OPM tomorrow thumps up or down

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

Gen X fed who gets 26 days of annual leave per year, plus the 11 Federal holidays that we all get and 13 days of sick leave. Funny thing is I used to be a new young employee with 13 days, the first year I was a fed I worked every single work day and took zero leave, not on Christmas eve or the day after Thanksgiving or any time I might have liked to, just to start building it up. And then I had my kids with no paid parental leave so I used most of my sick and annual leave for that and again had to dig myself out of a hole. These are choices I made, understanding that it would be 15 years before I would end up in this position with 26 days a year. You will get there too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

New Feds can also be Boomers and GenXers, you know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

New Feds can also be Boomers and GenXers, you know?

Yes, Gen Xer here who finally found a federal job at 50. They first few years were hard, because I used all my leave traveling to help sick elderly parents, until they died. Now I'm finally started to accrue leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

New Feds can also be Boomers and GenXers, you know?

Yes, Gen Xer here who finally found a federal job at 50. They first few years were hard, because I used all my leave traveling to help sick elderly parents, until they died. Now I'm finally started to accrue leave.

The jump from 13 to 20 days after 3 years feels like a big leap, plus the 11 federal holidays that you can pair with a day or two of leave for a real vacation. You can also ask your supervisor to give you extra leave as your performance award, we regularly get an additional 40 hours / 5 days instead of a couple thousand $ in annual award and it's worth more to people who want to take vacations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

Gen X fed who gets 26 days of annual leave per year, plus the 11 Federal holidays that we all get and 13 days of sick leave. Funny thing is I used to be a new young employee with 13 days, the first year I was a fed I worked every single work day and took zero leave, not on Christmas eve or the day after Thanksgiving or any time I might have liked to, just to start building it up. And then I had my kids with no paid parental leave so I used most of my sick and annual leave for that and again had to dig myself out of a hole. These are choices I made, understanding that it would be 15 years before I would end up in this position with 26 days a year. You will get there too.

PP here. I'm now an older Millennial fed manager. I've been down that road too and now am getting the 26 days. So sure, I get the good deal now, but I'd much rather have more sensible leave policies for the first 15 years than to get absurd amounts of leave after 15 years. At least we can offer parental leave. Until then it was particularly hard to try to play the "family-friendly atmosphere" card while recruiting new employees. It's still not easy when have to start people at 13 days, but I try to emphasize flex-time as a way of preserving leave.

[Anonymous]

Another difference is that our leave is calculated in 15 minute increments. Train late? You use leave. Need to brig your car in? Leave again. More than 30 minutes at lunch... My private sector friends have much more flexible days. They get in at 8 or they get in at 9. They take walks in the afternoon. No one is adding it up as long as the work is done...I am not saying they do not work hard. They just do not need to take vacation for every small thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another difference is that our leave is calculated in 15 minute increments. Train late? You use leave. Need to brig your car in? Leave again. More than 30 minutes at lunch... My private sector friends have much more flexible days. They get in at 8 or they get in at 9. They take walks in the afternoon. No one is adding it up as long as the work is done...I am not saying they do not work hard. They just do not need to take vacation for every small thing.

Most feds don’t either, only psychotic managers do this. I have one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

Gen X fed who gets 26 days of annual leave per year, plus the 11 Federal holidays that we all get and 13 days of sick leave. Funny thing is I used to be a new young employee with 13 days, the first year I was a fed I worked every single work day and took zero leave, not on Christmas eve or the day after Thanksgiving or any time I might have liked to, just to start building it up. And then I had my kids with no paid parental leave so I used most of my sick and annual leave for that and again had to dig myself out of a hole. These are choices I made, understanding that it would be 15 years before I would end up in this position with 26 days a year. You will get there too.

PP here. I'm now an older Millennial fed manager. I've been down that road too and now am getting the 26 days. So sure, I get the good deal now, but I'd much rather have more sensible leave policies for the first 15 years than to get absurd amounts of leave after 15 years. At least we can offer parental leave. Until then it was particularly hard to try to play the "family-friendly atmosphere" card while recruiting new employees. It's still not easy when have to start people at 13 days, but I try to emphasize flex-time as a way of preserving leave.

13 days plus 11 federal holidays is not awful, I also offer time off awards to everyone after their first 6 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another difference is that our leave is calculated in 15 minute increments. Train late? You use leave. Need to brig your car in? Leave again. More than 30 minutes at lunch... My private sector friends have much more flexible days. They get in at 8 or they get in at 9. They take walks in the afternoon. No one is adding it up as long as the work is done...I am not saying they do not work hard. They just do not need to take vacation for every small thing.

Most feds don’t either, only psychotic managers do this. I have one.

I'm sorry for both of you. Petty bureaucrats give governments a bad reputation.

If people are getting work done, and doing it well, and come in late 15 minutes one day but put in an extra 15 minutes another day, it's ridiculous to be counting minutes like that. Especially given that there's plenty of moments during any given day when workers are chatting with one another or walking to the restroom and not putting in dedicated work minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another difference is that our leave is calculated in 15 minute increments. Train late? You use leave. Need to brig your car in? Leave again. More than 30 minutes at lunch... My private sector friends have much more flexible days. They get in at 8 or they get in at 9. They take walks in the afternoon. No one is adding it up as long as the work is done...I am not saying they do not work hard. They just do not need to take vacation for every small thing.

This is the exception, not the rule, and you are comparing yourself to like, 5% of people in the private sector with better jobs than yours. Most workers in America have less PTO than you and have to deal with these indignities. Oh, and many of them don’t get to take leave when their train is late — they get written up and eventually fired, in many cases without leeway for individual managers.

If you think the grass is so much greener, why not leave?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

Gen X fed who gets 26 days of annual leave per year, plus the 11 Federal holidays that we all get and 13 days of sick leave. Funny thing is I used to be a new young employee with 13 days, the first year I was a fed I worked every single work day and took zero leave, not on Christmas eve or the day after Thanksgiving or any time I might have liked to, just to start building it up. And then I had my kids with no paid parental leave so I used most of my sick and annual leave for that and again had to dig myself out of a hole. These are choices I made, understanding that it would be 15 years before I would end up in this position with 26 days a year. You will get there too.

PP here. I'm now an older Millennial fed manager. I've been down that road too and now am getting the 26 days. So sure, I get the good deal now, but I'd much rather have more sensible leave policies for the first 15 years than to get absurd amounts of leave after 15 years. At least we can offer parental leave. Until then it was particularly hard to try to play the "family-friendly atmosphere" card while recruiting new employees. It's still not easy when have to start people at 13 days, but I try to emphasize flex-time as a way of preserving leave.

13 days plus 11 federal holidays is not awful, I also offer time off awards to everyone after their first 6 months.

No, it isn't awful. But it doesn't make up for 30-50% lower salaries that we can offer compared to the private sector. And my agency cracked down on time-off awards a decade over. It's nearly impossible to get approval for more than a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

Gen X fed who gets 26 days of annual leave per year, plus the 11 Federal holidays that we all get and 13 days of sick leave. Funny thing is I used to be a new young employee with 13 days, the first year I was a fed I worked every single work day and took zero leave, not on Christmas eve or the day after Thanksgiving or any time I might have liked to, just to start building it up. And then I had my kids with no paid parental leave so I used most of my sick and annual leave for that and again had to dig myself out of a hole. These are choices I made, understanding that it would be 15 years before I would end up in this position with 26 days a year. You will get there too.

PP here. I'm now an older Millennial fed manager. I've been down that road too and now am getting the 26 days. So sure, I get the good deal now, but I'd much rather have more sensible leave policies for the first 15 years than to get absurd amounts of leave after 15 years. At least we can offer parental leave. Until then it was particularly hard to try to play the "family-friendly atmosphere" card while recruiting new employees. It's still not easy when have to start people at 13 days, but I try to emphasize flex-time as a way of preserving leave.

