Federal Disability Retirement: Logical Consistency

For even the general population, it used to be that “logical consistency” mattered.  To be “inconsistent” showed a semblance of unreliability, and even of suspicion of truthfulness.  The difference between mere “consistency” as opposed to “logical consistency” is one that demarcates between living a life based upon principles and holding contrary opinions simultaneously.

Thus, a person may live inconsistently — a pastor who preaches fidelity to marriage but is himself a philanderer — but live with great logical consistency in expounding upon his theological belief-system.

In argumentation, the “weak link” is both the logic of the statements posed as well as the consistency of opinions held.  In a Federal Disability Retirement case, “logical consistency” is based upon the appropriateness of the statements made, the medical conditions asserted and the laws which apply in order to meet the legal criteria to become eligible for Federal Disability Retirement benefits.

Mere “consistency” is not enough — i.e., to have health condition, to be unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s job, to be in chronic pain, etc. “Consistency” may get you a step closer to an approval from OPM, but it is “Logical Consistency” — the arguments made, the evidence produced and submitted and the requirements met in a Federal or Postal Disability Retirement case — which will cross over into an approval for Federal Disability Retirement.

Consult with a FERS Attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law, lest consistency alone fails to get you far enough and logical consistency awakens the slumber that results in an approval from OPM.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire
Federal Lawyer exclusively representing Federal & Postal employees to secure their Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

 

FERS Medical Disability Retirement: Ostensibly

It is a funny word, in many respects; for, it presumes and assumes what may not actually be the case.  The word, “Ostensibly”, is used to describe that which is apparently so, or purportedly assumed, but may not actually be so.

Thus, one might say of an individual who is wearing clothes appearing to suggest that he or she works in a blue-collar job, and perhaps wears a tool-belt which suggests and confirms him/her to be such, that “he is ostensibly a carpenter”.  How does the adverb qualify the noun?   Because we don’t actually know, do we?

By his appearance and the fact that the individual carries around a tool belt which contains, perhaps, a saw, a hammer, a nail gun and other pertinent and revealing instruments indicating what a carpenter would require, we make an assumption that he is “ostensibly” a carpenter.

Now, it would be strange if you were to ask the individual what his profession was, and he confirmed that yes, he was a carpenter, then to state to a friend later on that “Joe is ostensibly a carpenter”, because if you have confirmed that the person “Joe” in reality is a carpenter and there is no longer an assumption, then to apply the word “ostensibly” would be rather odd — unless, of course, you thought that he was lying and that he only wore the tool belt to fool you, or was a half-wit who was engaging in “make believe” that he was a carpenter, etc.

In other contexts, the term “ostensibly” often applies, as well — as when the U.S. Office of Personnel Management denies a Federal Disability Retirement case and makes a multitude of arguments which, in the end, implies that you are merely “ostensibly” disabled (although they will never use the word itself).

For, what OPM is saying in a Federal Disability Retirement case under FERS in denying the Federal employee’s application for Federal or Postal Disability Retirement benefits, is that while you may allege to be disabled or unable to perform one or more of the essential elements of your job, you are actually not disabled.

If that happens, you will need to contact a disability attorney who specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law; for, you will need more than an attorney who “ostensibly” does Federal Disability Retirement Law — rather, one who is, in reality and in fact, an attorney who specializes in it.

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 Disability Retirement Law: The Grand Plan

It would certainly be nice if we all possessed one — set in stone, written and accompanied at our birth, mapping out our future and showing each of us what steps to take.  Perhaps, some would interpret such a fantasy as one inviting totalitarianism, and a rebellion would be incited based upon the notion that we all should be entitled to liberty — to have the freedom to choose our own destiny.  Yes, but look where that has gotten us.

