Darker Shades of the VA

By R.S. Christoff

To be honest, unfortunately, this book may not be very riveting, but it is in an accurate depiction of what one nurse observed really going on behind closed doors at just one local VA healthcare facility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.S. Christoff
• Release date: Nov 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201234584

R.S. Christoff

R.S.Chistoff is a pen name I have used for this (and subsequent books). Iserved twenty years in the Navy and Air Force. I am a retired military Emergency Nurse and Hospital Corpsman. I have traveled around the world, to include places stateside as well as overseas. As a Hospital Corpsman/EMT I worked in isolated locations around the world. My stories come from these experiences.

Book preview

Introduction – Why the VA?

Let me introduce myself . My name is Lila Tarankowski. After retiring from the military many years ago, I suggested to my husband that he find a career somewhere in the country that he would be proud of and not come home nightly, bitching and moaning about the job and the people with whom he worked. He ended up finding himself a job in some Podunk town in rural America. A town that neither of us had ever heard of before. My husband then proceeded to inform me that he had followed me from a popular west-coast beach town to a not-so-well-known town on the Gulf Coast, and so now it was his turn to shine and focus on his career. What else could I do but to agree? Hence this story begins...

Before ever starting a new job, the first person one normally encounters is a Human Resources representative (or specialist in the case of the VA) who would typically be the expert on what the facility requirements were and how they should best be filled. For example, the need may be for a nurse in a certain clinic, and the Human Resources specialist should be well-versed as to whether an experienced Emergency Room nurse would fit the profile to work in that setting. Unfortunately, with specialists at one particular VA, it seemed to only be relevant if a person was related to a particular employee, and not necessarily whether the candidate had any experience in the area.

Eventually a well-qualified candidate may finally have been offered employment and started working (after all the rigmarole of just getting hired), doing their job and doing it well. Then maybe after a few short weeks of working there a co-worker demanded the new employee do their job, also. The new employee, of course, refused, as their job was somewhat demanding, that of learning a new computer charting system as well as how the facility ran, in addition to actually taking care of the patients  When the new employee refused their co-worker’s plea, that co-worker then queried, "What is your job anyway?"

Additionally, with all of the disasters locally and around the world in recent years (whether natural or man-made) many businesses have instilled a disaster (recovery or response) plan. Those plans are meant to either protect their people, care for patients, or help out in the community. The thought would be to have a trained disaster preparedness coordinator who was well-versed on plans such as those. Now imagine having the supposedly adept organization’s disaster preparedness coordinator approach and ask, What would you do in the event of a disaster? And leave it at that. No further details offered as to what kind of disaster, or even where it may have occurred.

Or, better yet, imagine having a customer barreling into a workspace screaming, I need Oxy! (Meaning Oxycodone, or Percocet as many people maybe familiar)? Of course, most people would probably only see that in a healthcare setting or possibly a pharmacy. Still, these days who really knows. How about having someone show up in a business asking for help and then proceeding to tell anyone who’ll listen that "You can’t help me! Maybe a nurse has been seen running through a crowded workspace yelling, Call the cops, he’s suicidal!" Perhaps another nurse has even offered to provide a patient’s stats, like one would in a sporting competition. Seemingly not to care that the patient may or may not be oxygenating well, but rather is in respiratory distress, and not understanding that their oxygen saturation may be a critical detail in that determination. Better yet, imagine finding an elderly Veteran abandoned in the waiting room of a clinic after all the staff have left for the weekend and all the lights have been turned off. These, and many more stories, and ignorant quotes, are those I have personally heard or observed during the time of my employment at just one local area Veterans Healthcare Facility. Please continue reading for a more in-depth look at the absurdities that I have observed throughout the VA.

This book is one of several about my experiences in the various facilities I have worked, while in the military, or afterwards. I do feel the need to preface this, and probably every other book, by stating that I am a sailor at heart. To further explain a little bit more about me, I have tried on numerous occasions throughout my life to curb my Sailor’s Mouth, however it has been a constant and almost daily challenge/struggle. Those who know me can attest to this little tidbit of information, that sometimes it just seems to slip out, as do many of my personal opinions which may not always be regarded as politically correct to those easily offended. One day in the not so distant future, The Fucking Dictionary will be released and it may help to decipher some of the verbiage in this as well as previous and subsequent books in this series.

How it all Started

Initially, walking through the doors of the local area Veteran's Affairs medical center one might look from the shiny floors to the wall of water, which can be observed cascading down behind the patients in the waiting room and think, ‘ Wow, this is a nice place. The Veterans here must really be happy and well taken care of’ .’ Unfortunately, not only was that statement untrue for a majority of the Veterans who utilized the facility, but the wall of cascading water has since been removed due to a leak in the mode of containment. Even a majority of the smiling faces and pretentious warm greetings of the staff are mostly a façade, as they continually wander the hallways. One might think that the Veterans really have it made, a beautiful building, friendly faces, why not?  I am going to burst that balloon wide open, and to say that upon closer examination of the personnel and the facility; that is entirely not the case. 

Now don’t get me wrong. There are several staff members that were entirely sincere and caring when it came to the Veterans. However, those people were not usually the ones seen ambling the hallways on a frequent basis. Those staff members were the ones that took up the slack for the more overpaid, unproductive employees, discussed previously, including those gossiping about whatever may have been the subject of the day. Another reason certain staff members could be seen regularly carousing the hallways was because many of them either did not have a specific job, or they did not know how to perform the job for which they had been hired. This reverts back to the other staff members (that weren’t typically seen) who ended up having to pick up the slack for those less able. Or, in the case of quite a few of the employees, it appeared as though they were simply there to collect a paycheck and do as much as they could for themselves and as little as they could for the Veterans, oftentimes working harder to get out of doing their actual job. 

Furthermore, those staff members, mentioned previously, appeared to be extremely fluent in passing the buck. This seemed to be a common occurrence for those staff members, so as to not even minimally over-burden themselves, allowing them the ability to leave work on time, or even early, each and every day, regardless of any consequences to the Veterans. For those reading this and thinking this is just one disgruntled employee wanting to air her dirty laundry, read on about how some of the Veterans have been treated by employees. Those very same employees who have pledged to care for the Veterans, and have been hired for that exact purpose.

In the following pages I have provided some interesting examples of what I have witnessed, all from personal experience and observation.

Part I

The Staff

The Staff

Veterans Affairs??? In my humble opinion, maybe it should be re-named Staff Affairs.  After all, as I questioned previously, how have some of the staff obtained the positions they had?  Certainly not because of qualifications, experience, or knowledge that would normally be required for those positions. Again, this is just my opinion, and possibly several others that have witnessed the same, but most likely not the opinions of the staff in those positions.

The reason I have chosen to call this book Darker Shades of the VA is primarily because it is an insider’s view of what was observed transpiring in just one Veteran’s Affairs Health Care Facility (although, I have heard rumors that several others are quite similar, nonetheless they are just that... rumors). The media’s portrayal, if at all accurate, is nothing compared to what has been observed actually occurring throughout a Federal facility such as this.

I had originally planned to name the book the Stagnant Circus, as what I have observed during my time employed at the VA, was a circus of oddities (a.k.a. freak show) that somehow have managed to avert the system and, as of this date, have not caused the entire building to fall down on itself with the Veterans inside. In addition, this unusual circus seemed abundant with clowns that have somehow, beyond all common sense, evaded reality to the point that buffoonery had become a way of life, as the stories in this book will attest. Anyone not able to adapt to the buffoonery, such as myself, were found to be in a never-ending circus, as nothing seemed to change. The phenomenon circled round and round like a continuous spectacle, an uncoordinated merry-go-round of sorts, thus a stagnant circus — an ever cyclical, yet static circus. I likened it to a hurricane that had made landfall and continued to circle over one area, never advancing. 

Flying under the radar for years allowed many employees the ability to conceal the fact that they knew nothing about the jobs they were being paid to perform. I say this for those employees that I have personally witnessed either not knowing what all their job entailed, or how to perform their specific job. Furthermore, those very same employees somehow seemed to find a way to expediently elevate the promotional ladder, and still have absolutely no idea how to accomplish the requirements of their original job, let alone their new position. Shockingly, it appeared as though the less someone knew, the faster they rose up that ladder.

The reason they have been able to accomplish this for years, solely in my opinion, is the fact that they must be woven from the very same DNA as an ostrich.  Certain people are able to see adversity as a challenge. Others either run as far away and as fast as possible, [or in this case, run and hide, ignore, or evade, (or however it could be described) plain and simple disregard for doing the right thing], or they lay down and essentially play dead. A majority of the higher-ups I observed at the VA emulated this description to a T. Those unique people seemed to have actually become experts in doing whatever it took to avoid any type of confrontation, at all costs. From what I was able to discern during my brief employ, the higher-ups would toss their employees to the wolves (so to say) if it would save their own asses.

The collective thought processes displayed by those employees, typically in positions of management, seemed to be that if they ignored something long enough, it’d just go away, fade into the background, and then that way they wouldn’t have to face the problem. This description had been observed in the way those in positions of management were seen treating both their staff as well as their customers, the Veterans themselves.

The following chapters describe several distinct staff members, from the lowest level up to those in different tiers of management, and how they best exemplified what I simply categorize as stupid, and it has been well-touted that you cannot fix stupid.

The Employment/Hiring Debacle

Before delving into the staff I observed at the VA, I feel I need to address the means in which it took me just getting hired on at this facility. As a retired military member, a disabled Veteran, an experienced and knowledgeable RN, with a college degree as well as a certification in Emergency Nursing I felt as though I would become an asset to the local VA healthcare facility and become a strong advocate for my fellow Veterans. I suppose those in positions of power and/or leadership had other ideas. I found out later that many employees at the facility were either kin to someone else who worked there or were very friendly with one or more of the employees.

SHORTLY AFTER ARRIVING in town, I applied to work at the local VA. I had been told by our realtor, as well as several other people I had encountered in town, that the medical centers there were in need of good nursing staff. Of course, I feel it needs to be said that those were personal opinions and very possibly not the consensus of the entire town. (Before I go on, I must also throw it out there that needing and wanting in this instance were, as was standard, two entirely different matters. Needing the nursing staff appeared to be a given, actually wanting reliable, knowledgeable and competent help, however, seemed to be a completely different narrative.). Furthermore, this podunk town in bucolic America, only had a handful, if that, of major employers, the VA being one of them.

Several weeks, (or possibly even a couple of months) after submitting my first application online, I heard nothing. I didn't give it another thought as I was engrossed in cleaning the filthy house and property we bought on several acres on the outskirts of town. After unpacking for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the previous twenty or so years, I applied at the local hospital. I had heard countless rumors and opinions about the hospital, from people in the community, such that one would only go there if they wanted to die, or that was where people would go to die, hence the nickname, Death Mountain or Scary Mountain, made me second guess whether I’d ever want to work there, or even be treated there. However, if it was as bad as the rumors I had heard, then they certainly needed some good talent. Notice again the needing versus wanting help. I ended up working in a couple different departments before I ultimately resigned, for personal reasons, or rather differences in what (I consider) constituted quality patient care.

Afterwards, I did a two-month stint in the local federal prison... that was short-lived.  (No, not as an inmate, as a nurse... sheez... times were not that bad... yet, thank God.) A short time later, knowing that the need for nurses was still great, I once again submitted my application to work at the VA. That time came shortly after I received my disability rating. Adding together my education, experience in the medical field, a certification in a Critical Care Nursing field, as well as military experience, one would think I’d be a shoo-in for a position. Taking into consideration they seemed to be like every other medical facility in this area, short of nurses. (Right about that time I could possibly be deemed a glutton for punishment. Applying for a federal position is no walk in the park, considering all the hoops that need to be navigated in order just to submit a thoroughly completed application.)

I received a response via email a few weeks later stating that I was not eligible for the positions for which I had applied. My very first thought was: Huh? Followed by, What the Fuck (more politely worded: W-T-F – Whiskey Tango Foxtrot; but, at the time I was not thinking so clearly, or politely, and the sailor in me just roared out). How could I now not be eligible for a job that I had done for numerous years? So, instead of trying to call or email back, I drove the brief distance to the facility and showed up on Human Resources’ doorway where I was ushered back to a Human Resources specialist, Hank who, after I introduced myself, was visually and verbally surprised when he stated "Oh,.. you're here?"

Taken aback, I thought to myself, well, Ummm, yeah duh, I'm standing right here in front of you. I am truly not a figment of your imagination.  What the Fuck did he mean by that comment? Maybe he had assumed since I had an out-of-state phone number that I was also geographically out of state, and that he would just send me an email telling me I was not eligible, and I would let it drop and just go on my merry way. Unfortunately for him, he did not know me, at all!  Even a smidgen of common sense would've indicated that yes, in fact I was physically there, standing right in front of him.

As I stood in front of his desk silence ensued. I could not begin to imagine the thoughts that must have been swimming through Hank’s paltry brain. I could only envision that maybe when the email was sent, he simply assumed that was the end of my pursuit for a job there, as people often apply to VAs all across the country from their home location. One could argue that there were many Veterans as well as transient workers from all over who had non-local numbers, also. But, I digress. Besides, I in no way indicated that Hank was intelligent or blessed with common sense, as it seemed to me to be the contrary. Had he simply looked at my address on the application, he’d have seen it wasn’t just in the same state, it was even in the same freaking town as the VA!

As my mind seemed to again wander, I noted that Hank appeared to finally recover from what could only be construed as his apparent shock at me physically being in his office. He broke the silence by