Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: Being “somebody”

Such a phrase cannot pass by without a reference – whether directly or by innuendo – to that famous scene in, On the Waterfront, when Marlon Brando, playing Terry, tells his brother, “I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am…” “Being” somebody presupposes certain antecedents that need to be explicated, like the archaeologist who carefully brushes away the soil and debris concealing the prize of ancient artifacts, lest the unveiled site remains hidden in the mystery troves of undiscovered histories. To begin with, it establishes a sense of existence, [….] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The changing straw

The “straw that broke the camel’s back” is a known idiom that essentially reveals to us the last in the series of incidents or actions that cumulatively result in the destruction of the whole.  What in the series preceding the last straw; of what weight and import; to what significance may be attributable, we rarely focus upon; it is the last one in the series that we focus our attention upon, precisely because we assume that it is the causal connection to the event that conclusively occurs with a finality of actions. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Confidence and Self

When attached to someone other than a “self”, the issue can always allow for suspicion of absence; for, just as we can never fully know someone else, no matter how long we have been acquainted, how many decades married, and how well we have queried, interrogated or otherwise cross-examined, so the capacity of mystery may still remain that surprises us on the other’s deathbed.  What if you were married to someone for half a decade, and every Thursday during the entire blissful state of matrimonial embrace, the significant other went out to purportedly play bridge, or for a “night with friends”, […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The measurable advantage

How does one quantify a concept? It is where the clash of the hypothetical meets the practical, and the worlds collide in silent discourse of battling combat, no less real than armies charging at one another in abandonment of fear, safety or self-preservation. There are advance scouts that test the strength and durability of enemy lines; of tactical maneuvers to outflank and deceive; and even of repeatedly dying for the hill where no strategic purpose is recognized save the pride of the tattered flag that stands last as the reverberating echoes of garbled yells that reflect the platoon’s pride. […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: The limited reservoir

What if the reserve is limited, but we are never informed of it? Perhaps the gods, fate or however the source of creation is defined, has placed a quota upon the extent of that which is expended, but we are never included in the corporate decision-making process – then, what? Death, insanity or just plain debilitation and stoppage of activity; is that what we call “an unfortunate end”? By “reservoir”, we normally mean that natural or artificial accumulation that is used for a specified purpose – the town’s water supply; a special cache of good wines; […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement Lawyer: Competence & Relevance

As applied to a person, the dual concepts refer to the capacity of the individual’s talent and the relational importance to the greater needs of an organization, entity or society; as inserted in a more general sense, it is an evaluation of the connection between import and applicability.  In both senses, it embraces one’s identification within a macro-context of where one fits in.  […] Read More …

OPM Medical Retirement Law: How Does One Know the Age?

It cannot be by counting wrinkles, or the number of gray hairs; for, some people never develop them, and in any event, new methodologies of plastic surgery, hair dyes and other cosmetic creativities can easily override such superficial eruptions of telltale signs. Photographs can no longer be evidence of aging, for airbrushing and digital modifications can dispense with such irritating characteristics. […] Read More …

Federal OPM Disability Retirement: Life’s Spare Parts

They are left as insignificant cast asides, unused and unusable until an urgency of need mandates their sudden relevance; and in a changed moment, their utility determines the worth and value of existence and retention in the clutter of overabundance. Like the spare tire that is never used, spare parts imply potential need, but the actualization of relevance occurs only when necessity dictates; otherwise, they are like the proverbial bench warmer on a sports team replete with talent and competitive excess. […]

 
Read More …

Delaying the Filing of Your OPM Disability Retirement Application

Delay temporarily suspends for a time in the future; sometimes, at the cost of immediacy of pain, but the human capacity to ignore and obfuscate allows for procrastination to be an acceptable act of non-action. But certain issues defy the control of delay; medical conditions tend to remind us of that, where attempted suspension of dealing with the pain, the progressively debilitating triggers, or the panic attacks which paralyze; they shake us to the core and pursue a relentless path which betrays procrastination. […] Read More …