The “Grand Plan” — that plan of all plans, the roadmap for our lives, the destiny-setting details already fated without our input; now, who wouldn’t want such a treasure trove?  There are, indeed, some individuals who seem to possess and follow such a map, while the rest of us struggle to “find our way” or to “know what to do”.  The world is full of individuals who fall in the category of “undecideds”.  We refer to them with euphemisms like, “He is a late bloomer”, “She’s taking off a year to get her bearings”, or “He just hasn’t found himself”, etc.

To paraphrase a character from an old movie, “I can’t even figure out how to use the can opener; how am I to know what to do with the rest of my life?”  As an old Chinese proverb states, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”.  Take life in increments; begin with small projects and build upon them.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have encountered medical conditions which have become an impediment to “The Grand Plan”, you may want to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under FERS.

Each of us has a contribution to make; each of us has plans for the future; but when a medical condition necessitates a Federal or Postal employee to alter or modify that “Grand Plan” of a career, you may need to consider Federal Disability Retirement as an added feature of that Grand Plan which never appeared when the birth certificate was first written.

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.

 

FERS Disability Retirement: The facade of happiness

There are weather-related “fronts” — of “cold fronts” and “warm fronts” bringing in the freshness of change, a sudden modulation of temperature and a gust of windy hollows echoing through valleys and down into the chill of our bones.  They change the temperature of the air around us, and often moods are impacted as well.

Then, there are also “fronts” of human characteristics — of “putting on a brave front”; of making a “frontal assault”; and of these latter, we realize that there is always something behind, like the wizard concealed by the curtain undrawn.  We all of us put on “fronts” — and like the weather fronts that fool us at first that Spring may be nigh or Winter’s discontent may be around the corner, the “brave” front may be just a put-on, just like the “frontal assault” is likely a ruse to deploy one’s forces all at once to meet the enemy head on.

Of all the fronts, it is the facade of happiness that fools the most, even one’s self, into thinking that contentment is the amassing of objects surrounding, careers advancing and problems left avoiding.  The facade of happiness works well for a season, so long as the fool who buys the bridge of smiles never lifts the veil an inch to peer into the darkness of a soul in anguish.  Happiness is a fleeting state of existence; here for a moment today, it vanishes like the spirits of yesterday’s underworld where gods were chosen to wander the earth in ashen looks of greying days.

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 facade of happiness has likely been an essential tool for survival in this past year, if not longer.

It allows for the Federal or Postal worker to put on a “brave front”, to fool the others for a time — somewhat like the cold front that descends upon the south in the middle of summer to remind one that change is in the air, or the “architectural front” that gives an old building a facelift and draws people inward as an inviting new asset.

But don’t be fooled; for the facade of happiness can never hide for long the suffering beneath, and for the Federal or Postal worker, preparing a Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, is often the first real step towards an abiding and real happiness, as opposed to the fake smile that conceals beneath the facade of happiness.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Disability Retirement under FERS/CSRS: Of bad people

Is there any good in people, anymore?  Is it even relevant to distinguish between “good” and “bad”?  Yes, yes – I know; it is a devious thing to entitle a piece with one concept, then begin the discussion by embracing its antonym – a device often used by newspapers, periodicals, and short story writers of the dubious set and genre of unfashionable alternatives.  But more to the point:  in a universe and culture where moral judgments are no longer acceptable, and where equivalence of distinctions have been concretized except by religious zealots and society’s cultish outcasts, can the contradistinctions between the two have any significance or relevance for conceptual paradigms incommensurate with prior such models (to borrow a well-worn phrase by Thomas Kuhn) in order to retain any meaningful posit?

There is an inherent acknowledgment that if we ascribe a negative principle or connotation to a word, that two things must necessarily denote a contingent precedent:  First, that it is distinguishable from everything else in the universe (otherwise, if it cannot be, then everything becomes nothing, and therefore loses its efficacy of meaning); and Second, that its opposite must embrace an aura of equally virulent affirmation, lest the antonym be nothing more than a synonym of choice.

But if “goodness” is a mere societal convention constructed in the artifice of false religious histories, where idols, gods and angels once occupied now have formed a continent of mythologies no longer believed in but for those quaint societies in outlands visited by tourists who purchase trinkets for show and Instagram opportunities, then being “bad” cannot have any ascription of meaningful prose, anymore.

“Goodness” meant something, at one point; there were common threads throughout, and societal values could agree implicitly, without vocalized necessitation of explanatory expositions, and the questioning itself would bring quizzical looks of suspicion and concern, not only for the finite soul for mortality’s sake, but because to query of such self-evident devices was to presume a sort of insanity manifested against the tides of normalcy.

In modernity, of course, the antithesis is accepted:  to make a moral judgment is to be intolerant, and that is the greatest crime of all.  Yet, that in and of itself is an anomaly, because as sins are presumed to be no longer fashionable because of the Biblical context surrounding, so “good” and “evil” (or “badness”) are no longer acceptable terms.  We cannot judge, because judging requires a prerequisite of an intolerant nature, and tolerance is the reflective definition of goodness in modernity.  So, we must suffer evil in silence, and remain neutral as to the angels who visit us when misfortune arrives.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must suffer through the employment arena knowing the hogwash of neutrality where we never judge and never appear intolerant, we witness the height of hypocrisy in the behavior of the “good” people against those with medical conditions and disabilities.

And so we have to prepare an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, because to remain at the Federal Agency or U.S. Postal Service would, again, turn the conceptual artifices upside down, where the “good” have been deemed no longer so, and the “bad” are those who seek to be accommodated, or stick around too long and irritate the “good” people of the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal Service, which is a “bad” thing that “good” people should not be allowed to do, because it is a good bad thing in a bad good world.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement for Federal & Postal Employees: Fear Untethered

It is of evolutionary advantage for a healthy dose to allow; what amount, whether it can be quantified, and to what extent instinct should be restrained before intersecting rage and reactive violence meet, is a question, a puzzle and a conundrum.  An animal in fear is both broken and dangerous, and the corollary of the two sides of a singular coin reveals the thin line between innate survival instincts which we attempt to linguistically describe, but are at a disadvantage precisely because words are ultimately inadequate in reflecting reality.

Tethering our fears is a lifelong process for everyone; the balance between healthy bridling and repressive dangers where outlets are disallowed but when expression of ignored or unattended trauma may erupt in later discourses of life and leniency of self, validates the delicacy of our sensitive natures.  To be overbearing or detachedly impervious; to allow for expression beyond therapeutic value, or to blithely shut down all channels of thought and numbing emotions of eruptive tremblings of sobbing heaves; the tightrope of life leaves little room for error on either side of the equation.

We often speak in terms of “how much” and “what amount”, as if human frailty can be mixed in a crockpot of ingredients thrown by whim of recipe; a dash of solvent emotion here, a teaspoon of corrective stoicism over here.  The reality of the situation is that fear rules most of us; we just never allow the untethering of it to be revealed too soon, for greater fear of being found out, like the emperor whose clothes we knew to not exist, but were too cowardly to admit, until the boldness of a child took the lead in shattering the facade of our own making.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the emotion of fear is a known quantity.  Little fiefdoms and feudal fares of power plays occur as daily soap operas unraveling despite the bureaucracy of rules, regulations and administrative forces of containment.

Then, when the Federal or Postal employee begins to suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition begins to threaten and impact the Federal or Postal employee’s ability or capacity to perform all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal positional duties, the fears which were once effectively tethered begin to uncoil, as future uncertainty and suspicion of motives in the unexplained actions of others and the agency whispers begin to foment those recesses of evolutionary cries for survival and rage.

Medical conditions tend to do that:  they feed upon themselves, and exponentially magnify and exacerbate those very fears we were previously able to restrain, contain and maintain.  It is important in the time of fear and untethering of emotions, to seek wise counsel and obtain some direction in preparing, formulating and filing for 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.

For, in the end, fear untethered is like the pinnacle of the forgotten nightmare, when the abyss of sweat and trembling reaches a climax of unknown proportions, and when screams are no longer heard, pleas no longer considered, and the grace of angels flying beyond into the netherworld of residues where the golden dust of forgiveness is sprinkled afar.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Hangman’s Knot

The perfect knot is the most effective, and development of its features occurred over time through a science of art and an artistic employment of science.  The placement of the knot behind which ear; the number of coils before they became an impediment; and the avoidance, at all costs, of trespassing upon superstitious beliefs and potentially supernatural reverberations — these were all taken into account in perfecting the science of the art.

Its corollary, the art of the science, disregarded the efficacy of the knot; it was only the former which concerned itself with an objective evaluation of the results after each occurrence.  Like parachuters who pack and fold their own devices with a systematic routine of sprinkled superstitions, the hangman would often approach his craft with a religiosity and fervency of monotony such that any detour from the iconoclasm of repetition could delay or abandon the anointed time of impending doom.

In modernity, of course, any discussion concerning the hangman’s noose turned into a historicity of adages and proverbial wisdom; we construct our own knots, like the beds we make in which we must sleep, and the messes we create which we direct our children to clean up.

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 the Federal or Postal positional duties, the issue of when to file, how to file, the whys and whereabouts must always be taken into account; and like the hangman’s noose which is coiled slowly and deliberately, the Federal or Postal worker who prepares for the inevitably end must take care in the preparation and application for submission and filing.

It is, in the end, only the superficial features of the world which change; the essence of everything substantive remains constant, and that is precisely the point of Plato, Aristotle and the entire linear heritage of Western Philosophy — that the underlying meaningfulness of the world around us is that which is captured in truth.  And, like the hangman’s knot, what we do in preparing for the event of a lifetime is just as important as the incident itself, and that is why preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is essential to securing a future of stability and security, where the process is just as crucial as the substance underlying.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The U.S. Department of Health & Human Sacrifice

Does modernity reflect progress?  And, more to the point, by whose definition do we apply the standard of “progress”?  Does mere movement or change constitute advancement, or do we fool ourselves by the proverbial content of shuffling the chairs on the deck of a sinking ship?  Each generation believes fervently that the previous one represents an archaic mode of static thought and stale fashions, and that youth itself somehow supersedes the necessity for any generational transfer of wisdom or insight.

In former times, certain societies would offer the best and the beautiful as human sacrifice to the gods of fate, in order to please, appease and gain favor.  In current times, we do the same, but cheat the gods by offering less than the healthy ones, and instead give to the winds of fate the decrepit, deteriorating and destroyed individuals who no longer contribute fully to society, thinking that by shedding ourselves of the rabble and remains of shorn vestiture, the favor of formidable fate will be attained for future payment in place of delayed gratification.  Why is it that health and human sacrifice have become terms of mutual exclusivity?

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers, the Department of Health and Human Sacrifice has become the largest entity of bureaucratic morass, employing more people than all other agencies combined.  It is the place where “health” is disregarded, and while lip service is paid to “accommodations” and those with disabilities, the reality of it is that such Federal and Postal workers are thrown down over the cliff as fodder for human sacrifice.

Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who suffer from a medical condition, such that the medical condition no longer allows for fully embracing all of the essential elements of the positional duties required by the Federal agency or the U.S. Postal Service, know well that the Department of Health and Human Sacrifice exists for them.  Whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, the relegation to this last bastion for infidels is the secret of modernity, kept in whispers where corridors of power and privacy prevail before being pushed down the chute of despair.

The only escape from such fated sacrifice is neither a replacement lamb nor a plan of refuge, but to prepare, formulate and file for an effective Federal Disability Retirement application through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  For, the Department of Health & Human Sacrifice was created under the guise of protecting the general public, when in fact its very existence is to advance the horrors as told by a generation of Orwellian drones; but, then, that is from a previous generation no longer relevant to current residents of modernity.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire