Would you be comfortable telling your boss that you're uncomfortable fetching his lunch?

"I would hope if they felt uncomfortable doing it, they would tell me. And if they did feel uncomfortable, then that would be okay. You know, they wouldn't have to do that."

-- Steven Calvery, director of the Pentagon
Force Protection Agency (PFPA)

by Ken

You've worked for bosses, right? So let's look at a hypothetical case. Let's say that your boss has asked you to perform a chore that's clearly unrelated to your work -- like, say, picking up his/her lunch -- and you're uncomfortable about it. Do you:

(a) Do it happily, glad to be of service.? Who knows? Maybe it'll lead to a promotion.

(b) Snap at him, "Why don't you just fetch your own damned lunch? Do you really think you're that important?"

(ac) Grin and bear it, and just do it? After all, fetching his/her lunch isn't that big a deal, and maybe someday your departmental inspector general wil be investigating the bastard for something else, and you can get it off your chest.

(d) Say, "Please, sir, that makes me a little uncomfortable. If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon not do it."

The correct answer, according to Steven Calvery, director of the Pentagon police force, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA), is (d).

The other day our "In the Loop" pal Al Kamen reported ("Hey, everyone needs a golfing break") on a piece of reporting by his Washington Post colleague Craig Whitlock, about a 40-page report by the Defense Department's inspector general released Monday regarding PFPA Director Calvery. It's probably just coincidence, but the release of the report came a mere seven months after the Washington Post filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the Calvery investigation. (More about this in the UPDATE below.)

If you'd like to play golf on government time, Steven Calvery, who runs the Pentagon's police force, could be the boss for you. Then again, if fetching lunch and coffee for your supervisor every day doesn't appeal, you may want to work elsewhere.

Calvery, the director of the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, which safeguards the building and 100 other military sites around Washington, has been dinged by the Defense Department inspector general for "misusing" his position and underlings, our colleague Craig Whitlock reports.

In a 40-page report released Monday, the inspector general also said Calvery improperly allowed an unnamed relative to blast away at the Pentagon Force Protection Agency firing range, using a PFPA weapon and ammunition. Tips and advice were provided, gratis, by two PFPA firearms instructors. The relative was applying for a job with another law enforcement agency and apparently needed some practice, the report found.

The inspector general began its misconduct investigation into Calvery after it received a couple of anonymous complaints in March 2011, as well as a letter from an unidentified U.S. senator. The inspector general labored on the inquiry for nearly two years, wrapping things up on Feb. 20, but then kept the findings quiet

The golfing-on-government-time part was highly popular.

Investigators found that Calvery wanted to boost the "esprit de corps" of the 1,300 folks who worked for him. So in 2009 and 2010, he decreed that anyone who wanted to play in the PFPA's annual golf tournament would receive four hours' paid administrative leave.

Demand, it seems, was pretty high. The report notes that "the number of participants was regulated by the capacity of the golf course." An estimated 100 to 150 lucky duffers got to spend half the workday at play.

The fun came to an end the next year when a party pooper in the PFPA's Office of General Counsel "advised that it was not a good idea to authorize administrative leave" to play golf. According to the report, Calvery later told investigators that he still thought he had the authority to let folks in the office play on taxpayers' time but decided to "err on the side of caution" and make people take vacation time instead starting in 2011.

I suppose the golf part is the bigger deal, but I'm actually more intrigued by the coffee- and lunch-fetching part.

Five witnesses told the inspector general that Calvery's staffers brought him lunch and coffee every day, and that some of them weren't too happy about it.

One unidentified witness testified that Calvery would often pre-order his lunch from the Air Force or Navy mess at the Pentagon and then his staffers would have to pick it up (no explanation for why Calvery avoided Army chow). The boss always paid for his meals and lattes, but the inspector general chided him for misusing his subordinates to cater to him.

Calvery told investigators that he never coerced anyone into fetching his lunch, adding: "I would hope if they felt uncomfortable doing it, they would tell me. And if they did feel uncomfortable, then that would be okay. You know, they wouldn't have to do that."

Because people who are uncomfortable about an inappropriate request made of them by their boss are bound to be comfortable telling said boss that they feel uncomfortable about telling him/her how uncomfortable they feel. Uh-huh.


UPDATE: HOW THIS FREEDOM-OF-INFORMATION
INFO WAS SPRUNG FROM INFORMATION LOCKUP

Now Al has an update on the original story: the story of how the story was obtained. It's a pip.

IN THE LOOP

Looking for needles in a federal haystack

By Al Kamen, Published: November 7

And now, a journey into the sometimes surreal world of the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. The law can be a powerful tool for the public and the news media to discover all manner of mal- , mis- and nonfeasance by government agencies and officials. But using it can be a cumbersome and time-consuming process -- errant officials may be long gone from government by the time you get the documents.

And getting inspector generals’ reports of investigations of misconduct by senior officials can be even trickier. In fact, agencies may not release such reports unless you first file a FOIA request for them.

The obvious problem, of course, is that unless you know an investigation report is out there, you won’t know to ask for it. As a result, many IG reports simply “disappear into the mist,” one knowledgeable source noted.

Take our colleague Craig Whitlock’s item Tuesday on an IG report on Steven Calvery, director of the Pentagon’s police force, which found, among other things, that he had his staff fetch his coffee and lunch and gave paid leave to staffers to play golf. The report on the IG’s two-year investigation was released in February. Whitlock, after being tipped off about the report, filed a FOIA request April 2. He then waited seven months to get the info.

“The focus of a senior official investigation is to determine if there was misconduct on the part of the official involved and to provide that information to management to determine what correction action may be appropriate,” a DOD IG spokeswoman explained in an ­e-mail. “Because such investigations involve information that may address the privacy concerns of the subject as well as witnesses and persons interviewed, reports of investigations frequently must be redacted extensively prior to release to the public. It has been the long standing practice of our office to release these reports in response to FOIA requests.”

That tracks with FOIA procedures used by most agencies. But, FOIA experts acknowledge, these are subjective balancing acts between privacy and the public’s right to know, and the conclusions vary from one inspector general to another. (On the other hand, a seven-month review for a simple report, we were told, “is outrageous.” )

One way to avoid the Franz Kafka world may be to do “an automatic FOIA request every three months for a list of all closed investigations,” suggested Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University. “Then you have to decide which ones are worth going for.”

“Every IG should do an annual report listing all their inspections on behalf of the taxpayers, so any taxpayer can see the report,” Blanton said. “If you keep the reports secret, you lose the deterrent effect on future bad behaviors.”

So if you see something, hear something. You know we’re standing by.

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