OWCP benefits & OPM Disability Retirement: Empathy and pain

“I feel your pain” has become a declaration of empathetic character in modernity; but whether born of sincerity or from political expediency, one can never know, precisely because empathy as a subjective phenomena is just as elusive as pain itself remains. How does one assess or judge, evaluate or analyze, confirm or conclude with any amount of certainty, the extent, severity, reality or even of simple existence of that which is subjective by definition?  Pain, like one’s motive, falls within the realm of a person’s own experiential declaration, […] Read More …

Federal Employee Medical Retirement: The Historical Problem

Ultimately, before the Federal or Postal Worker considers filing for Federal Disability Retirement benefits through the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, a number of factors need to be considered, including (but not limited to) the following: Can I last until regular retirement? […] Read More …

Disability Retirement for Federal Government Employees: Agency Pressures

Ultimately, the pressures which one’s Federal Agency places upon the Federal or Postal employee creates and manufactures a perspective that events have an urgency beyond the reality […] Read More …

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Agency Actions & OPM

The argument in a Federal Disability Retirement application under FERS or CSRS goes as follows: An Agency has determined that a Federal or Postal employee is medically unable to perform […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Using an Agency’s Action

Agencies will often act in predictable fashion; they act based upon prior actions engaged in; they act as an organic constituent of procedures and policies previously […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: The OWCP Black Hole

Many people rely upon the “generosity” of FECA (OWCP) payments during the period of temporary total disability, and indeed, being tax free and paying 75% of one’s salary (with dependents) […] Read More …

Federal and Postal Service Disability Retirement: Termination

Termination by a Federal Agency or the Postal Service can be a trying time, even if it has been a long time in expectancy. The key is to try and begin negotiating with the agency even before the […] Read More …

OPM Disability Retirement: Interaction with EEOC & Other Legal Processes

I am often asked if other legal processes already filed — an EEOC Complaint, a corollary adverse action being appealed, etc. — will have an impact upon a Federal Disability Retirement application. My general answer is, “No, it will not […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirement: The Proper Paradigm

Whether we like to admit it or not, we all operate, in all segments of our lives, from a certain “paradigm” (reference Thomas Kuhn, Structures of Scientific Revolutions) or “world-view”. When it comes to Federal Disability Retirements, the majority of Federal and Postal workers who comes to me have a pre-formed, generally negative attitude about Read More …