Lawyer Representation for OPM Disability Claims: The Crafted Statement

The crafted statement is the one which is thoughtfully delineated, carefully constructed and put forth with logical force of persuasive content.  It is not the one written in a panic of time-constraints, nor the one rushed with the background admonition screaming in one’s mind that it “must be finished!”

The crafted statement takes into account the evidentiary basis, evaluates the strengths, carves out the weaknesses and applies the legal precedent in appropriate and effective ways.  While repetition is a tool utilized (because, after all, we are dealing with seasoned bureaucrats at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management who are quite used to repetitive content), it nevertheless does not apply such a tool without sound reasoning behind each word of redundancy, but instead places the cadence of words within a rhythmic sentence wrapped in a paragraph of argumentative methodology of persuasive content.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are putting together one’s Federal Disability Retirement packet, to be submitted whether first through one’s Human Resource Office at one’s agency (if the Federal or Postal worker is still an employee, active or not, or if separation has occurred but not for more than 31 days) and then to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management — or, alternatively, if separation has occurred and 31 days or more has passed, but not more than 1 year, then directly to OPM at Boyers, PA — the crafted statement is a “must” in completing SF 3112A, Applicant’s Statement of Disability.

But that is not the only place where the “crafted” statement must be prepared.  Long before SF 3112A is completed, or even contemplated for completion, SF 3112C and its confusing instructions had to be dealt with.  Physicians are not known for their writing abilities; rather, they are (hopefully) great at providing sound medical care, but as for the well-crafted statement, well…some guidance and input from an attorney who  specializes in Federal Disability Retirement Law is the first step in putting together the crafted statement.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Information: Future anticipatory grief

It is the creativity of the human imagination that both excels and dissipates.  But for it, we would not have the advances attained; but because of it, despair and angst presides and dominates.

Other species grapple with the present existential circumstances directed by one’s appetitive nature bundled up by needs and current desires.  Human beings, while embodied by those same animalistic sensations, nevertheless can transcend them for momentary respites of creative endeavors, and engage in constructive, intellectual activities and engagements surpassing the mere needs of present wants and desires.

But that same projection into the future — of what can be achieved, of planning for it, anticipating it — can also rob us of the present pleasure by anticipating that which may never occur, and present a current state of grief that can lead to despair and anxieties needlessly overwhelming despite every logical analysis that the future anticipatory grief may never come to the reality of a person’s present circumstances.

Put in more plain terms, we often worry about things that never come to fruition, but in doing so, we fail to appreciate the pleasurable moments that stand before our very eyes.  Chronic medical conditions tend to do that — of increasing the level of worry for one’s future, one’s ability to sustain that which we have achieved in the past, etc.  Worry, grief, despair and an overwhelming sense of angst and anxiety; these are the ingredients of an anticipatory grief that leads to uncontrollable despair.

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, there comes a point where it becomes clear that one cannot sustain the current environment and circumstances; where there arises an inconsistency between one’s positional duties and the ongoing medical conditions being suffered.

When that point of clarity is seen, then that is the time to begin 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.

Instead of engaging in future anticipatory grief, it is best to consult with an experienced attorney who can allay some of those unfounded fears, and begin to guide you through the great morass of the administrative process called “Federal Disability Retirement Law”.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS & CSRS Medical Disability Retirement: Divided order

Most people are able to tolerate life’s bombardment of stresses by dividing them up, placing them into some semblance of order in priority of tackling them, and bifurcating the individual slices from the aggregate of the whole.  For, if you focus too much upon the forest, as opposed to the individual trees that provide markers for finding your way out, your will become overwhelmed and lost.

It is thus tantamount to the idea of a chaotic rationality, or a messy desk that is disorganized for anyone else but for the one who sits and works at the desk; no one can find anything when asked to look upon the messiness, but query the person who “owns” the desk and he can locate the document immediately.

Similarly, the divided order is where the stresses of life, the messes of living and the chaos of all that must be accomplished in the day-to-day discourse of an individual – from family obligations, work, leisure time, spending time with kids, making a living, paying bills, exercising, keeping up with one’s professional education and obligations – must all be “divided” in order to maintain some semblance of order, and the division itself must be done internally, mentally and within the sphere of private thoughts and unspoken actions; and it is out of the chaos of the world around that the order is imposed by the very division placed within the quietude of one’s consciousness.

Then, of course, complications can occur – that proverbial “last straw that broke the camel’s back” can come sauntering in the dead of night and bring about chaos where chaos once was bridled and restrained.

A medical condition can certainly do that.  For, in many ways, a medical condition is itself chaos defined.  It is an attack not only upon the body, but of the mind as well, and undermines a sense of balance, integrity of self, and self-confidence.

That is why preparing 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 becomes an external imposition of an order divided from within.  It allows for a hopeful look into a future, where one may be able to escape from the chaotic darkness of the deepening morass arising from work, the problems of the Federal Agency or the U.S. Postal facility, and the constant struggle with pain, paranoia or uncontrollable anxiety; and replaces it with a retirement that allows for a basic annuity that extends until age 62, at which point it is recalculated into regular retirement.

A divided order is thus one more step that needs to be attained in attending to one’s medical condition, and preparing, formulating and filing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is often the first next step to reaching that goal.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The repairs we need to get to

It may well be a distinction with only a slight difference, as most such conceptual bifurcations tend to be.  In this day and age, we tend to just gloss over the minutiae which used to delight curious minds and pave the pathway for tenured professorships by way of publishing in esoteric journals of the Gestalt conclusions derived in academia — those slight nuances heretofore unnoticed which are suddenly and miraculously discovered by the keen insights of an eccentric perspective.

Thus, in life do we leave many things behind and set aside, for repairs to be attended to at a later time; and like a trail of dust reflected well by Pig-pen in Peanuts, the junk scattered tells of the character of the person, the inner essence of the personality, and the core of a human being’s wants, desires and tendencies of action or inaction.  At the end of one’s life, what does the junkyard of humanity reflect and represent?

We, each of us, create them; of vast reservoirs of rusting appliances, and often unrepairable masses of collected antiquities, where components for any semblance of working order have become obsolete or otherwise unavailable.  Some of those items scattered behind or left asunder, are the “emotional” ones; others, of family ties broken or damaged so severely as to belie any chance of regeneration, where reincarnation in the next phase of life must muse to consider reinvigoration of animation, whence the lifeless form once showed a promise of a future still bright.

We cannot go back and repair everything we have left aside or behind; there simply is not enough time in life in order to do that.  That’s why we left things undone in the first place; time requires prioritization — otherwise, in attempting to do everything, we end up doing nothing.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who have, in the last few years, felt the progressive decline of health and the consequences of being unable to attend to the most important of issues facing anyone and everyone — one’s own health — the time to prepare and formulate an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, to be filed through one’s own agency (if not yet separated from Federal Service, or otherwise separated for 31 days or more, but not 1 year hence from the date of Federal Separation) and then to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, is likely upon and passed beyond the time of prudence.

Junkyards are common sights; some are openly displayed, while others are hidden behind walls and fences; but it is the scattered debris of things unseen, the physical pain and the emotional scars ignored, which need the greatest of care, attention and repair; and for the Federal or Postal employee — whether under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, who suffers from a medical condition such that the medical condition prevents the Federal or Postal employee from performing all of the essential elements of the Federal or Postal job — it is well beyond the time to prioritize the central themes of life and living, and get those repairs done which we need to get to, and forget about the peripheral concerns which should have been left behind long ago.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: That big oak tree

It is the lasting image we hold onto.  On a warm, sunny day, in the carefree tapestry of a summer month, without cares or worries to haunt or ruminate by; perhaps the gentle sounds of a nearby stream and a cool breeze whispering softly the rustling leaves bright green in their early unravelling, still months away before the harsh August sun turns them into the crinkly brown of late Fall.

We dream of those times; perhaps, there never was a moment when life was without difficulties and lying beneath the shade of that big oak tree allowed for smiles of quiet content and soothing moments of careless thoughts.  But we imagine them; wish for them; embrace the idea of a time in antiquity when horse carriages were aplenty on the streets of dusty horizons, and people actually stopped on street corners and talked of things beyond the introductory inanities of, “How’s it going?” or “What’s up?”

Perhaps, beyond the weather, identifying actual names of family members, their plights and circumstances, and non-malevolent queries about Aunt Sarah and the illegitimate child she had borne in that corner house of shame where untold acts of forbidden pleasures continued to reverberate in the shadows of destitution.  No, there have always been trolls, boils and tragedies throughout time, and whether the youth in modernity espouse a greater utopia of equality and semblance, where Orwell’s prediction of totalitarianism in the destruction of forcing linguistic minimalism comes to fruition, it is the forgotten pimples which remain as the vestiges of lost reality, and the delightful dimples which we embrace to sustain sanity.

That is why that big oak tree — whether real or imagined — remains as the stalwart of memories lost and paradigms extinguished.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who yearn for a day, an hour, or just a minute of repose and reflection under that proverbial oak tree, but 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 the Federal or Postal job — it is important to hold on to the concept and hypothetical construct of that oak tree.

Preparing an effective Federal Disability Retirement application is a good first step; formulating a sound and solid basis to obtain an approval of a OPM Medical Retirement application is an important second step; and filing the completed Federal Disability Retirement application is a confirmation of following good advice and sound judgment, and the fruition of that necessary third step.  Then, waiting upon the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to make a positive decision — well, that is when you will need those sleepy days under that big oak tree, in order to allow for wandering thoughts and carefree summers to abide by in that long wait before OPM makes a decision.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

OPM Disability Retirement: The disservice of an ivory-tower predilection

If everything is bosh, then why care at all?  The swing of the historical pendulum will always revert to self-correct the excesses of a previous generation, and thus was deconstruction merely a natural methodology in the linear castigation of dialectical argumentation in philosophy; but with the likes of Foucault and Derrida, where the entirety of analytical discourse is either a power play or merely a language game neither wedded to truth nor reflecting the objectivity of reality, then why care at all?  If pure relativism rules, why do humans prefer one set of circumstances to another?

The anomaly of the university scheme has come to a penultimate apex of absurdity; we spend an exorbitant amount of borrowed funds to send young men and women to universities which are comprised of ivory-tower aggregations of allegedly thoughtful and learned individuals, but who neither have any real-world experience nor a resume of self-reliant behavior; yet, the whole purpose of doing so is greatly comprised of empowering youth to mature, grow up, be able to handle encounters with the real world and begin on the path to independence and self-reliance.

Is there a contradiction, here?  Once, it was thought that the “university experience” would allow for expansion of a fertile mind, and to ensconce the limitations of childhood and creativity with conceptual expansions beyond a dimension allowable or available within the context of secondary educational institutions; and so, from the time of the Socratic methodology through complex dialectical discourses of questions which would incisively engender expansive consecrations of teleological discourse, the widespread subjects ranging from philosophy, metaphysics, science, ethics, et al., were to form the youthful fodder of generations yet excitable but undisciplined, into a cacophony of aggregated souls for citizenship in countenance for a greater society.  Thus was the concept of a “Great Society” borne.

At some point in the process, however, the absurdity of the insular world of esoteric learning evolved into a self-immolation of higher plateaus of baseless unreality; for, if you will remember, Socrates was always “in the world” and presumably had to make a living, cook, clean for himself, and enter the marketplace — not of ideas, but of real-life food, drink and lice-laden spectacles of repulsive contacts — and engage with the world.  It is such disservice of allowing for the esoteric insularity of the university experience which has deadened the soul, and made a fool of us all.

Contrast that world — of the ivory-tower absurdity — to the world of Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must toil daily despite progressively deteriorating medical conditions.  Such is the “real world”.  Can there be a greater contrast and contradiction in life?  For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who must contend with the harassment, hostility and hourly hum-drum of absurdity by default of mindless Supervisors and Managers who engage in nit-picking and nit-wit behaviors, the preservation of one’s health should be paramount no matter what the cost.  It is never “worth it” to allow for the progressive destruction of one’s health at the cost of continuing on, in a career which is likely coming to an end, anyway.

For Federal and Postal workers who cannot perform one or more of the essential elements of one’s positional duties because of an ongoing, chronic or sudden medical condition, it is time to consider filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits, whether the Federal or Postal employee is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset.

The absurd universe of ivory-tower discourse is not limited merely to the campuses of such institutions; those very Managers and Supervisors who get promoted within the Federal and Postal sectors may be products of such places of “higher learning”, and that may be why they so often have a tin ear when dealing with the Federal or Postal worker who needs to be accommodated because of a medical condition, but where, clearly, such higher degrees of learning did nothing to improve the countenance of human behavior or the decency of how to treat your fellow human being.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire

 

FERS or CSRS Medical Retirement: Of the repugnance in being lectured to

It is not merely a matter of slight irritation or resistance to change; it is an innate, in-bred rebelliousness which is part of the unique character of the American personhood.  People don’t like being lectured to.

Whether emanating from the rugged individualism of pioneers and the manifest destiny taught and ingrained within the historicity of our short background, exploding with a sense of independence refuting prior declarations of conforming wisdom imparted; or, perhaps it is merely the collective DNA of those who would flee from oppression or abandon the security and safety of known normative constraints for greater opportunity and a new start in a strange and alien land; regardless of the origin and foundation, the tone and tonality of a lecture is something we avoid with fastidious and painstaking means of refuting, resisting and expressing aggressive signs of intolerant repugnance.

Thus, when we become critical of that youthful movement during the Sixties, of defying convention and refusing conscription; was it merely a variegated expression of that inborn character trait?  And in modernity, with so-called millennials who shed the proper dress code and act indifferently to the accumulation of wealth, power and material comforts — can it be explained as merely the continuum of a genetic trait we fail to recognize?

Often, however, it is the “how” in a methodology inherent within a lecture, which makes all of the difference.  The substantive content of the “what” that is being said, is likely not the culprit, but rather, the voice inflection which delivers the message.  Perhaps that is even why real-time classroom lectures are becoming a rarity of sorts, because the cumulative decline reflects that very repugnance of having a finger wagged at, but merely in a format more impersonal and confined.

For Federal employees and U.S. Postal workers who are attempting to prepare, formulate and file an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, it behooves the preparer of the application to note the tone and tonality of a Federal Disability Retirement application, as well as (obviously) the substantive content of the packet to be submitted.

Keep in mind the sense of assertiveness running like a quiet thread throughout; for, as the American character refuses to merely stand still while being lectured at, an effective Federal Disability Retirement application, whether the Federal employee or the U.S. Postal worker is under FERS, CSRS or CSRS Offset, must be aware of that genetic disposition to refuse to listen to a narrative which fails to posit an “objective” presentation, as opposed to an irritating voice which “demands”; and it would be a shame if the Federal or Postal Disability Retirement application were to be denied at any stage of the administrative and bureaucratic process, merely because of the repugnance in being lectured to, as opposed to the validity and viability of the substance underlying.

Sincerely,

Robert R. McGill, Esquire