Federal Medical Retirement under FERS: The Unsmiling Eyes

It has often been noted that the line between tragedy and comedy is a thin and fragile one; of the farcical uttering of King Lear poignantly and subtly emphasized by the Fool or Court Jester; of the indistinguishable demarcation between madness and sanity; and then, of the unmatched contrast between the lips smiling and the eyes saddened.  The lips can always be forced to curl upward, revealing a smile; but whether such an expression is genuine depends upon the eyes just a few inches above.

The contrast — or the discordance — is like the words of flattery followed by the vengeance of betrayal; what words can fool when actions follow revealing the true intent of man.  It is in that flash of a moment — a handshake and a smile; a short laugh at an allegedly funny joke; or too-hearty a laugh or smile; and yet…. When the eyes remain with saddened shadows but the lips curl into a smile, we become disconcerted because of the discordance between the two.

How can one describe unsmiling eyes?  It cannot be described — for, it is neither a coldness nor blankness; merely, that the brightness of the pupils follow upon a sincere smile of satisfaction, happiness or contentment.  You know of the unsmiling eyes when you see it; it is as if the eyes know other eyes of comity; but when that brightness is dimmed and matches not the sincere smile of giving, you know — or sense — that something is amiss.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who walk around with the smile but with unsmiling eyes, it is often because you are trying to hide the medical condition which is impacting your ability and capacity to perform the essential duties of your position.

If you are contemplating filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under the FERS retirement system from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, contact a FERS Disability Lawyer who specializes in OPM Disability Retirement Law, and consider the pathway forward so that those unsmiling eyes can one day — in the very near future — turn into a consonance with those upward-curling lips called, “A Smile”.

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 Medical Retirement Attorney: Life’s Conundrums

It is a confusing and difficult problem — life.  What makes it all the more difficult is/are the various puzzles encountered, the conundrums unresolved, and the challenges which we must face.  Life has become confusingly complex.  Perhaps that is the natural evolutionary process — whereas, before the dawn of civilization, our species merely relied upon brute force and physical prowess.

Yes, we could not run as fast as the cheetah, but we could devise implements and tools to keep him at bay; we could not match the overwhelming physical force of a grizzly bear, but we could wield a torch of fire and make such animals fear our presence; and through our planning and ability to adapt, our species became the pinnacle of successful survival.

With the dawn of civilization and the advent of modernity’s reliance upon technology, physical force was no longer needed, and what is now required is “smarts” of a technical nature.  And so we are left with the exponential magnification of life’s conundrums: Of maneuvering through a world which leaves so many behind.

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 conundrums just keep multiplying, especially when: A. Trying to maneuver through the complex bureaucracy of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is an unenviable and impossible task to begin with, and B. Dealing with one’s medical conditions makes it all the more impossible to unravel and discern life’s conundrums.

If you find that life’s conundrums are getting to be “too much”, contact a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, and begin the process of preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application under the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, and thus at least resolve to solve the unresolvable conundrum of at least one of life’s puzzles: OPM.

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.

 

Permanent Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: Post-Separation Evidence

OPM ignores the law.  Despite over a decade since the opinion expressed in Reilly v. OPM, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, 571 F.3d 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2009), the U.S. Office of Personnel Management continues to dismiss the relevance of post-separation medical evidence in a Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application.

OPM will systematically deny cases with the following type of statement: “You doctor stated X.  However, the medical report was dated after your separation from Federal Service.  Therefore, you did not establish that you were medically disabled from performing your job while a Federal employee.”  Huh?

Three things stand out, of course: First, most medical conditions are progressive and degenerative in nature and do not appear on the very day a doctor examines a patient.

Second, the clear logical error of OPM’s argument is so blatant: X exists. X exists after Time-Y. Therefore, because X exists after Time-Y, X did not exist prior to Time-Y.  Or: I saw a man named Tom. I saw Tom today and did not see him yesterday.  Therefore, Tom was not born before I saw him today.  Absurd.

And third: OPM ignores the law as stated in Reilly, where post-separation medical evidence is clearly relevant if a proper nexus is established to a pre-separation time-frame.

Don’t let OPM’s illogical interpretation of the law defeat you.  Contact an attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement, and beat them back in order to obtain the benefits you are entitled to.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Filing for Federal Disability Retirement: Yesterday’s Tomorrow

Yesterday’s tomorrow is today; tomorrow’s yesterday is also today; and whether you view today retrospectively or prospectively, it is the here and now that presents the opportunity for existential impact; for, the rest is purely a hypothetical construct which can be either projected or remembered, and whether as yesterday’s tomorrow or tomorrow’s yesterday, what we do today is what impacts upon today’s tomorrow and tomorrow’s day after.

Given that, it is best to try and take care of “business” today, and not let yesterday’s tomorrow and tomorrow’s yesterday become so burdensome as to persistently procrastinate as tomorrow’s problems, and the day after, and the day after that.

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 time to act is today.  Filing a Federal Disability Retirement application through FERS can be a long and arduous process, winding through a complex bureaucratic maze of statutes, laws, regulations and multiple administrative obstacles.

Contact a Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer today so that yesterday’s tomorrow and tomorrow’s yesterday do not get unnecessarily filled up with tomorrow’s procrastinated list of yesterday’s “things to do”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
FERS Disability Retirement Attorney

Medical Retirement under FERS: Revisiting Updike

He wrote about mundane things; of middle class neighborhoods, Pennsylvania towns in which he grew up; farmlands before strip malls replaced them against the skyline of cornfield rows; and of affairs that grew naturally out of a revolution emancipated from the Sixties; of quiet sufferings and the rhythmic monotony of ordinary lives.

John Updike was an “in-betweener” — too young to fight in WWII, too old to have been drafter for the Vietnam debacle; and so he experienced the quietude and normalcy in between the two bookends of this country’s tumult and trials.

Updike was a voice for generations who saw the post-war era, of baby-boomers and American prosperity at its zenith; of the loss of any normative confluence of moral dictum and the abandonment of constraints once imposed by Protestantism.  All, of course, with a twinkle in his eye and a ready smile.  The Internet abounds with photographs of this uniquely American author — almost all with that thin smile as if he was about to share a private joke.

The Tetralogy of the Rabbit novels (actually a quintet if you include the last of the series, a novella entitled “Rabbit Remembered”) evinces a country gone soft after the harsh period of the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Korean conflict and the Vietnam era that undermined the ethical mandates known for generations before, unleashing a liberty of hidden sins like a bubbling cauldron of untamed desires.  But in the end, he is best known for the mundane, the ordinary, and how life in the suburbs of a prosperous nation left an emptiness unspeakable except by a voice given in narrative brilliance, from an author who was a regular contributor to The New Yorker.

Somehow, he made the ordinary seem exciting, even relevant.  By contrast, modernity has focused upon the rich and famous, and of greater unreachable glamour where perfection surpasses pragmatism.  Updike was able to make the commonplace seem important, the ordinary appear significant and the monotony of the mundane as not merely prosaic.  And isn’t that all that we seek, in the end?

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 loss of relevance, the ordinary and the commonplace is what often scares the Federal or Postal employee.

The job itself; the career; the monotonous routine of going to work, yet finding relevance in the act of “making a living” — these were all taken for granted in Updike’s short stories.  That other stuff — of infidelities and dalliances — were a deviation that Updike tried to point out as mere fluff in otherwise ordinary lives; and of medical conditions, they upend and disrupt the normalcy we all crave.

Federal Disability Retirement is a means to an end — of bringing back balance within a life that has become disrupted, but it is a way to bring back order where disruption to the mundane has left behind a trail of chaos.  And to that, the twinkle in Updike’s eyes and the thin smile would tell us that he would approve of such a move which will return you back to a life of mundane normalcy.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Loneliness in a Crowd

Do we all share that experience?  Or, do some never sense the isolation felt, the separation determined, the detachment embraced; but instead, always the smiling center where the crowd is but an extension of one’s body and soul?

A crowd, of course, can be an organic mass of an aggregate whole that, because it is a herd of humanity, can never embrace the individual; and as the individual stands within the continuum of others similarly situated, so the uniqueness of each is lost within the greater whole.

Human emotions, however, are possessed by the independent “I” of each person, and the insularity of those emotions within the inner soul of each body conceals itself except when expressed through words, deeds and facial or other characteristics that betray the anonymity of the crowd.  A teardrop here, a smile over there; a forlorn look of regret by a furrowed eyebrow or the curling frown around lips that purse; and words, of course, that are expressed.

Does tone matter?  Can a person express an emotion in an emotionless manner, and still be sincere in the very expression of that emotion?  Similarly, can a person stand within the mass of a crowd and yet declare loneliness, and be believed?  And of how we treat one another as human beings — or as mere objects that respond without regard to the validity of the subjective “I”.

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 sense of loneliness in a crowd is palpable precisely because, although still with the Federal Agency or the Postal unit, one is treated as an outsider, a person separate and apart and no longer “one of us”; and when that sense of loneliness in a crowd triggers hostility and adversity, it becomes apparent and self-evident that separation must follow — by preparing, formulating and filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Otherwise, the loneliness in a crowd may ultimately lead to detachment from the crowd, involuntarily, by a termination of one’s Federal Service, on their terms and not on your own.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Ducks out of place

Ducks by the pond; out in the fields of wheat and grain; of picturesque paintings of a scene upon the countryside; in parks and near still waters; or on a farm where the pastoral beauty of serenity of times now gone forever, replaced by metal, concrete, the noise of technology and the sniping fire of man’s presence.

Then, 2 ducks — presumably male and female — land upon a winter’s edge in a suburban neighborhood, and make their nesting place for a fortnight’s term.  They stay.  They wander about between hedge groves that splinter and divide, and where fences left untended allow for lines of ownership to remain fallow with the decay of summer’s drought.

The people mill about and recognize their presence, and over time a truce remains where delight of settings long forgotten pace themselves with life’s forlorn smile that yes, perhaps time has lost upon the space of unrelenting callousness, where even the ducks out of place can no longer bring back the memories of youthful days when summer was but the sands of timeless waves when laughter boiled over and pleasures were yet innocent in days beyond the garden of Eden’s gates.

And we realize that, like the ducks left out of place who came mistakenly to believe that the pastoral interludes of gardens tended in the manicured lawns of suburbia represented the quietude of yesterday’s forests and streams allowing for peace upon a winter’s day, we are the misfits of a universe left to toil in the meandering thoughtlessness of cruelty’s longing.

Then, one night, the crazy neighbor whom everyone shunned, came out in the midst of night’s yawn and shot them both with a single shotgun blast.  The ducks out of place were left to remain in the misery of their misunderstanding, that somehow nature and man could find a compromise, when compromise’s twilight had long since been forgotten.

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 worker from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s Federal or Postal job, preparing 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 — becomes a necessity when you begin to recognize that, like ducks out of place, you have become the “odd man out” within a Federal agency or the Postal Service that deems you to no longer be “worth” it.

Whatever the “it” is, you have become the castigated castaway that becomes the focal point of distrust and harassment.  Do not wait to hope that accommodations will be forthcoming; in the setting of a Federal Agency or the Postal Service, the pastoral picture of a helpful agency is rare and indifferent, and the best way forward is to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, submitted to OPM in order to avoid the fate of those ducks out of place.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney for Federal Disability Retirement Claims: The concise sentence

What is the difference between being concise and performing with precision?  The former is often applied in the universe of words and communication; the latter, in areas where quantitative measuring tools can be determined, such as in science or in mathematical sectors.

We say of a person who speaks voluminously but with little substance that he or she represents the antonym of conciseness; and so a comparison is often made between volume spoken or written and concepts or thoughts conveyed.  Of Literature, most would agree that Hemingway is the representative paradigm of conciseness, whereas Joyce and Faulkner reflect the very opposite, though all three are considered classic and great authors.

Do we excuse such authors as Joyce and Faulkner because, in literature, we tend to focus upon the stylistic brilliance of their writings as opposed to the “meaning” that captures the undercurrent of their works?  In other words, although they may give us “too many” words and thus are, by definition, lacking of conciseness, we nevertheless overlook such imprecision precisely because we do not attribute “amount” as the necessary and sufficient cause of determining the worth of good authorship.

Hemingway used to say that, in writing, he had already formulated each sentence before setting it upon paper, whether in handwriting (a lost art) or at the typewriter (a manual, when those contraptions existed and where the clack-clack of metal keys pounded deep into the twilight of a writer’s life).

Why do we applaud and celebrate the concise sentence?  Does it make a difference whether or not a sentence, say, with 7 words communicates a thought as opposed to a paragraph with a thousand words that conveys the identical conceptual construct?

Take the following 2 examples: 1. Lessening of debt equals wealth. Or, 2: If you have less to owe to others, then it is the same as savings; or, as Benjamin Franklin used to say, a penny saved is a penny earned, and the reality of it all is that we have more to spend and retain wealth, not so much because you have more money, but you have more because less is spent on paying other people your hard-earned dollars.

Now, both sentences convey essentially the same meaning.  The first one, however, is comprised of 5 words. The second one took…many words to communicate the same thought.  Does it matter whether a concise sentence is used, as opposed to one that is not, if the same two convey identically reflective thoughts?

It might make a difference, because of one factor that has not been discussed: Being concise often possesses the added feature of being precise, and precision is important in the accuracy of conveying thought.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are thinking about preparing, formulating and filing 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, there is a dual-key component to preparing the SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability: Be concise, but do not forego length for completeness.

In other words, being concise in order to convey the proper information is important; but, at the same time, do not sacrifice wordiness just because of the limited “boxes” that are provided on SF 3112A.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Postal & Federal Employee Attorney

 

Attorney Representation OPM Disability Retirement: The Grammar of Life

How we speak about the world; the words we use, the vocabulary inserted; and of the commas, hyphens and semicolons inserted; are they merely contained within the language games engaged, or are they reflective of a greater whole within aworld that views reality through the lens of language? Does what we say, how we speak, the words we choose and the accent intoned make a difference – and, if so, how, to whom and to what extent?

Certainly, it shapes how “others” see us, but what of our own self-image and the role we play in the everyday discourse of life?  When we refer to the “grammar of life”, the connotations and insinuations are endless; for, in this age of modernity, where most of us rarely encounter the objective world – except when crossing streets, sitting down for a meal or engaging in private acts otherwise unseen and unheard – but remain within the various “language games” of discourse, thoughts, self-reflection, analysis, contemplation and soliloquys.

Think about it; what amount of time is spent on reading, writing, responding to emails, getting on the computer, viewing, watching a movie, a video, discoursing with someone else, on our smartphones, texting, etc.?  In all such amalgamations of activities just described, we are merely engaging in the grammar of life – of the rules of speaking, emailing, texting, commenting, responding, initiating, etc.  The remainder – of actual engagement in the reality of this “objective” universe we must contend with – has become but a fragment of this surreal, virtual and insular world.

How much time have we spent on “perfecting” or otherwise becoming more skillful in maneuvering through the curves and pitches of this new reality?  Have we mastered the grammar of life, or are we just bumbling through the discourses as if reality is merely a byproduct and encountering the “world” is but a means to an end?

The Grammar of Life is important to recognize, because we spend a great deal more time in it than we recognize or admit to, and we were drawn into that alternative universe without any deliberative intent or acknowledgment of choice.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are considering preparing, formulating and 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, you need to prepare to engage a “special” section of the Grammar of Life when coming up against your Federal Agency, the Postal Service and OPM, when preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement packet.

For, in the end, it is the “ultimate” of putting together a compendium of language games – from how the medical reports and records are presented; to the legal arguments made; to the fashioning of the Applicant’s Statement of Disability on SF 3112A – all constitute and are comprised of the Grammar of Life, and if you have not been preparing throughout your life to take on such a challenge, it may be a good idea to consult with an attorney who has honed the skills of what to say, how to say it, and when to say it, which are the three essential rules in the Grammar of Life.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal Employees: How truly ordinary we are

Every now and again, someone will make that inane statement that seems to fly by in a discourse of overwhelming linguistic overcrowding of so many such pearls of wisdom:  “Oh, we’re all just human.”  Is it a logical tautology in a strict sense?  The “we” referred to is obviously a subject which includes individual human beings; the “human” described and identified, is the same as the “we” previously posited.  So, it is the same as saying:  “Oh, humans are all just human.”

If that were said, instead, would we not turn with a puzzled look of suspicion, as if the statement made was uttered in such a nonsensical term that the meeting of eyes would, or at least should, erupt with uncontrollable laughter like two hyenas cackling at the full moon?  Or, despite the inane nature of meaninglessness, do we all have a shared cultural norm of language, such that we recognize and comprehend such statements?  For, the sentence itself evokes meanings of shared belief: We are all less than perfect; Don’t worry about it, we all do that from time to time; The ordinariness of human frailty allows for each to give another the benefit of the doubt.

It also points to a slightly deeper meaning:  That, in our humanity, how truly ordinary we are.  Yet, isn’t that very ordinariness that which allows for the shared commonality of community?  The fact that we are ordinary is precisely what allows us all to “fit in”, and concurrently, touches upon that darker side of human nature to spur cruelty, arrogance, superiority and disdain.  For, it is the Darwinian predisposition to conquer and defeat, of “showing up” everyone else that we are what we are not created as – being ordinary.

That is why, when a medical condition is revealed, it is the weakness and the vulnerability that suddenly causes others to shy away, to shun, and to harass and prey upon.  Our ordinariness, in combination with the scientifically and anthropologically explained behavior traits of “survival instincts” and aggressive, predatory inclinations, somewhat defines why we are who we are and how, in a society that supposedly advances continually, we still revert back to your roots of caveman-like follies.

Medical conditions depict our ordinariness.  Manifested medical conditions attract the predatory inclinations within, like predisposed genetic and cellular triggers that cannot be stopped.

That is what Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition triggers a need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, need to understand:  That we our human; our humanness reveals vulnerabilities; that such vulnerabilities will manifest themselves in quite ordinary revelations, including medical conditions; and, once medical conditions are revealed, it will likely trigger aggressive and predatory reactions, and attract those very hominids who, by Darwinian triggers of genetic predispositions, will react in an attempt to rise above our humanity.

Agencies act that way; the U.S. Postal Service certainly treats it employees in that thread of behavioral responsiveness.  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, keep in mind that, in filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, how truly ordinary we are is merely another way of recognizing that not only are we just human, but we can also reveal that dark side inherent in all in the rise to subvert just how truly ordinary we are, which only further uncovers how truly ordinary they are, as well.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire