{"id":58669,"date":"2015-03-11T07:29:28","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T11:29:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=58669"},"modified":"2015-03-11T08:19:18","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T12:19:18","slug":"another-indicator-of-the-vas-broken-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=58669","title":{"rendered":"Another Indicator of the VA\u2019s Culture Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonn wrote an article yesterday<\/a> discussing how at least some VA employees “don’t get it”.\u00a0 If you still have doubts that the VA has a cultural problem – well, here’s yet another indicator that it does.<\/p>\n

One of our regular commenters sent me this photo some time ago.\u00a0 The photo was taken last May at the Compensation and Pension (C&P) office of a VA facility the individual visits periodically.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/center> <\/p>\n

In case it’s difficult to read, the cartoon’s caption reads, “Hello!\u00a0 How can I not help u<\/strong><\/em>“.<\/p>\n

As of about a month ago, the photo was still there.\u00a0 I’m guessing it’s probably still there today.<\/p>\n

My guess is the cartoon is a somewhat misguided attempt at humor \u2013 much like the antics Jonn talked about yesterday.\u00a0\u00a0 Now, Lord knows I\u2019ve got nothing against humor, even offbeat or dark humor.\u00a0 A humorless place to work is . . . brutal.<\/p>\n

But I don’t think this is appropriate for someone whose job involved dealing with the public.\u00a0 Anywhere.<\/p>\n

An “honest mistake” involving “poor English skills” IMO isn’t to blame here, either.\u00a0 A person would have to be monumentally stupid to truly not understand<\/em> the message that cartoon and caption sends.<\/p>\n

So . . . that photo IMO indicates a cultural problem.\u00a0 It does so in at least a couple of ways.<\/p>\n

First: why would any<\/em> employee – government or private-sector – serving the public think it’s OK to display that cartoon where the public they’re paid to serve could see it<\/em>?\u00a0 I mean, really.<\/p>\n

Sure, the individual posting such a cartoon – and their coworkers – might “get” the joke.\u00a0 But how about members of the public meeting them for the first time?\u00a0 What are they going to think?\u00a0 Maybe the next person to see them takes it as a joke; maybe not.<\/p>\n

And speaking of their coworkers:\u00a0 didn’t any of them think to say anything – either to their coworker, or to their supervisor?\u00a0 Did they all think this was “just fine and dandy”?<\/p>\n

Let’s just say this is not exactly my idea of how to make a good first impression on the public you’re paid to serve.<\/p>\n

Second \u2013 and in my view, more significantly:\u00a0 the cartoon remained displayed in plain view of customers for at least roughly 9 months, and likely longer.<\/span>\u00a0 That means VA management at the facility is either (1) OK with that cartoon being displayed where it can be seen; (2) completely oblivious to what’s going on at their facility; or (3) are too damn lazy to do their jobs as supervisors.<\/p>\n

Any of those conditions being true is IMO a Real Problem – and yes, the capital “R” and “P” here is intentional.\u00a0 It’s one that needs to be fixed, pronto.<\/p>\n

No, this really isn’t a “firing offense”.\u00a0 But it’s something that needs to be corrected, as well an indicator of bigger problems.\u00a0 IMO, it’s an indicator the VA’s organizational culture needs some changes.<\/p>\n

Seeing stuff like this – and the stuff Jonn wrote about yesterday, and the recent “imprecise statement” from the VA Secretary concerning his military record – makes me think it\u2019s gonna be a while before the VA un-f**ks itself, at least on the admin side.\u00a0 It takes time to fix a bad organizational culture.\u00a0 And doing that generally requires replacing a fair number of the incumbents holding leadership positions, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonn wrote an article yesterday discussing how at least some VA employees “don’t get it”.\u00a0 If … Another Indicator of the VA\u2019s Culture Issues<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":623,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/623"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58669\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}