Here’s one you won’t see on “Your Two Cents”…
Posted by Paul Cox on December 29th, 2009
I had resisted writing about Jerry Lavey’s retirement, mostly because I was afraid that he might change his mind and not retire. That, and there’s not much point in writing about it; far more important is what the person who follows Lavey chooses to do with their job. Lavey’s been enough of a target for us (okay, me) here at the Follies over the past few years.
But then I had to hold my nose while reading several versions of “Your Two Cents”, where they kept running these wonderful, nice emails about what a great guy Lavey was and how much they enjoyed his writing and how sad they’ll be to see him go.
I submitted this email. Surprise surprise, they didn’t run it. I wish I could say that I’m shocked, but I’m not.
All of the well-wishers with nice things to say about Jerry Lavey’s retirement are kind people. I too wish him well in retirement.
In fact, I’ve been eager for him to enjoy retirement for years now.
Mr Lavey was a perfect example of what’s wrong with the FAA’s higher levels of management.
He treated me with contempt and refused to engage in a dialogue about FAA issues unless it was on HIS terms.
I have heard from countless other controllers the same thing; they’d email him and a conversation would start that ended with Jerry telling off the controller and refusing to listen to them or acknowledge, in any way, that their concerns might have a shred of validity.
He refused to LISTEN. With the sole exception of “Your Two Cents”, the FAA’s communication venues (many of which Lavey was given credit for helping to begin) are one-way venues that hew strictly to the “party line”.
Even YTC has only started airing dissent in the past 18 months or so, and it’s still heavily edited and not a true free speech forum. (I dare you guys to run this note unedited and prove me wrong… I’d love to be wrong this time!)
Lavey’s writing was occasionally great reading, but if you’re the head of internal communications for an agency that consistently ranks as one of the worst federal agency workplaces on issues like trust in upper level management, valuing input from the workers, and internal communications… you probably suck at your job.
I hope he is happy in retirement. I hope that whoever replaces him can actually do the job at a mediocre level. It’ll be a big improvement.
I do mean this. Jerry Lavey, despite being terrible at what he did, is just as deserving of being happy as any other human being. I hope he is. I think he was terrible at his job, lazy and deliberately dismissive of anyone who dared criticize him, but I hope he’s happy in retirement. Odds are he will be, now that he doesn’t have to deal with people like me. 
December 29th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Goodbye Jerry, we’ll miss you. Please don’t come back as: “JERRY.CTR.FAA”.
Enjoy your retirement.
December 29th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
“Yeah, now here comes the speech about how he (was) just doing his job by following orders. Friends, let me tell you about another group of hate mongers that were just following orders”
December 29th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Does one mourn the passing of a fart?
December 29th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Well said Paul, well said.
December 29th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
ScorchedEarth,
I am currently doing so. It was a classic.
December 30th, 2009 at 4:57 am
This is my tribute to Lavey. I am thinking these two guys are actually the same person! Has anyone ever seen them together at the same time?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s27Oq5ot0ZI
December 30th, 2009 at 6:25 am
No one will replace Lavey. His job, chief internal FAA propaganadist, was made up by Snakey out of thin air (like so many of the “jobs” the higher skill set created under Snakey Sturgeon). Continuing to attempt to bamboozle the rank and file, Lavey’s forte, was of no value to Babbitt. Ergo Lavey was of no value to Babbitt.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:35 am
AS is correct. Why replace Lavey with another Lavey if the product is worthless. Lavey was dismissive of me many times in our email exchanges. Happy retirement Jerry and sorry to say but I am glad your gone. Now….Day/Douche-arm/Gibson/Krackhouseski…who is next?
December 30th, 2009 at 9:07 am
Well said Paul.
Grump
December 30th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I always got a bit of a kick out of hearing that communication between Lavey and a controller had broken down, almost always out of the same pattern. Ticked-off controller fires off an email, Lavey responds with some condescension, controller sends something back telling how they REALLY feel and with some actual facts, Lavey says he doesn’t have time to deal with people who just want to vent or are too angry or whatever and blows the controller off.
Air traffic controllers and “internal communications” staffers both need to have (or should have) strong, strong communications skills. They should understand how communications work.
The difference is that in the FAA, “internal communications” is by and large a one-way form of communications; they try and broadcast a message.
Air traffic controllers, on the other hand, literally have people’s lives in their hands… or more appropriately riding on their voices. We have to truly get communications right, every day, every TIME.
That’s why it’s so laughable, and so sad, to see the FAA’s head of internal communications so frequently and so abruptly shut off communications. He was unable to “walk the talk”, so to speak.
As I said, let’s hope Jerry enjoys retirement, and let’s hope whoever gets in there next actually gives a rip about the fact that communications in the 21st century is going to be a two-way medium. Or, actually, a multi-way medium, like this blog and its comments section, or any number of other blogs, forums, and so forth covering the FAA.
Pretty sad that the most open communication about the FAA takes place in forums completely outside of the agency.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Lavey was wonderful at his job. If you’re foolish enough to think that job involved an unbiased or critical examination of what the FAA is doing, that’s your problem.
December 30th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Gerry Lavey:
From: The Federal Employee Pay Website
LAVEY, GERALD E FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION District of Columbia District of Columbia WASHINGTON PROGRAM MANAGEMENT EV 02 $172,200 $0
Gerry Lavey is one of those many guys in DC who get paid $172,200 a year, to sit down and think of stuff to write.
I know, I sat down with him and had a cup of coffee with him on several occasions.
