FERS Disability Retirement under OPM: The Difficult and Complex Case

Not every difficult case is complex; and, vice versa, not every complex case is difficult.

The “difficulty” of a case may be inherent or external — of problems within the body of the case, or some external elements which impacts upon the case.  Complexities can be qualitative or quantitative — arising from some element of a case which makes it more than the “run-of-the-mill” issue, or influenced by a multitude and variety of issues to be resolved.

Almost all cases have some inherent difficulties, and the complexity of a case can often be simplified by systematically resolving some of the inherent difficulties presented.  Often, a “complex” case is merely a matter of perspective — where the client believes in complications which in reality have no impact upon the case.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, and which triggers the need to file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, an initial consultation with an OPM Disability Lawyer who specializes in FERS Disability Retirement Law will often ferret out the complexities, define the difficulties, and simplify the issues to be resolved.

Every case has difficulties and complexities, but you should make sure that they are “real” ones, and not merely born out of not knowing the issues which are relevant.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS Disability Retirement for Federal and Postal Workers: Beaten

It is a strange word.  In the past tense, it implies that nothing can be done about it.  When applied to an individual, it describes a haggard portrait of profound hopelessness.  It is the past participle of the verb “beat”, but when the “en” is added, it has a modern connotation of hollowness, of a sense of utter futility and nihilism that cannot be overcome.

Did Sisyphus have that perspective?  As he rolled the boulder up onto the next and endless precipice, did his shoulders sag, his head and eyes remain downcast, and was he forlorn and without hope?  Of course, Camus refashioned the anti-hero into such a figure of futility, which is what existentialism declares life to be: Meaninglessness with the freedom to choose meaning; futility from which manufactured human activity can originate.  Whether that can actually be accomplished, or whether Camus, Sartre and the whole bunch of those French Existentialists who sat around at street cafes and deliberated about the times of dangers and rebellion during the Nazi occupation, now seems like a far-off dream.

Today brings about a new set of problems.  No longer from an occupation force, nor even an identifiable enemy; in modernity, the daily stresses of technology — of simply trying to make a living; of the constant barrage of information; of demands in daily life which stretches the ends of human capacity; and then, when a medical condition intrudes, interrupts and interferes, it all seems to be so overwhelming that we suddenly feel “beaten”.

The beaten individual is the one who has reached his or her limit of human capacity; it is when the intersection of life’s demands exceeds one’s tolerance for sustaining the stresses of everyday life.

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 position, it may be well past the time that one should have, but still must, file for Federal Disability Retirement.  Do not wait until the term “beaten” applies; instead, try to beat the beaten, and consult with a FERS Disability Attorney who specializes in preparing an effective OPM Disability Retirement application, lest you hear someone whisper to another, “Oh, that person — he/she is beaten.”

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Present Priorities

Present priorities differ from past ones, if only they have now passed as being present and thus are no longer priorities, as it is often the circumstances as presented in the “now” which matter most to us, as past priorities have lessened in terms of impact, significance, relevance and current importance.

The present priorities that were in existence a decade ago may no longer be the same priorities of the present of today; for, today’s present priorities have changed with the alterations of time, the focus of growth and maturity and their impact upon one another; and it is the context of today, the circumstances of the current period, that matter most to us.

Yesterday, the present priorities may have been the dinner or social function for that evening, or the open vacancy for this or that opportunity.  Then, a major “other” event occurs — perhaps the birth of a child or the death of a friend or relative — and suddenly, the priorities that seemed of such importance and consequence just yesterday, may seem trivial and insignificant today.

Medical conditions, too, seemingly have such an impact — of putting upon us a “reality check” that fades everything else into mere background noise.  What does it matter how one’s career is going, if you come home each night exhausted and unable to enjoy even the opening sonata of a symphonic masterpiece? Or if all of one’s weekend is merely to recover from the week’s fog of endless work, or of vacations and sick leave exhausted to endure constant and incessant testing and treatment regimens that leave no time for pleasure?

Whatever the present priorities and how they differ from past present priorities, one thing is clear: One’s health remains constant throughout, and preparing, formulating and filing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be submitted ultimately to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, reveals that the present priorities of the most important priorities always endure, and that must always include one’s health and well-being, as the application for an OPM Medical Retirement is more evidence that the focus upon past priorities must be re-thought in order to accommodate the present priorities which are of greater importance and significance now that one’s health is at stake.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Attorney for OPM Disability Retirement Claims: The gist of it all

When do we want the “gist” of something?  The essence or the “main idea”; or to filter it into the short version, somewhat like the “spark notes” of the thing of which we seek.  Is it appropriate if a student is sitting through a boring lecture and raises his or her hand and asks politely, “I have an activity to attend this afternoon. Can you just give us the gist of what you’re trying to say?”

Or of the greater meaning of life itself — you know, that grand design that everyone is seeking, which is why so many people believe in such things as the “Da Vinci Code” or, more recently, “The Chamberlain Key” — codes to codices that reveal the heart of ancient secrets lost in the trash heaps of history or otherwise forgotten because of wars, famines and changes of the proverbial guards.

Why is it that such “keys” must always be “ancient”, and shrouded in the mystery of “secret societies” who will murder in the dead of night to protect the gist of it all?  How does that reflect upon modernity — that we are too superficial to invent or discover such codes?  Or, is it merely that the cynicism of scientism and the reliance upon the physical universe, the influence of British Logical Positivism and the Age of Science have all subsumed such romanticizing of mysteries beyond the age of reason?

In this fast-paced society where technology surpasses by lightening speed the insular world of secret societies and the unraveling of veiled codices, what we want in the end is the gist of it all — to bypass the tangential details and get to the heart of the matter.  We have little or no time for anything else.

So, 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, what is the gist of it all?  In other words, what is the essence of a Federal Disability Retirement annuity?

Well, to begin with, under FERS (which most people are, as the dinosaur of CSRS or even CSRS Offset have now been relegated to the Pleistocene Era of Federal employment) the Federal or Postal employee must have at least 18 month of Federal Service.  Second, we must be able to prove that a medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing at least one, if not more, of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job.  And third, the medical condition must last a minimum of 12 months.

Now, this latter bit of a requirement is often confused with thinking that a Federal or Postal worker must therefore wait for at least 12 months after the onset of a medical condition before the Federal or Postal employee can file for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.  No, that is not the case — for, most doctors and treating medical professionals can render a prognosis as to the chronicity of the medical condition, and that is all that is needed.

Of course, that is precisely the problem of getting merely the “gist of it all” — because, in the end, the annotated version of an important text, issue or pool of information can rarely be filtered down into a cup that can be gulped with one swallow, but is often an ocean full of undercurrents and dangers consumed with sharks, whales and stingrays — sort of like the metaphor of life itself, only more complex because preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is a complicated administrative process full of bureaucratic pitfalls that cannot ultimately be confined by the gist of it all.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement: Benefitting from doubt

What does it mean to “give” one the “benefit of doubt”?  Is it something that is granted automatically, or must one “earn it” through labor, circumstances or sheer luck?  What are the elements that lead to it, and why are some people accorded such grace while others are treated with impunity of disregard?

Take the following hypothetical:  You are at a party with friends and acquaintances; you sit with a number of people, and among them are a very close friend and confidante, as well as a mixture of those whom you somewhat dislike and otherwise consider an “undesirable” of sorts.  Well, let’s be honest – you despise especially this one person, and hope daily that that individual will die a horrible death in a slow, agony-filled manner.  You may even daydream of torture and mayhem, and how your laughter at such pleas for mercy fills your inner soul with delight so devious that it even frightens you to consider your own meanness and ferocity of unsympathetic attitude towards this one subhuman miscreant.

During a lively conversation – we shall call the “friend” X, and the one whom you wish the horrible and slow torture ending in death, Y – the former (X) says something that refers to you in an obscure and somewhat polysemic context.  You pause and consider; then dismiss it; for, as a friend, you give the benefit of the doubt that the utterance was said innocently and without any underlying meaning of harm or tincture of criticism.  Then, later, Y says something as well –  perhaps a reference to you, your group of people or your team effort in a project – and with obvious sarcasm, says, “Yeah, right”.

Now, had X said the same thing, it might have been taken as a joke; but when Y says it, you burn with inner turmoil and it is just a miracle upon a hair’s breath that you don’t throw the contents of your drink across the circular gathering, right at the individual’s face.  For Y, you failed to give the “benefit of the doubt”.  Why?  Is it because such granting of unconditional grace must necessarily be encircled by a context of relational warmth, and lack of it provides grounds for withdrawing or withholding any such unilateral mandate?  Is the spectrum of doubt’s convergence and emergence correlated to the level and extent of trust and friendship already established, or can it also occur in the vacuum of dealing with strangers?  As to the latter – dealing with strangers – we often coin as an act of the foolish or resulting from innocence and inexperience, don’t we?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers considering the option of filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through one’s Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, then on to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the issue of giving various individuals the “benefit of the doubt” will come up in numerous contexts and encounters – from discussing one’s medical issues with a Supervisor or Manager, to informing the Human Resource Department of one’s Federal agency that one intends upon filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits; and such encounters, by necessity, will often involve that nagging feeling as to whether to grant (or not) the benefit of the doubt.

In the end, “doubt” is more likened to an intuition – like the hair reflexively standing on the nape of one’s neck as a warning against impending danger – and has more to do with our Darwinian background than any societal conventions we deem applicable, and when dealing with Federal agencies, it is often prudent to not grant that ultimate grace of unilateral conformity – and, instead, to withhold giving the benefit of the doubt in almost all circumstances.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement from OPM: The key

It is both a tool of utility in order to gain entrance and accessibility to an otherwise abrupt encounter with an obstacle barring further forward progress, as well as a well-worn metaphor appropriately applied to miracles, magic and moments of mandatory martyrdom.  It is a wonder that a slight defect in the metallic shaving of the implement can allow for the turning of it, and opening into the entranceway, but for that additional indentation; or of a barcode smudged which refuses to make an allowance.  In either case, whether as a physical tool or an electronic pass embedded in the plastic sheen of society’s muse, what it opens is the foundation for its very existence.

Accessibility is the key, or so we are told; and the key, well, that is what must be sought, earned or otherwise stolen by stealth or whatever other means of perpetuity engaged in order to embrace the incantations of eternal youth.  It is that mythological “fountain of youth”, after all, which we seek; and the key to gain entrance into the club of rubbing elbows can only be obtained by smarts, good looks and intellectual prowess.

Time was that we were all sold on the idea that education and hard work was the “key” to success; but then, it turns out that the system itself was somehow unfair and weighted in favor of one class or group over another, and so the tinkering began, to right wrongs which otherwise wrongfully righted past and historical wrongs, by asserting rights previously unknown to have existed, but which now could be miraculously discovered in the subtext of originalism where intentionality could be denoted through greater concentration and willpower to discern.

The greater key, then, became who you know, what levers of power could be pulled, and the insider trading of such greater knowledge, while all the time throwing breadcrumbs to the greater masses in order to appease the rumblings of starvation times yet to arrive.

It is always a key of which we seek; whether by force, by protest, by assertion of rights unearned; and when we lose them, we scream with frustration at the unfairness of the gods of fate whom we turn to only when destiny denies the promised predetermination of an outcome-based society lost forever in the hollow utterances of vote-getters, who also seek the public arena of keys revealed in goodie-bags dispensed with public funds.  For, when doors close and open by devices of mysterious barcodes, the suspicion that something else is going on behind such closure and obstacles to accessibility somehow reverberates with a truth left undeniable.

The truth is, there is no single “key” to life’s puzzles or perennial questions remaining without answers; life itself is too wide an expanse, too great a concept, and too generalized a thought to allow for a device to insert into an emptiness of soul in order to turn and open for a final solution to a door otherwise unopened but by those who expend the greater effort.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who seek the “key” to questions unanswered in 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, there is no “master key” to uncover in order to understand the complex administrative process in such a greater bureaucratic morass.

Instead, the fundamental key to first determine is to prove that the medical condition suffered by the Federal or Postal employee prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties.  From there, the unlocking of inaccessibility will be determined by the key of legal criteria, opened only by those who possess the barcode of cogent argumentation upon uncovering the keyhole allowing for a nexus between the medical condition and the legal penumbras of technical application.  And, like all keys, it is that extra little shaving and indentation which will allow for accessibility, and turn the tides of a life otherwise barred.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The perfection of nothingness

The advantage of nothingness over the clutter of everything is that the former – despite lacking any characteristic of anything concrete, or perhaps because of it – retains and reflects an aura of perfection.  It is perhaps a puzzle to consider perfection in that which represents vacuity, but think about it:  It is the figment and filament of negation which can represent the penultimate artifice of unsullied brightness; everything that is in being, can be found fault with, but nothing that exists cannot be prosecuted for imperfection.

That is why Anselm’s Ontological Argument for God’s existence is so deliciously irrelevant:  lacking any “real-world” content, the irrefutable perfection of its linguistic construct allows us to believe with such irredeemable faith in the a priori nature untouched and unable to be deconstructed in a world where everything is otherwise unmasked as either superficial, virtual or unreal.

The prefatory acceptance of the major premise – “That than which nothing greater can be thought of” – is itself of such irrelevant tripe (the substantive reference to the content, not the animal’s innards) that we involuntarily warm our hands and lick our lips before pouncing with predatory glee upon such sophomoric tropes (easy to exchange the “i” for an “o”).  And then we turn to our projects, as Heidegger would describe, in order to forget the unmasked and unveiled reality of our present concerns, because procrastination is the epitome of acknowledging our unmanageable souls and lives of decrepit conduct unlike the angels of yore.

There is nothing but imagination to feed our tired souls, anymore.  This isn’t even a “postmodern” world; instead, it is a “post-cynical” world.  We have unmasked every hero, dissected anything of value, and demeaned all content and reduced it all to mere materialism.  The only thing left for us to elevate to a heightened sense of ecstasy is nothingness itself.  Only if it survives in the corridors of our own minds and creative imaginations, can it be considered perfection.  For, in the real world, nothing that is of value can be trusted, and everything else remains but nothingness.

That is why, for the Federal or Postal employee who continues to procrastinate his or her Federal Disability Retirement filing, the perfection of nothingness often remains as the final hint of hope.  For, so long as one never tries, one can never fail.  Perfection in the security of not, is the epitome of safety.  By failing to file and remaining miserable in the pain and agony of one’s medical condition, the hope of future filing remains as the hint of hope for the future.  But the problem with such an approach – as with Anselm’s argument for the existence of God – is that we live in a world of real pain, real deterioration, and real destiny.

Preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application by the Federal or Postal employee requires a “next step” forward in order to move beyond the perfection of nothingness.

In the trite parlance of ongoing modernity, there is never anything gained if nothing is attempted, but for the Federal employee or U.S. Postal worker who suffers 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 positional duties, the agony of continuing in a job which is self-destructive, is by its very nature an admission that perfecting that artifice of nothingness is nothing more than delaying the reality of an uncertain future where the perfection of nothingness will gain nothing more than the reality of nothingness, which is nothing to hope for.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire