Career Geography, Part 3

Once I made it to DC, I entered a world that was part old school boy’s club government and part cutting-edge government.  It was an interesting time.  My boss told me he wanted me to get married, buy a house and start a family, so I wouldn’t be tempted to leave.  He really did want me for the long haul. It made me feel secure, but I also made a joke about not realizing I was supposed to get married already and I apologized for the delay and promised to “get right on that”.  I was used to being in the closet and had no problem simply pretending that I was either too fat or too ugly to find a girlfriend.  It’s what you do, when you are of a particular persuasion.

My first task was to train my co-worker Neal in all things Prosthetics.  We spent the first month or so, in side-by-side cubicles (waiting for our offices to be remodeled) while I regaled him with my abundant knowledge.  Not really.  We did become fast friends, bonding over fried foods and Star Wars. At one point I sarcastically referred to him as ‘Junior’, since he was eight years younger than me.  He responded by calling me ‘Scooter’, for reasons known only to him.  I laughed, but when he introduced me to his girlfriend, Jenn, as Scooter, it became my official east coast nickname.  In DC, as well as Central TX and Central PA, I was (and still am) called Scooter.  So much so, that at their wedding in Savannah, GA in 2011, Jenn’s mother (the incomparable Toni Montgomery Grupp) heard someone call me by my name and asked me, “Who’s Dustin?”

I was suddenly thrust into a position where I was making presentations to large groups of people across the country as well as working directly with people who had been in the VA longer than I had been alive.  The speeches caused me no concern; however, I struggled with the one-on-one interactions with people who didn’t think I had “paid (my) dues”.  A talent for self-deprecating humor, while not necessarily great for my confidence level, gave me an edge over my fellow youth with these Baby Boomer, especially when it was coupled with my middle-aged body shape. 

During this time, I was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, the lung condition that had led to my mother’s death in 2000.  In my initial shock, I never questioned my doctor’s prescription of 60 mg of Prednisone (a steroid) per day.  It caused my physical state to crumble at an astonishing rate.  I began to gain weight almost daily.  The weight gain exacerbated my already painful arthritis.  I had flashes of heat (like I was experiencing menopause) and of anger.  My best friend, Christopher, was my roommate and de facto nurse, having changed his mind about a career as a chef in France, opting to move to DC instead of returning to Mississippi.  I also became diabetic but as my doctor had tested me before the steroids (and I was not diabetic), he didn’t treat it as he assured me it wasn’t diabetes causing my symptoms.  When I finally visited the emergency room after a particularly brutal day, they tested my blood sugar and it was 600.  To give you a frame of reference, Patti LaBelle went into a coma when her blood sugar was 500. 

I quickly switched doctors and he began to slowly wean me off the steroids, but he told me I needed to move somewhere with better air quality; less pollution.  He repeatedly told me, “DC is a tidal basin, swirling with pollution, Dustin, you’ve got to move.”  I mean, what do you do with this information?  I couldn’t just tell my boss, “Thanks for the life-changing opportunity.  Remember when you said you didn’t want us to be tempted to leave?  Well, I’ve got this doctor’s note…” 

But, you do what you have to do and when I explained to Mr. Downs the situation, he was very supportive and told me there was an available position in VISN 1, in New England.  VISNs, you remember from the last post, are like regions.  VISN 1 comprised eight medical centers in six New England states; the main office being housed on the campus of the Bedford, Massachusetts VA, about 25 miles north of Boston.  So, I traveled to Bedford, interviewed and was selected for the position of VISN Prosthetics Manager.  In between the five hour-long interviews required for the position, over the course of one day, I chatted (and bonded) with Marion Felix-Jenkins, who would become a very close friend.  Several people told me I should live in Nashua, New Hampshire, because they had no state tax and no sales tax. 

Nashua is called the “Gateway to NH” because it literally sits on the border, at Exit 1.  It is so close to Massachusetts that the southern-most section of the parking lot of Nashua’s Pheasant Lane Mall is actually in Massachusetts.  My commute would be about 15 miles each way, which took about 20 minutes, if you left early enough.  Much, much better than DC traffic to be sure, but as it was January in New England, there was snow; lots and lots of snow.  So much snow that a little over a month after we arrived, Valentine’s Day weekend, there was a blizzard. 

No one seemed to be bothered by what I considered to be very heavy snowfall.  I guess it was the trauma from the Lake Effect Snow in Cleveland, but when my car was almost covered by noon, I said, “I’m from Mississippi and this snow is crazy and I’m going home!”  The commute that normally took 20-30 minutes, took 3 hours that day, including the 10 minutes or so it took to loosen my fingers from the death-grip I had on the steering wheel as I was determined to avoid the ditch like so many others I saw. 

One of the things I have learned in my career is that if you want to find out how to improve things, ask the people who are doing the work.  So, I made a quick tour of the eight facilities, meeting my new staff and asking what they needed from me, what plans they had to improve their metrics (I had researched their data and knew there were significant challenges) and where they saw themselves in the next five years.  I listened and learned and let them try their ideas.  Most weren’t successful.  I had some ideas myself and introduced them at a joint meeting.  Not everyone liked my ideas, so I made them a deal.  I would give them one month to make improvements in their metrics using their ideas and if there wasn’t any improvement, they would agree to try my ideas for one month.

When only on facility showed any improvements, we implemented my ideas which I based on the reviews I had made at all facilities within my first month.  I put together a program that focused on standardizing work processes, redesigning their compliance systems and focusing on face-to-face training for the staff) and had immediate improvements.  We went from one of the worst performing VISNs to one of the best in a span of three months.  We even had one facility (Togus, Maine) that was selected as Prosthetics Service of the Year for the entire VA nationwide. 

These results caught the attention of my VISN’s leadership who selected my program as a Best Practice.  They submitted my ideas and results to Central Office and I made a presentation to a whole lot of important people via teleconference, including the Deputy Under Secretary for Health for Operations and Management, who named me a Best of the Best Practices for VA.  I then made another presentation to even more important people in DC.  While I was succeeding in my career, my health was continuing to spiral.  I was trying to manage my diabetes, but my weight had ballooned to 400 pounds and I developed neuropathy.  I also developed sleep apnea.  I was physically exhausted many days and would nod off each time I stopped at a red light when I was driving.  This was not going to end well.

Fortunately, a taping of 60 Minutes in the offices of the guys who accidentally invented the Segway, would change my life in unforeseen ways.

Career Geography, Part 2

              I landed in Anchorage, Alaska, on November 2, 2002, to start my new job.  I remember the exact date as the very next afternoon, while I was enjoying a potluck lunch at my new church (Hillside Baptist, which was recommended by Ms. Natalie Atkins, from my church in Biloxi), the ground began to shake.  No one seemed concerned and I wondered for a minute if I was imagining it.  I turned to my new friend, Lori Rucksdashel and asked, “Is it just me or is the earth moving?”  She grinned and said, “Oh, it’s just an earthquake.  No big deal.”  Since no one was freaking out, I decided to remain calm as well and tucked back into my delicious meal.  I had always been taught, ‘when in doubt, eat’.  I don’t know if that’s biblical, but I can assure you, it’s spiritual, y’all.

                I had been selected as the Chief of Prosthetics for the Alaska VA Healthcare System, which was a giant clinic, not a hospital.  I had a grand total of two employees, but it was an awesome opportunity and I was excited.  I spent a few days acclimating to the facility and my employees and then got straight to work revamping the program, ensuring we met all our metrics, provided great customer service, all while being a collaborator with my staff.  I was determined to be universally loved in Alaska, or at least tolerated and/or respected by Tanya and Rocky, my staff.

                Alaska offered some interesting work scenarios I was not prepared for, like paying to barge a year’s worth of oxygen bottles to a veteran who lived in the Aleutians, a 1,200-mile chain of islands and home to the ironically named city of Unalaska.  I was also presented an invoice that I initially thought was a prank as it involved delivery by airplane and dog sled.  It was real; something I didn’t discover until after I shredded the bill.  Mea culpa, little Alaskan delivery company.

                Alaska was interesting, awesome and a little surreal.  Being in Anchorage, it felt like any other large city.  It had two malls, the downtown one included a Nordstrom, Hot Dog on a Stick and a JC Penney where I sold jewelry as a part-time job for about three months, just to see if I liked it.  I didn’t.  You only realized you were somewhere different if, when you were outside, you paid attention to the Chugach Mountains embracing the city on three sides, like an Inuit trying to hug you.  Do NOT call them Eskimos. 

                Anchorage had most every convenience, but once you left the city limits of Anchorage, you were in the wilderness, y’all.  And I mean wilderness, like caribou bounding across the road and once, on a weekend trip to Valdez to go camping, literally stopping our car on the highway, getting out and having a picnic on the roof and hood of the car without encountering any traffic for at least an hour.  You could start to feel that you’re the only people left in the world.  It’s like West Texas or the Utah Salt Flats, except pretty. 

                One of the things you experience being so far north is the really long days in the summer and long nights in the winter.  The Arctic Circle cuts the state in half, but Anchorage is far enough south that even on the day of the Summer Solstice (June 21), you don’t actually get 24 hours of sunshine; it’s more like 21.  The winters with the sun coming up around 10:30 am and going down around 2:00 pm, I could deal with.  The summers, with the sun coming up around 3:00 am and not going down until after midnight, wore me out.  Even though I had blackout shades on the windows in my basement apartment, your body knows when the sun is up, and it wants you to go outside.  By August, I knew I couldn’t remain in Alaska long term.  I needed sleep, y’all.  And God had a plan for me to leave a place of beautiful white snow to experience the exact opposite; ugly brown snow. 

                Drew Carey lied to us.  Cleveland does, in fact, NOT rock.  I wasn’t aware of this when Jackie Collins (again, not the author) called me to ask if I wanted to come help her fix another Prosthetic department.  After I had left Alaska, she had been promoted to a VISN (Veteran Integrated Service Network) Manager’s position, somewhat like a Regional Manager for VISN 10, which was the entire state of Ohio (including the tiny bits of Pennsylvania and West Virginia that bordered), except Toledo, for some strange reason.  She had been asked to find someone to be the Chief in Cleveland, a GS-12/13 position with about 24 employees and a $27 million budget.  The previous Chief had been removed from the position and the service was in a bad state.  I was called by the Associate Director, who said, “I’ve been told you can fix this.  Will you come help us?”  “Yes, ma’am!”  And so, I left Alaska, headed to Ohio on November 2, 2003, exactly one year after I had arrived. 

                  When I got to Cleveland, I found a lively city with great shopping, great food, irritated citizens and angry brown snow on the banks of Lake Erie.  It literally snowed every day from Halloween until Easter.  I had never heard the term ‘Lake Effect Snow’ until I moved to metropolitan Cleveland, finding an apartment downtown in the theatre district.  Yes, they have a theatre district, with nine different places showing all sorts of things.  It’s where I saw ‘Mama Mia’ for the first time. 

I ventured outside of Cleveland proper to the suburbs of Parma Heights to find my Baptist home church; the properly, if unimaginatively, named Parma Heights Baptist Church.  Southern Baptists are nothing if not pragmatic.

                During my time there, I was able to fix the service, helping it become a top performer and even traveled to other VA’s in Ohio and helped them improve, whether they wanted to or not.  I know for certain the Chiefs in Dayton and Cincinnati, who were much older than me and had been in Prosthetics longer than me, did not appreciate this young upstart telling them how to run their service.  In my mind, I was simply helping; however, as I came to discover, not everyone finds me as charming as I find myself.  But I was asked to fix things, and I did.  Being a collaborator wasn’t really high on my list and Emotional Intelligence was something I didn’t know existed, much less that mine wasn’t very high.

                Luckily, Linda Smith, the Associate Director in Cleveland, took an interest in me and said, “I love that you tell the truth no matter what.  I do think you need to learn how to do that more effectively.”  When I expressed that I wasn’t sure what she meant, she said something along the same lines I had heard before; a variation on Jackie’s original thesis statement, “You’re kind of an ass, Dustin Terryll”.  With these two Mamas looking out for my future, I really focused on being a more collaborative leader.  I tried partnering with those whom I was helping, so they could see I just wanted to make things better; that it wasn’t about my ego.  I didn’t have one, although you couldn’t have convinced them of that.  I feel fairly certain, they felt the ego was strong with me; like a Jedi and The Force.

                During my time in Cleveland, Jackie also urged me to apply for a position in Central Office; what VA staff call our headquarters in DC.  I had only been a Chief for two years at this point and did not feel I was ready to move into one of those high-level positions.  Jackie was adamant that I was what they needed.  She assured me I would be a breath of fresh air, someone who had great writing skills, a good understanding of Prosthetics and the ability to speak my mind.  I truly felt she was off the mark; that her fondness for me was making her see me through the rose-colored glasses that John Conlee sang about.  I finally agreed to apply for a position as a Program Analyst which was a GS-13/14 position, just to get her to stop bugging me.  I figured, at the worst, it would be good practice seeing how well they responded to my resume and, in the off-chance I got an interview, how well I did when competing with everyone among the 300,000 VA employees nationwide.  Yes, I felt literally everyone was competing for this position.  You can take the boy out of the boonies…

                To my surprise I got an interview.  To my even bigger surprise, they wanted me to come to DC for a face-to-face final interview.  Then to my utter shock and disbelief, the man who would become my new boss (Fred Downs, who at this point had been nationally known for at least 20 years) called and said, “Do you want to come work for me?”  Of course, I said yes.  I’m sure I shouted it.  Jackie just smiled and say, “See, I told you.  You’re perfect for the job.”  I had no idea if she was right, but I was determined to not disappoint her or Mr. Downs or my family or the troops or America.

                So, in March of 2004, less than two years after I left Alaska, I was being called home by the mothership.  I was headed to Washington, DC to help shape the Prosthetic and Sensory Aids program at the national level.  I felt a little like Jethro from The Beverly Hillbillies, but without the rope belt or need to cipher out loud.  Little old country bumpkin me was about to be amongst the movers and shakers in the seat of power in America.  The VA’s headquarters is on the corner of Vermont and I (Eye) Street, directly across the park from The White House.  My office was about four blocks away on the corner of I (Eye) and 17^th Streets, not quite the seat of power, but close enough to watch from our office window when the fighter jets confronted the guy who said he got confused and off-course and flew his private plane over The White House in 2005.

                The first day at work I was excited and nervous to meet my colleagues.  Neal Eckrich, a native Texan, who had also traveled to a desolate wintry landscape for his first promotion (Pittsburgh, PA), started the same day as me with the same facial hair (a modified Van Dyke, popular at the time, which most everyone mislabels as a goatee).  One Day Two we both came in clean-shaven.  At 34, I was used to being one of the youngest people in any office where I worked.  Mr. Downs was putting together a remarkably young team, with his vision for program continuity and I suddenly became the oldest of the three Analysts, the other gentleman (Robert) being 33. 

While our team was relatively young, most of the Chiefs and VISN Managers across the country were at least 20 years older.  We were tasked with reviewing their programs and advising them on what and how to improve.  It’s one thing to be able to establish a relationship that over time turns to trust; it’s quite another not have the opportunity to establish a relationship of any depth to make the interactions pleasant or at least devoid of angst or stress.  I was hoping my personality had become infused with all the advice and leadership lessons from My Mamas, like sugar infuses (properly) sweet tea.

I remember the first time I used Splenda to sweeten my tea.  It was unfamiliar and unusual, but I enjoyed it just the same and actually found it preferable to Sweet ‘n’ Low.  I simply wanted to repeat this scenario but with strangers over the phone.  That sounds like a pathway to success, right?