He sits down to write occasionally. Other times he goes to meetings. He gets to hang around the decision makers, but never really has to make any decisions himself, except to decide what he thinks is important information for the big wigs to know, or what information ought to be passed out to the field. That’s about it. That, and going to meetings. He is really, really good at going to meetings.
He has a nice little desk on the 10th floor, at the end of the hall, turn right, and then turn right again. That’s his nest. Been there, seen it.
At 4 o’clock or so, Gerry gets to go home every day to his little (actually, quite nice) home at the end of the culdesac in Annandale (Fairfax) Virginia. It’s just two streets outside the beltway, off the Little River turnpike. The mucky-mucks in the Glass House thinks he has the pulse of the nation because technically, he lives “outside the beltway”. Yep, two streets outside the beltway, and then two right turns.
I’ll miss Gerry, because at least he tried. He didn’t have a clue as to what goes on outside in the real world, but that’s ok. From his perspective, the world is a good place. Now he’ll have time to spend at home.
You gotta wonder, however, what that $172,200 (plus, of course, the TSP matching funds, PCB benefits, etc) could have been better spent doing. After all, inside DC, just like in the rest of the country, writers who are willing to write for less than $172,200 are available. I saw a couple downtown in my hometown, here in fly-over country, not too long ago. They used to work for the local newspaper. Wrote some pretty nice editorials, and happenings around town too. Made, perhaps, 45K a year. Not anymore. They too have been canned after Gannet bought the local paper, and then fired everyone to buck up the bottom line. Those guys wrote 6 editorials a week-wrote at least a story a day, edited others’ writing, plus had titles like “Metro Editor”, and “City Desk”. And yes, they went to meetings, but only to learn material to write about.
Those guys are all out of work now. I saw one in the grocery store not too long ago. He was buying a gallon of milk with his last unemployment check. Going from 45K to zero is hard, ya know.
I wonder if they will advertise Jerry’s position at $172,200, or will they just fill it from within, without competition?
I think I already know the answer.
Bye Gerry. Good luck. See ya.
December 31st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Jerry retiring makes me think “Happy New Year”. I can think of a few more that would make it even happier.
December 31st, 2009 at 5:51 pm
That youtube video is great. I used to watch the news daily just hoping to hear another report from the Iraqui Information Minister.
December 31st, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Does anybody think the taxpayer got anywhere near their money’s worth on Lavey’s salary? Since the faa is so keen on productivity, I’d be curious to know what he did all day and how he accounted for his time?
I wonder if other government agencies have similar positions and if so, what people are paid to do them? For an agency that was supposedly strapped for cash and needing to get costs under control they could’ve begun with Lavey’s position and none of us would’ve been any less informed.
The captain of this ship may have changed but we haven’t altered our course one degree from my view.
Kevin g
zmp
January 1st, 2010 at 12:39 am
Happy New Year.
I’m just sitting here with my new Rush Limbaugh doll I got for Christmas.
Is it working yet?
Take a whack.
I’m getting a Bruce Johnson doll soon….
January 1st, 2010 at 8:01 pm
Not to disagree with or discount anything else Al. Shwrs. posted, the chances are slim that Lavey switched to FERS and was entitled to matching TSP funds.
January 1st, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Lavey was the perfect spokesman for an Agency at the bottom of the barrel in terms of employee satisfaction and several other categories. Certainly, there’s someone in a nearby cubicle who can pick up the slack.
January 2nd, 2010 at 5:35 am
Lavey was a more than willing stooge for the Snakey Sturgeon gang, like so many of the “higher skill set”. Peddling their snake oil, carrying their water and selling their version of reality. There’s no slack to pick up. Lavey’s made up job is gone along with him. I say good riddance to the SOB.
January 2nd, 2010 at 5:51 am
Jlatc says “..the chances are slim that Lavey switched to FERS and was entitled to matching TSP funds”.
You are right, of course. I stand corrected. With all those years of service, a high-three under CSRS that included a year at $172,200, and then a final year of $177,000- won’t include TSP matching funds. But it is pretty good regardless.
Enjoy your retirement Gerry.
January 4th, 2010 at 2:02 am
Lavey, if you read this, you will not be missed.
January 4th, 2010 at 6:01 am
If we were as bad at our jobs as Lavey was at his, airships would be dropping out of the skies like flies.
January 4th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Sadly, I feel Mr. Lavey was very good at his job. Unfortunately, his job was listed as Communications instead of propaganda.
January 7th, 2010 at 6:25 am
Here’s the new tone being set for the 2 cents, by Sasha Johson(http://currentandundertow.blogspot.com/2010/01/changing-tones_06.html).
Johnson would have been Lavey’s boss, if he hadn’t retired.
“Editor’s note: In the new year, we’re going to ask writers to tone down the volume and vitriol. We’re interested in what you’re thinking, but please make your points with civil discourse in mind. Scott Morton’s e-mail (“More Equal Than Others”) below is a good example of making a point without getting too personal. Let’s also avoid personal attacks and provocative language that incite readers, rather than make them think. Write as if you are talking directly to a person. That helps to curb inappropriate language and leads to a more refined discussion.
Also, we would now like those who send us e-mails to include — along with their locations — their titles and the line of business or staff office for which they work. We’ve had several requests to provide this information, and we agree it is useful. Because this is a new procedure, we’ll provide a breaking-in period of one month. By the beginning of February, please make sure to include this information with your e-mail.”
I get that the new administrator wants to move on, but as others have indicated, the resentment and distrust runs deep.