Federal Disability Retirement Law: The Bridge of Logic

In an era of idealism (a historical time slot which we are not presently experiencing), it may have been thought that the concept itself would bring greater harmony, world peace, empathy for the disabled, and a larger sense of community.

The Western, Aristotelian view of a “good life” involved the refusal to submit to extremes — whether of passions, beliefs, gluttony or feelings — and that moderation was the key to a balanced life, where the appetitive nature of man would be mastered by one’s intellect.  Bertrand Russell borrowed from this tradition, and defined the “good life” as one “inspired by love and guided by knowledge”, where the feelings and passions of a person would be constrained and directed by the bridge of logic.

The metaphorical play of a “bridge” — an image evoking a “connection” or a “nexus” — leading away from the natural passions inherent in Man, is an interesting one.  For, it somewhat presumes (A) a necessity and need for such a path leading away from the nature of Man, and (B) that somehow logic does not constitute and comprise the natural state of man, but is a needed addendum in order to “civilize” an otherwise unruly beast.

Perhaps that is so, and certainly in modernity the bridge of logic is in need of major repairs.

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 basic elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, make sure that the health condition itself — of the pain, of physical and psychological dysfunctioning resulting from the health condition — does not dominate in your persuasive argumentation in presenting your case to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Rather, the Bridge of Logic must be carefully employed — of the nexus between your medical condition and the essential elements of your positional duties.

Contact an experienced lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law, and don’t let the disrepair of modernity’s bridge of logic be the loss of a pathway necessary to connect the necessary eligibility requirements in an OPM Federal Disability Retirement filing.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill

Attorney 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: Chaotic Regularity

We have a need to order the world.  Some, but only a few, live by chaotic regularity, but when chaos gets to a point of regularity, there is also some semblance of order to such a world — one which can be predictably chaotic.  Chaos is a part of everyday life; of a sick child; a troubled relative; financial difficulties; a crippled pet; a spouse’s mood; a career’s ceiling; problems define the ability and capacity of an individual’s inner reserve.

Medical problems are often at the forefront of a chaotic regularity.  Yes, there are some who actually thrive in living a life of chaotic regularity, but most of us crave for the quietude of boredom.  For the rare few, perhaps the life of chaotic regularity finds comfort in daily disruptions; but for the rest of us, it is only the routine of monotony that allows for an exception of chaos to be acceptable.

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 idea of chaotic regularity is perhaps too comfortable and intimate.  The medical condition itself; the inability to do what once was so easily accomplished; and fear for the future — these must all enter into factoring the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS.

Consult with an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement and seek to get out from the chaotic regularity that a medical condition imposes.  For, it was on the Seventh Day that quietude finally came…

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill
Federal Disability Attorney

 

FERS Medical Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: Similar Lives

Dissimilarity is what threatens us; similarity — the notion that there are shared, common characteristics between you and I — provides for an acceptable level of comfort and security.

When we learn about the lives of the “rich and famous”, other than feeling some sense of envy, we can still imagine enough similarity of living such that we can “relate” to them.  We might say, “Yeah, but he still has to put on his pants one leg at a time” or some such similarity of response.  It is the dissimilar which tends to threaten — of behavior, looks or origins so alien that we fear that the strangeness of the unknown will somehow harm our very existence.

Modernity has tried to ameliorate that with a sense of living in a “global village”, where images of other cultures, other lives and different countries are transmitted into our living rooms via cable and other outlets; and social media allows for interaction with others no matter where a person resides.  Rumors of wars are no longer apt; we bring it live right into our recreational living spaces, and no longer are cultures alien, nor other lives strange; the strangeness now is of the person who cannot relate to the universal similarity of all lives lived in modernity.

Yet, there are still instances of dissimilarity which threatens — such as a medical condition suffered by a Federal or Postal worker who then begins to feel isolated and treated as a pariah.  Perhaps the response by others is likened to that “tribal” sense that people have: No one wants to be like the outsider, and so we shun them like those colonies of eons ago to which lepers were banished.

For Federal and Postal employees who believe that a medical condition now prevents him or her from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, and who are beginning to be treated in a dissimilar fashion, it may be time to file for FERS Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and do it before the dissimilar turns into a familiar case of similarity — that of fear turning into cruelty by the Federal Agency initiating adverse actions and ultimate termination.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement: Keys to the universe

When a metaphor turns into a reality that we all begin to believe in, the fantasies of our own making have become distorted and we need to begin the process of regaining the sanity once embraced but which is now lost in the surrealism of time’s warped viewpoint.  It is by simile, analogy and metaphor that one gains a greater understanding of circumstances, fields and subjects, but it is also by such vehicles that we can misplace reality with a virtualized representation of a universe nonexistent.

Sermons abound with metaphors involving a “key” to this or that; or even of those positive thinkers and corporate motivational speakers who talk about the 10-steps to this or that, the “ultimate key to success”, and similar such drivel that makes one think and believe in the existence of a singular implement that needs to find that lost sliver of hope, insert it into the corrugated slit cut into the brass knob that stands between success or failure — and suddenly, the doors unlock, the entranceway is cleared and one can step into the future yet unanticipated by the fullness of contentment.

Do we really believe that there is such a key?  How often do we speak in terms of a metaphor, a simile and an analogy, but over time our spoken words lose the clear distinction that the simile was meant to ascertain?

We begin with: “It is as if there is a key to the universe,” or, “It’s like having the keys to the universe.” Then, gradually, the “as if” and the “like” are dropped, quietly, unnoticed, like the short-cut that assured one of arriving earlier if only the right turn into the thick fields of the wild forest is taken with confidence: “I need the keys to the universe.”

No longer the metaphor, and certainly without the distinctiveness of the simile; the keys become the reality without the padded divide of recognizing that existence cannot be forced to appear in reality; our minds have tricked ourselves into believing.  Then, we often come to realize that the metaphor which purported to “unlock” (a metaphor itself following upon another) whatever it is that we believed was previously inaccessible was nothing more than a mundane process or methodology that we could have figured out ourselves — sort of like (there we go again with a simile) the Master Burglar who spends hours trying to determine the combination to a safe that had all along been left open by a careless bank clerk.

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, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the “keys to the universe” of obtaining an OPM Disability Retirement are quite simple and straightforward: Prove that the medical condition prevents you from performing one or more of the essential elements of your job.

However, as the devil remains in the details, the simplicity of the metaphorical “key” to a successful outcome is not dissimilar (a double-negative that turns out to mean “similar”, sort of “like” a simile) to most such Keys to the universe: a systematic, methodological compiling of proof combined with legal precedents to cite in presenting a compelling tale to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, such that the “key” is effective enough to “unlock” an approval from them.  Of course, as with all metaphors, the analogy is like the simile that refuses to be like other such metaphors, or so it is often said in the vicious circularity of language’s mysteries.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: The time of purpose

Does purpose always guide?  Or do we sometimes work on automatic pilot — without thought, working our way through a morass of repetition merely because that is the way we have always done things and it is more comfortable to continue on that same path?  What does it mean to live without a purpose, or even to live with one?  Are we more motivated; does initiative power the inertness within, like steroids or extra fuel added where the flickering flame is about to be extinguished but suddenly someone pours a cupful of gasoline upon the embers of a dying bonfire and “poof!” — purpose places us back on track?

Are there “times of purpose” as opposed to a lack thereof — like seasons that come and go in repetitive rhythms that we are quite familiar with — and during those times when we know the “why” for which we live, it makes it that much easier to get though the day?

Seasons come and go; the rhythm of a life is often impacted by the circumstances that we find ourselves in; and whether we “have” a purpose — as in possessing a clear path or vision forward, or retaining a certain goal or perspective on the “why” of what we are doing — or not, there are those who believe in a higher order of teleological framework where there is an objective reality that guides the course of all human activities and events.

Whether there is such a higher order or not is the Question of the Ages; of theological debates and one’s place in the wider universe; these are all great issues and questions pondered by greater minds, but when the voices of certitude and preaching become silent and the conversation wanes into the late evening, it is only the lonely voice of the individual and the soliloquy of quiet thoughtfulness that remains — and it then comes down to:  What is this time of purpose for me?

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 employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, it is likely that the very consideration that one’s career and livelihood may be lost, will begin to drive the time of purpose.

Before the medical condition, the time of purpose involved one’s career and work; with the onset of the medical condition, the time of purpose encompassed getting back one’s health; and now, where it becomes clear that the medical condition and the Federal or Postal job are no longer consistent or compatible, the time of purpose must involve preparing, formulating and filing 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.  For, the time of purpose is driven by the circumstances that change and surround us, and one’s health is a significant life-event to compel that time of purpose.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Federal Disability Retirement Attorney

 

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: Down a Rabbit Hole

The phrase originates from the novel by Charles Dodgson (under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll) entitled, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, shortened to “Alice in Wonderland”, and has come to take on a wider meaning — embracing any experience where one unexpectedly encounters a surreal, bizarre universe or phenomena.

The phrase is an interesting one — of somehow entering a different kind of reality where a parallel universe exists.  The rabbit holes of real life are more mundane — of a nest found in one’s back yard where young bunnies huddle together in fear of being discovered, and where hope of survival depends upon people walking by oblivious to the shelter and dogs failing to sniff out the hideouts.

We all walk through life hoping that we can avoid falling down a rabbit hole, and many of us deliberately avoid areas that may be pocked full of them, like so many potholes in roads and bridges that have been left in disrepair.

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 job, the necessity of filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be file through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, may be considered tantamount to falling down into a Rabbit Hole.

OPM is a large bureaucracy, complex in its administrative procedures and processes, and the entire journey of preparing, formulating, filing and maneuvering through the Federal Disability Retirement laws, procedures and regulatory morass can be somewhat likened to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — only, the reality of it is that the surreal universe of the bizarre must meet the universe of necessity, and while the child who reads about Alice can delight in its wonderful tales and adventures, the Federal or Postal worker must live within the reality of a medical condition that remains forever.

That is why, in both cases, falling down into a rabbit hole will often need some expert guidance — like consulting with an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law so that the rabbit hole one falls into enhances the chances that the bizarre will ultimately lead to a successful endeavor out of the maze of OPM’s complex processes.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: The Other Side of Work

The entanglement of work with value and worth is an inescapable aggregate of custom, upbringing, time spent, and the egoism of leaving some indelible mark upon an otherwise implacable universe.  Where work resulted in income, and income the cumulative wealth of a lifetime, the driving force behind it never mandated the fury of necessity.  Of course work has always been tied to livelihood; that is a given.  But when the doors for credit, mortgages exponentially exceeding an imbalance beyond capacity to repay, and the idea became accepted that luxury need not be left for tomorrow, the slavery of bonding work to worth became an unworthy concept.

Then, when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability to perform all of the essential elements of one’s job, the fear and trembling for future needs begins to encroach.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who find that a medical condition is having an effect upon one’s performance of work, the reality of potential alternatives must be faced, and quite quickly, lest the other side of work, like this side of paradise, leaves one with neither work nor income, but a bleak future without either.

Filing for OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, will take time to develop, submit, and wait upon in order to receive a decision from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  It is a complex bureaucratic process with multiple administrative facets.  The reality of needing to file, however, should never be confused with the bundled confusion one has concerning worth, work, and the value of one’s contribution to society.  It is the medical condition itself, and attending to the symptoms and effects of that which one never expected, asked for, nor desired, that must be focused upon .

Some things in life are, indeed, worth of greater value than work, and the value placed upon the other side of work will determine the course of one’s future, whether of joy and love, or of further puzzlement beyond the imprint of time spent without one’s family.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer: Life’s Dispensation

It is often a word which is accompanied with the adjective, “special“, as in “special dispensation”; but a close review of such a phrase would reveal the redundancy of placing the two words together.  For, to have a dispensation is to be offered a unique situation where one is already exempted from the usual and customary rules applicable; and to insert the adjective, “special’, adds little to the exclusionary nature of the occasion.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and where the medical condition is beginning to impact one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties occupied in the Federal sector and U.S. Postal Service, it is the disability and medical condition itself which gives rise to the dispensation requested, demanded or otherwise warranted.

That is precisely why resentment, hostility and exclusion occurs as a reactionary response by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service: because special treatment outside of the normal rules of employment tend to engender such negative responses.

Filing for FMLA; requesting an accommodation in order to continue working; becoming entangled in EEO Complaints, grievances and the like — they all set you apart, and require actions outside of the normative parameters of daily relationships within the employment sector.  And that ultimate reaction by the agency, of “sticking it to the guy” even when it involves a medical condition impacting one’s employment and livelihood — one wonders, how can others be so cruel?  It is justified precisely through the psychology of the “herd mentality“, reduced to its most natural form in a single question:  “Who does that guy think he is?”

For Federal and Postal employees, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, it often becomes necessary to follow up with the ultimate dispensation of that which one’s employment offers — that of filing for Federal Disability Retirement through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

It is not always the case that an employment package offers an annuity which (A) provides for continuation of insurance benefits and (B) allows one to work in a different vocation while receiving the annuity; but Federal Disability Retirement allows for both, so when the situation arises and there is a dispensation which reveals a solution to a problem, it is indeed a special circumstance which should be recognized as such, while ignoring the redundancy of life’s tautology.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Causality

Worker’s Comp requires it; Social Security disregards it; and OPM Disability Retirement shifts the issue into a different arena.  “Causality” encapsulates the relationship between two or more events, where one is thought to result from another, or put a different way, where “responsibility” for a given effect is attributed to a prior conditional occurrence fulfilled as sufficient to warrant as being the “cause” of that event.

In a Federal OWCP case, administered through the Department of Labor, one must prove that the injury or medical condition was “caused” as a workplace incident or occurrence, such that the “event” occurred or was somehow connected to the employment itself.

For Social Security Disability cases, causation is normally not an issue, since the basis for eligibility is not concerned with any singular event, but rather, whether the person filing for Social Security Disability benefits meets a standard definition of being “totally disabled” from gainful employment.

For Federal OPM Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the issue is not one of causation, but rather, the relationship between one’s medical condition and the attributable impact upon one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

Thus, there is, in a different sense, a case of causality to be made, but the relationship between A and B has shifted, where it matters not “how” it occurred, but rather, “whether” the medical condition prevents (causes) one from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s job.

In the end, causation in a Federal/Postal Disability Retirement application is irrelevant in the traditional sense that one normally accepts, but the shifting focus of causality is important to keep in mind in preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire