FERS Disability: civil service disability

FERS Disability Retirement from the OPM: Caught in a mold

February 12, 2019

Not of the unwanted fungus type, growing as an organic filament in damp conditions; but of the other definition where the hollow of the inverse image is created and a liquid is poured into it, left to harden, then to lift, leave aside and discard in order for the formed creation to survive. We are metaphors of the mold that forms, inasmuch as who we are is often determined by the casts which others have structured around us. Whether by expectations or a history of others telling us who we are, we abide by that script which was never written by ourselves. […]

OPM Disability Retirement Benefits: “Yes, but…”

December 31, 2017

The interjection of an affirmation followed by a conjunction can have multiple, unexpected meanings. Perhaps it is to provide a sharp contrast to a statement previously held and left unchallenged; or to “add” to a declaration thought to be somewhat inadequate and needing an appendage for completion otherwise incomplete or left with a void that could be misconstrued unless filled. […]

Federal Disability Retirement Law: Recognizing Problems

March 13, 2017

Why are some better at preemptively addressing recognizable foreshadowing? Is it a genetic predisposition related to the capacity of surviving? Like the instinctive responses of animals, is it an inherent trait that favors those who are more “fit” with such a characteristic, and thus to the disadvantage of those who do not possess it, where recognition and preemptive engagement allows for survival and thus the genetic pool favoring by dominance of avoiding the mortality trap? […]

Federal and Postal Disability Retirement: Choosing Battles

January 23, 2016

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 […]

Federal Employee Disability Retirement: Life Choices

October 22, 2015

We all have to make them; and though we may alternatively want to curl up into a fetal position and wish the blunt world to stop bothering us, the decisions we make, and take responsibility for, reflect the state of maturity which binds us to age, experience and level of moral maturity. It is, to a great extent, a superficial and shallow connotation and reference point; for, as the inevitability of choices to be made result from living in circumstances of our own making, so to imply that there is anything “substantive” in speaking about them undermines the very relevance of implication itself. […]

OPM Disability Retirement Lawyer: Preemptive Actions

May 5, 2015

Knowledge can be a dangerous commodity; partial, or little knowledge, can be all the more damaging, precisely because actions can result based upon incomplete information and slices of factually curtailed composites. The Court of the Appeals for the Federal Circuit has previously pointed out one of the methodological deficiencies engaged in by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, […]

OPM Disability Retirement: The Semblance of Joy

February 9, 2015

Happiness is but a fleeting moment; satisfaction is but the natural result of completion; but joy, that is a tincture derived from the depths of one’s soul. Perhaps there is an element of word-play; how we define levels of emotional states of being can depend upon the contextual usage of each conceptual construct, […]

OPM Disability Retirement: Confirmation of Worth

January 2, 2015

Diamonds demand it and markets survive by it; investments grow or shrink according to assessed worth, and relationships are maintained by the relative perspective of individuals entangled. Worth, or the value of a thing, is determined in a capitalist society as a result of increase in demand, and scarcity of supply. But what of the worth of an individual, as opposed to an inanimate object? Do we treat it in the same manner? Should it be? […]

OPM Medical Retirement: Days of Sisyphean Drudgery

October 6, 2014

The Myth of Sisyphus is well known, both because of the philosophical essay written by Camus, as well as through the Greek mythological narrative of the condemned figure to toil in endless meaninglessness, by rolling the boulder up the hill, only to watch it go down, and to repeat the process all over again. For Camus and the existentialist viewpoint, it is in the very act of absurdity itself that meaning and significance can be derived; for the Greek citizen of yesteryear, it was perhaps the circularity of the human condition which provided for relevance in the telling of the myth. […]

The “Other” Civil Service System

September 17, 2014

Information concerning Federal Disability Retirement benefits will often refer to the universe of “FERS” employees (acronym for Federal Employees Retirement System, which was enacted by Congress in 1986 and became effective the following year), with little to no information concerning its replacement system, the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). There are, additionally, some hybrid systems, sometimes referred to as CSRS-Offset; but […]