VA suicide hotline misses one third of calls

The BBQ Pit
21

Yeah, but how do you metric performance at a suicide hotline ? Number of calls received and answered ? It’s not like they have a way to increase those at will, they’re not going to root through the phonebook and robocall troopers, “hey, are you feeling blue ? Would you maybe think about offing yourself for me sometime soon-ish ?”. It would also be an incentive to cut calls early so you can up your numbers.

Number of veterans who didn’t eat their own guns after talking to the hotliner ? Again, that’s more or less out of their hands, and I doubt they’re able to really help any beyond simply being there to listen and telling them to see a real shrink, which may or may not help. In most cases it doesn’t IME. And of course there’s the fact that not every soldier calling the hotline is teetering on a window ledge, which introduces an element of randomness in that particular metric from the point of view of the hotliner.

And then you have the problem with motivating these staffers to do their job too - a job which must be profoundly depressing in and of itself. Could *you *handle even just five different streams of suicidal ideations in a day, provided you give at least a token empathetic shit about the people calling you ? I’d be clocking out early and heading straight to the nearest bar in a hurry myself… Who helps the helpers ?

22

Also note that merit raises and awards also happen in government. Where exactly did you get your expertise on federal employment?

23

You really don’t want to know.

24

It actually happens fairly often. Of course, like in the private sector, poor performers are generally given the opportunity to voluntarily resign before going through a grievance process.

Note your article compares the number of federal workers fired to the number of private sectors workers fired AND laid off-- not a particularly fair comparison. The federal government is large enough that they can generally cut the workforce when needed via hiring freezes and attrition rather than layoffs, whereas layoffs are VERY common in the private sector-- surely many times more common than being fired for cause.

25

There’s also HR, which can start the process with zero supervisory input. Some HRs contain a sort of headhunter (think Lt. Scanlon in “Barney Miller”) who will peruse personnel records for fireable inconsistencies at the drop of a hat.

26

More evidence that it’s very hard to fire a federal worker for doing a bad job.

*"“Very few federal employees – in the hundreds, not the thousands – are ever fired on the basis of poor performance,” said Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University.

That’s out of a federal workforce of 1.86 million, he said.

“If you want to fire an employee, you’re taking on a task that is very intense and difficult, and biased in favor of protecting employees, and it can take a year or more to complete,” Light said…
The federal government checked into the issue of poor performers in 1999, when the U.S. Office of Personnel Management tried to quantify poor performance. The good news for taxpayers was that the study found supervisors labeled poor performers only a tiny percentage of their workers - 3.7 percent.

The researchers had a difficult time finding a significant sample of supervisors who had attempted to take action against a poor performer.

The 42 supervisors said it was hard to fire workers because of a lack of support from upper management, varying quality in technical guidance for completing the process, and reluctance to devote time and energy to completing the process.

The study said many bosses got discouraged and gave up. “Interviewees found the investment of time and energy required over an extremely long period to be daunting,” the report said. “This was compounded by the stress resulting from the employee’s counter-charges, grievances, accusations, appeals, general hostility and attempts to subvert the supervisor. One described the documentation required as ‘horrendous.’”"*

The GAO gave a higher figure for the number of federal workers fired for poor performance (0.18% of the workforce in one recent year) but noted that more than two-thirds of that number were probationary workers, who are easier to drop from the payroll.

Personally, I have a very hard time believing V.A. employees are not doing their very best. Before the wait-time “scandals”, Paul Krugman told us that V.A. health care was excellent and a model for the nation, and he can’t be wrong. :slight_smile:

27

On the flip side, it’s easy to be fired if someone in HR with a bug up their ass does find an employee lied on their application. :slight_smile:

28

Adaher is what we call a partisan dipshit. He visualizes situations to the exact extent necessary to find his partisan position justified

29

I did everything correctly: consulted with HR (useless), totally documented my problem employee’s issues on a daily basis along with every other employee in my group (required by the union), performed 4 quarterly reviews where I explained each problem then wrote up a Performance Improvement Plan (the first step in a firing.) Then another branch hired him because it’s impossible to hire anyone from the outside unless they’re a veteran, which this guy was. They often come in with no useable skills except for experience gaming the system and this guy had it in spades.

I hear all the time about the problems at VAs and I’ve had the chance to visit some VAs. Yeah, some are old and run down. There’s a ton of them around the country so it’s not surprising that some would have problems. What’s surprising to me is that there are so many charities working the veteran angle yet none of them seem to be able to help an actual veteran. That blame is always on the government, so what do the charities do?

30

If Americans are too lazy to answer the phone, maybe we could import some Mexicans to do it.

31

That brings up an interesting question: is the federal government taking advantage of this cost-saving measure yet?

32

I’ve worked on mental health lines (though not in the US). Performance was measured by things like answering calls within 30 seconds, length of calls, and having random calls listened to by supervisors (these were graded on a number of criteria).

I do know some people who worked for the company were fired for hanging up on callers without reason, so it is something which can be a concern for the industry.

33

Or just outsource the suicide hotline calls to a help center in one of the former Soviet republics.

“Hullo, this is [del]Natasha[/del] Natalie, have you tried rebooting yourself?”

34

Yeah, on the other hand, the idea of Glengarry Glen Ross happening at a suicide prevention hotline is pretty fucking brilliant. You know Alec Baldwin would be up for doing it.

35

Best of my knowledge, no.

I casually chat with people in game, on skype and on facebook [there are several veteran outreach facebook entities - sometimes all you need to know is that there is someone out there listening to you.] I know that when I am having a horrible body day, sometimes I just want to sit and joke around with someone [opioids don’t always work…] and I have ‘met’ a fair number of guys and gals that just need some friendly words to let them know that someone has their back if they need it.

36

As a federal worker in an Agency that has fired people for poor performance, this is just blatantly incorrect.

37

As has been pointed out before, while you’re technically right, in spirit you’re wrong since the process is too difficult for most managers to bother. Firing should be as easy as writing someone up for the first violation and firing them for the second. Or one poor performance review followed by another could trigger a firing. In the private sector, poor performance reviews are almost unheard of since why would anyone make it to their performance review if they were doing a poor job?

38

Facts don’t really support you in that claim. For instance:

Sure, anecdotally everybody has a story about an incompetent government worker who managed never to get fired or whose firing took way longer than it should have. What they tend to forget is that anecdotally everybody has one or more of those stories about incompetent private-sector employees too.

Private sector workers are generally more easily discarded than government ones, but it’s nowhere near such a sharp contrast as you’re trying to paint.

(And “technically right” is, of course, the best kind of right to be. :D)

39

The best lies are technically true.

And it’s not anecdotal when you’ve got whole cabinet departments performing well below expectations. And the fact that even VA employees who committed fraud are getting their jobs back is evidence that firing poor performers is not the norm:

Now if it’s easier to fire people than managers testifying to Congress have said, then perhaps higher ups should be taking the lead on training managers on how easy it is to fire people.

40

Yes of course they are. A very specialized one with a lot at stake, but still a phone rep.

The important metric as it applies to this conversation would be the amount of time they are either on a call, or available to take a call, not how many calls they take in a day.