Federal Government & USPS Disability Retirement: The Volume Appearance

It cuts both ways; and we all do it.  The “substance” of X can be either qualitative or quantitative, but rarely both.  If it lacks in substance, we believe that it can be made to look good by increasing its volume — i.e., heftiness = substantive relevance.  If it possesses inherent substance, on the other hand, it rarely requires greater volume.

The disjunctive rule is often applied here: Things rarely contain both.  Modern novels are a testament to the rule: Hundreds of pages with little to say.  Then, look at Hemingway’s greatest work — The Old Man and the Sea.  A short book; a masterpiece.  Shakespeare is the best example of containing both — quality of work, quantity of work.

In modernity, volume gives the appearance of substance, even when there is very little of it.  In a FERS Disability Retirement case, don’t think that gathering your decades-long medical records is sufficient to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  A qualitative medical report is often necessary.  The converse is true, as well: OPM will write a long and meandering denial letter which has no logical or substantive input.

It is, again, the “Volume Appearance” — of trying to make it appear as though the volume of their denial letter accounts for its validity.  It does not.

Contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law in order to counteract the volume appearance — both for yourself in preparing the Federal Disability Retirement case, as well as in preempting OPM’s attempt to bamboozle you with a Volume Appearance Denial Letter — and no, the term “bamboozle” is not a legal/technical term, but it is what it is, as the modern colloquialism goes.

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: Of What We Do

It is the pause that a comma compels, a reflective moment which a period forces upon us.  There are times in life when we pause or stop, and we ask ourselves: What is all of this for?  Why are we doing it?  What is the purpose of it all?

At some point in our lives, we became automatons in the pursuit of just maintaining the life which we have chosen.  Throughout, there were multiple proverbial “forks in the road” — After high school, we could have done X instead of Y; after college, A was a choice, but instead we went with B; and each step of the way, we failed to ask the question: Of what we do, what is the purpose and why am I doing it?

And then, beyond the fork of that road which we have chosen, life takes us along a treadmill of which we have no idea where the on/off switch is located.  But there are moments when the pause button suddenly appears, or the period ends the sentence and the last sentence completes the paragraph and we ask: Of What We Do, What is the purpose?  Medical conditions tend to do that.

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 question “Of What We Do” becomes relevant because, in the end, is it worth sacrificing one’s health?

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Help: The Applicant’s Statement

The SF 3112A is the focal point of it all; without it, the entirety of the Federal Disability Retirement application would be incomplete, inconsequential and insidiously irrelevant.  The U.S. Office of Personnel Management can make a decision on a Federal Disability Retirement application — theoretically — without full answers or incomplete answers of the “other” forms, such as the Checklist, or even the Supervisor’s Statement; but as for the SF 3112A, The Applicant’s Statement of Disability — well, there is no getting around the fact of its prominence, importance and position of significance and relevance.

The Applicant’s Statement of Disability puts everything in its proper perspective; it tells the narrative of one’s medical conditions; it provides (or, at least should) the nexus between one’s medical condition and the essential or basic elements of one’s job, tasks, duties, positional requirements, etc., and gives a key and insight into the very foundation of the legal criteria for OPM to either grant or deny a Federal Disability Retirement application.  That being the case, why would a Federal or Postal employee leave such an important component as the content and substance of an SF 3112A up to one’s own self?

The person who suffers from the medical disabling condition can hardly be the one to properly, adequately or completely describe the key components of one’s medical condition and its impact upon one’s positional duties; for, the one who suffers by definition is the very.same person who is divorced from having an objective perspective.

Remember, always, that Federal Disability Retirement is a medically-based administrative procedure — one which must encompass and encapsulate the objectivity of medical documentation, the meeting of a legal criteria that has evolved over many decades, and an aggregation of the two combined in order to persuade the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that the compendium of one’s documented evidentiary findings rises to the level of a preponderance of the evidence presented in a coherent manner to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Does such an endeavor appear consistent with the Federal or Postal employee who is too sick to work the essential elements of one’s job?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Problems

We all have them; some, more than others; and by either quality or quantity, we often judge as to the burdens overloaded in our lives, comparing to others by contrast the significance of the impact of each, whether large or small, tragic and grandiose or irrelevant like a speck of a fly upon a windowsill in the basement where no one visits, anyway.

Wait long enough and they will sometimes go away; wait too long, and the little bothersome inkling may turn into an insurmountable gargantuan of a magnified adversity beyond human tolerability; and in the end, we are left with either being resigned to live with them, to solve them, or to simply survive them.

Problems are inherent to human living.  A wise pastor once said, “Where there are people, there are problems.”  This statement was a recognition that human interactions, relationships and the mere bunching up of personalities that conflict and become adversarial, in a world of limited means but unlimited emotional upheaval, by necessity invites problematic encounters.

We often think that, “If only I had…” — then, what?  That all problems would simply vanish?  Hardly, and most unlikely.  For, history has shown that in every endeavor that requires effort; in every relationship no matter the matching of perfection as to personality, temperament and compatibility; in the end, whether by external influences or internal derangements, conflict will erupt and problems will abound.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition begins to impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the necessity may arise for filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS offset.

In such a state of affairs, problems already are inherent — the medical condition itself.  The key, then, is not to compound the problem by trying to maneuver through a complex administrative process without legal expertise, but rather, to engage an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law.

In the end, it is the compounding of problems that can be controlled.  Problems will always be with us, but for the Federal or Postal employee who must contend with a medical condition and must file a Federal Disability Retirement application, always remember that it is the next step beyond the original problem that will often determine the future course of problems, and whether they can be limited or allowed to fester and boil over into a compounding of further problems.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Lawyer for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Games

How do we learn how to play them?  If we play Game-X, must we follow “all” of the rules ordinarily known and ascribed in order for Game-X to still be recognizable as such, or does it become “Modified Game-X”.

If little Toby plays his first game, but doesn’t know the rules, yet nevertheless realizes that games are “fun” because everyone else is smiling and seemingly excited, does the fact that the kid-who-knows-no-rules plays without knowing the limits and boundaries of the game make him into a participant, or a pariah?  Of course, if he stamps his feet in the middle of the game and declares that he doesn’t like the game, and walks off (even taking with him the proverbial ball), can we declare him to be a poor sport, an okay-sport, or any sport at all if he never knew the rules of the game in the first place and therefore never quite played the “real” game?

How about dogs — do they “play” games?  The dog that chases the ball but doesn’t want to bring it back to the ball-thrower, and instead runs away with it — has he broken the “rules of the game”?  How is it that dogs play games with their masters without ever being able to explain what the parameters of the rules are?

Then, of course, there is the slight modification in the term “games”, as in “games that people play”.  We all know what that means — of being insincere, fake, or otherwise putting on a double-face.  Why is that called a “game”?  Is it because it is not real, and constitutes a copy of “make-believe”, much like playing a game when we all know that it is not reality that is being rehearsed; and yet, isn’t playing a game — any game — just a part of the reality of the world we live in?  Why, then, is life bifurcated between “games” and “reality”, when in fact both are real in the sense that we are living a life of surviving, making a living, etc.?  Yet, we constantly distinguish between “playing” and “living”, as if there is a difference to be identified.

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 any longer performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal worker’s job, career or craft, the preparations needed to come to a point of realizing that an effective Federal Disability Retirement application must be filed, often requires a recognition that the proverbial “game” is “up”.

Whether the Supervisors and Managers at the Federal Agency or the Postal Facility are up to their usual “games” or not — of harassment, derisive comments, making your life “hell” by increasing the levels of pressure or stress, is really besides the point.  What matters is that life itself is not a “game” at all, and those who separate games from the daily living activities don’t really “get it”.

Medical conditions bring to the forefront the reality of living, and the harshness of how people treat other people.  Yes, preparing 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, may seem like just one of those other “games” that have to be “played” — but the reality is that an effective OPM Disability Retirement application is a necessary part of life’s many facets of games and reality-based endeavors, such that the “rules of the game” always need to be consulted in order to “play” it well, and thus the first step is to learn the rules by consulting with an attorney who can advise on the rules themselves.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation on FERS/CSRS Disability Claims: What isn’t known

There is often that final question during a consultation — of “any other advice” that can be given, or whether something else was forgotten, or the generalization of “Anything else I should know?”  That is where the particulars of a case must be known, and the wide chasm that exists between “being a client” and merely receiving an initial overview of a person’s case.  For, what isn’t known is often the element that can harm or injure, and the question asked but left unanswered is the one that no one thought about but should have.

Lawyers like to enter an arena of legal battles well-prepared; all questions asked, normally already are presumptively answered, and no lawyer worthy of his opponent asks a question that he or she already doesn’t know the answer to, or at least has a fairly good idea about.  In a Federal Disability Retirement case, where there are multiple stages of an Administrative Process to tackle and prepare for, the First Key to success is to not submit that which will be harmful to one’s case.

As an attorney who represents Federal and Postal workers in preparing, formulating and filing 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, the primary issue is obviously upon the medical report and records to be submitted; followed by the legal arguments to be presented and established, normally through an extensive Legal memorandum, which provides a kind of “road map” for the assigned OPM Specialist to review and (hopefully) become persuaded as to the validity, incontrovertible legal basis, and the substantive qualification of the Federal or Postal employee in meeting all of the legal criteria in becoming eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

For the Federal or Postal employee who attempts this complex Administrative Process without legal representation, the obstacles, pitfalls and potential hazards are many, and it is often what isn’t known that defeats a Federal Disability Retirement case.

Sure, there are cases where the presented facts, medical conditions and evidence constitute an undeniable, “slam-dunk” case, but those are few and far between, and we can all recognize such cases and a competent attorney would normally advise such individuals to go ahead and complete the Standard Forms, attach some relevant medical documentation and file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with OPM.

Then, of course, there are cases on the far side of the spectrum that constitute a “weak” or otherwise invalid case, and those, too, are easily recognizable.  Most cases, however, fall in the middle, within the spectrum where one must affirmatively and by a preponderance of the evidence “prove” one’s eligibility for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  And for all such cases that fall in that “middle” area of the wide spectrum, what isn’t known is the lynchpin that must be identified and prepared for further assessment and formulation, whether by addressing it in a medical document or reinforcing it by legal argumentation.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Medical Retirement: Of possessions and possessives

Does a noun transformed into a possessive form transfer deed of title, or is it merely a declarative mechanism of grammatical ascription, de-linked from any fact in reality?  If a person points to an individual in a photograph and states with certainty, “That is Edna’s sister in-law, the fourth cousin of King James III” — and thus implying some relationship with royalty and a connection to a very narrow uniqueness of historical lineage — does actual possession occur, or is the grammatical possessive merely an empty claim with no “real-life” consequence?

And, what if it turns out that the woman in the photograph is in fact not the person or heritage claimed, but merely a stranger whose presence in the one-dimensional format was simply a convenience whose image happened to defy the momentary identification?  What, then?  Does the discovery of this new set of facts expunge the previous claim, or was the initial declaration null and void and of irrelevance, anyway?

It reminds one, and is somewhat parallel to, the issue of names and their historical derivatives.  Take the name, Wilson, for example, which is a variant of the surname, Williamson — derived from the conjunctive, “Son of William” — from a time in history when lineage, direct descendants and being “X of Y” established a certain identification mired in simplicity of relationships.  Yet, today, the connection is entirely lost, and one no longer implies or denotes from a name the relational connective inherent in such linguistic designations.

Of course, the name itself can attach to the female gender, rendering the connective tissue of such language meaningless; and perhaps that is just as well, as antiquity founded in bias and discrimination is in modernity thought to be the greatest of sins.  But that is precisely the point, isn’t it?  We still cling to the nominative case in habits formed longed ago, and refuse to give up that which we are comfortable with.

Take titles of workforce significance, for instance — we cling to them as identifiers with substantive content.  That is why, for many Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are intending to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through their Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, the thought of giving up one’s self-identification by moving on to a Federal OPM Disability Retirement annuity means that one has lost one’s “self” in conjunction with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Thus, the “letter carrier“, the “Supervisor”, the “Air Traffic Control Specialist”, and the “(fill in the blank)” — that is the nominative case which goes well beyond mere grammatical form.  It gives us the false sense of purpose, derivation of who we are and what is of relevance in a society which has lost its collective connection to lineage and relationships.  Is this “brave new world” any better?  Does the Federal or Postal employee who may now become a “Federal Disability Retiree” or “Federal Disability Annuitant” change the substance of the person, the content of his or her character, or even the essence of who he or she is?  But then, discovery of “essence” has also been expunged and extinguished from this antiquated mode of thinking.

In the end, for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who is 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, it is not of possessions or possessives which should determine the course of future actions, but rather, the prioritizing of health and human happiness — those ingredients which have always made for a better tomorrow, whether in past times, the present, or in preparation for the future.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Annuity: The mindset resulting in a witch’s brew

We can often dismiss antiquity with ease by relegating personalities to caricatures and stereotypes.  Thus, of the Crusaders, that they were merely simple folk unsophisticated in the evolutionary Darwinism of modernity; of Roman legions, fearful of punishment and brought up to bear the cruelty of his environment; or even of more recent vintage, the gunslinger out West — of Billy the Kid or Wild Bill Hickok, where legend surpasses the individual and becomes fact.

But a slight alteration of a vantage point can skew the perspective; and thus, when we focus upon the cauldron of the witch’s brew, as opposed to the personality who stirs and skims the steaming pot and tastes with a silent laugh the compilation of herbs, incantations and bones of lizards extinct but for the ghostly aura of a hand which discovers the mist of superstition, then we begin to truly understand the nature of human beings.

Even the modern day “curandera”, or traditional healer who must speak to the Andean underworld and mix the exacting drops of bat’s blood and seek out the plants and herbs in the harsh mountainous enclaves, possesses an aura of mystery unable to be discerned, unless one averts the eyes from the window of the soul and instead transposes upon the metal source from whence the steam arises.  Then, there in the transfixed embrace switching from the deepened riverbeds of facial ravines of the one whom we cannot comprehend, and corners instead upon the objectified universe out of the contextual historicity of predetermined ideas, we begin to understand.

We put faith in others, and repetitively so, and when the self-flagellation wrought by dependence upon the kindness of others is crushed beneath the weight of rejection and rebuttal, then and only then are we able to “move on” and pick ourselves back up in order to advance towards goals abandoned and dreams unfulfilled.

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 realizing the fruition of one’s career as a Federal or Postal employee, and must by necessity forego the compensatory benefits of job, career, TSP build-up and years of in-service accumulation; it is, then, time to consider 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.

Once a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is obtained, the time that one is receiving a OPM Disability Retirement annuity counts towards the total number of years of Federal Service, so that when recalculation occurs when the Federal or Postal employee reaches age 62, those years of Federal Service while receiving the Federal Disability Retirement annuity counts towards the recalculated annuity.

But first, the refocus of one’s perspective must occur, in order to alter the mindset from whence to proceed.

The Federal employee or U.S. Postal Service worker must begin to think “differently” from the personality occupying the identical space as “before”.  Like the mouth agape with wonder and the eyes of disbelief, the parameters of transfixed minds must change in order for change itself to occur.

Focus not upon the personality in history, but the object which remains constant throughout.  For, the cauldron which bears the aroma of a witch’s brew is not the same as the hand which stirs the pot; though, the ingredients of mystery and secrets unrevealed are lost in the historicity of timeless knowledge, and that is why the thought-process resulting from the witch’s brew is often as important as the personality who gathered the aura of potency lost in the steaming mixture of life’s hidden darkness.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Pension Annuity: Today, life is good…

It is the set of 3 periods at the end of the sentence, identified in grammatical terms as an ellipses, allowing for a trailing thought or a hesitation of motive, and here which differentiates from a singular finality of a period postulated to prevent a purposive punctuality of partition from a postscript.  If the last two periods were extracted and deleted, the delineation would connote a declarative assertion, unhesitant in conclusion, and confident in execution.  With those two additions, it implies and denotes hesitancy, a pause leaving the impression of loss or lack of confidence, and unable to determine the cogency of opinion formulated but for the ellipses.

In the end, however, how is grammar tied to life itself?  Do mere additions of two dots in a sentence reflect the reality of that which we live?  Do the bundles of human complexities, emotional upheaval and physical pain, cognitive dissonance cut us off from nature’s impenetrable divide?

How often do we walk around, and stop and realize that we remember nothing about our surroundings, who we passed, what buildings we strode by, because the inner thoughts we became a hostage to allowed only for sight by the eye of our own minds, and not for the purposes attributable to all other species on the planet — for observation and judgment to determine the course of future destiny, in surviving a predatory world.

What makes us unique, but the linguistic divide that confronts us daily; and thus is it that the 3 harmless dots dangling at the terminal confinement at the end of a sentence is more than a mirage of grammatical repose; no, it defines who we are.  For, the reality of the ellipses is contained in the reflection of the truth manifested; insert an emotive adjective, and the dots disappear; yet, the changes wrought will remain beyond the grammatical addendum, the deletion of the dots, or the conversion from hesitancy to declarative assertion of utmost confidence.

It is, in the end, the “today” which is the operative word, and not the trepidation engendered by the ellipses; and it is the unstated “tomorrow” which can bring about changes to the substantive undercurrent of life beyond linguistic elasticity.  It is real life, and not grammar, which must ultimately determine destiny, fate and the whims of gods playing with human caricatures with arbitrary thunderbolts and childhood cruelty with breaths of unexpected pillars placed as obstacles within our paths.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that the gods of fate have placed the burden of a medical condition upon life’s lottery of challenges, the need to prepare, formulate and apply 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, becomes an encounter where the linguistic divide between life and living, on the one hand, and language and grammar, on the other, coalesce and the the chasm must by necessity be bridged.  For, it is precisely the medical condition itself (life and living) which must then be formulated into a declarative state of disability and linguistic evidentiary postulate (language and grammar), in the form of an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, that makes for the differentiation between failure or success.

Beware of the pitfalls of grammar, and note the ellipses, as well as the dangling participle, lest either unveil a true hesitancy in living, as opposed to a mere red mark from a teacher in a fictional classroom, either in one’s mind or in the eye of one’s mind.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Early Medical Retirement from Federal Government: Berkeley’s House

He was an Irishman, and if one were to “rank” philosophers, he would likely be considered a “second tier” thinker — not quite at the level of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes or Heidegger — but certainly contributed to the Western Philosophical tradition of engendering even greater questions than solving any problems or settling any queries.

A little tidbit which is not commonly known: Bishop Berkeley came to the United States and purchased a plantation at Middletown, intending upon living there, until his expectation of funding failed to be forthcoming.  That is probably what he is least known for; the Latin phrase for which he gains the greatest notoriety, is esse est percipi — to be, is to be perceived.

An absurd and uncharitable interpretation of this foundational phrase, would be to attribute to Berkeley the idea that things in the objective world exist only to the extent that we perceive them; the moment such perceptual pervasiveness disappears, then, existence becomes extinguished.

A more rational view of his postulate, however, is to attribute Berkeley to the tradition of British linguistic philosophers, and to consider the following “implied” but silent intentions:  “The definition of what it means to exist, can only have meaning if, and only if, there is a perceiver for which the object is there to be perceived, and as such, existence as a concept of any meaningful import must by necessity have a perceiver”.

Without this kinder, gentler version of interpretive connotations, all manner of ridicule and scoffing have been thrown at the good Bishop — in the form of:  “So, when I leave a room, does it vanish?  And when I return, does it suddenly reappear?”  And in the days of Star Trek:  “Beam me up, Scottie, or in philosophical circles, Bishop Berkeley”.

It is, in the end, the absurdity of linguistic interpretation which ultimately relegated Berkeley to the “second tier” of philosophical thought; and from that unintended consequences resulting from an attempt to resolve a complex issue of metaphysical discourse, we can learn and discern much:  complexity sometimes cannot be circumvented with simplicity of declarative assertion; often, there is a reason why such a conundrum of linguistic inelasticity exists.

Thus, for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal Service worker who is intending upon preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the key point here is that, yes, your case may be quite complex, but the route to making it comprehensible to the administrative specialist at OPM, is not to try and simplify the core essence of the case, but to state the complex in simple language.

That is often the greatest difficulty with a Federal or Postal applicant in preparing one’s Statement of Disability on Standard Form 3112A — the narrative in response to the various questions will often meander and fail to achieve a coherency because everything from Dickens’ childhood details (which, as you may recall, Salinger scoffed at in his famous work, The Catcher in the Rye) to peripheral issues involved EEO complaints and workplace harassment concerns are thrown in for good or seemingly better measure, when in fact a simplified version based upon good habits of editing would produce a more effective statement of compelling narration.

For, in the end, postulating a Federal Disability Retirement application is not a matter of compiling a voluminous or complex treatise for persuasive discourse; it is to tell a coherent story of one’s inability to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties with the Federal job or Postal position, and we need not defer to Berkeley’s House — whether as a historical tidbit or as the confounded thought processes extracted from his complex works — in order to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal OPM Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire