wonderment of a child’s unbelieving eyes.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Gov. Disability Retirement: Of dreamers and doers

There is a time for dreaming; of mental wanderings into wafting willows of soft surfs, where the ebb and flow of moonlit sparkles in the quietude of motionless tranquility pervades like the morning mist in weightless calm.  But in a world where action, doing, accomplishment and “getting ahead” constitutes the springboard of recognition and rewards, the temperament of timeless thinking rarely is allowed, and with grim furrows of brows judging with severe penetration of unforgiving eyes, the dreamers of the world survive at the behest of small windows of tolerance.

Of dreamers and doers, they span the spectrum between creativity and accomplishment, betwixt imagination and construction, and within fiction and fact.

There is a time for everything, and King Solomon knew well the appropriateness of matching the circumstances of the world to the plans of a future king.  For most of us, the time is now.  Dreamers who dream beyond the pinnacle of sleepless nights fare only at the behest of those who race ahead.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers who suffer from a medical condition, the need to act, to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, becomes more and more of an urgent need, concurrently with the time when the injured or medically incapacitated Federal employee wants to curl up and hide in the womb of dreams.

Life is hard; and while the state of dreaming allows us to momentarily escape the harshness of the world, we awaken with a sudden start, and realize that the dream shattered was merely a land of imaginary hope; doing is what accomplishes, and for the Federal and Postal employee, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it is the concrete steps taken which will allow one to attain that conclusion of restorative prairies, where one can attend to the medical conditions and be free to dream for tomorrow.  Of dreamers and doers; it is to engage the latter, in order to have the time for the former.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Language Decoupled

The correspondence theory of truth has long since been abandoned; whether by congruence or of fair representation, the classical model dating back to Plato and Aristotle has been replaced by Wittgenstein‘s description of “language games“, which really possesses no reflection upon the objective world which surrounds us “out there”.

With the advent of virtual reality; the blurred distinction between truth and falsity as merely words in play; and Bertrand Russell’s playful destruction of any such theory with the singular statement, “The King of France is bald” (where the truth or falsity of such a statement cannot be questioned, despite there being neither a King of France, nor a determinative value of validity as to his baldness).  Yet, somehow, congruence and correspondence refuses to die outright.

Truth and falsity lives on, like the last vestiges of royalty or lineage of blood, where the twilight of history raises the final flag of rebellion and resistance. Whatever the historical tenacity of such movements, language can never be decoupled from the anchor of reality.

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 the Federal or Postal job, the reality of connection between one’s medical condition and the need for an accurate description, through words, of the symptoms and diagnoses, cannot be overstated.  This is also true of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or even CSRS Offset.

Language decoupled becomes an ethereal vestige of residual meaninglessness; an accurate depiction of reality, through the strength of words and language, cannot ever be cast aside.  For, as language is the vehicle of interpretation and communication, so the abandonment of that modality would result in the destruction of human progress on a scale unimaginable within the purview of history’s epochal dawn.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who need such a vehicle in order to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application with OPM, the very idea of language decoupled would mean the defeat of an OPM disability retirement application at the outset; for it is the very coupling of one’s medical condition to the positional duties required, which proves beyond a preponderance of the evidence that the Federal or Postal employee is eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, and it is the effectiveness of language itself which is the vehicle of that successful enterprise.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire