Our little chipmunk in the Oakland RO informed us the other night that the VARO is closed until the employees can be retrained. There was much discussion back and forth between the DC Central Office and the Oakland Service Center Manager. It was felt she could attain a higher rate of compliance and a phenomenally low error rate for this month simply by closing down. They are keeping several employees on who work in the shredder room as that job entails no new training.

I shudder to think what the backlog will look like when they return. I envision massive 55 gallon drums for in-baskets. If you look up shooting yourself in the foot in the Miriam Webster dictionary, I suspect you’ll find a picture of the Oakland VARO.

On behalf of the krewe at Asknod, we thank the vA VR&E for the new scanner/copier that made this picture possible.