OPM Medical Retirement: The Cackle around Us

Often, the noise emanating and pervading is nothing more than the raucous shrieks and glass-shattering sounds like the cackle of birds; neither intelligible nor pleasant to the ear, it fails to inform, engender pleasure, nor spur substantive advancement for the intellect or one’s emotional well-being.

People talk; talk is limitless; and the louder one talks (or so the theory goes) and endures past all others, the last voice establishes the truth of the matter.  The problem in modernity is not so much the boisterousness and overpowering continuum of noise; rather, it is the inability to recognize the lesser argument, the weaker factual basis, and the mesmerizing conduit of enjoying the sound of one’s own voice.

There is, indeed, much information “out there”; the question is not one of volume, but rather of quality in the vast overload of content dissemination. When one seeks  information, how does veracity get established?  When one chooses representation, what criteria is applied?  And when one receives answers to queries put forth, where does the confirmation begin to concretize?  The world is replete with information; what parcel of it is useful; how much of it is relevant; and to what use or pragmatic application can it be devised?  In the practical world of living, the cackle of information must be sifted through in order to survive any given ordeal.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, the preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management must by necessity encapsulate the issue of relevant, pertinent and substantive information.

Gathering the proper medical document; formulating an effective Statement of Disability on Standard Form 3112A; presenting updated and relevant legal argumentation in order to persuade OPM into approving one’s Federal Disability Retirement application; these are the criteria in the pragmatic application for sifting through the cacophony of information clutter, and it matters not whether the cackle avoided represents that originating from crows or vultures; the point is to keep from being the meal of prey, and instead to prepare one’s meal of information in the quietude of thoughtful reflection, away from the disturbances of those who seek merely to hear the sound of their own voice, as opposed to the satisfying sonata of substantive and helpful information that will actually help the Federal or Postal employee secure one’s future in the preparation, formulation and filing of an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether one is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: The Weaving of Words

From working with raw materials to the final production of a work of utility with an aesthetically pleasing look, the weaver must be skilled in handling the process of creating from scratch.  It is in the very art of weaving, where the end-product notices not the imperfections of that which nature produced, that the “art form” is created.

In preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS or CSRS, it is important to take the materials provided — the medical condition of the Applicant; the doctors who are treating the Federal or Postal applicant; the Supervisor who will be writing up the Supervisor’s Statement; the Human Resources office of the Agency who will be completing SF 3112D — and to “weave” together from the fabric of such diverse sources, and complete a persuasive Federal Disability Retirement packet, such that the compendium of information can be presented in an “aesthetically” pleasing manner (i.e., understandable, comprehensible, and effectively streamlined in order to be convincing and compelling).

OPM is the “purchaser” of the Federal Disability Retirement application, and must be the one who accepts the “product” of a Federal Disability Retirement application.  The “weaver” must be skilled enough to put the packet together, from the raw materials provided, to the finished product.  Upon a successful “purchase”, it is then that the Federal or Postal employee will have obtained the desired result — an approval from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire