Federal Disability Retirement Help: Adumbration

It is a vague foreshadowing for future events — often a sense of unease, a non-specific feeling of dire foreboding, or when someone says, “I cannot put my finger upon it but…”.

It is when your dog acts skittish, but you don’t quite know why until some unexpected event occurs, and you pause and wonder, “Was he trying to forewarn me?”  Or what the Native Americans in tradition and mythology could foretell because of their intimate connection to the behavioral psychology of birds, deer, other animals, etc., and even of rocks and boulders which shimmered some secretive reflection of nature’s future unease.

Adumbration is the sense of knowing without being specific; of an intimate connection to one’s context, but where context is now merely a shadowy doubt no longer ensconced upon the altar of Man’s worshipping misgivings.  Are you a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal Worker?  Are your medical conditions becoming an adumbration of a future yet uncertain?

One’s future cannot flourish, let alone merely continue, in one’s Federal or Postal job, precisely when there exists an incompatibility between one’s medical conditions and one’s Federal or Postal positional duty requirements.

Contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and consider whether or not the adumbrations revealed in the symptomatologies one experiences is not the basis of a viable Federal Disability Retirement case.

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 Disability Retirement Benefits: The Next Step

There is always one, isn’t there?  From the very beginning of life’s experiences, there has always been the next step.  For the toddler, it wasn’t enough to take the first step — there had to be the second, the third, and every next step thereafter.  It wasn’t enough to learn to read, write, and do some basic arithmetic; you had to take the next step towards higher education in order to remain productive and become employable.

The next step is always the one after the initial and intermediate ones; and even after the last step in the process may have been reached, there will always be another “next step” in the next endeavor, the next experience, the next obligation and the next undertaking.  The last step in life will only come about when we take our last breath — and even that, we shall see whether or not there is a next step in whatever happens on the “other side”.

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, contact an attorney who specializes in performing the next step in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS.

For, in obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity successfully, it is always the next step before the next, next step, which is the important one in order to reach the next step, after that.

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 Benefits under FERS: The isolation

Generally, we accept the statement that Man is a “social” animal, and by that we mean that he or she prefers, all factors considered, to live in communities and interact voluntarily with others, as opposed to living in isolation, apart and separate.  That we congregate in bunches of aggregate intercourses is not uncommon; that we enjoy the company and camaraderie of social discourse is considered “normal”; but on the other hand, that we like to be alone at times is also not disputed.

There are those who cannot stand being alone; others who must always be in the company of someone; of still many who fear being alone in life, and desperately cling to partners who one neither deserves nor should solicit for the sake of one’s own well-being.  For, in the end, even the loner was born into the communal world; that he or she decided to betray the conventions of society and isolate himself is not an argument for normalcy of being.

It is, in the end, the isolation that is most daunting; of being targeted and separated and placed into a proverbial-type of sequestration or solitary confinement.

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 concept of “isolation” is not a new one.  Whether because the Federal or Postal employee feels isolated because he or she cannot tell anyone about the medical condition or, having told about it, the Federal or Postal employee is deliberately being isolated because of the medical condition, matters little.  Both result in the same consequences.

The “targeted” employee; the one who is no longer “part of the team”; the one who has dared ask for an accommodation; the one who is no longer invited to meetings or in the general sharing of information; the isolated Federal or Postal employee needs to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM, lest the isolation results in the continued harassment and ultimately ends in a termination.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement: The Traveling Show

Remember those amazing traveling shows?  Whether for a circus, an amusement park, of various booths and exotic people doing tricks, talents otherwise unappreciated; or, as in foreign countries, with a monkey (or two), a bear or some other intelligent species ready to perform for the gathering audience.

In modernity, they are, for the most part, erasures of history; forgotten, if barely remembered; shows that foretold of an earlier era, of a time when entertainment was scarce and anomalies fewer.  Of course, we are more sensitive to quirks of nature, as well — and find it repulsive to pay in order to stare at people with mishaps and disfigurements; and so that is perhaps a good thing, as we have a deeper collective consciousness for the feelings of others.

In a way, however, aren’t each of us somewhat of a “traveling” show?  We enter into the lives of others, “travel” through, then disappear, leaving behind memories positive or negative, departing for other destinations while separating from the sequestered lives of those we encountered, touched for a day or embraced for a fortnight.

Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often likened to those antiquated “freak shows” — everyone is interested; the crowd gathers; the gossiping reverberates throughout the trembling audience in anticipation of the story’s end.  What will they say about you?  How will they remember you?

The spectacle of the uneventful; that is what so many of us now live for but for the boredom of something different.  Or, perhaps, it is likened to the Roman Coliseum where the tigers and lions were about the devour for the entertainment of the masses.

Regardless of how it is viewed, for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who needs to “travel” away from the crowd of curious onlookers, it is important to prepare well and formulate accurately an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, lest the “Roman centurions” over at OPM ready their swords to slash and destroy one’s Federal Disability Retirement application, looking upon it as nothing more than another traveling show making its way through the discourse of time.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Citing cases

The strength of a case is not further reinforced by the mere citing of legal precedents; rather, it is the use of the substantive application that makes for persuasive argumentation.  Often, cases are cited in a dizzying plethora of listings, of names and titles of legal opinions amassed in greater paragraphs of listings to impress upon the garnered support of the legal opinions allegedly providing for an unsurmountable wall of irrefutable authority; but upon further inspection, many of the cases are merely regurgitations of prior opinions and precedents, and add nothing to the substantive force of the point trying to be made.

Good things are “good” because of the goodness within them, but when one begins to believe that “goodness” comes not from the element of goodness but from the quantity instead of the quality, then we all fall into the self-contradictory trap of utilitarianism, where we fail to recognize that too much of something destroys the very goodness engendered by the good.

Just ask the kid who ate a gallon of ice cream and sat on the toilet seat for an hour with a stomach ache — whether ice cream taken to meeting one’s imagination of what heaven encompasses is still “good” in quantities that have no limitations.

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 process of amassing the complex information in order to “argue” one’s Federal Disability Retirement application should, at a minimum, include the citing of “basic” cases found in “The Law”.

This is necessary in order to reinforce the justification that one’s Federal Disability Retirement application is supported by the legal precedents that have held sway for decades on end.  Citing cases is important; citing the right cases is even more important; citing the relevant cases is very important; citing the relevant and significant cases and arguing as to why they are being cited — now, that is the most important approach of all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement Legal Representation: Future uncertainty

It is a peculiarly human endeavor to reflect upon and ruminate; to consider that which has not yet occurred, and to worry about it, turn it over, consider the options, become so ensconced in the details of that which is still yet to become, if at all, and to will anxiousness and even harm one’s health over it.

Does the dog that one has known for many years engage in such conceptual angst, and project one’s self towards a time yet to become?  Well, yes — there can be a similar sense of anticipation; of prefatory behavior in response to an approaching hour.  If, on every Sunday at noon a tremendous noise is heard, dogs and other animals can be ‘trained’ into becoming anxious for several hours before the event, and act accordingly.

Is that merely an inculcated imprint, or is there some lengthy thought process — reflection, rumination or anticipatory consternation — involved in the anxious behavior exhibited?  Is there a distinction to be made in the manner in which human beings behave towards future uncertainty, or is the difference merely one of degrees?  Does our capacity towards an insular universe, self-contained within thoughts and boundless tangential roads that lead to greater depths of despair and self-inflicted despondency differ from the trained responses as exhibited by other species?  Or, is our capacity simply of “more”, and the extent of our means merely one of exponential exhibitionism?

Future uncertainty — what is it?  Is it a learned response or a human peculiarity of untold evolutionary need?  How does one engage in it, and are there better coping mechanisms than others?  Does life’s experiences grant any reprieve, or are we all subjected to its devastating effects?  Do the wealthy experience it in the same manner, or does it merely take an extremely selfish personality — one that cares nothing for others and thus feels no sense of obligation in forestalling any belief in future doom that may befall family members — to avoid the angst of foreboding tides?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have that sense of future uncertainty because of a medical condition that has begun to prevent the performance of one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, the obvious antidote to such feelings is to prepare, formulate and file 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.

Yes, the future may appear uncertain at this moment; yes, the sense of not knowing gives a recognition of anxiousness that seems never-ending; and no, filing a Federal Disability Retirement application is not the answer to all problems presented.  However, it is at least a start — to refocusing one’s attention to the priorities of life’s foundational precepts: of health and in securing some semblance of a future yet to be determined, but to be anticipated not with a foreboding sense of gloom, but of a tomorrow that may yet promise a day after.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Trail of Tears

History is replete with the metaphor of maltreatment; it is the silent graves that cannot speak, anymore, which haunts a nation’s soul.  It is a reminder, of sorts; a way of understanding and revisiting the history and essence of a nation – of the westward expansion and the decimation and systematic thievery against a civilization that was doomed from the start.  But trails soon get overrun by either settlements or city construction; and tears quickly dry up so that the agony of a peoples once felt become a mere memory told in narratives and tales by old men and forgotten women who no longer matter.

Reservations were demarcated and a defeated populace was shuttled into forgotten corners of the world, left to sputter amongst themselves in wallowing memories of defeated battles and violated treaties; and, as modernity replaced the fading residue of an inglorious past, only the diaries and annotations of eyewitnesses maintained a memory of coherent violations otherwise set aside to make room for future time.  Does each one of us, in addition, have a trail of tears?  Do we shed them in the privacy of our scorned thoughts, left to the isolation of our own destroyed lives?

The Medicine Man of yore could not stop the onslaught of that which we deem “progress” and “modernity”; and in the end, it was modern warfare that doomed any resistance to change.  The medical doctor of today, like the appeals of yesteryear to the Great Spirit, can only stem the tide of a progressive and chronic disease; the methodology may have changed, from fasting and foreboding fortunetelling to pharmacological modalities and surgical intervention, but when a diseased body or mind continues to deteriorate despite such intercession, the personal trail of tears follows a parallel course of those we once trampled upon.

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, it may be time to consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

There are always historical travesties, as well as personal ones.  In this world where history barely catches the fancy of those who must contend with the tides of an uncaring world, it is the personal trail of tears which is most important to each individual, and not the “grand scheme” of events which we can neither control nor foresee.

History is what it is – acts committed by ancestors, certainly, but ones which most of us could neither control nor protest against.  But that which we can determine – like the destiny of a future for a Federal or Postal worker who must contend with a medical condition that continues to debilitate and constrain – should be accomplished within the confines of the laws which predominate, lest one’s personal trail of tears begins to parallel that of a past now long forgotten.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Application: The effective legal argument

What makes for an effective legal argument?  It is a question often asked, and pondered by many.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the issue is often preceded by another question:  What makes for an effective Federal Disability Retirement application?  Must legal arguments be made at the outset, or will the mere gathering of relevant medical documentation itself suffice, without the burdensome addition of legal argumentation?

Is the introduction of law and reference to legal citation necessary, and does such necessity enhance efficacy and chances of success at every stage, or just in the later stages – i.e., before an Administrative Judge at the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, or before a panel of Judges in a Petition for Full Review (often referred to as a “PFR”), as well as before a panel of 3 Judges at the highest level of the process, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit?

Certainly, the process itself does not “mandate” a legal requirement for argumentation of law; yet, inherent in the system itself – or, because there are multiple legal opinions, precedents and statutory foundations which form the core of every Federal Disability Retirement application – it is a “good thing” to include legal precedents and foundational arguments in preparing and formulating one’s Federal Disability Retirement application.  Is it necessary?  Is it “absolutely” necessary?  Just as the insertion of more adjectives and adverbs do not enhance clarity of answers, so the question itself must be judged by the relative importance of omitting that which may not be required, but which may be helpful in increasing the statistical correlation to a successful outcome.

Law cannot ultimately be avoided, either in filing a Federal Disability Retirement application or other venues of justice and conflicts, anymore than one can drive down to the corner mart without having some nascent knowledge of the legal workings intermingled and intersecting with modern society.  For, in this complex society of compounding difficulties and systems of comingled conundrums, that which is not known or otherwise ignored, can indeed harm us.  Not being aware of the speed limit in traversing the short distance to the store can result in being stopped.  Not being aware of laws governing carrying or transporting of weapons can have even greater and dire consequences.

And, as all forms required to be filed in every Federal Disability Retirement application was and remains based upon statutes, regulations and precedent-setting opinions rendered by the Federal Courts or the Merit Systems Protection Board, so it is important in preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application to have some elementary awareness of the relevant laws impacting upon the criteria governing Federal Disability Retirements.

Few things in life exist in a vacuum, and preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is no different.  In any arena of law, laws matter.  That may sound somewhat like a trite opinion, and an irrelevant repetition of a self-evident truth, but it is meant to merely be a reminder, that as in all other areas of life and living, in the venue of legal matters, providing an effective legal argument is an essential factor in winning a FERS or CSRS Disability Retirement application.

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Service: Life’s burdens

In chaos, where does one find refuge?  One suspects that for children of modernity, the escape into the virtual world of computer games, Internet conversations, constant checking and updating of profiles, and the entire gambit of projects unrelated to the reality surrounding, is that very reservation of constancy which is needed by all.

Life has burdens; parents have an obligation and duty to contain and protect throughout those crucial periods of growth; but what happens when parents have never known the stability of life’s promise and become parents even before being ready themselves?   Do they, as well, have the leisure of becoming lost and transfixed upon the unreality of a virtual universe?  It would seem so, just by mere observation of local lore, of walking down any street in the country and seeing seemingly mature individuals transparently ensconced in a trance beheld by a mobile device.

Life has real burdens; upon birth, there was never an accompanying set of detailed instructions as to how to “deal” with them; and, in the end, it is questionable as to whether any generational transfer of wisdom could be imparted within a society where independence is encouraged and separateness of lives is demanded.  In a society where age determines adulthood, where division defines maturity and fissures constitutes the unassailable stamp of approval in becoming independent and partitioned; neighborhoods are merely so defined because of their antiseptic aggregation of nearness by cluster, and not because anyone is expected to actually interact with one another.

No, there is no such thing as sharing the burden, or lessening the load which one encounters in the course of living a life.  It is, indeed, an absurdity – and Sartre’s play, No Exit, reflects upon that issue, as we are born without asking, live without a means of filing an appeal, and die with souls extinguished without value or worth of knowing.  Knowing what?  Of that certainty of teleological embracing as in foregone eras, when faith, trust and a sense of belonging defined a life.

One may scoff and say that all of that is mere tripe; that there never was a time before when society breathed as an organic unit and life lifted burdens within the constancy of sustained relationships.  Even the old places are now being destroyed, and one sees the devastation of sectarian wars and ravages of inherited hatreds in countries where wealth and technology has not quite arrived, but where family units were still fairly intact.

For the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker, life’s burdens become exponentially magnified when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s job.  When that situation arrives, it further alienates and separates, especially in a society which trumpets the virtues of independence, when in fact it merely identifies the loneliness.

Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is one avenue to undertake, especially when it becomes clear that neither the Federal Agency nor the U.S. Postal Service is going to do what communities and neighborhoods of yore once did – of caring by providing an “accommodation” for one’s medical condition.

For, in the end, just as there was never a set of instructions accompanying a newborn’s life, so there is very little information “out there” for the Federal or Postal employee whose career may come to an end because of a medical condition, except for specialized areas of legal help which serves to lift some of life’s burdens in the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement Benefits: Cloud of thoughts

The metaphorical connotation represents the state of many who wander about the earth; that is why the statistical reflection of accidents and injuries can never quite be diminished, and the constancy of conundrums concerning catastrophic clemency of uncharacteristic conduct can never conclusively conceal the calamity of creativity.  Sorry, but once alliteration is initiated, it is difficult to extricate one’s self from the poetry of consonants and vowels dancing in tandem.

But more to the point:  the Human Animal is unique in that it is the only one of the species that walks about in a cloud of thoughts.  Moreover, in modernity, the exponential magnification is starkly evident because of the draw by Smartphones, computers and other hand-held devices.  Once upon a time, long ago, there was the public phone booth; then, doctors and other impressive individuals carried around pagers (or otherwise known as “beepers”), and anyone who suddenly received notification through this anomaly of a wireless device was immediately recognized as someone important, for who else would need to be contacted as so indispensable as to require interruption during a meal at a restaurant, or in the middle of a gathering or event?

Then, of course, technology and the inventors of the universe decided that, democracy being what it is and value, worth and significance of each individual being equivalent to one another, we should all be deemed special – and so, instead of being forced to wear dunce-hats and be made to sit in a corner excluded from participation with others, either because of our behavior or our witless comments – fast-forward to today, and everyone is special, all are important, and none are lesser than the next person.

And so we now have everyone lost in checking text messages, updating, button-pushing, twitter-feeding, whatnots and no-nots and know-hows and know-nots; all deep, deep in clouds of thoughts.  Or, not.  Is there a difference between walking and wandering the surface of the earth, lost in a cloud of thoughts, as opposed to being glued to one’s Smartphone or other electronic device?  Is one of greater value or relevance than the other?  Is there a difference between the cognitive input or brain waves of distinction, or is it all just a fuzzy feeling of angst and suspicion?  Do MRIs reveal anything when we see the graphic images of cranial activity and color-enhanced dullness of inactivity?  Or do such images merely provide a parallel sense of correspondence, as opposed to causal efficacy?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the engagement of a cloud of thoughts can be twofold:  One, it does take some thought and preparation in order to formulate an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, and so being under a cloud of thoughts is a “good” thing; but Two, that proverbial “cloud” that overshadows the Federal or Postal employee because of the concerns surrounding the ongoing medical condition, can only be “lifted” by moving beyond the job and career which only serves to exacerbate one’s circumstances and conditions.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM involves both a cloud of thoughts, and services to lift one from the burden of those clouds.  Now, if only we could do something about those hand-held devices which provide us with those scary images of brain inactivity, we might also save the world at the same time.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire