© Samantha SaisPaula Pedene, a former chief spokeswoman for the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital, works in the basement of the hospital, where her desk was relocated amid a misconduct investigation after she blew the whistle on the hospital’s director.
"Today, I get to go get the papers. Exciting!" she said. "I get to go upstairs and, you know, see people."
The task itself was no thrill: Retrieve the morning's newspapers and bring them back to the library of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital. The pleasure was in the journey. Down a long, sunlit hallway. Back again, seeing friends in the bustle of the hospital's main floor.
Then, Pedene got back in the elevator and hit "B." The day's big excitement was over. It was 7:40 a.m.
"I will not be able to do this forever," Pedene said later that day.
Pedene, 56, is the former chief spokeswoman for this VA hospital. Now, she is living in a bureaucrat's urban legend. After complaining to higher-ups about mismanagement at this hospital, she has been reassigned - indefinitely - to a desk in the basement.
In the Phoenix case, investigators are still trying to determine whether Pedene was punished because of her earlier complaints. If she is, that would make her part of a long, ugly tradition in the federal bureaucracy - workers sent to a cubicle in exile.
In the past, whistleblowers have had their desks moved to break rooms, broom closets and basements. It's a clever punishment, good-government activists say, that exploits a gray area in the law.
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