Biden wants RTO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RTO is BS. I say that as at work we were talking about improving morale.

Now we work from home Tuesday’s and Thursday’s and Friday is unofficially Jeans and Sneakers and long lunch and leave at 3-4pm

The people with no child care, near retirement, long commutes, people with second jobs, lazy people want more WFH to improve morale.

How does that accomplish anything?

The people who work wanted better training, free lunch, better promotion opportunities, greater access sr. Mgt, more meaningful work.

I mean next week Monday a Holiday, Tuesday WFH, Wed in office, Thursday WFH and Friday jeans and sneakers leave early. So more off is better?

Working from home or wearing jeans doesn't mean you're getting a day off.

In fantasy land. Ok so it has been proven WFH do 18 percent less work. They on average work 6 hours a day. And no commute.

So it is sleep in, get kids in bus, check email at 8-9 while sipping coffee, off to gym, come back, move mouse around, off to supermarket or Starbucks or lunch with GFs, move mouse around, kids off bus, make snacks, check email. Around 8pm one last check email to to make it look like you work 12 hours a day.

Or worse my friends boss has two part time jobs, single mom with kids. Her calendar is booked 6-7 hours a day with her other jobs and kids stuff. She works tops 1-3 hours a week.

WFH is vacation

Maybe in your world. My spouse checks their email when they wake up at 6, take the kids to school by 7:30 and start work and go non-stop till 4/5-8, still checking email before bed. Breaks for walking the dog and and sometimes picking up a kid from school but that's 10 minutes. Plus, work on weekends. If they go into the office, with commute, they do 8 hours, sometimes 9. Commute is 90 minutes each way. So, the lost productivity is because of the commute (though they often are on calls on the commute too).

You prove my point. Checking email is not work. That is goofing off. Walking dog, picking up kids. Once again out of touch. Real Work should be 8am to 630 pm in office five days a week with lunch at desk minutes on good days. That is Goldman, Chase, big law, big 4. When I worked in person at a major investment bank I hit 50 hours on Thursday and I still have to do a vacation Day of wanted off Friday.

Back in 2002 huge project I was in office physically 3,000 hours. In 2021 I wfh around 700-800 hours

Great! Let’s pay feds equivalent to these employers if we’re going to expect similar work hours.

It’s insane to me whenever anyone cites private sector work expectations without being honest about the pay differential. I make 140k as a gov attorney which is a fraction of what my big law friends make. I made that choice for the work life balance. I don’t want to work 50 hour weeks and be chained to a desk, and certainly wouldn’t do so for $140k in today’s economy.

I also joined the government partially for work life balance. For the first 15 years of my federal career I was in the office around 4 days a week, now they’re asking me to come back 2-3 days. Still just 40 hours a week for my GS14 salary. I understand it’s not ideal but all of the people in the past 80 pages of threads saying everyone would leave and this is intolerable sound kind of crazy to me. It’s still a good deal with work life balance.

But the entire workforce has changed. Not just Feds. I know plenty of private sector employees back to 2-3 days a week (or even fully remote) who make more money than government employees. So now 2-3 days in office for government pay doesn’t carry the value it used to. That’s what people are saying. I’m willing to work for my salary because of the full time telework. If I have to go in several days a week anyway then I may as well explore other options that pay more. That’s the market working and I’m not the only fed who feels this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RTO is BS. I say that as at work we were talking about improving morale.

Now we work from home Tuesday’s and Thursday’s and Friday is unofficially Jeans and Sneakers and long lunch and leave at 3-4pm

The people with no child care, near retirement, long commutes, people with second jobs, lazy people want more WFH to improve morale.

How does that accomplish anything?

The people who work wanted better training, free lunch, better promotion opportunities, greater access sr. Mgt, more meaningful work.

I mean next week Monday a Holiday, Tuesday WFH, Wed in office, Thursday WFH and Friday jeans and sneakers leave early. So more off is better?

Working from home or wearing jeans doesn't mean you're getting a day off.

In fantasy land. Ok so it has been proven WFH do 18 percent less work. They on average work 6 hours a day. And no commute.

So it is sleep in, get kids in bus, check email at 8-9 while sipping coffee, off to gym, come back, move mouse around, off to supermarket or Starbucks or lunch with GFs, move mouse around, kids off bus, make snacks, check email. Around 8pm one last check email to to make it look like you work 12 hours a day.

Or worse my friends boss has two part time jobs, single mom with kids. Her calendar is booked 6-7 hours a day with her other jobs and kids stuff. She works tops 1-3 hours a week.

WFH is vacation

Maybe in your world. My spouse checks their email when they wake up at 6, take the kids to school by 7:30 and start work and go non-stop till 4/5-8, still checking email before bed. Breaks for walking the dog and and sometimes picking up a kid from school but that's 10 minutes. Plus, work on weekends. If they go into the office, with commute, they do 8 hours, sometimes 9. Commute is 90 minutes each way. So, the lost productivity is because of the commute (though they often are on calls on the commute too).

You prove my point. Checking email is not work. That is goofing off. Walking dog, picking up kids. Once again out of touch. Real Work should be 8am to 630 pm in office five days a week with lunch at desk minutes on good days. That is Goldman, Chase, big law, big 4. When I worked in person at a major investment bank I hit 50 hours on Thursday and I still have to do a vacation Day of wanted off Friday.

Back in 2002 huge project I was in office physically 3,000 hours. In 2021 I wfh around 700-800 hours

Great! Let’s pay feds equivalent to these employers if we’re going to expect similar work hours.

It’s insane to me whenever anyone cites private sector work expectations without being honest about the pay differential. I make 140k as a gov attorney which is a fraction of what my big law friends make. I made that choice for the work life balance. I don’t want to work 50 hour weeks and be chained to a desk, and certainly wouldn’t do so for $140k in today’s economy.

I also joined the government partially for work life balance. For the first 15 years of my federal career I was in the office around 4 days a week, now they’re asking me to come back 2-3 days. Still just 40 hours a week for my GS14 salary. I understand it’s not ideal but all of the people in the past 80 pages of threads saying everyone would leave and this is intolerable sound kind of crazy to me. It’s still a good deal with work life balance.

But the entire workforce has changed. Not just Feds. I know plenty of private sector employees back to 2-3 days a week (or even fully remote) who make more money than government employees. So now 2-3 days in office for government pay doesn’t carry the value it used to. That’s what people are saying. I’m willing to work for my salary because of the full time telework. If I have to go in several days a week anyway then I may as well explore other options that pay more. That’s the market working and I’m not the only fed who feels this way.

For all like you, explore other options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[

You prove my point. Checking email is not work. That is goofing off. Walking dog, picking up kids. Once again out of touch. Real Work should be 8am to 630 pm in office five days a week with lunch at desk minutes on good days. That is Goldman, Chase, big law, big 4. When I worked in person at a major investment bank I hit 50 hours on Thursday and I still have to do a vacation Day of wanted off Friday.

Back in 2002 huge project I was in office physically 3,000 hours. In 2021 I wfh around 700-800 hours

You've clearly never worked at a DC or New York Biglaw office if you think they start at 8 am. 10 am is closer to the truth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You prove my point. Checking email is not work. That is goofing off. Walking dog, picking up kids. Once again out of touch. Real Work should be 8am to 630 pm in office five days a week with lunch at desk minutes on good days. That is Goldman, Chase, big law, big 4. When I worked in person at a major investment bank I hit 50 hours on Thursday and I still have to do a vacation Day of wanted off Friday.

Back in 2002 huge project I was in office physically 3,000 hours. In 2021 I wfh around 700-800 hours

You also demonstrate your trollhood with the highlighted statement. For many of us who are non-litigating attorneys, checking and responding to emails - i.e., answering questions and moving projects forward - is a significant portion of our work each day.

[Anonymous]

For the first 15 years of my federal career I was in the office around 4 days a week, now they’re asking me to come back 2-3 days. Still just 40 hours a week for my GS14 salary.

Sounds like a good gig for you. I am a GS 15 and work about 60 hours a week. It's not terrible, and I find the work interesting, but also not a super sweet gig that no one would think of leaving for work-life balance reasons.

[Anonymous]

Pre Covid WFH was already not working. My company did Friday WFH. But I was dept head.

I had four working Moms working for me with school age kids.

All four took Friday as a “disappear day”. Fridays were make breakfast kids, go to school bus stop kids, Doctor appointments, after school play dates. Maybe catch up on shopping for weekend.

I had one when leaving with only one elementary school kid actually told me Friday was as follows.
Take kid bus, Starbucks and gym,
Go home check work, go to lunch friends or doctor or dental appointment, car serviced. for herself ot r supermarket,
Pick kid up school and since always working take kid out ice cream or movies etc.

She was worse but all four similar effort. I caught them even leaving laptops at work sometimes and just on phone email.

I lost 20 percent work when we went to Friday at home. And I worked every Friday in person even though not required by myself.

Was HR idea.

And after me being anti WFH I got forced to WFH on Covid and I was an equal goof off.

There is something about showering, shaving, going to office puts me in mood to work. Human nature

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During the pandemic all these downtown businesses got lavish bailouts like PPP, etc. And now years later they still want even more subsidies? The world has moved on and nobody with a computer needs to commute anymore. Time for these laggards to adjust, or else we should also bring back the horse and carriage industry - fair is fair.

+1

The smart places have since adapted (e.g. creating a daily delivery lunch special within a certain radius) or created in-person draws like wifi, a table with kids toys/puzzles, etc.

Trying to turn back time on telework to save the restaurant industry is the liberal equivalent of the coal industry trying to move us backward regarding energy.

No one is trying to save the restaurant industry. They are trying to save commercial real estate from collapsing all at once. Go look back at the PTO article. If CRE collapses, more banks will fail. The fallout has the potential to be fast and furious and you are very, very naive if you don’t think it will impact you or your 529s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During the pandemic all these downtown businesses got lavish bailouts like PPP, etc. And now years later they still want even more subsidies? The world has moved on and nobody with a computer needs to commute anymore. Time for these laggards to adjust, or else we should also bring back the horse and carriage industry - fair is fair.

+1

The smart places have since adapted (e.g. creating a daily delivery lunch special within a certain radius) or created in-person draws like wifi, a table with kids toys/puzzles, etc.

Trying to turn back time on telework to save the restaurant industry is the liberal equivalent of the coal industry trying to move us backward regarding energy.

No one is trying to save the restaurant industry. They are trying to save commercial real estate from collapsing all at once. Go look back at the PTO article. If CRE collapses, more banks will fail. The fallout has the potential to be fast and furious and you are very, very naive if you don’t think it will impact you or your 529s.

Look I don’t disagree with you that total CRE collapse would be bad. I just don’t agree that having Feds on the office is the way to fix it. I mean making a bunch of agencies lease buildings they don’t really need is just a de facto bail out at the added expense of employee morale.

If private sector employers are benefitting from smaller commercial footprints then why shouldn’t taxpayers as well?

CRE needs to find some other way to evolve. I’m not sure how, but this isn’t it. Technology is continually making old ways of doing things obsolete. The office building is now a dinosaur.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pre Covid WFH was already not working. My company did Friday WFH. But I was dept head.

I had four working Moms working for me with school age kids.

All four took Friday as a “disappear day”. Fridays were make breakfast kids, go to school bus stop kids, Doctor appointments, after school play dates. Maybe catch up on shopping for weekend.

I had one when leaving with only one elementary school kid actually told me Friday was as follows.
Take kid bus, Starbucks and gym,
Go home check work, go to lunch friends or doctor or dental appointment, car serviced. for herself ot r supermarket,
Pick kid up school and since always working take kid out ice cream or movies etc.

She was worse but all four similar effort. I caught them even leaving laptops at work sometimes and just on phone email.

I lost 20 percent work when we went to Friday at home. And I worked every Friday in person even though not required by myself.

Was HR idea.

And after me being anti WFH I got forced to WFH on Covid and I was an equal goof off.

There is something about showering, shaving, going to office puts me in mood to work. Human nature

This whole thing reads like the ramblings of some boomer male who hates working moms. So your employees walked their kids to the bus in the morning and used that day to catch up on doctor’s appointments or car service (presumably they’re allowed a lunch break and had some extra time built in their day from not commuting). The horror. And wow they went to Starbucks for coffee? Isn’t going to coffee shops and propping up commercial leases the whole point of this RTO bid? What is the difference to you if your employees grab coffee at the Starbucks by their house or by your office? Or are you some weird micromanager who doesn’t want people to take coffee breaks?

Also, men who work in offices have been using Fridays to go golfing and to long client lunches for decades. For some reason I doubt you have the same level of disdain for them.

If they were overall good performers then maybe HR was onto something with trying to keep up with industry benefits for morale/retention purposes. And if they weren’t good performers then I doubt just Friday was the only day they were underperforming. As department head, why didn’t you do a better job managing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During the pandemic all these downtown businesses got lavish bailouts like PPP, etc. And now years later they still want even more subsidies? The world has moved on and nobody with a computer needs to commute anymore. Time for these laggards to adjust, or else we should also bring back the horse and carriage industry - fair is fair.

+1

The smart places have since adapted (e.g. creating a daily delivery lunch special within a certain radius) or created in-person draws like wifi, a table with kids toys/puzzles, etc.

Trying to turn back time on telework to save the restaurant industry is the liberal equivalent of the coal industry trying to move us backward regarding energy.

No one is trying to save the restaurant industry. They are trying to save commercial real estate from collapsing all at once. Go look back at the PTO article. If CRE collapses, more banks will fail. The fallout has the potential to be fast and furious and you are very, very naive if you don’t think it will impact you or your 529s.

Look I don’t disagree with you that total CRE collapse would be bad. I just don’t agree that having Feds on the office is the way to fix it. I mean making a bunch of agencies lease buildings they don’t really need is just a de facto bail out at the added expense of employee morale.

If private sector employers are benefitting from smaller commercial footprints then why shouldn’t taxpayers as well?

CRE needs to find some other way to evolve. I’m not sure how, but this isn’t it. Technology is continually making old ways of doing things obsolete. The office building is now a dinosaur.

I truly don’t know how long millions of Americans can be forced to drive a car to an office building to be on Teams calls all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During the pandemic all these downtown businesses got lavish bailouts like PPP, etc. And now years later they still want even more subsidies? The world has moved on and nobody with a computer needs to commute anymore. Time for these laggards to adjust, or else we should also bring back the horse and carriage industry - fair is fair.

+1

The smart places have since adapted (e.g. creating a daily delivery lunch special within a certain radius) or created in-person draws like wifi, a table with kids toys/puzzles, etc.

Trying to turn back time on telework to save the restaurant industry is the liberal equivalent of the coal industry trying to move us backward regarding energy.

No one is trying to save the restaurant industry. They are trying to save commercial real estate from collapsing all at once. Go look back at the PTO article. If CRE collapses, more banks will fail. The fallout has the potential to be fast and furious and you are very, very naive if you don’t think it will impact you or your 529s.

Too bad we can’t let the market do its thing. There is a shortage of residential real estate and an oversupply of offices. It seems in the long run it’s not doing our country any good to artificially prop up offices and not allow the evolution of technology to benefit workers. It’s just kicking the can down the road and can distort the market.

Was there a huge backlash against the assembly line? Did the government and elites try to stop it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pre Covid WFH was already not working. My company did Friday WFH. But I was dept head.

I had four working Moms working for me with school age kids.

All four took Friday as a “disappear day”. Fridays were make breakfast kids, go to school bus stop kids, Doctor appointments, after school play dates. Maybe catch up on shopping for weekend.

I had one when leaving with only one elementary school kid actually told me Friday was as follows.
Take kid bus, Starbucks and gym,
Go home check work, go to lunch friends or doctor or dental appointment, car serviced. for herself ot r supermarket,
Pick kid up school and since always working take kid out ice cream or movies etc.

She was worse but all four similar effort. I caught them even leaving laptops at work sometimes and just on phone email.

I lost 20 percent work when we went to Friday at home. And I worked every Friday in person even though not required by myself.

Was HR idea.

And after me being anti WFH I got forced to WFH on Covid and I was an equal goof off.

There is something about showering, shaving, going to office puts me in mood to work. Human nature

Unfortunately, none of your supposed work made your writing legible or clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre Covid WFH was already not working. My company did Friday WFH. But I was dept head.

I had four working Moms working for me with school age kids.

All four took Friday as a “disappear day”. Fridays were make breakfast kids, go to school bus stop kids, Doctor appointments, after school play dates. Maybe catch up on shopping for weekend.

I had one when leaving with only one elementary school kid actually told me Friday was as follows.
Take kid bus, Starbucks and gym,
Go home check work, go to lunch friends or doctor or dental appointment, car serviced. for herself ot r supermarket,
Pick kid up school and since always working take kid out ice cream or movies etc.

She was worse but all four similar effort. I caught them even leaving laptops at work sometimes and just on phone email.

I lost 20 percent work when we went to Friday at home. And I worked every Friday in person even though not required by myself.

Was HR idea.

And after me being anti WFH I got forced to WFH on Covid and I was an equal goof off.

There is something about showering, shaving, going to office puts me in mood to work. Human nature

Unfortunately, none of your supposed work made your writing legible or clear.

What about “make breakfast kids,” “take kid bus,” “for herself ot r supermarket,” “take kid out ice cream,” or “just on phone email” isn’t legible or clear.

I’m thinking this must be J1 J2 poster or someone similar with a poor grasp of English syntax for an alleged “department head.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre Covid WFH was already not working. My company did Friday WFH. But I was dept head.

I had four working Moms working for me with school age kids.

All four took Friday as a “disappear day”. Fridays were make breakfast kids, go to school bus stop kids, Doctor appointments, after school play dates. Maybe catch up on shopping for weekend.

I had one when leaving with only one elementary school kid actually told me Friday was as follows.
Take kid bus, Starbucks and gym,
Go home check work, go to lunch friends or doctor or dental appointment, car serviced. for herself ot r supermarket,
Pick kid up school and since always working take kid out ice cream or movies etc.

She was worse but all four similar effort. I caught them even leaving laptops at work sometimes and just on phone email.

I lost 20 percent work when we went to Friday at home. And I worked every Friday in person even though not required by myself.

Was HR idea.

And after me being anti WFH I got forced to WFH on Covid and I was an equal goof off.

There is something about showering, shaving, going to office puts me in mood to work. Human nature

This whole thing reads like the ramblings of some boomer male who hates working moms. So your employees walked their kids to the bus in the morning and used that day to catch up on doctor’s appointments or car service (presumably they’re allowed a lunch break and had some extra time built in their day from not commuting). The horror. And wow they went to Starbucks for coffee? Isn’t going to coffee shops and propping up commercial leases the whole point of this RTO bid? What is the difference to you if your employees grab coffee at the Starbucks by their house or by your office? Or are you some weird micromanager who doesn’t want people to take coffee breaks?

Also, men who work in offices have been using Fridays to go golfing and to long client lunches for decades. For some reason I doubt you have the same level of disdain for them.

If they were overall good performers then maybe HR was onto something with trying to keep up with industry benefits for morale/retention purposes. And if they weren’t good performers then I doubt just Friday was the only day they were underperforming. As department head, why didn’t you do a better job managing?

I agree that this sounds like an assshole rant. It reminds me of a kunty micromanager that belittled employees if they did not put taking a shit on their calendars while she called me while running errands like picking up her husband and having business calls with grand babies screaming and crying in the background.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:During the pandemic all these downtown businesses got lavish bailouts like PPP, etc. And now years later they still want even more subsidies? The world has moved on and nobody with a computer needs to commute anymore. Time for these laggards to adjust, or else we should also bring back the horse and carriage industry - fair is fair.

+1

The smart places have since adapted (e.g. creating a daily delivery lunch special within a certain radius) or created in-person draws like wifi, a table with kids toys/puzzles, etc.

Trying to turn back time on telework to save the restaurant industry is the liberal equivalent of the coal industry trying to move us backward regarding energy.

No one is trying to save the restaurant industry. They are trying to save commercial real estate from collapsing all at once. Go look back at the PTO article. If CRE collapses, more banks will fail. The fallout has the potential to be fast and furious and you are very, very naive if you don’t think it will impact you or your 529s.

It’s not the responsibility of federal labor to save the capitalists. Let THEM eat cake!