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Playing the Shame Game

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By Dan Gephart, August 15, 2018

Imagine spending a beautiful summer day at the ballpark. You have great seats along the first base side. Foul balls routinely make their way towards you – four to be exact. The first three balls you pick up and immediately hand over to youngsters in your section. The fourth foul ball you grab and, remembering it’s your anniversary, hand to your wife who is sitting next to you. It’s smiles all around.

It sounds like a perfect day. But it’s not.

You see, a video of you snagging that fourth foul ball is being shared at alarming rates on Twitter. The video makes it look like you snubbed the cute little boy a row in front of you. You are trending and not in a good way. After all, what kind of monster doesn’t give a foul ball to a kid?

If you’re a baseball fan or a Twitter user, you are familiar with the video taken during a recent Chicago Cubs game. Heck, you may have retweeted the video along with the comments “jerk” or “a—hole,” or maybe you are the Twitter user who called for the man to “be publicly shamed and booed for hours.” I’m not even mentioning the tweets that called for a good old-fashioned physical beatdown.

If there’s one thing we Americans are especially good at, it’s shaming others. Facts? We don’t need no stinking facts. Context? Ha! Let’s shame!

I was thinking about the baseball fiasco as I read a story last week about two former EPA career employees. Michael Cox worked at the EPA for more than 25 years, most recently as a climate change adviser. Elizabeth Southerland had more than 30 years of EPA experience when she left.

Both resignations were political. The departing employees made it known that they were unhappy with the agency’s direction under then-Administrator Scott Pruitt. Cox certainly left with a bang, writing a scathing five-page letter to Pruitt and sharing it with his EPA colleagues.

The best thing would’ve been to let this blow over.

An EPA spokesman took a different tack, telling reporters that Cox was expressing “faux outrage” and that the real reason for his resignation was so he could cash in on his “six-figure taxpayer-funded pension.” (A year and a few FOIA requests later, we now know that Cox’s pension, minus benefits and taxes, falls well below that “six-figure” threshold.)

The same communications team pitched a story to news outlets that Southerland left for similar reasons.

This was clearly an attempt to shame the former federal employees.

Does anybody remember former VA social worker Robin Paul? Barbara Haga wrote about her extensively in our July 2015 newsletter. Unlike our Cubs fan, Paul really did commit an awful act, or at the very least, she suffered a serious lapse in judgment. She sent an email to her staff that included images that mocked veterans by placing a toy elf in various positions. (You really have to see it to understand. But it was awful.) Paul was placed on administrative leave while the VA investigated. She agreed to a 90-day suspension of her clinical license.

Meanwhile, the Shame Patrol came out in full force, publicly arguing for Paul’s termination. This was followed by death threats. After her children were harassed, the family was forced to seek police protection. Finally, Paul, who had an otherwise excellent work history, resigned before the VA even finished its investigation, pleading to be left alone.

She got what she deserved, you might say. Well, that’s pretty harsh. Then again, the Shamers don’t deal in nuance. Read through Jon Ronson’s highly engaging 2015 book “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” and you’ll understand why social media shaming has become the modern-day equivalent of a public flogging.

But as purveyors of discipline in your agency, you can’t afford to listen to the Shamers. You need to gather the facts, weigh the evidence, and carefully determine the penalty. Unfortunately, you’re going to have to work really hard to tune out these Shame Spreaders. If you’ve been on Twitter or Facebook lately or read any newspaper’s comments section, you know that these Internet vigilantes aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. [email protected]

That’s My Story

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By Dan Gephart, July 18, 2018

I’m married to a talented and successful children’s book author. She tells stories for a living. I’m proud of the work she does because she tells the stories of people from whom we don’t often hear. And her stories evoke empathy, which is sorely lacking in our world today.

But published authors aren’t the only ones who tell stories. We all have stories.

In these hyper-partisan times, opposing stories can quickly subsume a federal workplace in conflict.

The stories we carry don’t come in chapters or wrapped in fancy book covers. And they don’t end when you turn the last page. The stories are buried on top of each other deep within us and they shade the way we address everything and everyone. We think our stories are 100 percent truth. But the real truth is that even the most accurate stories we tell have a decent percentage that belongs on the fiction shelves.

Whether you are a supervisor, an HR professional, or an EEO practitioner, you need to understand your own stories, as you navigate those of your employees. We may not agree with the stories we hear, but we need to listen. That’s not to say that every story we hear needs to be validated and acted upon. But you don’t get to truth by shouting over someone.

I find the work of agency investigators to be fascinating. They are looking for answers in some of the most emotionally draining and intellectually challenging situations, whether they are investigating simple misconduct or harassment.

In one of our recent on-site trainings, Meghan Droste presented agency officials a thorough dive into the administrative investigation process. Reviewing the materials recently, the section on interviewing stood out. It was great information for investigators, but something that can benefit everyone. Meghan laid out clearly the difference between interrogations and interviews.

  • While interrogations aim for a confession, interviews seek to gather information.
  • An interrogation is structured. Interviews are free-flowing.
  • And here’s the big one: Interrogations are more speaking than listening. Meghan put the ratio at 95 talking to 5 percent listening. Interviews, on the other hand, are all about listening. The ratio is flipped the other way.

If we approach our discussions with our colleagues, peers, subordinates, and supervisors more as interviews, and less as interrogations, we might be able to better understand each other’s stories.

Anyway, that’s my story. And I’m sticking to it. [email protected]

Let’s Embrace Change

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By Dan Gephart, July 9, 2018

Hello FELTG Nation!

Do you mind if we talk about change?

As I write this, I’m gazing at a For Sale sign that looks oddly out of place on my sun burnt front lawn. This concrete box I sit in has sheltered numerous Gephart humans and four-legged creatures since the new millennium. I’m not just leaving this house, though. I’ll be fleeing the Sunshine State, which has been home since my two adult sons were toddlers, or as we affectionately call them here “gator brunch.”

And that’s not even the biggest change. This week I started a new job for the first time in more than 23 years. Twenty-three years! That was so long ago, Al Gore was still reinventing government and smashing ashtrays.

But I don’t need to tell you about change.

You live with change every day.

I know. As the former long-time program chair of a certain federal training conference that I will not name (rhymes with FDR), I saw how change, along with fear of the unknown, drives people to training sessions.

Change leads to overcrowded classes about transgender employees. It packs rooms of HR professionals trying to figure out how to stop sexual harassment claims. It leaves people willfully standing for three-hour workshops to hear the latest guidance on how to handle reasonable accommodation requests for telework.

And I haven’t even mentioned the concern and confusion surrounding the president’s recent civil service-related Executive Orders or plans to reorganize the federal government.

Change can be stressful, unpredictable, and downright scary.

But change can also be, and often is, good.

Agencies should be more inclusive to all employees, and that means educating yourself about transgender workplace issues. We must hold accountable those managers and employees who practice harassment of any type. You’d better know what to do when an employee asks you for a reasonable accommodation.

These new executive orders, at least the ones dealing with performance, actually provide a great opportunity to more efficiently handle poor performers.

And if you think requests for telework are going to decrease anytime soon, I have some Florida swampland to sell you. No, really, I do. It’s a three-bedroom in a nice family neighborhood. Competitively priced. Give me a call.

Embrace that fear of the unknown. Lean into it. As someone much smarter than I said: Change is the only constant in life.

Change has landed me here at FELTG. This is a dream come true. I couldn’t be happier and more excited to work with Bill Wiley and Deb Hopkins, and the uber-talented group of FELTG instructors, including legends Barbara Haga and Ernie Hadley. These fine people work tirelessly to improve the quality and efficiency of the federal workplace. I don’t use the word tirelessly lightly. I’ve seen their schedules.

I also appreciate the chance to continue working with all of you – the faithful civil servants who loyally serve the taxpayers despite sometimes undesirable working conditions and constantly shifting political agendas, all the while ducking the uninformed insults regularly hurled your way.

Let’s step into this change together. It may be challenging, but nobody said we couldn’t have fun while navigating it. [email protected]