Federal Employee Medical Disability Retirement: The Award of Not

People today receive accolades for all sorts of things — including, just for being “normal”.  The “Father of the Year” award is given to an individual for just doing what he is supposed to be doing.  A return of a lost item of personal value, or a wallet found in the parking lot — we are all amazed at such honesty.  The term “hero” is bandied about loosely, and applies to everyone and anyone who does what he or she is supposed to be doing.

The ordinary has become the extraordinary, and the negation of a negative is seen as a positive (of course, we all did learn in fundamental mathematics that two negatives = a positive, so to that extent, it is correct).

Performance reviews, too, are given high ratings, even when a Federal or Postal employee is barely making it.  In a Federal Disability Retirement case, this is often argued by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management as a negative when applying for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Here, the Award of Not can be a detriment.

How to counter it?  By establishing the medical incompatibility between one’s medical condition and the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and learn how the Award of Not can be accepted without being made out to be a hero one is not.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement: Internal Order, External Chaos

Whether the cult of Marie Kondo will last beyond a faddish response and 15 minutes of fame, only time will tell.

Japanese minimalism lends itself to making order out of chaos by discarding unnecessary clutter in one’s life.  The key word here is, of course, “unnecessary”, and how we categorized which items in our homes and offices to keep, and to what extent external chaos impacts one’s internal sense of order in this universe.

Does organizing everything in one’s home and office lead to greater internal calm and peace?  Does a person who has an overstuffed bookshelf — with books “arranged” in every which way upon a shelf, with no apparent order in the categorization of titles possessed — reflect a manner of internal chaos?

Conversely, does a person who appears to posses a sense of internal peace and order necessarily have a home and office which reflects that apparent order and peace?  Does the interior world of a person necessarily indicate the exterior state of one’s life?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition that impacts his or her ability and capacity to continue in the Federal or Postal career of choice, the chaos of a medical condition — whether of an “external”, physical condition or of an “internal” psychiatric break down — should lead to a consideration in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Consult with a Federal Disability Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not the order of the day through proper representation by legal counsel might be the best course of action for both internal order as well as external competence in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: Chessboard of Life

Is there a difference between an “Eastern” and “Western” perspective of life?  Does the fact that we play one kind of game (Chess) while Eastern nations play another game (“Go”) give us any metaphorical insight into such differences?

The Game of Go uses the intersecting points on a line full of square spaces; on a similar-looking board (depending upon the size of the Go Board), Chess uses the square spaces themselves.  The Game of Go is a more “fluid” one, where the black and white stone pieces will fill the board at the intersecting lines, and thus can move up or down, sideways or diagonally, depending upon the initiation and response of the players to one another.

Chess, on the other hand, can only essentially move forward.  Yes, the pieces can move sideways (the knight, queen and rook, for example) and diagonally (the bishop & queen), but the object of the game is to reach the opponent’s farthest line of square spaces, whereas the Game of Go utilizes the entire board with equal value.

Do the two “games” tell us anything about the way in which we live?  Do we “view” life as a chessboard, as opposed to a Game of Go, and is there a difference in such ways where one can make a conceptual distinction between the two?

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 Chessboard of Life becomes a “match” between yourself and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

To “capture” their queen, you must maneuver your way past all of the threatening “pieces” of a Federal Disability Retirement application, and “checkmate” OPM with legal arguments and medical evidence that is persuasive enough.  Whether a different strategy as that applied in the Game of Go should be considered, depends upon the unique nature of your individual circumstances.

In either case, it is good to consult with a “Master” of either Go or of Chess — a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Preparations

Would you hold a dinner party without preparing?  Or attend an important meeting, host a regal gathering of accomplished celebrities or go camping in the wilds of winter’s ferocity — without making adequate preparations?

The elaborate extent of such preparations is often correlated with the importance, significance, relevance and complexity of the issue at hand, the engagement to be embraced or the event to be held.  Preparations are a vital component to the successful engagement of whatever one undertakes, and lack of it often guarantees a result of negative returns.

How does one prepare for the preparation, formulation and filing of 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?  Does one go out and ask the Human Resource Department of one’s agency, and thereby put to the winds which carry gossip about the Agency and allow the gods of the underworld to disseminate the implication that “X is filing for disability retirement”?  Do you dare test the oft-told adage in the Federal Government that “confidentiality begins with the Human Resource Office of one’s agency — and likewise, ends there”?

Or, perhaps “preparation” is merely of the ad hoc sort — of downloading the various forms (SF 3107, Application for Immediate Retirement, and SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, at a minimum) and beginning to fill them out, and somehow sifting through the multiple instructions and packaging a Federal Disability Retirement application?

Preparation for the initiation of any worthwhile endeavor should, at a minimum, involve seeking some advice from an “expert”, and in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately filed with and decided by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, consultation with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law should be a minimal step in such an important and consequential process.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The buttons we believe accomplish

We believe, on faith alone, that pushing a button does the deed; and then we go on with life, and nothing really has changed but the belief in our own self-satisfaction.  It is that virtual world of computers, light switches, garage door openers and even the disc-like appendages to our shirts and sweaters that lead us to conclude that all such contraptions are of equal weight and value.

We see the cause-and-effect of the garage-door opener — of pushing a button and seeing the door slide open, then another push and it reverses course.  We push buttons on the computer keyboard, and with each tap the screen changes, or concludes with the deed completed; and of “buttons” on a shirt or sweater, we appreciate the invention that holds two sides of a separated apparel together to enclose our bodies with a warmth of a material embrace.

What does it mean to accomplish a deed with a mere pushing of a button?

We have been habituated into such thinking, and it is this disconnectedness that allows for society to continue to move “as if”.  It is only when we encounter the counter – belief that all of a sudden the world of buttons begins to sow some seeds of doubt — as when the boss comes and says, “Why haven’t you sent me X” and you respond, “I emailed it to you last week “ (it isn’t quite the same to say, “I pushed the button that accomplished the deed”).  “But I never got it” is the response which prompts you to go back and re-press the button, hoping somehow that doing so a second time will make a difference that the first time did not.

This time, however, just to be doubly sure, you go back and ask your boss whether he received it (not, again, “did my second button-pushing work?”), thus verifying the causal connection that had failed to occur previously.

What made the difference?

Somehow, in the ethereal universe of circuitry and magic we have no clues about, there exists a causal chain that “works” and “accomplishes” deeds — just like the garage-door opener that issues an immediate gratification of causation.  But that all of life would allow for such instantaneous confirmation — and of buttons we think accomplish.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates a consideration to file 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 buttons we need to push are many, varied, and long in waiting.

Whether they comprise of the metaphorical “buttons” to get people moving, or of emails that need to be sent, confirmations that require a response — what we do know, throughout, is that the reality of one’s medical condition has a discernible difference both of reality and of urgency when it comes upon the need for causation to occur.

The buttons we think accomplish remain somehow in that “other world” of magic and the unknown; the medical condition that remains is somehow the reality of the “now” that constitutes pain and suffering; and that is why preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is of greater importance than the buttons we believe accomplish.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Separation & Retirement: Of self-expression in society

There exists a proportionate correlation if charted on a graph, between the rise of a need for greater self-expression and the alienation from the individual from a sense of belonging and community.  The human animal has an inner need for acceptance and comity within the context of societal cohesion, and this is no different from other species and their behavioral patterns, excepting the “lone wolf” characteristics where mating or predatory consummation represents the only points of contact.

The lines of the hypothetical graph would intersect somewhere at the level where the individual believes that personal identity has been lost and subsumed from a community detached and uncaring; notice, identity and self-worth are bundled together in an almost inextricable complexity within the human psyche, and that proverbial and pervasive “inner cry for help” becomes exponentially magnified when that alienation intensifies.

Focus upon a collective “self” by a society encumbered with economic woes, infringement upon base survival instincts, and a growing sense that reliance upon one another is no longer believable, leads to the downward spiral of the line which represents societal comity, where the trajectory suddenly drops precipitously in a straight, vertical manner.

Yet, the other line — the one which represents self-expression and a silenced cry for urgency of warmth and responsiveness, continues upward in a more gradual trend, with short and sudden spikes here and there, but still reflective of a desire to pull back, to harken with a perspective of the rear-view mirror, wanting and willing always to open one’s arms and embrace the roots of that tribal nature from whence we all originated.

But we are becoming more and more calloused; the time wasted, the ascending alienation as first reported by Camus and the French existentialists after the ashes of the Phoenix failed to rise from the funeral pyre of the war-torn devastation of Europe and the consequential bifurcation of nations within the greater context of a potential addendum holocaust involving nuclear weapons, and the subsequent inertia developed through wealth and artificial products which were marketed by means of media and mass distribution — from it all, discontent arose, the notion of life’s absurdity followed, and the greater need for self-expression formed.

Look at Facebook and the explosion of psychosis.  Look at the obsession with smart phones and the need to “update” one’s “profile”.  But always remember that self-expression must be contained, and appropriately conveyed.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must, by necessity, file 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 vehicle of formulation in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to OPM, must have a certain restraint and self-limitation imposed.

Not every fact and fancy of opinion should be included in the Applicant’s Statement of Disability.

And, one must ask, how much of that self-expression exudes bravado and exaggeration?  And even after one has won one’s Federal Disability Retirement application, there may be a Medical Questionnaire which is issued by OPM, and if in the course of investigating further, there surfaces an indicia of some extreme form of activity such as bungee-jumping or similarly strenuous engagements which are “posted” for all viewers because of the need for “self-expression” — such a wanton cry for help may indeed come back to haunt.

Self-expression in a society replete with alienation and abandonment may, in the end, be all that we are left with; but for the Federal or Postal employee who wants to preserve and protect one’s Federal Disability Retirement annuity, it may be best to exert some semblance of self-control that is quickly diminishing and disappearing on the graph of the proverbial downward spiral.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Of poets and prophets

The definitional distinction between the two is fairly self-evident; it is in the interplay of what they do, how they go about it, and the content of their substantive utterances which blur the lines of differences.  And we all have to play both roles in life; of the poet, to speak a reflective voice of a world which can never be captured in its true essence; and in prophetic manner, in maneuvering through a complex universe fraught with dangers of unknown origins, encounters with malicious foes and devious evildoers; and it is with the combination of consolidating the advantages derived from either arenas by which we are able to survive.

Plato’s view of the former, though somewhat inconsistent (he simultaneously criticizes them, but will quote extensively from them in the same paragraph), is devastating because of their concealment of the true forms of entities; the Good Book, of course, is replete with the latter, with conjugations of the major and minor ones in placements of prominence or insignificance depending upon their current relevance and attributable validation.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, embracing the roles of both concurrently becomes a necessity of life’s many features of conundrums, castaways and coercive calamities of creative chaos.

The fact is, most Federal and Postal employees never see themselves as either; yet, throughout life, you have always been both. As a poet, you have had to comprehend and convey an understanding of the world around in terms which utilize analogy, metaphor and imitative language; and as a prophet, you have had to plan for an uncertain future based upon an uninviting present, with little or no basis from past experiences.

Now, with a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, it is incumbent upon the Federal and Postal employee to consolidate those very talents previously utilized, but within a spectrum of unknowing wariness, and to perfect the venue for the future.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM is neither a science, nor a purely legal endeavor.  Many have tried to prepare an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, submitted it, and have had it denied, and perhaps even a second time with the same result; then, to turn to a craftsman for expert assistance.

There are both prophetic and poetic components which must be encompassed.  For example, creating the nexus between one’s medical condition and the positional duties one must perform constitutes the use of descriptive analogies which must be given the living force of vibrancy, where pain and incapacity must jump from the stoic pages upon which they are written (the poetic); while legal criteria must be straightforwardly addressed, such as the need to prove that one’s medical condition will exist for a minimum of 12 months (the prophetic aspect).

All in all, the corollary and convex/concave aspect of preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to OPM, must be carefully assembled.  It is, in the end, of poets and prophets for which we speak, and the innate need to bring out those characteristics from within; we all possess such inherent capabilities; we just didn’t know it.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire