Federal Disability Retirement Legal Assistance: Presentation

The appearance of the speaker; the manner in which he or she conducts him/herself; but in the end, it is the content and substantive presentation which will determine the course of success or failure — of whether the audience will yawn with boredom, throw things at the speaker, or worse yet — merely fall asleep through boredom and disinterestedness.

“Presentation” thus encapsulates and requires both appearance and substance, demeanor and delivery, confidence and content, tone and subject matter.  Knowing the subject matter; being able to argue persuasively; preemptively answering queries which may arise during the course of the deliverance of information.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition no longer allows for the Federal or Postal worker to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the paper-presentation in preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, under FERS, is the important first step — the first impression and presentation — on the road to a successful administrative and bureaucratic process.

Don’t mess it up.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and make sure that the presentation is presentable and effective.

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 Benefits: Complacency

It is the state of safety, when the natural guards for self-preservation are let down because the security of prior successes allow for the sense of disregard to develop.  Complacency is the self-satisfaction that not a greater effort needs to be expended, that the pinnacle of energy required has been surpassed and the competitive structure of struggling no longer exists.

Then, a problem arises; a new challenge has arisen; some crippling interruption has occurred and suddenly the competitive arena has been enlivened.  Complacency is replaced with a renewed vigor to meet the challenge, and the cycle begins all over again.  Companies and corporate giants experience regularly such a cycle; individuals, as well.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who were able to “get by” with an acceptable level of complacency, but then became disabled because of a medical condition, an illness or an accident, the challenge is to get back to where you once were — where once complacency could see you through.

If that is not possible, however, and the challenge of the medical condition no longer allows you to get by, consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement benefits and consider preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Employee FERS Disability Retirement application, lest complacency no longer allows you to continue in your career of choice.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Fair Games

It depends upon how you read the concept, which word or syllable you place the accent or emphasis upon, doesn’t it?

In one sense of the concept, it has to do with games found at the county or state Fairs — you know, where cotton candy is sold and prizes are awarded for the largest potato grown or the fattest pig shown.  In another sense, it is in contrast to its opposite — of games where you have a good chance because rules are imposed and upheld, as opposed to “unfair” games where the proverbial deck is stacks against you.  It is in this second sense of the term that we apply.

Fairness itself is a difficult concept, precisely because of its malleability.  One concept of fairness is an arguable delineation based upon rules, perspectives, and even perhaps of cultural backgrounds.  Rules themselves can be attacked, and are “fair game” when it comes to disputatious boundaries, where there are essentially none to circumvent.

You can argue that such-and-such a call was unfair, and that obnoxious fan sitting next to you might counter, “But that’s within the rules of the game,” and you might then counter to the counter, “Then the game is rigged and the rules are unfair!”  What would be the counter-answer to the counter of the counter?  Perhaps, to say: “Listen, buddy, I don’t make up the rules.  It’s fair by definition if everyone who plays the game has to play by the same rules.”  Is that the silencer — the conversation-stopper — that cannot be argued against?

But what if everyone theoretically has to “play by the rules of the game”, but the rules are administered in a lopsided manner?  Is that what makes the game “unfair”?  Isn’t that what fans the world over complain about when the umpire, for example, sets the “strike zone” (or in other contexts, the “foul zone” or some such similar animal) too wide for some pitchers and too narrow for others?

Or, wasn’t there something like the “Jordan Rule” where a certain player was allowed to take an “extra step” (or two or three, for that matter) and no “traveling violation” was called, because the beauty of his fluid movements surpassed and transcended any “rules” that might disrupt the mesmerizing effect of such human defiance of gravity right before our eyes?  Could you imagine what an uproar that would have caused, where the player-in-question flies through the air with such acrobatic display of gravity-defying beauty, slam-dunks the ball to the rising wave of appreciative fans, and a whistle is blown — and the basket is disallowed?

That awkward motion that the referee engages in — you know, where both hands are balled up into a fist and made into a circular motion, indicating that a traveling violation has occurred — and then pointing to the scoring table and telling them to subtract the 2-points just previously awarded…is it “fair”?  Should fairness sometimes be overlooked when beauty-in-mid-flight entertains us to such ecstatic delights?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where 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, life often begins to appear as if “fairness” is no longer an applicable rule — for, is it “fair” that one’s health has deteriorated despite doing everything to take care of it?  Is it “fair” that others seem to have lived a life of excess but seem not to be impacted at all by the abundance of maltreatment?  Is it “fair” that others appear to be receiving favoritism of treatment, while your Federal Agency or the Postal Service appears to be targeting you for every minor infraction of the “rules”?

Life, in general, is unfair, and when a Federal or Postal worker seems to be the target of unfair treatment because of a progressively deteriorating medical condition, it may well be time to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Life is often unfair in general; but when it comes to applying and enforcing “the Law”, it is best to consult with an experienced attorney, especially when seeking to obtain Federal Disability Retirement benefits through OPM.  And like the “Jordan Rule” concerning extra-rule-violation treatment, it is best to make sure that your attorney makes the Rules of the Game enforced — and fair.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney Representation for OPM Disability Claims: Mountain climbing

Whether for the exhilaration of the activity or the sheer confrontation of the challenge looming, it is a sport that captures the imagination of the fitness-enthusiast, the romantic and the eccentric loner alike.  It is the sport that engages the competitive spirit not against another’s ability or the coordinated capacity of large teams having practiced together, but against the inert heights of peaks and impervious rock faces that show no emotion as to one’s success or failure.

Mountain climbing has many phases and stages, both of skill and type; of a walk along a trail; a hike up an incline; or for the serious contender, the challenge against the fear of height and failure.  Is the challenge against one’s own fear?  Is the thrill that of attaining that climber’s high where energy is suddenly released and the conquering senses are suddenly embraced by the thrill of nature’s impassive will?

There are mountains to climb, and some of us do it in the physical sense, while the rest of us contend with the metaphorical mountains that need to be climbed each and every day.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, where the medical condition itself is the mountain to climb, it will often become necessary to go on to the “next level” of the climb itself, by preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, to be submitted through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For some, mountain climbing is an actual physical activity; for the rest of us, it is a metaphorical application that reflects the strenuous life challenges beyond ordinary encounters of daily living.

For Federal and Postal employees who suffer from a medical condition where the medical condition itself prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it becomes more than a metaphor — it is, instead, the obstacle that prevents, no less than the peak that abuts before the first step is taken for the mountain climbing enthusiast.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
FERS Disability Lawyer

 

OPM Disability Retirement: Imperceptible light shifts

They are almost imperceptible; in any event, we would not otherwise notice them but for the altered hue in morning’s glory of pink shades and yellow gleams of delight.  From one angle and perspective, one might miss the subtlety of a purple shade not otherwise naturally given to observation; from another, a shift, quite impossible to grasp and declare, but there nevertheless, and that is precisely what occurs with the imperceptible light shifts we miss in the daily lives of busy modernity that destroys and in incremental deterioration withdraws from grace.

But that we had the time, or made the way, for viewing and studying the changes of a world’s color; but we act as though we are colorblind, and rush through each day without noticing the alterations of the sensory universe we occupy.

Nature itself is a deceiver of sorts; from the sun’s rise to its apex of brilliance to the fall into twilight behind the arc of earth’s perimeter, we are unable to view the brightness directly, lest we blind ourselves in such a foolish attempt, or otherwise try and comprehend such source of solar energy in a figurative sense like the Cave Analogy in Plato’s Republic, of that chained soul who lives only within the shadows of appearances not reflective of reality.

No, it is the inability to feel the rotation of the ground beneath us that first welcomes the rising sun, then imperceptibly travels the distance to give us the gift of light, only to incrementally and with deliberative direction progress towards the pathway of twilight’s descent that allows for event a glint of the nether world.

Imperceptible light shifts may be seen in the refractive beauty upon a crystal’s gleam, or upon a clearing in a forest after a burst of rain; but it is in life generally that we must keep an eye out for the beauty of change, in order to be in consonance with a universe that is divorced from our instinctive sensibilities as the animals we once were in roaming the earth like the American Indian who followed the migration of the buffalo herd.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are impeded in life by a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal position occupied, those life-startling but imperceptible light shifts are like the subtle hints of the body’s agony:  They tell us things that we already know, but are too stubborn to see.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is never an easy perspective of a long and arduous road to take; but like those imperceptible light shifts, it is the gleam of a future’s hope that must pave the way in prompting that which is necessary, as opposed to what we merely desire out of life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Other people’s misery

Why is it that the misery of others tends to soothe our own?  Yes, yes – we grant the common and appropriate responses of heartfelt empathy and facial frowns and perhaps even some tears; but in the end, is it because of the resulting comparative analysis – of a cold, rational and logical methodology of responsive behavior – that we appease the gods of fate in some primitive form of sacrificing others, knowing that so long as the traveling karma has not yet noticed our own plight of devious accord, we are safe for another day?

Or is there some false paradigm upon which most of us operate – that economic prosperity is based upon a limited “pie”, and we must take a set portion before it disappears, or protect the leftovers we have salvaged against the ravenous predators who seek to deprive; or that chance and statistical ascription of proportional divides mandate that there is only a predetermined reach of human misery on a macro-level, and so long as that preset number is satisfied, such tragedy of suffering will leave us untouched?

We certainly have a history of such mythological adherence; whether of man’s historical conduct by religious fervor and slaughter in the name of heavens unreached (which has still not quenched its thirsting pinnacle of folly, as current epics attest to), or in the silent quips and prayers uttered to protect ourselves from nature’s fury; we believe, somehow, that but for the grace granted by an unfathomable other, we would experience the plight of those whom we would rather avoid like the plague.  Or is it much more basic – somewhat like the epidemic which takes the life of another, and the thought is, so long as the infectious predator busily devours and destroys the next guy, you are immune to its distracted attention?

We certainly find relief, and even enjoy the consternation of discussion, in other people’s misery; to stand around and about gossiping of trials and heartaches inflicted (with the distinction appropriated that, because the point of such exchanges are meant to be “helpful”, so the difference between “malicious gossip” and what we engage in must by definition allow for the momentary lapse from decorum) upon “poor Joe” or “Aunt Emma”, all the while making sure that the concealing mask bordering upon frowns and distraught distractions would not betray the sense of relief felt that it is the “other” guy whose misery remains.

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 positional duties, the thing that must be known and recognized at the outset is that the human need to embrace, discuss and “do something about” other people’s misery, is that the “other” person is you.  Thus, whether in a small department or a larger agency where anonymity prevails, or in a small post office or larger postal facility, the gossip which runs throughout will be like an untamed fire where no amount of extinguishers will control the spreading of it.

Preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the only way to control the discussion of that which once was the subject of another, when the “other” of other people’s misery becomes the object directed at you.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement Benefits: Linguistic Machismo

The term is derived from Spanish origins, and it is that characteristic which contributed most to the rise of Hemingway’s fame, and his ultimate act of self-destruction.  Of bullfights, big-game hunting, reporting amidst the Spanish Civil War, leaving unmentioned his encounter with death and devastation from his experiences in World War I, resulting in the Phoenix rising through his unforgettable fictional characters, Howard Krebs and Nick Adams, whose souls have been damaged beneath the surface of any physical manifestation of wounds or injuries, where reconnection with society, its rhythms of daily living and silliness of interests, can no longer be possible — these comprise the defining events of the meaning of the word itself.

Combined with the compounding prefix, it delineates the approach of modernity in engaging in communitarian communications.  You know — of bombast and lambaste; where subtlety of meaning is left without room for doubt, connotation, denotation or a question mark, but merely a hyphenated sense of an unstated thud followed by an exclamation point.

The famous debaters have now faded into the antiquity of forgotten dustbins; Lincoln-Douglas; Buckley-Vidal; the courteous but inquisitive Dick Cavett show; and the late-night show of Johnny Carson, whom many consider to encompass both intelligence and complexity of thought, especially when compared to parallelisms truncated by modernity.  Civility is gone; subtlety as an art form is all but lost; the only teleology of choice these days focuses upon the viral nature of a YouTube video, and only if it trumpets the extreme with the blare of sensationalism.

This approach — of linguistic machismo — has crept into the narrative of today.  Leaving aside the repugnance of the term for feminist causes, the substance of the concept implies an aggressive tone in setting forth a narrative.  The problem with engaging in such a consistency of intolerance in conveying as a vehicle of communication the toughness of a “no-holds barred” language game, however, is that it soon and quickly loses its efficacy.

Even an elephant struck repetitively to move the lumbering animal will develop callouses which defy the oncoming blows of future pain; encouragement by blunt force trauma is a discouraging device over time, if used without discretion.  Incessant screams become deafening to ears sensitized; physical pain becomes numb to repetition; repetition itself creates a havoc of unnoticed constructs; and so it goes.

This can be a lesson to Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are attempting to construct an effective narrative in preparing one’s Statement of Disability for submission of a Federal Disability Retirement application.

When the Federal or Postal applicant for Disability Retirement purposes envisions who will be reading, reviewing and analyzing one’s Statement of Disability (as posited on SF 3112A), it is well noting that the Administrative Specialist who will be making a decision at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, will have hundreds of cases to get to; and from that caricature of a singular soul peeking out from a mountain of files, the subtlety of a whispering voice immersed in truth, objectivity, and persuasive force of argumentation quietly encapsulated by law and proper documentation, will be the light which shines from the darkness of ineptitude, where even the emotionally-damaged, fictional heroes of Hemingway’s short stories may shed a tear now and again.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Service: The cultural compass

The aggregate of knowledge as amassed by any given society does not constitute a unique culture, identifiable as distinct from all others; otherwise, as general knowledge is disseminated throughout and across national and international zones of distinguishing features, all cultures would remain the same.  Culture precedes knowledge, and is the driving force which specifies the direction of it.  The relevance; the choice between what is accepted and subsumed; the normative constraints and demarcations which preserve the very distinctiveness of any given culture; these are what focuses the idiosyncrasies of the preserve.

One may query, as in the question, Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  But that is a nonsensical approach to any such issue; for, the answer is that, in the prefatory phase of cultural origination, when language and analysis did not necessitate a reflection upon the loss of either culture or knowledge, there was a symbiotic relationship where each fed into the other and enhanced in a self-reflective manner; it is only in this time of modernity, when an evaluation of the loss and destruction of culture is occurring, that such a question is even posited.

An addendum observation to be made, of course, is that information does not constitute knowledge, and thus cannot define the distinctiveness of a culture.  All cultures retain and accumulate information; some cultures have been able to preserve distinctive knowledge; the ones which rely merely upon the aggregate of the former are fast becoming extinct and subsumed by the juggernaut of the Internet, where lines of distinguishable features become lost in the widening chasm of the vacuum void; it is only the remaining enclaves that recognize the importance of the latter which will survive in this Brave New World of Huxley’s predictable outcome.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, of course, understand full well the uniqueness of their own “culture”; for, the bureaucracy of service, in an industry which looks after the protection of the country, providing for administrative, regulatory and social services throughout the nation; of the receipt and delivery of letters, parcels and packages throughout the country and beyond; it is, in the end, a unique subculture within the greater society of the country.

And it retains and applies a distinctive set of knowledge, disconnected in many ways from the rest of society, and thus comprises a definitive “culture”.  But even such a subculture can lose its “cultural compass”, and this can be seen when a fellow worker, whether a Federal employee or a U.S. Postal worker, begins to suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition leads to the necessity of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

That is when the “ugliness” of a culture uniquely identified can come to the fore, and reveal its inner nature of wickedness.  When fellow support fails to empathize; when coworkers turn on each other; when supervisors begin to harass and demean; such behavior tends to denigrate the entirety of a cultural compass which has lost its way, and preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted ultimately to OPM, is a way not of preserving the cultural compass left behind, but recognizing that the direction pointed had gone awry, and corrective action necessitated a reorientation of leaving behind the twilight of past darkness, and into a dawn of greater opportunities.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Of true discourse and debate

A title immediately becomes “suspect” when the prefatory insertion of the word “true” is necessitated.  For, the noun which it is meant to enhance should be able to stand alone, without the reinforced embellishment that it is somehow more genuine than with the cousin’s uninvited presence.  It is like referring to a gemstone as a “valuable emerald” (what, one queries, would constitute an invaluable one?), or that such-and-such is a “very religious priest” (as opposed to an irreligious one?); and so to refer to the methodological approach of discourse and debate as one which is “true”, is to immediately undermine the very meaning of such a beginning.

But in modernity, where meaning has lost its efficacy and the elasticity of language has become epitomized by mindless You-Tube videos and an endless stream of nonsensical declarations preceded by a belief that, as pure relativism is rampant and presumed, it matters little who holds what opinion, the content of what is said, and not even the tone of intended consequences.

Once, in years past, there were “rules of engagement“, but three (3) foundational precepts needed to be followed in order to engage a valid discourse and debate.  First, that a distinction could be made between truth and falsity.  Second, that there existed a “superior” argument, based upon the combination of facts and rules of logical argumentation, in contradistinction to an “inferior” one.  But third — and this is the missing component in today’s endless shouting matches on television and radio waves — that each participant possessed a level of humility such that upon recognizing the inferiority of one’s one argument, a voluntary concession would be made, admitting to the superiority of the opponent’s argument.

While everyone recognizes and acknowledges the structural weakening of the first element, it is this last one which has devastated the entire process of today’s discourse and debate.  Of relevance to Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is the extent, content and relevance of making a legal argument, and to what effectiveness and efficacy of substance, in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits with OPM.

In the end, bureaucracies are based upon the power of its established conduit of administrative complexity, and OPM is no different.  The U.S. Office of Personnel Management is made up of ultra-competent individuals who take their jobs very seriously, as well as with a mixture of some who are less than stellar.  That is the general make-up of all such organizations and governmental entities.

The structure of the right to appeal, however, is why a cogent discourse and debate must be prepared.  If the U.S. Office of Personnel Management denies a Federal Disability Retirement application twice (at the initial stage of the process, then again at the Reconsideration stage), then the Federal or Postal Disability Retirement applicant can file an appeal to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board.  There, the Administrative Judge will hear all of the arguments made, afresh and anew, and consider the lack of constructive engagement and “weak points” of OPM’s arguments.  That is where all true discourse and debate must begin — before an audience with a listening ear.  And there we have that complementing and undesirable cousin again —  the “true” X, as opposed to an untrue one?

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Separation & Retirement from Federal Employment: Existence preceding essence

Once, in the vaunted Age of Reason, when Western Philosophy reached its pinnacle as the conduit of all knowledge, wisdom and human achievement; and when other disciplines fell under the umbrella and aegis of the methodological sanctity of its pursuit; then, it was determined that time was merely a linear ladder to climb, and all knowledge would be captured like the essence of heightened fragrances in a bottle of perfume, ever sweet smelling and able to conceal the undercurrent of stench.  But then came disenchantment, pestilence, wars and human cruelty — just the regularity in the rhythm of man; you know, those things that are inevitable.

It was thought that the “philosophical approach” begun by Plato and Aristotle would garner the collective wisdom necessary to construct the artifice of a just society.  What we forgot, however, is that “man is man”, and can predictably be counted upon to do those things he has always done:  take advantage; say things he didn’t mean; engage in the cruelest of activities, but describe it as that which is not; and as despotism and totalitarianism grew exponentially in ever efficient machines of death, the culmination of the ashes of human essence resulted in World War II, the death camps and the mass extermination of targeted populations.

The search for the essence of man and other entities effectively ceased, because — while the human species was recognized to have certain tendencies — it became clear that he “made it up as he went along”.  Thus, the thinking went, why not just admit it, submit to it, no longer resist it, and let it just “all hang out”.  Modernity is the just reward for the abandonment of reason; beware of what you ask for, as it may well be gotten.  And so the popularized banner of Existentialism was born — from the ashes rose the proverbial Phoenix, and no longer did we strive to attain the “essence” of human quality, but submitted to the idea that we first come to exist, and each day create our own essence.

Thus the popularized version:  Existence preceding essence.  And we see the evidence of such truth all around us.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer the brunt of daily turmoil because of a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows him or her to perform all of the essential (there is the form of that word again) elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, the idea that human cruelty and consequential suffering is a normative standard, is really nothing new under the sun.

Meursault, in Camus’ major work, The Stranger, also saw the disconnect between man’s claim to compassion and humanity, and the actual state of being.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and who find that the Federal Agency or U.S. Postal Service will fail them in every way, including the artificial attempts at “accommodation”, need to file 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.  For, there is ultimately life beyond the Federal Agency and the U.S. Postal Service — and one in which you may actually be able to create a “new essence” of yourself, beyond the mere existence presently lived in within the bureaucratic morass of your Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire