You’ll Have Trouble Believing the Latest EPA Management Outrage

First, we learned that EPA brass repeatedly promoted a fake spy who had been defrauding the agency for a decade. Then, the Inspector General reported that an EPA employee received bonuses, despite having been caught watching 2-6 hours of porn a day. Today, however, comes the biggest management outrage of them all…In an article actually titled, “EPA Employees Told To Stop Pooping in the Hallway,” Fedblog’s Eric Katz reports:

Management for Region 8 in Denver, Colo., wrote an email earlier this year to all staff in the area pleading with them to stop inappropriate bathroom behavior, including defecating in the hallway.  

In the email, obtained by Government Executive, Deputy Regional Administrator Howard Cantor mentioned “several incidents” in the building, including clogging the toilets with paper towels and “an individual placing feces in the hallway” outside the restroom.

That’s disgusting and terrible, but it’s not even the most revelatory aspect of this sordid tale. Evidently, leadership at EPA Region 8 was flummoxed as to how to address this poop-perpetrator (poopetrator?) matter, so it consulted with workplace violence “national expert” John Nicoletti. And only upon receiving the esteemed Mr. Nicoletti’s advice—that poop in the hallways is a health hazard—did the powers that be at EPA Region 8 swoop into action, and send an all staff email. I can’t imagine a less impressive managerial response.

Remember, all the time that EPA wastes on fake spies, porn addicts, and public poopers is time that the agency could have devoted to its long-neglected statutory responsibilities.