Tag Archives: opm and stress leave long term mental illness

OPM Disability Retirement: Other World’s Thoughts

Are there other worlds which think differently?  When you hear of other cultures; of other societies; of people speaking in response to questions posed — Do we suddenly become jolted by the cultural differences, of thought processes which sound foreign and alien, and think, “Wow, is it possible that they think differently than I do?”

Perhaps, it has to do with marriage — of arrangements that still lead to a happiness which we cannot fathom.  Or, of cuisine that doesn’t quite agree with what we consider acceptable staples; or even of freedom — of restrictions, of political speech which is restrained and constrained by fear, intimidation, etc.  Are there, within a reach’s distance, other world’s thoughts which appear foreign and distant?

Certainly, for Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS system — the foreign language required by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in order to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits; it is, in essence, Other World’s Thoughts.  It is a language replete with legal jargon and foreign phrases; of case laws applicable and statutory authorities inviolable.

In order to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS retirement system, it is tantamount to needing to know a foreign language.

Contact a FERS Attorney who is familiar with that “foreign language” of OPM Medical Disability requirements, and understand that, yes, it is indeed Other World’s Thoughts.

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 Law: Places We Don’t Want to Be

Of actual places, or even of situations — of places we don’t want to be or circumstances we would rather not find ourselves in — of which we never think about.

It is interesting that the human mind gravitates toward the positive — Of places we would like to visit, books we would like to read, people we would like to meet, etc.  Is that the power of “positive thinking”, or of daydreams relishing the imagination filling the void which otherwise haunts our lives?

Sometimes, however, it is fruitful — and even necessary — to consider the potential negatives which may loom upon the horizon in order to prepare for contingencies in the event of a calamity.

The Federal or Postal worker would rather not contemplate a future in which he or she is no longer able to perform one or more of the essential elements of his or her job; or, there may come a time when your agency places you on a Performance Improvement Plan and initiates actions which leads to a removal — all, places you don’t want to be, but must consider.

Perhaps filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS is a place you would rather not be — but again, it may be necessary to consider.

For those places you don’t want to be, contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement benefits, which is actually the first step in moving towards a place where you may actually want to be — of receiving a retiree annuity for OPM Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

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.

 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Disability Retirement: Divide and Conquer

Perhaps it is not any one medical condition, alone which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one’s Federal or Postal position; rather, the aggregation and combination of multiple conditions — of depression combined with chronic migraines; or back pain along with panic attacks and severe anxiety, etc. — prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management — the Federal Agency which reviews and makes the decision for an approval or a denial on all Federal Disability Retirement applications — is fully aware of this, but proceeds to divide and isolate each medical condition, minimizing the impact of that specific condition without taking into account the intersecting impact of all other medical conditions, and thereby denies the Federal Disability Retirement application by ignoring the aggregation and combined impact of one’s entirety of health concerns.

This is the age-old military maneuver of divide and conquer — divide and isolate the enemy’s flanks, then attack each individual and isolated division one by one until each are conquered separately and individually.  It is a tactic used by OPM in many cases, and done successfully — until and unless there is a counterattack utilizing and applying OPM laws governing Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Contact an OPM Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin to put together the strategy to counter OPM’s “Divide and Conquer” approach to Federal Disability Retirement Law.

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 Medical Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Cicatrize

It is a word which one does not come across very often; and yet, the greater question is: How many words are “out there” which we do not know, have never heard of and will hardly use?  Do words limit the universe of our thought-processes?

If paragraphs are composed of sentences, and sentences formulated from single units called “words”, do our thoughts retain paragraphs, sentences, or the singularity of words?  In our insulated monologues and soliloquies, do we hesitate because we fail to consult a dictionary, stop because we cannot come up with a synonym, or retreat because of a lack of an antonym?

In modernity, we have dispensed with the idea of memorization, precisely because — with a Smartphone constantly at our sides — there is (A) Either no more need for it, (B) It is cruel to force kids to undergo such mentally strenuous exercises or (C) There is simply too much information “out there” for memorization to be practical any longer.

I once knew a person who didn’t count sheep in order to try and fall asleep, but would recite the sonnets of Shakespeare — and would never be able to recite them all before slumber would overtake him.  Of course, “context” is important, and if there are no conditions within which a word should materialize, be utilized or otherwise applied, the need to retain such a word within the memory banks of one’s brain would never come about.  Yet, how many useless bits of information do we look up on a Smartphone on a daily basis, and “retain” much of it?

The word “cicatrize” means to heal by way of scar formation; by extension, one can become creative and apply the word in non-medical contexts, as in: “The constant taunting by his classmates resulted in a cicatrized numbness of his sense of self-worth; but in the end, Johnny could never have the thickness of skin needed to survive, and cried himself each night for the cruelty of the world that haunted him”.

That is the fun of words, isn’t it?  To take it and play with it; to retain it and fool with it, like a pebble in one’s pocket where you can feel the texture of a small remnant of the greater universe between thumb and forefinger, and fiddle without end in an insular universe that is limitless and infinite?  For, it is always the infinite that we seek; of paragraphs abounding and pages beyond the next one to turn.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, always remember that the application itself is a “paper presentation” to OPM — one which must be comprised of words, sentences, paragraphs, and even entire pages.

It must tell a “story” about your condition, your capacities and your frailties in the most personal of ways.  And while the world of such a bureaucracy may be cicatrized against an empathetic tendency of the truth of your condition, it is best to seek counsel and advice from an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law so that the cicatrization does not impede a persuasive argument compiled precisely in order to cut through the cicatrized minds at OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Being too kind

Can we be so? Is there a tipping point on the pendulum of sugary personalities where the spectrum of color-coded warnings tell us to be wary, for danger lurking within a context where one becomes suspicious of a conversation turning to an overabundance of kindness? Is there such an event, a personality, a characteristic and a trait of opposition as “being too kind”? On a spectrum or scale of revealing who or what a person is – does kindness turn about into an antonym of sorts, and become naked meanness or obstructive disregard in malfeasance by neglectful ignorance?

Can parents be charged with negligence or criminal neglect because they are “too kind” to their children by allowing them to do as they please?

Can a sugary-sweet conversation engaged in with a superior turn out to be a deliberate intent to elicit responses where safeguards are lowered and one’s instinctive inner alarms of suspicion are temporarily abandoned? If a person is truly “too kind”, does being so become a detriment, or a badge of honor that allows for one to pass through life with ever a smile on one’s face? Or, behind closed doors, in the dead of night when the darkness shrouds the turmoil brewing in ones’ inner thoughts, at what price does being too kind extract, like that pound of flesh diminishing the weight of relevance for each of us in a world known to be mean and unkind?

We all accept predators and other animals of wolverine intent; and there are surely angels amongst the population who wander throughout in order to touch the hearts for the pleasure of gods in the underworld of eternity; but of those who by personality quirks or some missing link in the Darwinian universe of survival instincts, do the opposites of kindness equal the mathematical rule and create the sum of meanness, or its very opposite, of angelic qualities rarely encountered in this universe of cynicism?

Then, of course, there is the dismissive wave of the hand of which no one wants to fall within that category: “Oh, he’s a nice enough guy” – a declarative which, when properly interpreted, means: “Irrelevant; not worth spending more than a few seconds with”. For, being too kind has two faces to it: Whether of a perennially naïve character, such that the person with that eccentricity can be trampled upon and yet remain so; or, there is an underlying and often malicious intent beneath the veneer of such kindness.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, remember that there is always a history of repeated conduct by Federal Agencies and Postal Facilities, which should forewarn you about a person, an agency, a department of a facility, that suddenly is being too kind.

For, always remember the childhood fable about Grimm’s or Perrault’s eternal truth, as depicted by Little Red Riding Hood; and, depending upon the version written, you may not want to get into that bed with a grandmother who has a long and suspicious-looking nose, as well as other telling features that should ring the alarm.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Meaning, Value and Worth

The last in the tripartite of this conceptual construct possesses a relational significance, where fluctuation of the assigned designation may occur based not upon extrinsic objectivity, but upon a personal sense of attachment, and thus the influence on a spectrum may artificially go up or down depending upon whims of fancy.  The middle term, on the other hand, is often seen to characterize an intrinsic scope, where the assignation of pricing can be determined by market forces, such as the capitalistic paradigm of scarcity of supply and increase in demand coalescing to determine the monetary stability of an essential rating of specified consideration.

The first in the series, then, encompasses both — where derivation attaches to an intrinsic specificity for a given item, but may also alter and amend based upon an intrinsic, personal aura.  It is, in the end, the first for which we strive; for it is meaning that gives fodder to our actions and persistent struggles, while value is that which we attach based upon the objective world around us, and worth can alternate between the historicity surrounding our relationship to the object or the cold detachment we can impart when loss of feeling results in despair.

Of what value does that which we do, have to us, or to the greater society?  That question is often determined by pay, promotions and accolades attributable to accomplishments recognized and applauded.  What is it all worth?  The unstated addendum to such a query, of course, is encapsulated in the following:  “…to you?”  For, worth is often clouded by a sentimental attachment or clouded histories of unknown psychosis; that is why auction houses and bidding wars attempt to portray an impervious face of dispassionate aplomb.

But for meaning, well…  Meaning is what we bring to the fore, embellished by our own sense of bloated narcissism, and derived from childhood dreams and sophomoric pretentiousness.  We attach too little to true value, and too much to sentimental worth.  And when it all comes crashing down because of the fragile house of cards upon which we built our lives, we sit in amazement and wonder, “What did it all mean?”  Such questions will often arise in the midst of a crisis.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contend with a similarly troubling tripartite of parallelism — of meaning (corollary of the medical condition which erupts in questions of why); of value, where the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service attaches extrinsic obstacles which signify the course of one’s future within the Agency or the U.S. Postal Service; and worth, which must emanate first from the Federal or Postal worker within the standpoint of whether continuation with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service is even practical, given the loss of meaning and the reduction of value to the Federal agency and the U.S. Postal Service.

In the end, the striving of life is encompassed by the tripartite of human mysteries; we search for meaning in a world devoid of determinable value, and must yet come to terms with the worth of ourselves in relation to the things we do.

That is why, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal positional duties, 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, is merely an intermediate step towards finding the next phase in the search for meaning in life, the value of the search, and the worth for which we struggle.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: Differential Calculus Derivatives of concavity & convexity in comic circumlocutions

There are things in life which we cannot understand; others, that though we may engage the subject, invest the necessary time and beyond, and yet there seems always to remain a component which continues to escape; and yet, the ease with which others seem to comprehend that which cannot be grasped.  People often mistake wisdom for knowledge, when in fact the latter is merely the capacity to accumulate, whereas the former is the ability to recognize that which is relevant for successful living and to separate it from the abyss of insignificance.

Physicists and mathematicians view the world through a myopic perspective of numbers and calculations; the rest of us remain in the throes of Kantian preconditions, forever condemned to limited knowledge and constrained boundaries.  Or, perhaps we merely envy the greener grass on the south side of the fence.  At some point in life, we all come to a realization that greater minds than our own must be accessed in order to move forward.  Expertise is a rare commodity; value for such a product must be weighed as against the return of an investment.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must consider 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, it is important to understand that, while the laws governing Federal Disability Retirement may not be as complex or complicated as differential calculus equations or even attempting to understand the concepts of concavity or convexity, the primary point of significance to recognize it in terms of endangering one’s chances for success by overlooking that which others may already know by experience or learned expertise.

The laws governing Federal Disability Retirement will never rise to the level of complexity when attempting to tackle a calculus problem; but it is never the complexity which defeats, but rather, the complications which ensue by failing to comprehend the differentiation not between derivatives of comic circumlocutions, but of wisdom as opposed to mere knowledge.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Time Travel

H.G. Wells touched upon our imaginations in 1895 with his novel, The Time Machine, and ever since, the concept itself has been accepted within the cultural milieu of ideas incandescent.  Mathematicians find it as a challenge to decipher; astronomy, an idea to ponder; astrophysicists, a vehicle to revitalize the despair of incomprehension; but for poets and prophets, it is the fodder for creativity and imaginations to become unfettered by want of belief.

What child (or adult) does not ponder the mysteries of the universe by means of a device to enter a future yet unknown or a past replete with narrated stories of pirates, heroism and grandeur consumed, but awaiting the entrance of a character unhistorical, as Roman legions march the sands of timeless deserts where echoes of unknown characters appear to suddenly participate in the making of events yet blank upon the slate of unwritten participles.

But too few of us recognize that time travel was always being accomplished; the author merely confirmed that which was already done.  For, in our wanderings and imaginations in minds traveling afar, the daydreamer thus reached beyond the constraints of physical presence.

Whether an occurrence in objective reality, or the indistinct touch within the creativity of a limitless mind, the difference was never noticed by the child of laughter or the boy lost in wonder.  And for the adult who must daily make decisions upon a cauldron of reality and harshness of unenviable encounters?  While never as the pleasantries of a child lost in the world of make-believe, the pondering of future courses of action and the consideration of past consequences must always be deliberated by everyone who engages the world of modernity.

Thus, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition necessitates the Federal and Postal employee to consider preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, consideration must be granted to the time machine and time travel by means of coordinating what past actions have occurred (e.g., the medical condition), the current milieu (i.e., the actions of the Agency or the U.S. Postal Service concerning the ongoing status of the Federal and Postal employee), and the future plans (filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset).

Thus, without knowing it, time travel was always something which the Federal and Postal employee engaged in; and never just within the province of childhood dreams left to the plodding monotony of brave acts unrecorded, or the samurai who refused to unsheathe his sword for fear of death and loss of honor, it is indeed the Federal and Postal employee who must consider filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits and must engage time travel and press the complex levers of an unfathomable machine — that bureaucracy of depthless administrative morass one must enter, to prepare, formulate and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

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

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The U.S. Department of Health & Human Sacrifice

Does modernity reflect progress?  And, more to the point, by whose definition do we apply the standard of “progress”?  Does mere movement or change constitute advancement, or do we fool ourselves by the proverbial content of shuffling the chairs on the deck of a sinking ship?  Each generation believes fervently that the previous one represents an archaic mode of static thought and stale fashions, and that youth itself somehow supersedes the necessity for any generational transfer of wisdom or insight.

In former times, certain societies would offer the best and the beautiful as human sacrifice to the gods of fate, in order to please, appease and gain favor.  In current times, we do the same, but cheat the gods by offering less than the healthy ones, and instead give to the winds of fate the decrepit, deteriorating and destroyed individuals who no longer contribute fully to society, thinking that by shedding ourselves of the rabble and remains of shorn vestiture, the favor of formidable fate will be attained for future payment in place of delayed gratification.  Why is it that health and human sacrifice have become terms of mutual exclusivity?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the Department of Health and Human Sacrifice has become the largest entity of bureaucratic morass, employing more people than all other agencies combined.  It is the place where “health” is disregarded, and while lip service is paid to “accommodations” and those with disabilities, the reality of it is that such Federal and Postal workers are thrown down over the cliff as fodder for human sacrifice.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for fully embracing all of the essential elements of the positional duties required by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, know well that the Department of Health and Human Sacrifice exists for them.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the relegation to this last bastion for infidels is the secret of modernity, kept in whispers where corridors of power and privacy prevail before being pushed down the chute of despair.

The only escape from such fated sacrifice is neither a replacement lamb nor a plan of refuge, but to prepare, formulate and file for an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  For, the Department of Health & Human Sacrifice was created under the guise of protecting the general public, when in fact its very existence is to advance the horrors as told by a generation of Orwellian drones; but, then, that is from a previous generation no longer relevant to current residents of modernity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire