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 17th 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?
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