FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: Little battles fought

It is the minor skirmishes of life that maintain the vitality of everyday existence; they are fought in preparation for the greater battles and campaigns.  That is why a ‘strategy’ is important; otherwise, taking the same hill countless times in a day leads one to wonder what the greater plan is.  For, futility and the sense of meaninglessness are what defeat any motivation to continue. […] Read More …

Lawyer Representation for Federal Disability Applications: “Too busy to…”

It is the accent and the inflection upon a syllable that sometimes makes all the difference.  Take the following examples:  “I am too busy to…”  “I am too busy, too.”  The extra consonant in the last word makes all the difference; for, in the former statement, if it is stated in response to a call for help, it dismisses the request by informing the other person that one is simply unable to offer any assistance.  In the latter response, the subtlety of the answer should not be overlooked. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The numerical veil

Statistical constructs indicate group shifts and movements; numbers, based upon controlled samplings, provide the substantive fodder for analysis of trends and patterns of population deviancies. There is, however, the question of the incommensurate nature between mathematical paradigms and linguistic application; stated more simply, Do numbers hide more than reveal, and can anything be extrapolated from them and interpreted in terms we can understand and comprehend? To a winner of the lottery, the numerical phantasm “one in a billion” […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement Pension Annuity: Today, life is good…

It is the set of 3 periods at the end of the sentence, identified in grammatical terms as an ellipses, allowing for a trailing thought or a hesitation of motive, and here which differentiates from a singular finality of a period postulated to prevent a purposive punctuality of partition from a postscript. If the last two periods were extracted and deleted, the delineation would connote a declarative assertion, unhesitant in conclusion, and confident in execution. With those two additions, it implies and denotes hesitancy, a pause leaving the impression of loss or lack of confidence, and unable to determine the cogency of opinion formulated but for the ellipses. […] Read More …

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement Help: Caught in the world in-between

It is a purgatory of sorts; of the netherworld where twilight is a constancy of confusion, and when neither dawn nor dusk, between summer and winter, or of cognitive clarity and conundrums of confusion reach the pinnacle of an infinite maze.  Do we prefer clarity to confusion, or the light of dawn to a period “just before”, […] Read More …

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Choosing Battles

Human Resources departments within agencies are set up in order to perform a multitude of services for the employees who comprise the agency itself, and to that extent, the originating idea which constitutes the founding purpose is a noble one. For whatever reason, however, the foundational principles in the course of an evolving department will often get muddled and lost; the driving principle behind a concept merely gets in the way of a paycheck; the employees for whom the department was founded become the “problem” and an adversarial relationship between the H.R. Department and its employees arises.
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OPM Disability Retirement: Those Days of Mental Clarity

One often remarks that we live for such days; when energy, motivation, clarity of mind and enthusiasm for life surges through our veins; one’s outlook is positive, the mystery of life is resolved, and no challenge is too onerous to overcome. But then the mundane monotony of repetitive thoughtlessness returns; and life is back to the normalcy of day-to-day living. […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Options

Often, in life, we believe that others walk around with esoteric knowledge unavailable and unreleased; it is considered from the viewpoint of what is, in philosophy, identified as an “epistemological privilege” — that as others have private thoughts which are inaccessible to us, so there must be a vast array of knowledge similarly situated. Experience teaches us to become suspicious of others, as somehow the inner workings of power and wealth tend to bypass most of us, and the list of uninvited guests […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Wait Processing Time

What is the time it takes to process an OPM Disability Retirement application? Most of it depends upon the delays naturally encountered throughout the process itself: the length of time doctors take in compiling the medical information requested; preparation and formulation of one’s Federal Disability Retirement forms, including the Statement of Disability; how long the agency Human Resource Office takes (is it through a local H.R. Office, or through a centralized district human resource office; for Postal employees, everything it submitted through the H.R. Shared Services office in Greesnboro, North Carolina); […] Read More …

OPM Form SF 3112C and the Sufficiency of the Physician’s Statement

Confusing necessity and sufficiency is always a precarious matter. That which is necessary may not be sufficient for a given purpose, and failure in understanding such a fundamental distinction can be fatal to a Federal Disability Retirement claim. SF 3112C requires that a physician complete and provide essential medical information in the pursuance of a Federal Disability Retirement application. The form itself — SF 3112C — is the vehicle by which the medical documentation is obtained. […] Read More …