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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This thread has been ongoing for awhile now.  I wonder if anyone has actually chosen not to join the Board because of this thread? Have people actually been encouraged by the thread?  Or is it just current employees discussing workplace grievances at this point?[/quote]

Good question. Personally, I take everything said here with high skepticism. Personally, I joined the Board despite the negative comments, and it was the best career decision I ever made. For obvious reasons (i.e., identification), I won't reveal too much info about myself. I will say I had substantial litigation experience before joining the Board. I hated litigation. I am NOT a people person. This position has allowed me to excel at what I do best, write. I considered being put with a bad VLJ, but I knew I write well and would have to adapt. So, I was confident with my skills. Luckily, I have a good VLJ. Even so, I have written for some stinkers of VLJs. Yet, I dealt with it and just pushed through. Each VLJ wants things a certain way, we cannot get around that.

What I will say is that getting "fully successful" v. "exceptional" on year-end evals seems to be causing controversy. Some VLJs will give your work a 3 and others will give the same work a 5.  Admin needs to address that. [/quote]

Unless you’ve been treated badly by a VLJ, you won’t understand how truly bad it can get at the Board. I’ve seen several BVA attorneys, who received excellent performance appraisals year after year for 10 or 20+ years, get pushed out the door after they were assigned to one of the toxic VLJs.

Things may be going great for you now, but things can deteriorate quickly if you’re reassigned to the wrong VLJ. The toxic ones don’t care how well you write. If they hate you for some reason, you better watch out.
[/quote]

You just described life in general. HAHA. It can be good one day and bad the next. As I said, it's all personal to each individual. [/quote]

That attitude is so common at the Board. Get sexual harassed... that's life. Get screamed at...that's life. Get set up to fail... that's life and so on. That's why the toxic environment the Board at the Board has stayed the same, except for that brief period when Carol  DiBattiste was in charge. Carol refused to adopt the "that's life" attitude and refused to normalize toxicity in the workplace. Most people at the Board aren't asking to be BFFs with BVA management... they just don't want to work in a toxic work environment.[/quote]

Well, I have never experienced that at the Board, nor do I know anyone who has. I know from others it has occurred in the past, but to hold on to the "toxic" label is also toxic.  Management is lackluster, but I don't see them as toxic.  VLJs are independent.  If there is a problem, the government provides avenues to report unethical acts.  But just because someone may not "get along" with a VLJ because they want rewrites or you are not doing things the way they want, there is little that can be done. Whining certainly doesn't help.[/quote]

The problem is that this attitude discounts the experiences of people who have been harassed at the Board. It is not just not "getting along."  There were managers who were actively harassing employees, dragging  them into personnel actions such as PIPs and/or removals, and even lying about the employees' work product. If this happened to you, it is hard to forget it. It's like telling a woman to forget about being  beat up by her boyfriend because he never beat you up.

Of course people should try to move forward, but the people who are bitter are that way for a good reason.[/quote]

+1[/quote]

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