Help with Disability Retirement from Federal Agency or USPS: Cancel Culture

In modernity, it refers to the cultural attempt to silence a particular historical perspective, or to expunge certain elements deemed offensive or otherwise inflammatory.

The criticism, of course, is that a unilateral cancellation or ostracism fails to provide a platform for discussion, as discussion leads to the potentiality for reform, retraction, rehabilitation, and even apology.  Because the act of cancellation resides outside of the legal boundaries and criteria for appellate review, it can be done in a monolithic, unilateral manner, leading some to argue against the dangers of mistake, abuse, and mis-application.

Fortunately, in a Federal Disability Retirement case, the procedures of a cancel culture cannot be applied without redress and appeal.  If the U.S. Office of Personnel Management were to have the unilateral powers possessed by the modern entities involved in cancel culture, Federal annuitants and disability retirees would be in trouble.

Of course, OPM does systematically try and cancel one’s Federal Disability Retirement benefits by sending out Form RI 30-1, then requiring greater and increasingly onerous demands for more and more documentation in order to satisfy their criteria for what constitutes “continuing disability”.

OPM’s cancel culture is perhaps the more serious one because it goes to the heart of a Federal or Postal annuitant’s source of income.  Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law and respond to the unfair cancel culture of OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The Argument

You hear about such lives every now and again; of an old man declaring, “Never a raised voice in 50 years of marriage”, or: “We never argued. Bless her (or his) soul”.  Leaving aside the viability of the astounding prefatory remark (i.e., that two people in this day and age could remain together for half a century), one wonders whether selective amnesia plays a significant role in such a statement.

Can it even be possible that two people who have been together for such a lengthy period of time could possible exist without any discernible conflict?  No friction; no irritation; no level of heightened stress such that a raised voice must be expressed.  Or, are they “playing” with the meaning of the word “argue”?

Perhaps there was a disagreement, by any measure of the word; or a dispute; or a failure to agree; but throughout, there may well never have been any untoward unpleasantness.

Does an argument have to be unpleasant in order for it to be an argument?  Or, can two or more people smile, be civil, remain cordial throughout, and simply state their points?  Are all disagreements arguments as well, or are some disagreements merely antithetical statements which never rise to the level of an argument?  Does it matter whether or not a “personal stake” is involved in the matter?  Is that why we often preface a statement with the preemptive strike and motive of avoiding an argument in saying, “No, please don’t take this personally, but … “?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Workers who are considering filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, if the goal is to live a life where there has never been an argument, then there is likely no point in filing at all.  OPM is there to argue and oppose; consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and who has no qualms about arguing your case on your behalf.

Now, as to arguing with one’s spouse — that is a different matter, and this attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law has no advice to give concerning such matters, or at the very least, refrains from arguing about the issue.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Employees with Disabilities: Implicit and Explicit

Say a person is playing golf, hits the ball badly and yells out loudly, “Fore!”  In his mind, however, the individual has the word spelled wrongly — say, as “Four” or “For”, or any number of alternative ways.  When first heard, he had thought that it was spelled in the commonplace, conventional way.  Does it matter?  Doesn’t the fact that homophones exist become an issue of “right” or “wrong” only if the implicit clashes with the explicit? (What a terribly and awkwardly stated question).

Homophones not only “sound” the same, but may also be spelled differently.  They are in the “family” of homonyms because they sound alike but have different meanings; similarly, there are words that also sound the same, are spelled the same, but have different meanings, as in: “She rose from her seated position to smell the rose.”  Here again, what if the person repeated the sentence but thought that the first “rose” was somehow referring to the flower while the second rose concerned the manner of posture (if such transfer of meanings is even possible) — would it make a difference?

The “implicit” world of understanding encapsulates the privacy of our insular world; the “explicit” brings forth and unveils that previously-unrevealed universe, and tests it against the objective world of contending ideas.  It is somewhat akin to pain — that subjective phenomena which may or may not be capable of being ascertained, verified or confirmed by diagnostic testing or reactive muscle spasms.

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, it becomes necessary to make the “implicit” explicit in order to qualify for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Gathering the necessary information in order to formulate properly one’s Federal Disability Retirement case is to make explicit that which may have remained deliberately implicit.

That is where consultation with an experienced attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law becomes crucial in properly making explicit that which remained implicit, in order to “test” the viability of a very private and confidential matter.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: Changes we resist

It is almost a tautology; two words placed together as synonyms; and, indeed, the word “change” and its neighbor, “resist” have a commonality that cannot be avoided: Both imply an alteration and a sense of life’s modification never to return back.

We resist it, precisely because we want it to remain the same; but change is inevitable, and to resist is to often engage in acts of futility against a tide which resists resistance.  Few of us welcome, let alone savor, changes in our lives; and when they first appear on the horizon of potentiality, we try and resist, to stop it, to alter the course of history’s onward march.

Perhaps we merely refuse to join in with the change; or have an inner attitude of non-acceptance; or sit gloomily and pout throughout the remainder of days simmering with resentment that we were forced to accept that which we never wanted.  It is like the divorce that shattered one’s childhood and from which we never recovered; the stepmother or stepfather who entered our lives only added salt to the wound where change was resisted but no one listened to our protestations and pleas, asking, “Why can’t it be the same as always?”

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition such that the medical condition impacts one’s ability and capacity to perform all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, “change” and the “resistance” to change are inevitable dualities of life’s misgivings.

Perhaps you were once at the “top of your game” and considered the best at what you do; or, perhaps you thrived on anonymity and were happy to work in a quiet, unassuming way.  Regardless, the very thought of change is something you resisted, but a medical condition forced such a change whether you like it or not.

Change itself is always difficult, but there are ways to mitigate the vulnerabilities that accompany change: Consult with an attorney before engaging battle with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  For, while change may be like the uninvited stepmother or stepfather into one’s life, the change that truly becomes a tumultuous event is the one where you step forward into the unknown without any guidance or assistance.

Consult with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal and Postal Disability Retirement benefits.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement from OPM: Purposive sequence

Are all things in a sequence “purposive”?  If you are walking in the countryside and come upon a horse, a man and a pig, in that order, was there any “purposive” meaning in the sequence met, or was it random and a reflection of the chaos of the universe as a whole?  If it had been in a different order — say, you first came upon the pig, then the horse, and finally the man — would there be a question as to either the sequence or the meaning of the sequence?

Now, take a different hypothetical, where you come into a child’s room who is engrossed in fantasy and play, and the child has a sequence of stuffed animals: Again, they are in a line of a stuffed horse, a doll of a man, and a large plastic pig, in the very sequence you encountered while out in the countryside.  You laugh and say to the child, “Oh, that’s very peculiar, I just came across those three in the identical sequence you have them in.  Of course, it is just coincidence, but nevertheless odd.”  The child smiles, turns to you and says, “Of course it’s not a coincidence.  The horse is the most beautiful creature in the universe, and therefore comes first; the man is the cleverest, and therefore should be second; and the pig is the smartest, but since intelligence should come after beauty and be placed below being clever, he comes third!”

In such an instance, did the fact that a purposive assignment of intent change the sequence and the meaning ascribed?  In other words, did the “human” explanation as to the sequence presented alter the objective foundation behind the orderliness of the universe, or does it yet remain in chaos except for the subjective ordering by the child?  Or, is Kant correct in positing that the chaos of the universe is internally ordered by human categories structuring the outside world, and left without such subjective impositions, we would never be able to comprehend the disordered universe?

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, it is important to engage in a purposive sequence of completing the Federal Disability Retirement application.

The medical condition itself is chaos enough, as it impacts one’s life and livelihood, but it is the medical condition that becomes the center and foundation of a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.  From the chaos imposed from the objective world, a purposive sequence must be countered from the subjective universe of the Federal or Postal employee, and that purposive sequence must begin with the chaos of the unordered world itself: The medical condition, from which all else naturally and artificially proves the case to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Legal Representation on Federal Disability Retirement Claims: Then, forgotten

To die is forgivable; to be forgotten, not so much.  Perhaps that is why the 15-minute rule of one’s fame is so important to most people; that, to be “appreciated” in a life-long struggle just to remain relevant makes fools of us all, and the basis upon which con-men and scams continue to effectively play their course.

It is, of course, the “then” that matters – that prelude to the state of being forgotten, that defines what a person’s life was, remains, and will continue to be in the future amongst and amidst the remainder of a family, friends and acquaintances left behind.  For, the long and wide expanse before the “then” constitutes a life lived, the experiences encountered and the salacious intertwinements amassed; in short, it is what a person is remembered by which the definition of a life well lived and the cumulative amalgamation of challenges met.  Then, after all is said and done, the person is forgotten.  Oh, for a time, not entirely, perhaps.

In the painful memories left behind with family; of a legacy foretold and secured; but then, even those relatives, friends and loved ones slowly fade away into the eternal trash bin of history’s unnamed tombs, and then, forgotten.

Why else do people wave and try to get noticed when television cameras are rolling?  Or try and get that footnote published in the Guinness Book of Records?  Is the innate fear of becoming forgotten so powerful as to make fools of old men and not merely excusable because of youth yet unfettered?  Is it so important to be secured in the knowledge that someone, somewhere, in some footnote or esoteric reference that history will record, will annotate an accomplishment, an event or some memorable deed that we did; and, even if that were to happen, would not the same result occur – then, forgotten?

History is full of forgotten men and women – even those who have been recorded in the annals of relevant history.  How many battles and wars where young men just beginning the journey upon a life filled with potentiality and the first kiss of love, cuts short a future yet unlived, and instead becomes buried in the timeless echoes of a graveyard unrecognized?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who fear the dictum of “Then, forgotten”, either with the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal facility, or just among the colleagues once worked with, the plain fact is that too much focus upon the “forgotten” part of the equation undermines the precursor prior to the “then” part.  There is always life after a career, and greater experiences beyond the work one has done.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted (ultimately) to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, should not be based upon any fear or unwillingness to “let go”; instead, it should be based upon a recognition that health and getting better is, and should always be, a priority that overrides the fear of one’s own fragile mortality.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The work left unfinished

If life were merely a series of projects attended to, completed and accomplished with a declaration of unassailable certitude, like a period at the end of a sentence, the final paragraph of a novel, or silence upon a speaker’s conclusion; of a linear progression forever with movement on a horizontal graph; but it is not.

Instead, the circularity of life’s problems, of concerns regurgitated and revisited because unattended or otherwise reappearing, like the aunt who visits unannounced and the uncle exhaustively referred to as the “black sheep” of the family who appears at one’s doorstep with suitcase in hand; it is the boil behind the leg that keeps resurfacing, where the ill winds of unexpected vicissitudes keeping getting a second chance when redemption is unwanted and uncalled for, but nevertheless reappears for the salvation of one’s soul.

And, in some sense, it is a salvation, isn’t it?  For, if life were a series of work completed, never to be revisited but always working without need for repairs, we would realize the finite nature of the world and care not to attend to the past.  Instead, it is precisely the work left unfinished which compels us to keep plugging along, to rewrite the list by the items we crossed off and the ones we reordered; and it tells something about one, in the manner of how that list is reorganized.

Do the items yet remaining get full status at the top of the yellow pad in the new order of priorities, or does it remain again relegated to those unwanted and undesired categories, like the illegal immigrant somehow existing but forever ignored and unnoticed, without the full rights and privileges of the legitimized constructs arriving by arbitrary choice?  We were taught as children that the work left undone reflected a character flaw, but somehow, as we grew older, we realized that but for those things left asunder, the incompleteness of life would have no value, no meaning, and ultimately no reason to live for.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents him or her from performing all of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, the work left undone often presents a dilemma of sorts: the completion of one’s career becomes untenable; each day, one falls further and further behind; and of life’s lesson ingrained from childhood, that we should always finish the plate of food we are served, cannot be fulfilled, and so we ruminate and worry, fret and flounder in this farcical mythology of linear fiction.

For such Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, 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, is the best alternative and only real solution available.  For, what we were never told is that the work left unfinished is merely in the eye of the beholder, as beauty depends upon the perspective of the audience and worth upon the buyer who desires; and that the Westerner’s world-view of a linear-based universe is certainly not shared by the Easterner who comprises the greater part of the infinite panoply, as represented by Shiva’s circle of fire.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The implication of ‘finding happiness’

Human beings live in a duality of universes; within the linear historicity of an objective world, daily unfolding with encounters with physical objects and other beings, comprised of interactions both superficial and intimate, combined with utilization of inanimate constructs for daily living; then, there is the insular universe of a parallel phenomena, where we are subsumed by a conceptual menagerie of language, numbers, extrapolated forms of ideas and strings of thought processes; and how we coordinate and intersect the two determines the success or failure of who we are, how we thrive and to what teleological end we pursue.

The words which we use often define who we are, as well as what motivates and moves us into action or inertia of mindless behavior as science fiction describes the modernity of automatons.  In the animal, non-human kingdom, survival and the pursuit of food sources dominates to satiate the basic tendencies of the appetitive aspects of existence.  ‘Happiness‘, as a defined principle, equates to a full stomach at the most foundational of sources.

For humans, we tend to make complex of the simple, and turn an evolutionary basis into a conceptual conundrum.  Thus do we add the prefatory vacuity of ‘finding’ and attach it to the root of existence — ‘happiness‘.  Such a concept implies that there existed a time before when something was lost, never attained, or otherwise left unsatisfied.  As a result, a ‘search’ is undertaken, a lost civilization reenacted, a missing person found and a stray dog reunited with its owner.  But that life were so simple as to merely search for the confounding link to fulfillment, as if the effort merely consists in the remembrance of the location of the misplaced watch by tracing the steps previously taken but somehow forgotten during the slumber of exhaustive nights.

Is life too complex to behold?  Do the accoutrements of cultural rot pile upon us daily, such that the simple root of conceptual simplicity remains beyond the reach of most of us?

Happiness as a principle should always remain as a byproduct of the life one leads.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a meandering pool of daily suffering, resulting from a medical condition which prevents the Federal or Postal worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Postal or Federal positional duties, the issue of ‘happiness’ is often quite simple:  freedom from the medical condition and stability of purpose for the future.

The former may never be quite achieved, as it is determined by factors so complex as to encompass body, soul and emotional health; but as to the latter, 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 at least a step in the proverbial right direction.  For, in the end, the insularly devoid conceptual construct of ‘finding happiness’ must be determined by the angel’s residue of sprinkled gold dust, left to sparkle with infinite radiance as we venture forth into worlds unconquered and visions yet unseen.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Of consideration and comity

The singular identifiable factor that destroys is the very reflection which elevates; for, it is power which undermines the source of comity.  With it is accompanied the shedding of a need for appearances; that which genuinely festers beneath the surface can bubble up into the tyrant which we all can become, and of that which we suppress and repress throughout our miserable lives.

Why does “winning the lottery”, in whatever proverbial form that can take, destroy lives, divide marriages and deconstruct lifelong friendships?  How often does a promotion crumble the fragile structures of co-working symbiotic relationships within an organization?   When has empowerments resulted in the disseminated good of the organic whole?

An appearance of comity within a societal structure can endure for a time, given conventions which protect, preserve and punish; but the tendency of consideration will crumble when the normative constraints collide with freedom and forgetting; and, in modernity, where self-expression trumps the towering temperament of talking tantrums, any semblance of putting forth an appearance of comity and consideration can quickly evaporate.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who often ask the question, When should I inform the agency (or the Postal Service)? — the general answer given is:  Only when there is a compelling reason to do so.  For, when preparing, formulating and filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the urgency of a need to inform should be proportionately weighed against the likelihood of the disintegration of any prior structure of consideration and comity shown in the past.

Federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service are bureaucratic structures of power centers; while the symbiosis of a working relationship with the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service may have served well both the worker and the organization in past terms, once it becomes known to the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service that the Federal or Postal worker is about to file a Federal Disability Retirement application, ultimately to be received by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it is likely that the fragile structures of consideration and comity will quickly and decisively deteriorate and deconstruct.

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