13 days plus 11 federal holidays is not awful, I also offer time off awards to everyone after their first 6 months.

No, it isn't awful. But it doesn't make up for 30-50% lower salaries that we can offer compared to the private sector. And my agency cracked down on time-off awards a decade over. It's nearly impossible to get approval for more than a day.

My god, could feds stop generalizing? If positions were really paying 30-50% less than private sector (inclusive of benefits) we would see serious attrition and hiring issues. One agency that is having some trouble was able to get approval to bring people in at the 15-year leave accrual rate; others have non-GS salary bands. This is an issue in a SMALL handful of professional positions and yet people really want to pretend the majority of feds are underpaid — why the attachment to a demonstrable falsehood?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

Gen X fed who gets 26 days of annual leave per year, plus the 11 Federal holidays that we all get and 13 days of sick leave. Funny thing is I used to be a new young employee with 13 days, the first year I was a fed I worked every single work day and took zero leave, not on Christmas eve or the day after Thanksgiving or any time I might have liked to, just to start building it up. And then I had my kids with no paid parental leave so I used most of my sick and annual leave for that and again had to dig myself out of a hole. These are choices I made, understanding that it would be 15 years before I would end up in this position with 26 days a year. You will get there too.

PP here. I'm now an older Millennial fed manager. I've been down that road too and now am getting the 26 days. So sure, I get the good deal now, but I'd much rather have more sensible leave policies for the first 15 years than to get absurd amounts of leave after 15 years. At least we can offer parental leave. Until then it was particularly hard to try to play the "family-friendly atmosphere" card while recruiting new employees. It's still not easy when have to start people at 13 days, but I try to emphasize flex-time as a way of preserving leave.

13 days plus 11 federal holidays is not awful, I also offer time off awards to everyone after their first 6 months.

No, it isn't awful. But it doesn't make up for 30-50% lower salaries that we can offer compared to the private sector. And my agency cracked down on time-off awards a decade over. It's nearly impossible to get approval for more than a day.

My god, could feds stop generalizing? If positions were really paying 30-50% less than private sector (inclusive of benefits) we would see serious attrition and hiring issues. One agency that is having some trouble was able to get approval to bring people in at the 15-year leave accrual rate; others have non-GS salary bands. This is an issue in a SMALL handful of professional positions and yet people really want to pretend the majority of feds are underpaid — why the attachment to a demonstrable falsehood?

You are so clueless. We do have serious hiring and retention issues for GOOD employees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Another difference is that our leave is calculated in 15 minute increments. Train late? You use leave. Need to brig your car in? Leave again. More than 30 minutes at lunch... My private sector friends have much more flexible days. They get in at 8 or they get in at 9. They take walks in the afternoon. No one is adding it up as long as the work is done...I am not saying they do not work hard. They just do not need to take vacation for every small thing.

This is the exception, not the rule, and you are comparing yourself to like, 5% of people in the private sector with better jobs than yours. Most workers in America have less PTO than you and have to deal with these indignities. Oh, and many of them don’t get to take leave when their train is late — they get written up and eventually fired, in many cases without leeway for individual managers.

If you think the grass is so much greener, why not leave?

No it is not. No one in a professional job (law, Econ, tech, etc) gets written up for being 15 minutes late. That is the payoff for working hard in your education and learning valuable skills that make you hard to replace. Just stop it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It would be a dangerous move for opm to rely on telework as the solution for bad weather given the many who can’t telework. I guess the rest of us don’t exist. Yay I get to lose more leave days!

Honestly though it’s on trend for fed govt . I’ve been feeling more and more every year that my non- telework fed job just hates parents and wants us all to quit.

There won’t be enough snow to warrant closing the government. Employees without telework agreements would get a snow day if the weather was worse but it’s been a few years since we’ve had a decent snowstorm.

It’s a joke for those of us who can’t telework- over in the school forums everyone’s saying to get your contingency plan in place because it will be too dangerous for teachers to drive to school but it’s fine for the rest of us to drive to work?

I’m boiling. It is totally unfair. Teachers (public employees, mind you) get a free day while we have to risk our lives either commuting in, burn a day of leave, or try to balance the kids, who’ll want to play in the snow, while productively WFHing. Either OPM needs to reevaluate its priorities and commitment to families, or schools need to be the last service to close.

Stop whining. As feds we get a ton of leave plus more telework than most of our peers. One of the only drawbacks to these perks is we are expected to be prepared to telework during what used to be snow days. Would you rather go back to the office 4/5 days a week like we did 20 years ago? There is nothing unfair about our situation

The feds get tons of leave thing is not fully accurate. Those of us who were feds back when they had no maternity leave (just a few short years ago) have NEVER recovered. Most of us used every single leave hour to try to stay home the basic 12 weeks or used lwop. I had only finally built up a leave balance again when covid hit and none of us got infected in till after they removed special leave for it so my leave was gone when you added up 2 kids getting it separately and myself getting it all at diff times, that was almost 18 days of leave. Oh, and then my mom died. And then my kid got the flu. and then we were finally done with daycare and started public school which has closures practically every two weeks requiring use of leave of paying for camps if you can get it.

So a forced liberal leave day does upset me when it happens.

Please do not perpetuate the myth that all feds have tons of leave there are a lot of us who are struggling. I can barely save up enough. We have never gone on a vacation because I have no leave. All we do at most is a long weekend driving distance. I hate it.

The people I know in the private sector are all doing so much better than the federal employees in their 40s I know in this regard. ALL. The younger employees are far better off then we were if they decide to have families, but they have other challenges with cost-of-living.

You are confusing two things.

Do federal employees get a lot of leave? Yes, absolutely.
Have you personally had reason to use most of that leave? Yes.

Boomer and GenX feds get tons of leave. New feds get 13 days.

Gen X fed who gets 26 days of annual leave per year, plus the 11 Federal holidays that we all get and 13 days of sick leave. Funny thing is I used to be a new young employee with 13 days, the first year I was a fed I worked every single work day and took zero leave, not on Christmas eve or the day after Thanksgiving or any time I might have liked to, just to start building it up. And then I had my kids with no paid parental leave so I used most of my sick and annual leave for that and again had to dig myself out of a hole. These are choices I made, understanding that it would be 15 years before I would end up in this position with 26 days a year. You will get there too.

PP here. I'm now an older Millennial fed manager. I've been down that road too and now am getting the 26 days. So sure, I get the good deal now, but I'd much rather have more sensible leave policies for the first 15 years than to get absurd amounts of leave after 15 years. At least we can offer parental leave. Until then it was particularly hard to try to play the "family-friendly atmosphere" card while recruiting new employees. It's still not easy when have to start people at 13 days, but I try to emphasize flex-time as a way of preserving leave.

13 days plus 11 federal holidays is not awful, I also offer time off awards to everyone after their first 6 months.

No, it isn't awful. But it doesn't make up for 30-50% lower salaries that we can offer compared to the private sector. And my agency cracked down on time-off awards a decade over. It's nearly impossible to get approval for more than a day.

My god, could feds stop generalizing? If positions were really paying 30-50% less than private sector (inclusive of benefits) we would see serious attrition and hiring issues. One agency that is having some trouble was able to get approval to bring people in at the 15-year leave accrual rate; others have non-GS salary bands. This is an issue in a SMALL handful of professional positions and yet people really want to pretend the majority of feds are underpaid — why the attachment to a demonstrable falsehood?

You are so clueless. We do have serious hiring and retention issues for GOOD employees.

I believe this for certain positions and offices. In my office we have a lot of employees who have been there forever and will never leave, I’ve attended several 70th birthday parties for my coworkers. They are very nice but this is clearly more money than any of these people would be paid elsewhere. The GS scale is not a great gauge of talent.