FERS Disability Retirement from OPM: Presenting the Best Case

You can only work with the facts given; you cannot make it up; you cannot fabricate it; you cannot try and obfuscate — and in the end, it is often the case that presenting the best case is “enough”.

In life, with few exceptions, we learn how to “make do” with what we have gotten:  Whether of our birth, our looks, our talents, our personality, our charm, our brains, our so-called “gifts and talents”, etc.  Some possess a great abundance of whatever is needed; others, a paltry pittance.  A short period of “overcompensation” may produce, every now and again, a 5’6” basketball star, or a scrawny football player whose talents can compete with the best of them; but for the most part, “effort” cannot exceed “limitations”, whether of a physical or an intellectual level.

And so the rest of us are relegated to live in a perpetual milieu of mediocrity, despite our best efforts to conceal it, or for however long the glow of our parent’s constant accolades to furnish us with self-esteem beyond the reality of our true talents will last, reverberating in the echos of our memories — “You’re the best”;  “You can be anything you want to be”;  “Don’t worry, you’ll do better next time”.  Indeed, Americans are known to have a high degree of self-esteem in comparison to other countries, but concurrently lag behind in test scores for the “hard sciences”.

For Federal Gov. employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that this medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, sometimes presenting the best case possible is all that can be done.  Pain is subjective; psychological conditions are likewise not amenable to “objective” diagnostic testing; and perhaps you don’t have a fully-supportive doctor — and yet you simply cannot continue to work, anymore.

Sometimes, all that can be done is to present the best case, and if may well be that it is “enough” to get you past the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Contact a FERS attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and begin the process of initiating, preparing, formulating and filing the best case possible of a 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 Claims: The Chaotic Reflection

We all yearn for constancy and predictability; few of us regard the chaotic life as the preferable one.  There are those few, perhaps, who thrive upon the unpredictable; who see chaos in one’s life as the necessary challenge to “charge up” one’s internal batteries.

Furthermore, there is an inner-outer connection when chaos rules: When the outer world — the objective universe through which each of us must maneuver — becomes a crumbling assortment of inconsistencies, then the “inner” world (the world of our mind, thoughts, concepts and imaginary constructs) often needs a period of quietude and calm.

Conversely, when the turmoil of life impacts our inner consciousness, then we seek the relief of outer dependability and predictability.  When both are in a state of chaos, we often step near the cliff of our lives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that their careers and lives feel “upended”, the firm predictability of seeking and obtaining a Federal Disability Retirement annuity under FERS becomes the hope of light for the future.

The world around us is often chaotic as it is — of wars which upend the decency and calm we seek in our own inner lives; of political upheaval and contentiousness abounding, etc. — and some form of a greater future portending predictability and dependability becomes all the more necessary for the calm required in the inner world of our own consciousness.

Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and by seeking the advice and counsel of a lawyer experienced in Federal Disability Retirement, the Federal or Postal Worker will hopefully attain a calm of inner peace to reflect a counterbalance to the chaotic reflection of the outer world.

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 Legal Assistance: The Letdown After

It is a positive thing to have goals; to set aside things, days, events, etc. to look forward to; to change up the monotony of daily living exercises and take a day off, go to visit a friend; but then the event, day, set-aside, etc., passes, and there is the letdown after.

Perhaps it is natural, or not; maybe it is to be expected.  In either case, whether natural or meta-natural, the severity of the emotional letdown often reflects the gap between expectation and reality.  For, isn’t that one of the foundational “keys” to happiness or discontent?

If our expectations are X and the reality which we encounter is also X, we are “happy”.  If, on the other hand, our expectations are X but the reality we experience is Y, then the “gap” between our expectations and the reality we must face will result in an emotion of discontent.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who look forward to the Holidays, the weekend, the next respite — the letdown after is palpable.  Why?  Because any future stopgap measures fail to attend to the foundational problems which create the gap between expectations and reality — one’s medical condition.

Consider filing for and applying for Federal Disability Retirement, a benefit which is there to solve the problem of an incompatibility between your medical conditions and the positional duties you must perform in your Federal or Postal job.  It is, in the end, the only solution for the letdown after.

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: Nonsense confiscates meaning

It obviates and nullifies it; often, it will make impotent that which once maintained vibrancy and efficacy.  That is where Orwell misconstrued the power of nonsense; for, in his classic novel, 1984, the scene which discussed the production of the newest edition of allowable Newspeak words and the reduction and elimination of certain concepts — he failed to realize that it is the greater dissemination and wide volume of words which undermines meaning, and not the other way around.

By exponentially adding — by quantitative overload — to language, we undermine the precision of language and thereby create a chaos of nonsense; and the result is that nonsense confiscates meaning.  Have you ever come across a person who takes a paragraph to convey the meaning of a single word?

By contrast, when you meet an individual who so succinctly states an idea and, with the sword of a sharp sentence, can slash a page to within a tidbit of profundity, you realize the benefit of brilliance over the darkness of ignorance.  Succinctness, precision, concise conceptual bundles — they are all important in conveying proper meaning; and “meaningfulness” is what persuades, while nonsense confounds and makes a conundrum of that which should be a vehicle of clarity.

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 Applicant’s Statement of Disability — SF 3112A — is the vehicle by which “meaning” is delivered.

Do not get sidetracked with the nonsense of too much explanation; and an overly abundant profusion of nonsense may in fact harm one’s case.  A balance between the short “bullet-point” approach and a meandering diatribe against one’s agency needs to be pinpointed.  Do not let nonsense confiscate meaning, thereby undermining the ultimate goal of a Federal Disability Retirement application: To obtain an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
OPM Disability Lawyer

 

FERS Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: When once…

When once the dream was left unfulfilled, and yet the future appeared so boundless and promising; when once the time spent was so precious as to bring memories and tears of joy for the privilege to live; when once the rains came but not to dampen the sorrows of yesteryear, but to wash away the scars of today’s longing; and when once, there was a time forever bottled so that tomorrow would be remembered as a mere passing thought, and the day after a haven for memories yet to be forgotten.

When, once, we took for granted that which we never think about, reflect upon, and youth’s folly continued for a day and a dawn only to be wistfully forgotten when once the call from Mom’s flustered voice shouted at us to come in for dinner, when the crickets were still singing their mournful melodies in the quiet of evening’s end.

Looking back can hold one back, especially if the remorse of what once was makes you pause in a day when even an hour cannot be spent whittling away the time that cannot be recaptured.  There is time enough for remorse and regret; time yet to remember and recall with nostalgic warmth for days of yore; but as the world turns in the “here” and “now”, the daily grind of duty’s call and obligations which cannot be avoided, must first be attended to.

“When, once…” is to be set aside until the last breath when the drifting dreams of yesteryear’s pausing regret begins to foreshadow today’s memories of a bygone time.

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, time remains of the essence, and while sickness and deteriorating health may freeze one into desiring a time of remembrance back, “when once…” — it is not the right time, yet.

This is still the time to fight on; it is the moment to preserve and protect; and while a Federal Agency or a Postal Facility may have dampened your spirits or attempted to make you into a downtrodden employee whose best years are behind you; nevertheless, it is time to assert your rights and carry on the good fight.  Preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether you as a Federal or Postal employee are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a good part of that fight to preserve and protect your rights.

Why should you fight for them?  Because, when that time comes when you say to friends or family that, “When, once…” — the “filler” should be: “When, once…they tried to deny me, I fought and won.”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

 

Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Present who of past what

It is a peculiarly human endeavor: of looking at a photograph (yes, digital nowadays, no doubt), and trying to discern from a present who what the one-dimensional picture says about what we were doing some years past, or maybe a few weeks or even yesterday.  It is the present “who” of one’s identity, trying to extract meaningfulness from a singular snapshot of an emotional freeze, whether of self-conscious “cheese!” declared knowing that the picture was being taken, or of a cold stare that locks out the soul’s essence of what we actually felt, and trying to extrapolate within a 3-dimensional universe the foundation of what had occurred.

We all play that peculiar game, do we not — of standing in the present by the very being of who we identify as ourselves and looking at a photograph of someone whom we can identify as the “I” in the image before us, and then remembering, with the contextual history hidden within, of the past what that depicts the picture present who stands before staring at the past what; while others may be doing the same thing many times over, multiplied exponentially in volumes unimaginable, yet each instance being insularly singular because there may never be a discussion about the present who of past what that no one talks about?

It is akin to having a medical condition, isn’t it — and of continuing to smile, walk about, carry on “normally” and everyone else in their insular universes not knowing about the medical condition you carry about, and the suffering you must endure because of the present who of who you are but of the past what where others see you and judge you as you were, what you were, who you were, while all the while it is the present who of today that has changed and is no longer the past what of who you were?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition is preventing the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job and positional duties, that feeling is often familiar and well known — the present who of past what.

Others see you and expect the same; you may even appear to be unchanged, but inside, you know that the present who is no longer of the past what, and that is precisely what must be conveyed in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether as a Federal or Postal employee you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset; for it is precisely the present who of past what that is the you of today with the historical context of the past what, but nevertheless needing the present who for a future whom no one but you can know or discern.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Life’s ruinations

The poetry of a fork in the road sings to us from those innocent days of childhood voices; of life’s beginnings, the promise of future longings, and those lazy summer mornings left far behind in dusty coves where love’s forlorn memories linger in misty waves of lapping thoughts.  Life has a way of beating us down.  A wise man once said:  If you don’t like the way the day is going, stick around, as everything changes over time.

We tend to focus upon the trials of the moment, as if there is no tomorrow, and perhaps that is a “good” thing, if we think that life is a linear progression (or regression, as it were) of experiences unfolding and eternally unending.  What does it mean to have a “proper perspective”, or a “balanced view” of life?  In the living moment of travesty and despair, can one reach beyond on either side in order to view the middle from afar?  Or are we so wrapped up in our own troubles that we can never quite see beyond the travails of our own creation?

We have lost the capacity to maintain vigilance as the gatekeeper of incoming information and data; instead, we are like rudderless vessels, being thrown to-and-fro by the waves of data-overloads, forever accosted by the connectivity for which we pay dearly in terms of money, loss of soul, and depleted creativity.  We cannot think for ourselves, anymore, because we have Google and viewfinders to guide our ways; and we no longer map out our road trips because we have electronic guiding devices to do that which we have lost our way in attaining.

For every second we have been promised that we would save with the advent of a new electronic device, Jim Croce’s time in a bottle would have been filled tenfold, if only we had stuck to the revolving voices emitted by the crank of an antique phonograph.

Life was once a promise of a future hope and unrealized cacophony of mirth to be reached; now, the darkness of life’s ruinations overshadow us all.  There are no promises or instructions of “how to” when we are born; only a meandering sense of anarchy by which we are shoved into and respond by the seat of our pants.  In the end, life’s ruinations are determined by the choices we make, and are well within the control of our willpower to map out fate, destiny and the avenues of alternatives offered.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who see the coming signs – of increasing harassment, administrative pressures and managerial sanctions – it is time to begin preparing.  Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, if and when a Federal or Postal employee under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset becomes disabled as a result of a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, is a necessary step in sidestepping and avoiding those pesky forks in the road which represent life’s ruinations.

In such instances, Google won’t help, and even an expensive GPS device won’t be of much use.  Instead, it is an individual choice to be made, and the time is ripe when you realize that life’s ruinations are often the result of procrastination and delay in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with OPM forthwith.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Removal and/or Retirement from Federal Position: The cultivated soul

The loss in Western Civilization of the pursuance of Truth (note the capitalization of the term, in contradistinction from the mundane daily tropes of common factual observations, such as the classic example of pointing to an object and making a declarative utterance, for purely identification’s sake) has resulted in a vacuum of sorts; the consequences reverberate by group identification and causes aggregated based upon preference and subjective elevation of all things decadent.

No one ever talks about the angels of yore; or of the priority of character, and whether the intellect should rule, the appetitive would be subjugated, and the passions controlled.  All animals have equal rights (or so my dogs always believed, anyway, as if there was ever any question in the household); and the human species no longer retains the lofty position once held, where angels sometimes visited and the gods would intervene in playful fits with fated concubines.

The very idea of a cultivated soul once meant something; now, replacements arrive daily in doses of self-improvement programs, soothing the egos of hurt childhoods and health combines where metamorphosis no longer connotes Kafka’s transformational metaphor of a tortured essence of humanity, but merely the mundane wants and fantasies of stardom and being able to be accepted into the superficial realm of the “beautiful” set.

Kardashian and Kanye aside, the great multitude of goals set, priorities garnered, and teleological ends met, no longer includes the antiquated construct of the cultivated soul.  We certainly continue to give lipservice to such latent antiquities; of how education is all important (though the focus is merely upon the ends — of grades and padding of resumes, as opposed to the substantive content of one’s character); and of becoming a “responsible adult” with independence and empathy of character remaining a striving purpose of life itself (despite the ballooning debt and deteriorating economy which undermines all such youthful goals).

Where did that voice go, vanished and vanquished in the shattered inner self where the quiet reflection once persuaded and convinced us all that the hidden worth of a human being could still rise from the ashes of a regenerated Phoenix, when gods still protected and the shriveled remains of a tortured goblin would scurry away into the far corners of an empty universe?  The cultivated soul always needed time; it required reflection, solitude, and a peaceful self-assurance that the coming days would produce a moment of relapse into the timeless carriages of a rhythmic ride through life’s trials and travails.

For the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker who suffers from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for continuation in one’s Federal or Postal position, the concept of a cultivated soul may be of a distance beyond a bridge too far.  Pain, agony; cognitive dysfunctions and progressive deterioration; these are the daily hallmarks for the Federal or Postal employee in the present circumstances and currency of today’s slice of life.  But that is precisely why it is important to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

For, whether the rest of the world recognizes the sustaining force of Truth in a world condoned by Falsity, the objective world still recognizes that the true essence of the human species will always reverberate amidst the cultivated souls, and to attain and achieve that end, one must first get beyond the medical condition suffered, and begin the steps taken towards a plateau of living where health has been achieved, and the quietude of a contemplative moment may yet be grasped.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement under FERS or CSRS: Intrinsic Value

There is, at the outset, a question as to whether such metaphysical distinctions of esoterica have any relevance, anymore.  The ivory towers have all lost their sheen; civilizations have now embraced the comfort of relativism in the West, excepting those outliers who cling to antiquities of thought believed to merely be vestiges of a prehistoric era; and all such bifurcations of minutiae are considered mere word games designed to enhance and promote the ability and capacity for further social engineering.

Perhaps in the pragmatic world of options trading, there remains a definitional need to distinguish between “intrinsic” value and “extrinsic” value; where the nature of the option being traded constitutes the former, and the circumstances and previously-unknowable factors impacting upon the value of the trade itself defines the latter.

In real life, the philosophy of pragmatism itself has dissolved the principles once touted; the Aristotelian differentiation of ascribing value based upon its inner sanctity, as opposed to a derivative preciousness contingent upon other entities or circumstances, was once accepted as a given.  But such metaphysical distinctions have been cast aside upon the trash heap of historical irrelevance, and one rarely hears, anymore, about such highfalutin concepts, as they are now considered outmoded, irrelevant, or worse, pompously presumptuous in a world where only the politically powerful, the super wealthy, or the “beautiful” people are allowed such exemptions of conversational engagements.

One might still argue, in this present age where the force of logical argumentation has been replaced with the volume of vociferous condescension intolerable to auditory quietude, that a great work of art has intrinsic value recognized intuitively, no matter the extrinsic cirumstances.  But if a dystopic universe prevailed, and there was but one person left to visit the last burning embers supporting a museum left as a testament to humanity’s former greatness — but, where, no food was left, and starvation was the remaining mechanism for death of this last poor soul — would the salvaged Rembrandt have any “intrinsic” value, leaving aside the issue of extrinsic worth (of course, human nature being what it is, such a sole survivor may still have the imaginative inner strength to recognize that there may be a future still, and scurry off with such masterpieces in the hope that the future may hold a better day).

Metaphysical principles which once held some meaning, significance and defined linguistic purposes, have now given way to daily blatherings of “I feel” and “I sense”, where, in each such utterance, it is the “I” which defines intrinsic value, and the subjectivity of sensing and feeling enhances the contingency of external worth.  It is, in many ways, a sad loss for all of us, that we should rely upon such subjectivity of an objective-less concept.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, of course, 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 positional duties, the loss of any meaningful discussion between the intrinsic worth of X, or even the differentiation from the extrinsic value of Y, results in a universe where we are all treated as “means” to an end, and never just an “end” in and of itself.

That is why protective laws are necessary — precisely because we have lost any semblance of viewing one another as worthy because we belong to a greater principle called “humanity”.  But that is the practical world in which we live, and to which we must abide.

Filing for Federal Employee Disability Retirement is the best option left, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  Thus, preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the pragmatic course for future security.  It is in that, where intrinsic value will be found, in the consolation of a future security otherwise lost in the extrinsic void of an unsympathetic universe.

Sincerely, Robert R. McGill, Esquire