FERS Disability Retirement Law: The Stories We Carry

How we allow our thoughts to narrate the inner voices we carry, matters in how we see ourselves.  The proper stories we tell ourselves; what words we choose when describing an incident we were involved in; even the tone of the voices heard within the inner, insular world of our own thoughts — they are important in formulating who we are, what we believe, and what the future holds for us.  The correspondence theory of language is now an antiquated, outdated theory of language.

When Bertrand Russell stated with a mischievous smile that the “ present King of France is bald” — he knew at the outset that there was no “present King of France” and, moreover, that “baldness” cannot be attributed to a non-existent royal entity; and yet, we fully comprehend the statement.  By comprehension, we admit to its meaningfulness, and even its coherence.

But how can a nonsensical statement having both meaning and coherence?  That is the point — that meaning and coherence have nothing to do, necessarily, with existence in the objective universe.  Then, one might query, what is so important about the stories we carry within our heads if they have no correspondence to the objective world?  Not only is it important, but moreover, it is significant; for, in the end, the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, which we carry within ourselves, provide the inner psyche to possess the confidence and strength to maneuver through the world we must occupy for the limited time we have in this world.

For Federal employees and US. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from continuing in his or her career, you need to contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer and quit beating yourself to death about failures, inadequacies and debilitating incompetencies that your Federal Agency has come to make you believe.

Contact a lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of moving forward and beyond, so that the stories you carry will keep you growing into the next decade — and beyond.

Sincerely,

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

 

FERS Disability Retirement Pension: Order of Our Lives

All lives require it.  Some, more than others; others, less than some.  If self-order is not imposed, then some semblance of order from beyond will come about — through reactions of others; by forcible confinement; by privileges withdrawn, etc.  Society requires it in order to manage a civilization; civilization is defined by it, with anarchy being its alternative.

Immanuel Kant argues that there are internal structural categories which impose order upon an otherwise chaotic universe: We “see” the world around us through this ordering cognitive perspective; otherwise, we would not be able to go about our business.  When the disorder in our lives becomes too prevalent to bear, we manage by either ignoring or avoiding the alienation of our selves from an otherwise overwhelming sense of chaos.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from the chaos of a medical condition, the order of our lives may require the preparation and submission of an effective Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application under FERS, to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Medical conditions themselves can create chaos, and it is only by removing one facet of that chaos — the stress of having to continue to work in a career which is no longer viable — that a greater sense of order of our lives can be created.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Lawyer

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: Human Nature

There are other “natures”, of course — of a dog’s or a cat’s; or of a vulture’s, and perhaps of lower order species which we barely give notice to: of spiders (except when they crawl near to us), mice, grasshoppers and frogs.  For species we deem to be less intelligent or possessing the capacity for “free will” (i.e., making decisions and performing acts outside of a predetermined view of what they are “supposed to do”), we tend to have an opinion of, “X does Y because that is the nature of X to do Y”.

Thus, when we read about a traveler who went to a game reserve and got mauled by a lion whom the traveler thought — just a moment before —was “friendly” enough to approach and take a close-up picture of, we shake our heads at the fact that the individual ignored the clear and visible sign which read: “Caution —Do NOT leave your vehicle. Dangerous Animals” or some similar preemptive warning.

Then, of course, there is “our” nature — of Human Nature.  What is it?  We are an animal species which is able to adapt, possess the talent for a thousand things but remain mediocre in all of them.  We cannot run as fast as a cheetah, nor have the ferocity of a lion; we cannot fly like the birds, nor have the venomous bite of a snake.  Yet, we can build cars which can outrace a cheetah, create weapons that do greater damage than a lion’s claws; we can build airplanes that travel greater distances than birds and manufacture bullets that pierce flesh beyond what a snake can deliver.

Of course, we like to think of “human nature” as being, as Aristotle would put it, “rational” first, and vicious somewhere down at the bottom of the list.  But wars, the devastating trails of what we leave behind — they attest more about Human Nature than our rationality.

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 issue of Human Nature as one comprised of cruelty, retribution and back-stabbing is probably not a surprise.  As your medical conditions worsen, you may have noticed a lack of empathy and a growing sense of animosity and contentiousness from your Agency or the Postal Service.

Chalk it up to “Human Nature” and the capacity of human beings for lack of qualities which — while we may like to think of as comprising the essence of humanity — comes out at the worst of times.

Consider, at such a point, whether filing for Federal Disability Retirement might not be the best option available, and consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement Benefits: The Feeling of Late

Do other species experience the same phenomena?  You know — of the feeling of late; or, more precisely, the pressures and stresses of “being late”, or some similar state of being.  How does the feeling come about; what creates it; and when does it go away such that there is no internal pressure that exacerbates the feeling we place under the general aegis of “stress”?

The feeling of late is an internal, insulated and cognitive sense, self-created and entirely manufactured within the context of a uniqueness caused by societal conditions.  It is entirely artificial (as Rousseau would deem it) and is not necessarily experienced by all.  Does it irritate to know someone who seemingly is oblivious to that experiential phenomena?  You know, the person who is incessantly late for appointments, never makes it on time to a dinner reservation, and seemingly is unaffected by a world which is obsessed with keeping time as a barometer of orderly self-control.

Time governs us all; for some, it creates a time-bomb of conflicted stresses; for others, a passing glance of concern; and only for a few, an irritant ready to be cast aside and ignored with aplomb and deliberative disregard, like a gnat on a summer’s night to be swatted and forgotten.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement, there is often very little difference between the feeling of late and the stresses pervasive stemming from a degenerative medical condition: In the end, whatever the sensation that destroys and gnaws, it is an experiential phenomena that debilitates and overwhelms.

Filing for FERS Disability Retirement may not be the complete solution to all problems, but it does allow for a Federal or Postal employee to focus upon that which should be a priority — of one’s health.  For, it is health itself which is the antidote to the feeling of late.  And, oh — to be like that person who cares not whether the appointment is at a given time, or that the dinner reservation is already past.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Retirement for Disabled Federal & Postal Workers: The packet

The packet to be submitted in an OPM Disability Retirement filing is the entirety of what is constituted by the evidence, the statements and documentation — in other words, the compendium of all that will be used in order to seek an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

At the beginning of the process — i.e., when the Federal or Postal employee first contemplated engaging this administrative process called “Federal Disability Retirement” — the Federal or Postal employee was faced with a slew of blank forms, beginning with the SF 3107 Series (Application for Immediate Retirement, Schedules A, B & C and the other forms that need to be completed by the Agency’s Human Resource Office), along with the SF 3112 Series (Applicant’s Statement of Disability; the Supervisor’s Statement; The Physician’s Statement; Agency’s Efforts for Reassignment and Accommodation form; the Checklist).

The “middle part” of the process is comprised in gathering the medical documentation that would support the Federal or Postal employee’s packet, as well as filling out the various questions.  Perhaps, during the administrative process — whether now awaiting a decision or still in the middle of completing the packet — the Federal or Postal employee asked one’s self: “Is it merely a matter of answering these questions, or is there a legal criteria that must be followed?”  For, while the questions on SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability, may appear fairly straightforward, do not ever think that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has assembled the Packet so that you can easily qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

The “Packet” contained Standard Forms to be completed; it even gives instructions at the beginning of each form.  However, as for the legal standard to be met and the requirements of what must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence — those little gems are nowhere contained in “The Packet”; that is something which the Federal or Postal employee must go out and seek, and the best place to begin is to consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Necessary changes

Is it a redundancy to state it in this manner?  Is change by definition necessary, or are some alterations merely voluntary, unnecessary, or modifications that are not required but are desired by sheer want of replacing boredom with ineptitude of lackluster metamorphosis?

Evolution surely resists it; for, the incrementalism and subtle refinement favors an unchanging universe, and we see that in the natural world, where an anomaly or mutation is disfavored, shunned by others and excluded instinctively.  The albino giraffe may be a fascinating phenomena to witness, but in the wilds where blending in with the landscape in order to go unnoticed by predators lurking about is the key to the survival of not just the “fittest” — but the one who is passed by unnoticed by more powerful forces ready to pounce and devour.

Change can take on many and variegated forms — from a spectrum dividing a wide chasm of consequences, whether intended or otherwise thoughtlessly expounded — from the minor adjustment to the tumultuous overhaul of upheaval and irreversible impact.  Some changes are merely insularly internal and go unnoticed, such as a “new perspective” or taking on a different way of seeing things.

Religious conversions can take that cloak of alteration.  We may know a friend, a neighbor or a family member who lives at the same address, speaks the same way, dresses in the identical manner, but one day blurts out, “I have become X!”  Perhaps there are some residual modifications made, and some we notice, others go with a ripple, like the many pitter-patter of rain drops that fall upon the midnight ocean and no one ever notices.

Other changes come from without — imposing its impact and causal effect without any choice or say in the matter — earthquakes; deaths; wars that no one asked for; events that unfold with untold consequences that no one thought through very well.

Medical conditions are akin to the latter — of a vicissitude that occurs without the asking, with impact upon lives both minor and consequential.  It is not only a change, but necessitates changes in the lifestyle, manner and approach of the one to whom it impacts.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to prevent the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it will often become apparent that the unnecessary (or unwanted) change to one’s health begets a necessary change that must accommodate the former.

A Federal Disability Retirement application may be a necessary change, if only to follow upon the change that has imposed itself by the very medical condition itself.

Changes — necessary or otherwise — require an adaptation, both mentally and often physically, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the penultimate necessary change that must be contemplated in a universe replete with necessary and sufficient causes beyond one’s control.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: Functional architecture

It refers to those unnecessary trappings; but of course, the immediate question which follows is:  who determines necessity as opposed to aesthetic addendums otherwise of utilitarian vacuity.

The traditional approach in functional architecture is determined by the general principle that a building should be designed by the paradigmatic governance of the underlying purpose for which the structure should be constructed.  That is likely why government buildings are essentially drab and colorless, reflecting the purposive nature of a bureaucracy and administrative conduits.  The grandeur of the wealthy in pouring money into aesthetically pleasing facades, otherwise without any meaningful utilitarian basis, is a consequence of wanting to impress, as opposed to a functional capacity to reside.

In modernity, functionalism is akin to pragmatism, which is often seen as the heart and soul of this country’s success – of advancing towards the next technological innovation, accomplishing beyond the project paid for, and getting things “done” in order to calculate the worth and value of a person’s being.  At the cost of family, neighborhood, culture and normative constructs, we go for that which works, what pays and what can be sold.

Thus does the American model function on the motto of pragmatism:  Of what does it benefit a man if he cannot make a living from it?  And so the narrative goes that waves of immigrants gave up their native country, whether because of famine, wars, poverty or persecution, and traveled to a far-off foreign soil in order to carve out a living without the trappings once enjoyed.

But the concept of functional architecture can reach into other disciplines, as well – as in the composition of words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into pages of stream of consciousness.  One can, for example, add all sorts of unnecessary verbiage in preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in response to the questions posited in Standard Form 3112A – Applicant’s Statement of Disability.

This can get one into what is often proverbially termed as “hot water”.  For, just as the three classic goals of architecture still remain relevant today – of utility, beauty and firmness (reflecting the conceptual generalizations of use, aesthetically pleasing to the eye, and structural integrity), so the same can be applied in preparing one’s Federal Disability Retirement application in the statements made:  Writing to the point of the Federal Disability Retirement application (utility); being comprehensible and coherent, with a purposive narrative (beauty); and, finally, firmness (maintaining the structural integrity of the narrative by building the proper linguistic foundation in formulating one’s answers on SF 3112A).

Thus, as with most things in life, functionalism does not merely apply to the discipline of architecture, but can easily be transmogrified into the complex administrative process of Federal Disability Retirement.  As the fullness of life is an admixture of interconnecting experiences, so the principles undergirding architectural integrity can teach us lessons in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Life Lessons

Most of us stumble through it, and somehow end up down unexpected corridors of unplanned venues; and then we have the nerve to think that we can have kids and impart wisdom we never learned, refused to lived by, and rarely listened to.  It is said that hypocrisy is the characteristic of the common farce; it just happens to infect everyone else, and never ourselves.  But there is an evolutionary determinant even in the comedy of life; it used to be that Western Philosophy would teach us to always seek out the substance of a thing, and to recognize mere attributes and appearances for what they are — recognizing that superficiality conceals the essence of Being.

Now, there are popular books which tell us that “faking it” is okay, so long as everyone else is too stupid to know it.  Then, there is our job, our careers and that vocation at which we spend the majority of our lives pursuing.  One day, we wake up, and find that the manifestation  of a medical condition makes it impossible for us to continue.

What do we do about it?  Procrastinate.  Deny.  Avoid the issue.  But reality has a way of ignoring our pleas of ignorance and avoidance.  Harassment at work; Letters Warnings; imposition of a PIP; Proposed Removal; Removal.  It is not that we did not see it coming; we just hoped that life’s lessons would make a detour around our individual circumstances.

Fortunately, however, for Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers, there is a consolation benefit in the event that a life lesson involving a medical condition impacts the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s positional duties as a Federal employee or U.S. Postal Service worker.  Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits allows for the Federal or Postal employee to have “another chance” at life’s misgivings, by providing a base annuity, allowing for work in the private sector on top of the OPM Disability Retirement annuity, and to garner a time for restorative living in order to attend to the medical conditions by retaining and maintaining one’s FEHB.

In the end, there is a conceptual distinction to be made between “Life Lessons” and “Life’s Lessons”; the former is what our parents and the juggernaut of historical inevitability tried to teach, and which we deliberately ignored; the latter is that which impacts us daily and personally, and to which we must by necessity respond.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the Federal or Postal employee must 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 lesson of life — whether as Life Lessons or as Life’s Lessons, is to take that stumbling former self who ended up in the corridors of the Federal Sector, and to straighten out the future course of events by preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement: On the spectrum between fear and overconfidence

The “what ifs” of life tend to predominate; then, from the deep recesses of brute carnality, where evolutionary Darwinism remains wired in the DNA of a time when civilizations were yet to flourish, and where tea cups were merely in the imaginations of more genteel souls, a sense of uprightness, fortitude and strength of inner character dawns, and we walk out the door refreshed with a sense of deliberative purpose.  But it turns out that such fleeting flourishes of fortuitous firmness lasts but for a twilight, and then we desire to crawl back into the womb of our former skeletal selves.

Fear is how most of us live, despite the outward face of bravado and confidence.  We fear what others might do to us; how the economy is a mysterious force over which we have no control; of deteriorating health; of life itself.

Then, there are days when a calm sense of overconfidence prevails; without any reason or rationale, or perhaps we watched a movie or television show where a certain character manifested a bright and hopeful sunshine of unperturbed calm; but that was yesterday, and lasted but for a fortnight of winks and nods.  For the remaining days, we recognize that it was all an act; and so we live in trembling and fear.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to perform the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal position, that placement on the spectrum between fear and overconfidence is well know, recognized, and familiar as the warmth of a mother’s caress.

What the agency will do; what coworkers conspire; what the next news of the deteriorating medical condition; these all fall in favor of the “fear” side of the spectrum.  Those “other” things which call for confidence in the future over and beyond — they come in a spatter of popping grease, and make us wince with the momentary pause of a tap of reality, and then disappear.

How does one escape that spectrum of unrelenting reminders?  For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker, there is always the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is not merely a benefit to be gained; rather, it is an opportunity to take the next step in life, to a beyond where future career and vocation choices may allow for productivity outside of the Federal Sector.

Thus, for the Federal or Postal worker who is under FERS, CSRS or even CSRS Offset, preparing, formulating and filing for an effective OPM Disability Retirement application is the first step towards taking a turn away from the treadmill of that dreaded pinpoint of our lives, where we are stuck in the middle of the spectrum between fear and overconfidence.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire