You know morale in an office hits rock bottom when a single posting about bad morale causes a flood of more tips about the DOJ Voting Section a.k.a., the Hall of Closed Doors.

What does that mean?  Sources report that morale is so bad inside the Justice Department Voting Section, that door after door after door after door is kept sealed shut all day long.  Managers, attorneys and others just shut their door and leave it shut.  That’s a shame because it wasn’t always this way.

Other sources report more on the refusal to give any attorney annual awards this year.  Of course an award was given to someone who I describe in Injustice as unwilling to work on cases which did not involve traditional racial minorities.  This award was announced at a full section meeting in the Voting Section conference room by none other than Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez.  (More on the award another day). 

What really has rubbed some employees raw was an announcement by Civil Rights Division AAG Tom Perez that in 2011, employees would have the newfound ability to actually nominate each other for attorney awards.  This cheery announcement, at least in the Voting Section, proved to be worthless, because none of the nominations were taken seriously.  No attorney received an award up and down the Hall of Closed Doors.

Nothing is more corrosive to morale than announcing the expansion of an awards program to include wide award nomination powers among employees, and then cancelling all attorney performance awards.   Does the NAC offer leadership lessons?   (If not, here are some excellent titles: Shackleton’s Way and Reagan’s Journey.)   On the other hand, we would not necessarily want to encourage any changes to this policy of mismanagement; it creates a waterfall of sourcing. 

The atmosphere is so corrosive in the DOJ Voting Section that long term employees have taken buyouts rather than endure another day.  The Hall of Closed Doors was too much for them.  They grew tired of knocking every time they needed something, and worse.

As we reported in an earlier posting, don’t expect the corrosive atmosphere to change.  Some VOT managers have long sought to use the award process to sting the disfavored and reward the favored.  Sound familiar?  The names have changed, but the outcomes haven’t.  Except this time, nobody got anything, even those who deserved it. (Apart from someone with a starring role in Injustice; again, more on that another day).