Federal Disability Retirement: Annoyance or Irritant

They are both nouns, but the difference is one of perspective — of the view or angle from which it is felt, experienced, encountered or received.

To that end, it encapsulates the dichotomy between subjective and objective; for, the former normally refers to one’s subjective experience, the state of being or the sensation the “subject” experiences; while the latter refers to a substance — an “object” out there in the world outside of our internal, subjective sensations — which causes discomfort or a phenomena of displeasure.

An irritant may cause an annoyance, and an annoyance can be an irritant, and it is the classic distinction between the “inside” as opposed to the “outside” experience.  We can refer to certain chemicals, cleaning fluids and the like as irritants, but we normally do not declare that they constitute an annoyance; although, the linguistic lines are not so strict as to prevent a person from saying, for example, “That woman’s perfume is somewhat of an annoyance”.

On the other hand, one might refer to someone’s constant manner of clearing his or her throat in mid-sentence as an “annoyance”, but because it does not directly impact one’s own physical well-being, such a quirk is likely not referred to as an “irritant”, although one may use the adjective form of the word and confide that the person’s manner is “irritating”.

In the end, the two words are somewhat similar in meaning but reveal their differences from the aspect of perspective — of whom, or from where.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is important to understand and appreciate the distinction which the U.S. Office of Personnel Management often makes between “objective” evidence and “subjective” evidence.

OPM will often twist and misapply the law, and make you think that certain medical evidence deemed “subjective” are like second-class citizens and less than credible, and will insist that only “objective” evidence is acceptable.  Don’t let OPM fool you.

Contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and let not the ignorance of the law defeat your quest to obtain an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and don’t let the word-games irritate or annoy you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill

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

 

Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) Disability Law: How We See Ourselves

Disturbing studies keep seeping out from these technological times of unfettered advancement: Of kids having greater anxiety, being placed on medications at earlier and earlier ages; of technology — Facebook, Instagram and other “Social Media” outlets — contributing to how we see ourselves.

In a predominantly agrarian society — of which we were until after WWI (the Great War to end all wars — how did that work for us?) — with no technological connection between towns, cities, and even families, how we saw ourselves differed drastically than in the modern era.

We did not compare ourselves to total strangers.  We did not snap images of ourselves constantly and obsessively.  We did not view pictures of ourselves, nor had the capacity to alter, modify, “improve” or otherwise change the way we were reflected.  In fact, the grainy images of black-and-white photographs barely captured the outer shell of who we are.

So, how did we see ourselves “back then”?  We didn’t.  Instead, the focus was outward — towards the objective world we had to maneuver through in order to survive.

In modernity, the focus has shifted inward — within the universe of words, language, thoughts, images, and the aggregation of an insular world.  This shift is important to recognize, for we have to counterbalance the overemphasis upon how we see ourselves.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are suffering 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, How We See Ourselves is important in light of the devastating impact that the loss of one’s career and instability of one’s future is looked upon.

Greater stress and anxiety likely dominates.  The insular and the objective feed upon each other and trigger greater difficulties.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of taking a greater balanced view of How We See Ourselves by prioritizing your health, and therefore, your future.

Sincerely,

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

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Weight of evidence

When you walk into a room full of people, how does one differentiate, define, separate and discern?  Remember that once-popular fictional work entitled, Tarzan of the Apes by (originally) Edgar Rice Burroughs?

There is a scene (whether from one of the various versions depicted on screen) where young Tarzan is surrounded by a crowd of “civilized” individuals staring, prodding, looking on with curiosity — and the young man who had been brought up in the wild lacks the capacity to compartmentalized the sudden bombardment of overstimulation, and runs amok amidst the finery of a social setting.

How is it that we learn to differentiate and categorize from among the massive aggregate of stimuli directed at us?  Do we, as Kant posits, impose mental categories upon the chaos of the world?  How do we learn to determine the “weight” of importance, significance or even of relevance upon the various activities that surround, impart and become directed at ourselves or around and about our purview?

And in the legal context, how do we know what weight of evidence should be submitted, and how to organize it into a priority of relevance?

You know the old joke — or is it merely a “trick”? — Of telling a person to “listen carefully,” and misleading the listener into thinking that the question you will be asking concerns the number of people left, when in fact you are deliberately misguiding them, saying: “Now 5 people entered the elevator and it went up 2 floors, then 3 people got off and 5 more got on, then the elevator went up again 2 more floors, where 1 person got on and…”.  At the end of the “story”, the question posed is not, “How many people are left?”, but instead, “What floor are you on”?

The evidence for both are there; it is the weight upon the relevant information that was missed.

Or, of that eccentric oddball who watches an action-packed movie or episode, and at the end of it, while everyone is commenting about this or that favorite scene of explosions, mayhem and bad-guy-got-his-due scene, the odd-man-out says, “Yes, I thought that the person who wore the yellow tie should have retied it, because it was a bit crooked.”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is important to recognize the weight of evidence, the relevance of the information submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and the significance of guiding OPM into viewing the evidence with a roadmap of persuasion.

Legal memorandums that delineate the evidence compiled, argue the law that is persuasive, and preemptively organizes the basic components in answering “why” a client is eligible — nay, entitled — to Federal Disability Retirement benefits, is important in light of the variety of evidence being submitted, not only by the applicant, but also by the Agency or the Postal Facility (which is not always favorable).

Is the Federal Disability Lawyer you have consulted or are about to consult, doing this?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: Purposive sequence

Are all things in a sequence “purposive”?  If you are walking in the countryside and come upon a horse, a man and a pig, in that order, was there any “purposive” meaning in the sequence met, or was it random and a reflection of the chaos of the universe as a whole?  If it had been in a different order — say, you first came upon the pig, then the horse, and finally the man — would there be a question as to either the sequence or the meaning of the sequence?

Now, take a different hypothetical, where you come into a child’s room who is engrossed in fantasy and play, and the child has a sequence of stuffed animals: Again, they are in a line of a stuffed horse, a doll of a man, and a large plastic pig, in the very sequence you encountered while out in the countryside.  You laugh and say to the child, “Oh, that’s very peculiar, I just came across those three in the identical sequence you have them in.  Of course, it is just coincidence, but nevertheless odd.”  The child smiles, turns to you and says, “Of course it’s not a coincidence.  The horse is the most beautiful creature in the universe, and therefore comes first; the man is the cleverest, and therefore should be second; and the pig is the smartest, but since intelligence should come after beauty and be placed below being clever, he comes third!”

In such an instance, did the fact that a purposive assignment of intent change the sequence and the meaning ascribed?  In other words, did the “human” explanation as to the sequence presented alter the objective foundation behind the orderliness of the universe, or does it yet remain in chaos except for the subjective ordering by the child?  Or, is Kant correct in positing that the chaos of the universe is internally ordered by human categories structuring the outside world, and left without such subjective impositions, we would never be able to comprehend the disordered universe?

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, it is important to engage in a purposive sequence of completing the Federal Disability Retirement application.

The medical condition itself is chaos enough, as it impacts one’s life and livelihood, but it is the medical condition that becomes the center and foundation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  From the chaos imposed from the objective world, a purposive sequence must be countered from the subjective universe of the Federal or Postal employee, and that purposive sequence must begin with the chaos of the unordered world itself: The medical condition, from which all else naturally and artificially proves the case to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from the Office of Personnel Management: The soul’s net worth

What is one’s sole net worth?  In a written format, the distinction between the two concepts are quite obvious; but if in a verbal exchange, would we be able to catch that subtle distinction of nonexistent intonation?  For, the exchange of the vowel “u” in the middle of the word for an “e” attached to the tail alters the meaning of the query, does it not?

From an evaluation of one’s singular calculation – of taking the gross amounts of estimated value of possessions and purchases and subtracting outstanding debts, etc., and accounting for one’s sole net worth – not taking into consideration one’s spouse’s inheritance or assets predictably to be acquired – to a theological analysis of a particular person’s essence, is quite a modification in the very context of substantive investigations.

How do we determine the latter?  Can “assets” be exchanged for “good deeds” and “debts” for “sins committed”?  Or must we be restricted to such a theological paradigm based upon traditional perspectives of Western conventional values?

Instead, why not transform the soul’s acquired possessions for “those deeds which have advanced mankind’s happiness” and the debited side of the ledger calculated by the diminution of joys snatched and by the pounds of flesh extracted, the cups of tears compelled and the scars left for eternity’s judgment?  And, if there is to be a consequence to follow, a bifurcation between paradise and hell, a mansion with many rooms or a shanty for the mendicant, then the dervish that seeks may yet account for past deeds if the good intent revealed later in life may vanquish those miscreant motives once unfulfilled in the early days of youthful vigor.

Yet, can a soul’s net worth indeed be calculated in terms of a sole net value?  Can we use the identical mathematical method in determining such a vaunted essence of Man’s substantive Being?  If the answer is ‘no’, then why is it done each and every day, not only by others, but surely by you and I?

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 position, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS of CSRS Offset, does not the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service calculate the soul’s net worth in that very manner as a determination of his or her sole net value?

That is, in essence, what a denial of a requested accommodation constitutes; it is what a judgment of termination can be deemed as, and it is precisely what is done when workplace harassment and increasing pressures to “get rid” of the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker – all of these are means of determining the soul’s net worth by the vehicle of an accounting method tantamount to the sole net value of a person.

The sad thing is, like gods, angels and unicorns held in the fancy of a child’s palm, such a calculation is not only a sin, but a travesty reflecting the darkness of our times, and but for preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the shooting of the unicorn would occur even more frequently while ignoring the pleading cries of a child’s trembling advocacy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The heckler

We see them from afar, as lone voices suddenly erupting with disruptive force, often barely audible, sometimes unintelligible, but rarely unnoticed.  In some corners of the world, their acts can become dangerous; inciting violence, being put upon by the surrounding crowd; their license to interrupt has been somewhat muted by the responsive threat of retaliation, voiced in more recent days.  Most of us sit back and wonder who “those” people are — such fury and passion to deliberately interject without invitation or welcome, and with the full knowledge that the subsequent events will lead to being either escorted out in less than gentle ways, or set upon in more violent fashion.

Are there causes which still exist, worth fighting for, anymore?  Is it just boiled-over frustration against a political firestorm of ineptitude and economic vicissitudes which leaves the ordinary person powerless and voiceless?  Or, is that interruptor a paid badger from another camp, merely acting as an apparently passionate interlocutor, but nothing more in reality than an employed spoiler to reveal the disarray of discontent allegedly felt by the greater populace?

It is a tradition of American politics, certainly, to have the presence of at least one heckler rise from the quietude of the sheep’s fold; and like the wolf covered by the lamb’s clothing, with barely an eye peeping through to gauge the exact timing for the sudden uproar, the impertinence of a question posed, a harassing shout and a barrage of epithets and garbled sentences drowned out by a sea of groans from around; does it all really matter?

There have always been hecklers of time and badgers of dishonor; and like the crowd which follows blindly in sequence of movements, such temporary interruption of a planned event is but merely a nuisance of life tolerated.  How we treat the heckler is but a reflection of life itself. For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have a similar interruption of “the event” of life, such as a medical condition which cuts short the Federal or Postal career, and where a responsive interlude must follow — 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 often the only choice left, and the best alternative to pursue.

Suddenly, it becomes the “quiet one” who must turn and heckle; for the Federal Disability Retirement applicant is often that part of the crowd which never made waves and rarely complained, but merely went about his or her business and accomplished quietly the “mission” of the agency or the daily repetition of work at the Postal Service.  Then, suddenly, the Federal or Postal worker was “singled out” as the “troublemaker” — all because of a medical condition which the Federal or Postal worker never asked for, never wanted, and rarely complained about.  But like the heckler who knows of the oncoming consequences, filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits is surely a cause worth fighting for — despite the rude exit which is certain to follow.

Sincerely, Robert R. McGill, Esquire

Federal Disability Retirement Benefits: The Soliloquy

For the stage actor, it is the consummate moment of the trade — the opportunity to reveal the depth of character before an audience whose attention is monolithically focused upon the singular pinnacle of highlighted speech.

Shakespeare’s monologues of anguish and despair, of the most private of thoughts spoken through an accepted device of artistic asides which allows for the viewing public to listen in on reasonings otherwise hidden but for conversations with others or the ravings and rantings of the fool who sputters.  Yet, how reflective of true life such moments are, of the soliloquy which we engage but in the quietude of unspoken words.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer in silence because of the medical condition which is revealed, or hidden but painfully debilitating for fear of supervisors, managers or coworkers suspected of unwarranted viciousness of behavior, the unspoken thoughts and processes of rational discourse within should ultimately be bounced as against expertise and guidance for one’s future.

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 indeed a lonely endeavor and reaches into multiple issues which are the most private and intimate of details — one’s medical condition; the impact of the medical condition upon the Federal or Postal employee’s personal and professional life; and, as well, the fears, hopes and concerns emanating from the loss of career, income and financial stability.

Having a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts the Federal or Postal employee’s ability to perform the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position, possesses indications of a spectrum between calm acceptance and calamity of livelihood.

That being said, the pragmatic steps to be taken must be fully considered, and preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM is one path upon which to seek advice and wise counsel.  For, remember that the artistic device in a soliloquy requires that the hearing audience remain silent, and not reach out to the performer on stage to interrupt, disagree or engage; yet, in hearing the actor reveal the most private of inner thoughts, it is precisely the failure of considering other options never offered or heard, which results in the disastrous outcome of the proportion constituting a Shakespearean tragedy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire