OPM Disability Retirement Law: The Retrospective

There is a proportional increase as one experiences a greater linear accumulation; some would call it a heavier luggage to carry; others, of a more cynical nature, would term it as mere “baggage”.

The retrospective is engagement of looking back — of recounting memories or dealing with nightmares.  Human beings live in a state of constant turmoil based upon the past, the present and the future.  To be stuck in the past prevents the needed attendance to daily living; to disregard the past and merely live for “the moment”, is to repeat history’s mistakes and foibles; and to only live by greater angst for the future steals from experiencing the joy of today.

The retrospective is always a part of each of us; as we grow older, we tend to relate to things which have impacted us from the past; and so, to that extent, the retrospective is a necessary and natural, material part of our lives.  The key, however, is to resist the temptation of allowing the retrospective to dominate our lives as we grow older.

There is a natural inclination — a deliciousness, if you will — in letting the retrospective rule; for, whether of a trauma or of joyful memories, the retrospective as something which has already passed, is passive by definition and can no longer actively harm us.  Furthermore, it is important to have an objective, true view of the past, and not allow our imagination to warp or otherwise overstate the experiences of the past.

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 current job, it is important to provide a concise retrospective of one’s medical condition, but more importantly, to delineate the current impact.

As always, a balance must be achieved — of how the past is relevant; how the present is impacted; and in a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — how the medical condition will last a minimum of 12 months.

Thus, as with most concerns of life, the retrospective must be put in its proper perspective and context — of how far back; of how much; of what relevance; and it is in this balance of life that the retrospective can be invaluable in its present significance.

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.

 

OPM Medical Attorney Representation for FERS Employees: Paring the Puff

There are various styles of writing and genres to describe the variegated approaches — of the literary; of technical writing; poetry; didacticism; stream-of-consciousness (think Joyce and Faulkner); of short and succinct sentences (Hemingway) in contrast to long and flowery lines where beauty of the form is more important than the content of meaning (many modern writers); and then, there is the master of the perfect sentence in each story and many of his novels (William Trevor).

Puff is a problem in modernity, and the meandering sentence is too often taken for lack of substance.  In every writing form, keeping the intended audience in view is an important component in the choosing of style and substance.  Should logical argumentation be used in a fictional work?

Must non-fiction necessarily invoke a dry and uninteresting style of narrative (read the biography written on Hemingway by Carlos Baker, or any of the recent historical works by Peter Cozzens and you will find that history need not be dry and boring).

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are intending upon filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, a “Statement of the Applicant’s Disability” (SF 3112A) must be well-prepared, thoughtfully formulated and exactingly edited.  It need not be a Hemingway masterpiece or a meticulously-formed Trevor short story, but paring the puff should certainly be considered.  How does one pare the puff?

By knowing the law and keeping in sharp focus each sentence’s declarative value in applying the law.  Contact a Federal lawyer who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin paring the puff that will only detract and distract from the intended audience:  The U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

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.

 

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Disability Retirement: The Idiot

Of course, it is the title to one of Dostoevsky’s lesser known works — or one which few have read.  The author, of course, is the great Russian novelist — who wrote long and arduous depictions of psychological compendiums that only a person of great patience can read.

It is assigned in some high schools; perhaps, still in some colleges; then, after exiting the world of academia, it is quickly forgotten.  It is like many books: claimed to have been read by many, but which are actually only glanced by a very few.

There are other books similar to it: Not in plot or character, but in the fact that few read them — Tolstoy’s works; Arno Schmidt’s, Bottom’s Dream; and others.  But of The Idiot — its central character is a man who is simple and good, but it is in his simplicity and goodness by which people question his intellectual intactness.

And there is a point to that, isn’t there?  We have become so tainted with cynicism that we equate moral virtue with cautionary ineptitude.

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 — be wary of approaching your agency, your postal manager, your Human Resource Office, or even the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, with an attitude of simplicity and goodness.  For, if you do, you may end up like the character in Dostoevsky’s work, The Idiot.

Instead, contact a Federal Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law to help you maneuver through the bureaucratic morass of a Federal Disability Retirement application, lest you end up being characterized by that term in the truly pejorative sense of the word.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: The Privacy of Weirdness

Privacy provokes weirdness; or so it would seem.  Things which people would not otherwise do, they do in the apparent seclusion of privacy.  It is when the “private” becomes “public” that embarrassment, revelation, uncovering and shame is brought out.

People engage in activities ranging from the mundane to the absurd — and this is often witnessed in that “bubble” created by sitting in one’s car.  The vehicle creates a strange phenomenon — for, although it does not truly provide a privacy space, people get into their vehicles and act as if no one can see them.  Witness how we suddenly dance uninhibited to the music playing when driving; or talk to yourself, or perhaps other acts of weirdness.

Then, of course, there are the more absurd revelations of recent vintage — of weirdness performe while on Zoom when privacy was thought to be the case.

Pain is on the spectrum of weirdness — for, it is a “private” or “subjective” matter, experienced within the bubble of one’s own body and self.  We often try to hide it — but it manifests itself through grimaces and facial contortions.  It can be hidden and masked, but whether it is healthy to do so, is quite another matter.

When the privacy of weirdness — of pain which can no longer be masked — enters the public arena, as in a Federal Disability Retirement case, it is then time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  Contact an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of turning out the privacy of weirdness into a Federal Disability Retirement case.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Lawyer

 

Federal Employees with Permanent but Partial Disabilities: The Delay of Time

We grumble and complain about “losing” an hour in Spring’s moving forward for the time change, and are glad to accept the “gain” of it in the Fall.  In either case, we recognize that we have neither lost the hour, nor gained it; it is merely the artificial alteration of clocks uniformly and by international agreement accepted.

The true loss is in the delay of time — of our actions, our thoughts, our lack of initiative in moving forward when necessity dictates a change in our lives.

Medical conditions tend to do that — they force us to delay time, hoping that it will go away, change course, and one day deemed to have been merely a bad dream, a nightmare to be forgotten.  But they remain with us — slowing us down, delaying the inevitable: Our career needs to change; we need to adapt to our circumstances.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and have been hoping that the delay of time might change some things, it should be clear that time is never a friend of an injury or disease — it merely provokes us into the false notion that time will ultimately heal.

Contact an OPM Disability Attorney who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law and consider that the delay of time will only make an emergency out of what is now merely an urgency.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Medical Retirement under FERS: The Promise

Can you make a promise to yourself?  What would that look like?  Would it be valid and binding?  If not, how would we “prove” it?  Perhaps in a similar manner as Karl Popper’s “falsification” approach — of being able to come up with conditions under which a theory or a posited application can be “falsified”?

Take the following hypothetical: A man sits in a cafe and is clearly upset; perhaps he makes unconscious heaving sounds, and tears stream down his face.  A friend of his happens to visit the cafe, enters, sees his friend in distress and sits down at the same table, uninvited.  “What’s the matter?” the friend asks out of concern.  Hesitant but clearly wanting to share his feelings, the individual queried answers, “I broke a promise, and I feel really terrible about it.”  Pausing — for, despite being his friend, this particular person has a reputation for exaggeration and overstatement — he forges onward bravely and asks him to “share” his story, believing that empathy is the better part of valor.  “Well, I made a promise that… [and the reader can fill in the blank following the ellipses].  And I broke it.”  The friend, concerned and puzzled, asks: “And who did you make the promise to?”  The distraught Person A looks up, tears still streaming down his face and states calmly, “To myself, of course.”

Can such emotional turmoil remain commensurate with the fact of a broken promise made to one’s self?  Can a unilateral promise be binding, or can it be broken with as much ease as the creation of it in the first place?

We all make promises to ourselves, and perhaps an argument can be made that the very essence of “character” and “integrity” is revealed in how scrupulously one abides by those promises made and kept by and to one’s self — even if others don’t know about it.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contemplate filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS, through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the promises made, thought of, kept or broken may make a long list in a cruel world of treachery and misstatements.  Perhaps you made a promise to yourself that you would make the Federal Service into your lifelong career; or, perhaps it has to do with not wanting to “give up”.  Whatever the promise, life intervenes and we all have to adapt to the changes of tumultuous circumstances.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS is never a broken promise, no matter the soliloquy spoken or thought left unspoken; rather, like the friend who comes into the cafe to give some comfort, it is a reminder that there are choices and options in life that may be a better fit than to remain miserable with a job that is no longer consistent with your medical conditions.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Of Dreams Before

It is the past that always haunts; of dreams before, when youthful vigor and innocence begetting of naïveté left one breathless with a clueless notion of the world.  Was it better to live in a world of fantasy, where the world was limitless in its potential — or do we prefer the reality of cynicism where we finally comprehend the restrictions of imposed constraints?

The worst form of put-down is to refer to a middle-aged man or woman as one who “had” so much potential; for it is the third person singular in past tense that evolved from the present tense of “has”, and we wonder when the variation substituting the “s” with the “d” occurred.

It is all well and good to be young with yet the fading scars of an acne-riddled chin, with barely a stubble to makes a difference by a razor’s edge in the morning, and be referred to as a person who “has” potential; it is quite another when the first wrinkles of botox-resistant flabbiness find a permanent home in the comfort of an expansive forehead, when the verb is still applied but with the substituted subtlety of the interchanged consonant, barely noticed but with conviction declared.

That is when, of dreams before and hopes once harbored become but shadows left behind in the greenery of a forgotten childhood.

Do we despair when we no longer have dreams?  Are we sadder, less positive, more cynical, when the potential others noted have been dashed with the ravages of time, reality, cold facts and ruthless societal indifference?

One can possess virtue in this world, so long as it is never tested; but is virtue of any value if it never encounters reality but remains in the ivory towers of conceptual constructs?  Of dreams before — before what?  Before the “real world” extinguished them and relegated such to the trash heaps of childish fantasies, never to be redeemed because of the debts owed and the responsibilities to bear?

Yet, one can hold on to some dreams, and even if never realized, the dreams of youth may still be enjoyed regardless of the substitution of the “s” for the “d”.  What others say of you may not always be applicable; it may just be a soliloquy of regrets reflecting the speaker’s own failures.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition and need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the fact that things didn’t “turn out like they were supposed to” does not mean that, of the dreams before, everything has to be abandoned.

OPM Disability Retirement is merely a means to an end; it is, for the time being a means in order to focus upon one’s health and well being, in order to prepare for a future beyond today’s sorrows.  Federal Disability Retirement benefits allows for a person to gain some semblance of financial security in order to get back to good health, and to allow for the past tense to return one to the third person singular in the present tense — for dreams today, and not of dreams before.

Sincerely,

Robert R. MdGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement for Federal Employees: Last

It is a peculiar word; for, it can mean both the final, end and trailing subject remaining in the far recesses of a sequence, likely to be forgotten and – except for the Biblical reference where such an entity can be accelerated to the front of the proverbial line – surely to be abandoned; yet, it also connotes endurance, the capacity to outfox others in similar circumstances, and the symbolic appearance of vitality and energy.  “Oh, that’s the last thing in the world you want to buy”, goes the dismissive utterance in considering that which is not of significance or relevance as a priority to be considered.  And:  “That’s one of a kind – it will last forever,” comes the accolade showered upon a product of excellence.

How can a single word comprised of four letters – the required singular vowel and the remainder of consonants surrounding like a moat protecting the castle encasing and elevating the royalty of linguistic peculiarities – possess such a diversity of meanings, like antonyms inherent in a conglomerate of a sole voice conflicted and yet without self-contradiction?  Is it like the grammatical equivalent of a tortoise in that famed fable who is considered always to be last, yet endures the scorn and scoffing of an audience that has no clue about that which will last beyond the ordinary circumstances of normative equivalency?

Yet, despite its innate complexity of meanings, ordinary people every day use it with aplomb, confidence and without any internal sense of being confounded by the challenges posed.  You don’t have to earn a higher-level degree or spend years of hermeneutical turmoil in order to offhandedly fling about in the daily language games engaged.  “I hope the good weather lasts”; “We’re the last ones in line”; “It is bad manners to take the last one”; “The parties hope for a lasting peace”.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal employees who need to file a Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the process of enduring a Federal Disability Retirement procedure will have a lasting impact upon the Federal and Postal employee, and this is especially true whether the Federal or Postal employee is the last person standing, in a proverbial sense, and often that is how the Federal and Postal employee feels – as if he or she is the last person in the Federal Agency or Postal facility to be considered for anything, because he or she is targeted as that last bastion of a thorn in the metaphorical backside of a lasting fight against the last thing the Federal Agency or Postal facility wants to deal with – the last man standing who will last through the harassment, intimidation and adversarial process of a lasting Federal Disability Retirement application.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Postal & Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The frog and the twig

Upon first encounter, the two appear not to have any correspondence or connection, leaving aside any explanatory significance to the issues of Federal Disability Retirement benefits for Federal employees or U.S. Postal workers.  Yet, it is always of interest to show how the “relatedness” of seemingly disparate concerns intermingle and intersect with each other.  The fact is, whether in a direct and non-subtle manner, or in some transcendent metaphorical context, Federal and Postal employees, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset who find themselves at a point in their careers where filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits becomes a necessity, constitutes a reflective representation of much of life’s challenges.

Loss of hope for the future; struggling with day-to-day work and family issues; contending with a medical condition; caring for one’s career and workforce, yet, being forced to make a decision contrary to the linear perspective of what is “supposed” to happen – of work, career, retirement and mandatory shuttling into a nursing home, then a tombstone with some etching of memorialized compassion.  The latter two (nursing home and tombstone) are stated in somewhat of a cynical humor, but the others comprise the core of real life in real time.

Of the frog, we know that experimentation reveals the effectiveness of methodical, incremental insidiousness where, placed in a pot of tepid water, it will sit unknowingly until the boiling point is reached, and it becomes too late to jump out.  Life has a tendency to do that to us – we wait and wait, and suddenly it becomes an emergency.

Fortunately for Federal and Postal employees who need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, it is rare that the emergency situation is so dire as to undermine the capacity and ability to file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, but nevertheless, one should always be wary of the metaphorical significance of the frog.  It is one of those “life-lessons” which should be considered.  Of the twig, it is perhaps a little less obvious as both metaphor and analogy.

Once a part of a greater organic whole, it splintered off and fell into the rushing waters of the river below, and drifts aimlessly down, coursing around jutting rocks and undisturbed banks of clay.  Slowly, incrementally, and just as insidiously as the frog in the pot of water, the underside of the decaying twig begins to soak in the waters which allow it to remain afloat, until sometime later, the absorbing principle reaches a point where weight of intake exceeds the capacity to remain buoyant.

That is where the connection appears, between twig and life; where unforeseen burdens weigh down the individual until one day, unknowingly, like the frog and the boiling point of unobserved conditions, nature suddenly overtakes and dominates. And so, from the time when the twig separated from the greater overhang of a vibrant life, the vicissitudes of a raging stream which carried forth the rudderless twig, pushing it to and fro and about without direction, sinks to the bottom of a silt-filled bed, until it, too, decays and becomes again part of a greater circularity of life’s regeneration.

It is with these two in mind that the Federal employee and U.S. Postal worker needs to approach a 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: both the frog and the twig represent a potential condition which we believe we are too smart for, but of which we find ourselves too often quite closely related to.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Life’s Alterations

Spring comes and we clean out old hoardings, discard past articles once thought to be valuable and inseparable from our identity; or perhaps what pop culture has deemed a justifying course of decision-making because there is an inevitable “mid-life crisis“, or some other equally biologically-driven, primordial determinism which compels one to act in one way, as opposed to another.

Life’s alterations are often considered with no greater thought than having the local tailor shorten the seams, or tuck in the waist, like face-lifts and other procedures which attempt to beautify an otherwise insufferable soul.  But in the end, it is always the innocent ones who suffer; it is well that children possesses greater than indexes of fragile psyches; otherwise, the emergency rooms of hospitals across the country would be attending to them around the clock.  But with euphemisms and a can of fresh paint, we may still remain viable cores as stellar pillars in the community; it was a “friendly divorce”; the kids are “better off”; and other such platitudes to justify the devastation wrought.  But some alterations in the cycle of life cannot be attributed to fault; they are, indeed, brought about by fate, nature, will and the indifference of a mechanical universe.

Medical conditions tend to be in that category; they force alterations in life’s choices, without a deliberative involvement on the part of the participant.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who recognize that he or she suffers 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 at the U.S. Postal Service or a Federal agency, it may be time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  For, while the medical condition itself may indeed be a life-altering circumstance, it is what you do, how you react, and what affirmative steps you take, which will determine in the end whether you allow for the tumult of fate to rock and roll you without oars up the proverbial creek of life.

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is a way to steady the unsteadiness, to steer where once you traveled directionless, and to secure a future where once uncertainty prevailed.  While the process itself is a long and arduous bureaucratic morass, the direction once taken allows for a compass to prevail, and a path to be taken.

Federal Disability Retirement is a benefit accorded and offered to all Federal and Postal employees with the minimum of 18 months of Federal Service, and should be considered if and when life’s alterations have determined that a change is necessary; and like the tailor who skillfully makes the suit or dress fit more eloquently upon a body forced into disquietude through years of untended gardening, so applying for a benefit to secure one’s future is merely to respond wisely to the unexpected vicissitudes of life’s offering.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire