sf 3112

Federal Disability Retirement under FERS & CSRS: That carefree child

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

Whatever happened to him or her?  That child who would shrug the shoulders, move on to the next thing and be free of worry or concerns.  “Carefree” is not a synonym for “careless”, or even of “uncaring”; rather, it is the capacity and ability to maneuver throughout this complex universe without allowing for life’s burdens to weigh upon one so heavily that past events prevent future actions of progress and advancement. […] Read More …

OPM Retirement for Mental or Physical Incapacity: Expunging the negative

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

If all negative words were expunged from the universe, would we hold only positive thoughts?  Or, is there an inherent, innate need to recognize and state the negative, regardless?  If you are sitting in your office and a lion walks in, pounces upon your least-favorite supervisor and devours him whole, do you turn to your colleague and calmly say, “He lived a very good life.”  For, in such a universe, expunging the negative has been already accomplished, and such statements as, “Oh, what a horrible thing to have happened!” is no longer allowable, and the law has forbidden such discourse of linguistic negativity.  Is it possible? […] Read More …

Federal Disability Retirement: Keeping it together

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

Living in modernity is a complex juggling act that never ends.  Simplicity recollected in former times often harken towards an idealization that perhaps never existed, where toil, labor and survival were a coalescence of a person’s life, and meaning was never divorced from what one was engaged in, the acts of striving, the struggle to earn a living.  Modernity magnifies Marx’s observation that human discontent is a result of separating man’s labor from the self-esteem of accomplishment, where the factory worker sees merely a microcosm of monotony […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Employment: The elixir of life

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

Is the substance we expunge necessarily the opposite of the positive?  Does the mere fact of expiation denote that which is unwanted, or merely no longer of utility?  In ancient times, an elixir was considered to be a substance of great desirability; it possessed multiple meanings, including a reference to that substance which was used in alchemy to alter base-metals into the gleaming riches of the natural order found deep beneath the chasms of the earth – gold. […] Read More …

Medical Retirement from Federal Government Employment: Parting grace in silence

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

Does grace extend even when the intended recipient is unaware of its attachment?  Can the undeclared withdrawal of revenge justified have its own inherent rewards, without the unsolicited admission left silent by anonymity undaunted?  If given the choice between leaving the scene where injustice prevailed and dominated – of wreaking revenge or parting grace in silence – which would we choose?  Of course, there is a greater contextual awakening to be narrated before such an event would occur – of quietly enduring the daily harassment, the constant criticism and demeaning remarks; of refuting, rebutting and reacting, as against an agency that initiates adverse actions […] Read More …

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Natural empathy

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

Is there such a thing, or do we just fake it even when we do not naturally “feel” it? If the official, technical definition fails to make the distinction between “feeling” and “understanding”, does it not discount the differentiation of the traditional bifurcation – that of rational capacity as opposed to part of one’s emotional quotient? Further, if it is merely an emotion, do some have a greater capacity because of a genetic predisposition, while others at a minimal level acquired through accident of birth, and thus can one be held responsible for merely being who we are? On the other hand, if it has a closer affinity to an “understanding” one possesses, […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Medical Retirement: Counting coup

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

It is not always in the outward and very-public display of emotions, in which a battle is fought and won; often, it is the restraining of a capacity and potential to reflexively counter, but held back just at the point of harm, that determines the pinnacle of gaining prestige. Acts of bravery for a Plains Indian did not necessarily require harm inflicted upon an enemy; counting coup and the subsequent rise in respect and prestige could involve the mere touching of an enemy, while escaping unharmed despite that close encounter with the savage face of danger. […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Retirements: Focus away from ‘self’

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement Attorney1 Comment

The heightened problems emanating from a chronic medical condition cannot be quantified; as the medical issues themselves become exacerbated while attempting to work and engage in other “major life activities”, the pain, psychiatric debilitation and interruption of things once taken for granted, become all the more magnified and exponentially exaggerated in significance, relevance and focus of daily contention. Or, to put it in more common parlance, it makes us grouchier as the day goes. Federal Disability Retirement […] Read More …

FERS & CSRS Disability Standard Forms and the Proverbial Blank Slate

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

The paradigm of a tabula rasa is a frightening one. It implies a complete negation of historical context, of evolutionary influence, and therefore denies instinct, nature, and pre-conditional implications. But clearly there are confines and parameters of behaviors, and different species of animals will act in specific ways peculiar to the individuality of the entity, while taking on certain imprinting models if surrounded by members of […] Read More …

SF 3112A

Posted onAuthorFederal Disability Retirement AttorneyLeave a comment

OPM Standard Form 3112A: Applicant’s Statement of Disability:
The constraint of a standardized form, by its very appearance, is itself a self-evident anomaly of conformity; forms, by the very nature of their format, constrains and delimits the ability to respond. Space is limited, and it is intended to be that way. By mandating the completion of specific forms in an uniform, consistent, and universally standardized approach, the applicant who must complete the form must by necessity conform to the regulated approach. […] Read More …