Disability Retirement from OPM: Somehow, All problems suspended

We all seek those moments, don’t we?  A period of respite, that time of suspended ecstasy where all of life’s problems are suspended, if only for a temporary span in order to regain our equilibrium, retake the focus lost and remake the moments wasted.  Isn’t that why people become obsessed with silly arguments on the Internet, in Facebook confrontations and twitter feeds, … ? […] Read More …

Disability Retirement for Federal Workers: Of other’s misery

It may give one a sense of short-term satisfaction; sort of like Chinese carry-out, it satisfies for an hour or so, then seems to lose its efficacy for fulfillment.  Whereas, there are other foods that tend to last for greater time; and so it is with receiving news or information of other’s misery.  It certainly allows for a comparison of sorts; of tilting balances imagined, or even for contrasting accomplishments forsaken, dreams yet unfulfilled or misery unabated. […] 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 …

Federal & Postal Disability Retirement: The Goldilocks Principle

Most of us are familiar with the fairytale; but in modernity, the principle extrapolated has been extended thus: the natural pendulum of occurrences must fall within a certain set of margins, as opposed to reaching the outer limits of extremes. And, indeed, most things settle into a comfortable compromise of corollary constancy; it is precisely because of the anomaly of extremes that we take special note of the exceptions which develop and manifest. And that is always the continuing hope of most individuals — for a reaching of compromise, and static settling into a middle ground, etc. […] Read More …

OPM Medical Retirement: Extreme Fatigue

The phrase itself can denote at least two connotations of conceptual paradigms, depending upon which word the emphasis is placed upon:  of an overwhelming sense of exhaustion that is experientially devastating to an exponential degree or, that one is so depleted and tired from the constant state of the extreme. To experience extreme fatigue is to have a medical condition; to be tired of the constancy of crisis after crisis, is to live an existence which cannot be sustained forever. […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Reversal of Fortune

Life itself rarely reflects a steady, linear progression on a graph; the zig-zagging representing times of economic turmoil more accurately profiles a person’s span of existence. Moreover, one’s career is not necessarily the essence or paradigm of a given life’s experience; there are multiple factors, including emotional, births and deaths, marriages and medical conditions. How does one quantify an experience? […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Random Happenstance

A determination concerning the random nature of a material and unconscious universe can only come about in contrast to a recognition that there is a comparison to be made, to its opposite corollary — that of a teleological state where will, consciousness and deliberation of action occurs. Thus, one can bemoan the random happenstance of events, but to complain of an inherent “unfairness” becomes a self-contradiction, precisely because to do so is to declare otherwise than to acknowledge its aimless appearance and entrance into the consciousness before one who recognizes the arbitrary realm […]

 
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Federal Disability Retirement: Indexicals

It is indeed the specific context of a situation which provides for referential data giving individualized meaning to a case. But for Federal Disability Retirement cases, the unique contextual information concerning where, by whom, in what timeframe, may be perfectly allowable in a “for instance” or “for example” type of descriptive enhancement, but ultimately what the U.S. Office of Personnel Management is looking for is the example which represents a medical condition or symptom thereof that is chronic, is of consistent duration, and which is not merely a singular event. […] Read More …

Hostile Work Environment and the Centrality of the Medical Condition

Pithy quotes are replete throughout advisory or “self-help” books; it is a cottage industry involving coming up with linguistically sticky statements, like post-its tacked on to our sleeves in order to remind us of daily living tools to carry. “Keeping the main thing the main thing” is one such quote, and numerous similar mutations, which remind us that prioritization of concepts, in any endeavor, is important to keep in mind, and to not allow for peripheral concerns to overwhelm and dominate. […] Read More …