OPM Disability Attorney Help: The Paralysis of Indecision

There is, on the one hand, an approach of charging forth with a decision; on the other, a more contemplative manner of considering the options, letting various arguments be heard, then taking into account the pros and cons and coming to a deliberative conclusion and decision.

Such differing approaches often reflect the personality of the decision-maker; and, of course, between the two extremes on a spectrum of decision-making approaches, there are various “middle-ground” ways.

One often hears about the need for “decisive” action, where such an approach is often viewed as more effective and enveloped with great confidence.  Military responses are often characterized by the “charge forth” approach, whereas political expediency is too often reflected in the long and tiresome “consideration of all sides” approach.

In the end, whether one takes a lengthy, deliberative approach in making a decision, or immediately issues a definitive command to perform a deed, it is the paralysis of indecision which fails to abide.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal Service 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 paralysis of indecision often comes about because of the hope for recovery of one’s health.

And that is often a good thing.  Hope springs eternal, but when the reality of one’s medical condition becomes chronic and never-ending, the paralysis of indecision merely exacerbates and worsens.

Contact a disability attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and do not allow the paralysis of indecision to keep you stuck in the quicksand of your medical condition.

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: Divide and Conquer

According to Wikipedia, “divide-and-conquer”, in computer science, is an algorithm “design paradigm” which recursively breaks down a problem into multiple “sub-problems” in order to solve each problem separately, by dividing them into manageable sub-sets.  It is the same approach that has been used since Julius Caesar’s time — in war, of first separating large armies into smaller units, then attacking them in coordinated fashion; or in politics, of finding ways where division can be fomented within the ranks of the opposing party or candidate, then defeating them by taking advantage of the internal divisions.

OPM applies the same tactic in denying a Federal or Postal employee’s Federal Disability Retirement application — first by separating each medical condition from the aggregate of the medical conditions, then minimizing the impact of each without regard to the impact resulting from the aggregation and combined symptoms.  Thus, X apart from Y is not as bad as X and Y together, and so if X can be minimized and Y can be marginalized, then each separately may appear to be somewhat insignificant.

Consult with an OPM Disability Retirement Attorney to discuss how to counter OPM’s “divide-and-conquer” approach before the Roman Centurions attack from that rear flank which remains vulnerable because of the divided unit you lead.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Workers: Happiness revisited

What is it that makes people happy?  Is it constituted by generic categories (like “wealth”, “fame”, “friendships”, “popularity”, etc.), or is it specific to each individual (i.e., for Joe, it is to have sufficient time daily to become lost in reading; for Alice, the opportunity to go out with friends at least once a week; for Mary and Steve, to be in one another’s company, etc.) such that, while specific conditions can be described as the prerequisite for individual happiness, they can nonetheless be categorized into more generic forms while never losing the unique content of that which constitutes the essential ingredients for such individual happiness?

If generically-based, can it be “bottled” — i.e., advertised and sold?  Isn’t that what much of commercial advertising is all about — not the product itself, although that is the ultimate goal, but of the underlying message that by means of the product, the end will result in happiness?

Thus, teeth whiteners and dental conglomerates don’t just sell straightened teeth or gleaming smiles; rather, they sell happiness.  Otherwise, why else would everyone be smiling stupidly and pretending (for that is what actors and actresses do) that they are ecstatic in their roles?  And car insurance, life insurance, reverse mortgages and financial institutions — what are they selling but happiness through security and a sense of peace?

More importantly, should happiness ever be a goal, or is it best to allow it to remain as a byproduct and a natural consequence of a worthy life’s endeavors?

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 issue of one’s happiness is always present in stark contrast to the current human condition of deteriorating health: for, misery is the flip-side of happiness, and to that old standardized testing torture we all had to undergo as school children, happiness is to health as misery is to ___?  What would be the appropriate word used to fill in the blank?  Ill-health?  Sickness?

When one’s health deteriorates, the priorities of life suddenly come into sharper focus, for health is the foundation from which all else flows. Happiness, one begins to realize, cannot be the center and foundation; it is, instead, a byproduct of good health, solid relationships and productive careers, and filing for Federal Disability Retirement is a means to an end, whether you are under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

Thus, for the Federal or Postal employee who begins to 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, serious consideration should be given to filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, to be submitted, reviewed by and approved by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Claims: The present preference

Given the choice, it is almost always the present preference that is chosen, while the long-term goals, aspirations or necessary planning are set aside, ignored, subverted or otherwise delayed for another day.  We prefer to remain in the present circumstances, in lieu of future contexts unknown, for the familiar is always to be preferred to the strange and unrelated.

The key to change away from the present preference is often based upon the spectrum of a “tolerance/intolerance” gauge — an informal, almost unspoken manner in which we react based upon various factors that have developed over many years: tolerance/intolerance of pain levels; quality of life issues, whether consciously realized or intuitively maintained; the balance between weekends encroached and the weekdays approached; whether productivity rises or falls; and other similar factors, both involving professional goals and aspirations as well as personal perspectives upon the worth of maintaining the status quo or allowing for the tumult of change.

Medical conditions often warrant a move away from the present preference.  In reality, no one “prefers” the present when the change is imposed from external sources, or where there is simply little control or influence to exert upon stopping, hindering or otherwise slowing down the change itself.  The present preference is merely borne of laziness or the pure enjoyment of non-change, as the known is almost always preferable to instability and the strangeness of other worlds.

That is why we take short vacations and jaunts to other cultural enclaves, but return home to the safety of our known environments.  But when a medical condition begins to impact one’s ability and capacity to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties, as it can with Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the changes impacted from the external forces of an unwanted medical condition may necessitate the modification of the present preference for the status quo.

Living with a medical condition itself is traumatic enough; altering the present preference of a life one is used to, is almost always a further tumultuous necessity that one instinctively resists, but recognizes the inevitability of.

For Federal and Postal workers who have come to a point of realizing the necessity of modifying the present preference, preparing, formulating and filing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, to be ultimately submitted to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is the first step towards conforming to an unfair external influence characterized by the medical condition itself.

Consulting an attorney who specializes in the administrative complexities inherent in the Federal Disability Retirement process will often help to buttress some of the changes that are necessary, if only because information and knowledge allows for the decision-making process to prevail with needed insights presented in order to adapt away from the present preference of an increasingly debilitating medical condition.

Sincerely,

Robert R.McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Law: The unsolvable dilemma

Most of us live linear lives.  It is a characteristic of Western Civilization that the thought-processes involve a sequential, step-by-step, logical extension and advancement.

Much has been said about this approach, in contrast to an “Eastern” philosophical methodology, where there is a “circular” mind-set that often involves the complexities of reincarnation, capacity to assimilate inconsistent, incommensurate and seemingly incompatible belief-systems – and, indeed, to even describe the “other” as a “methodology” is an oxymoron of unfair proportions, for it is more of an amalgamation of acceptance without hesitation – like the symbiosis of Shinto and Zen Buddhism in Japanese culture.

Such an approach – of a straight line from Point A to Destination X – that reflects the essence of the Western culture, including Continental Europe, the British linguistic solutions and the U.S. pragmatism that dominates, leaves us with an emptiness when we encounter and engage the unsolvable dilemma.  Perhaps that is the primary deficit in “our” approach, as opposed to the “other” one.  For, in attempting to think always in a linear fashion, we become frustrated when the solution cannot be figured out or otherwise consummated.

A problem left unsolved is one that we consider to be a failure of sorts, because the pragmatism of Western thought requires that all problems have solutions; it is a paradigm that has been ingrained in the DNA of our very being and essence.  But life doesn’t quite work in that way, does it?  There are unsolvable problems – where we just have to accept what “is” and move on with the deficit of a solution.

Medical conditions comprise one such class of such unsolvable issues.  We like to think that the “science” of medicine provides for a cure through complex and technologically modern treatment modalities for every identification of diagnosed maladies; but it quickly becomes obvious that many medical conditions simply do not have a linear resolution.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition prevents the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker from performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job, the linear approach of Western Civilization often will not work.  There is an incompatible friction that quickly arises between the Federal agency and the Postal facility, and the Federal employee and Postal worker.

Often, the only “solution” is an exit via filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted for consideration ultimately to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  Does it “solve” the problem?  Not really.  For the Federal or Postal employee, the medical condition continues with him or her after separation from the Federal workforce; and for the agency or the Postal facility, the loss of a formerly valuable and productive employee invested in for those many years, cannot easily be replaced.

But getting a Federal Disability Retirement annuity is a compromise of sorts; it allows for the Federal or Postal employee to seek other opportunities in the private sector, and to attend to the medical conditions with greater focus; and for the Federal agency and Postal facility, it allows for employment of another, more healthier worker who can fulfill all of the essential elements of the job.  Nevertheless, it remains an “unsolvable dilemma”, to be relegated to the “Eastern” approach, and leaving a void to the “Western” perspective.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: Alone

We enter into this impervious universe in such a state.  Yes, yes – there are parents surrounding, love embracing and doctors, nurses and hospital attendants with smiling faces and all of that; but being alone is conceptually distinct from loneliness, and one can be surrounded by a multitude of social acquaintances, family members and close and distant relatives, and still bear the weight of the latter, and yet know throughout that one is nevertheless alone in this world.

One realizes and comprehends that proverbial synergism of that special  “soul-mate” – that special person that the angels sprinkled with the magic of being in a parallel universe of identical comity; or of those special twins who possess an unmatched oneness beyond rational explanation; but, besides such special circumstances and almost mystical exceptions, most of us are alone in this world.

Aloneness goes beyond the human activity of busy-ness; beyond family gatherings and social upheavals of friendships, conflicts, domestic arguments where heartbreaks cutting to the essence of a soul is preferable to sitting in the darkness at the end of the day in a rhythmic rocking chair squeaking away the unscratched surface of a cold marble floor.

We arrive in this world alone; travel through it with companions rarely and barely recognizable; and become decrepit with medical conditions in some unvisited corner of antiseptic-smelling hospital wards where visiting hours are never breached because loneliness knows not the ticking of a clock where blank stares of aged men and women embrace vacantly the timelessness of human frailty.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers whose careers may need to be cut short because of a medical condition, you know well the concept of being alone:  of a Federal Agency that sees you merely as a fungible component that needs to be quickly replaced and filled; of a Postal worker whose decades of allegiance and loyalty are disregarded because of an injury, a debilitating medical condition or a chronic and progressively deteriorating illness.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application will not necessarily abate the sense of being alone, but it will provide a pathway of attempting to reach a plateau in life where the future becomes somewhat more stable, the present becomes clearer and focused with greater definition, and that impervious universe from whence we arrived may somehow provide a heightened sense of worth, and loneliness is disconnected from the reality of being alone.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Care to Perfection

At what point does one ascend from mere care, to perfection of accomplishment?  Is it when we determine that which matters to us most – i.e., where self-interest intersects with talent otherwise left unfulfilled?  Or, through maturity of purpose and a self-realization that perfection is preferable to a lesser kindling of care, does one simply “buck up” and seek to embrace a higher order of accomplishments?

Perfection is an impossible standard to attain; care, a reasonably easy one, because time, effort and struggled attempts compensate for any lack of natural talent.  Words themselves tend to camouflage the lack of perfection by care, for a lengthy dissertation of seeming interest and a cauldron mixed by questions of curiosity comprise evidence of “caring”.  But while perfection should always be reserved for the Pope, heavenly orbs and Platonic Forms otherwise unreachable by mortal hands and untalented mediocrity – which incudes the vast multitude of the ordinary folk that populate this earth – it is a goal worth trying to achieve.

This presents a particularly unique problem for Federal and Postal employees 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 – for, when a medical condition dominates, the natural inclination is to quickly put together an assembled Federal Disability Retirement packet based upon mere care, but nowhere near perfection, when the very viewing bureaucratic body (the U.S. Office of Personnel Management) is often applying a higher standard than even what the law requires.

We are not saying, here, that any Federal Disability Retirement application to be filed should attain any level of perfection; rather, that when the applicant who prepares his or her own Federal Disability Retirement application is the identical person who suffers from the medical condition itself, then it is always very difficult to get beyond the standard of mere care, and will never be able to objectively strive towards a semblance of perfection.  Perfection as a standard is never meant to be attained, but merely to be striven for; and as a corollary, care is not to be acquiesced to without a pathway towards perfection.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management applies the standard of law that it is mandated to enforce, but in its zealous defense of the entire Disability Retirement system, it often goes beyond mere care, and applies the shadow of perfection upon unwary applicants.  What can be done about it?  Nothing, except to make sure that in preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application and submitting it to OPM, be aware that care may not be enough; rather, striving for the higher order of care – that of perfection – may be the requirement for the day.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The cog in the process

Does perspective have an influence upon one’s approach in engaging an endeavor of any sort?  For instance, does it matter whether or not the cynic and the one who sees the world consistently as “half-empty” or unwittingly cruel, nevertheless succeeds at every turn and venture?  Or, conversely, of the person who always has a “positive attitude” and sees good in every corner, but nevertheless fails at every attempted feat; did “perspective” and viewpoint make a difference?

Perhaps life requires a balance between the two, and such extremes on a spectrum of outlook is never a healthy thing.

In the end, does it matter whether or not we see ourselves as an insignificant cog in a wider process of unending turmoil, or as an Oprah-like shining star where we persuade ourselves that we matter as a mere cog precisely because the loss of a singular and unique “you” would have a devastating impact upon the well-ordered universe where the gods watch upon each hair of our scalps and wait to quiver with laughter when we express our hopes for relevance?

We often “feel” like a cog in the process – even if, on a more objective and brighter viewpoint, such an analogy and imagery represent an inaccurate put-down of major proportions.

That is the problem with bureaucracies – seen from the “other” side, our involvement in an administrative procedure invites us to ascertain that which we always suspected:  Stand in line; be assigned a number; be asked for standard information and data; a stamp is pounded upon a piece of paper and … “Next!”  What constitutes the accurate portrayal of our point of being caught within a world devoid of normative constructs, anymore?

This generation of youthful cadavers have it the worst, of course, as there is no longer a belief to die for, a value to live by, nor an encounter that can pass for pure friendship without an underlying suspicion that more is intended.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the entrance into the social club of the “cog” is just beginning.  OPM is a vast juggernaut of an administrative process, and the miniscule feeling one will be exposed to, presented with and suddenly thrown to the bottom of a pitiless cauldron will become evident from the very beginning.

That “feeling”, however, should never be confused with the relevance, importance and significance of preparing one’s Federal Disability Retirement application properly and to a perfection made to order, at least as much as humanly possible.

For, in the end, to be a cog in the process does not mean that one should become processed as a mere cog; rather, that the line which extends around the block and down into the next needs to be acknowledged, yet prepared sufficiently such that when that call for “Next!” comes your way, all of the papers, relevant data and significance of evidence are in undiluted order, such that the cog in the process will flow smoothly when next your turn is up before the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement Law: The cruelty of our nature

Note that we are not positing that nature in general is cruel; for, in nature, predatory behaviors and devouring of one another is merely a tautological definition of nature itself, in the constant balance between prey and predator, betwixt overpopulation and dominance of one species over another, etc.  No, the “our” refers to a specific species – of the human kind.

Whether engendered and triggered within our genetic predispositions, or as Rousseau and Locke would have it, spurred on by the artificial constructs evolved from the social contract created for self-preservation, there is little denying that “our” nature is the cruelest of them all.  Little evidence needs to be pointed at in order to establish the case proving such a perspective – of wars, treatment of others, disregard for fellow members, neighbors and even strangers; no, the cruelty of our nature betrays the inherent meanness of our selves.

Yes, yes – there are always sociological and anthropological explanations – of mistreatment by a structural and inherent canopy of defiance; people left without hope for any future; lives destroyed by government regulations and other societal pressures; wars driven by sectarian and genocidal triggers further explained by economic changes and shifts of monetary and global policies; and of the rise of dominance by a few over the general populace.

There is little doubt that we are cruel because of who we are – at the top of the food chain, everyone struggling to merely survive.  Yet, it was always the belief that within us, there was a spark of the angel – of being just above the beast, and slightly below the heavenly orbs where wings of perfection remain yet to strive for.

When medical conditions erupt, necessitating the Federal or Postal employee to prepare, formulate and file 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, it is well to keep in mind the cruelty of our nature – not necessarily in ourselves, but in the capacity and human capability of acting upon it by revealing to others the vulnerabilities caught in the web of our own genetic predispositions.

Care needs to be taken in protecting privacy; never underestimate the reactions that might occur by a Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service; and always bear in mind the wisdom of Shakespeare, who recognized the cruelty of our nature, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.  They kill us for their sport.” King Lear, Act IV, Scene i.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire