Any feds recent experience EEO complaint for reasonable accommodation

[Anonymous]

How did it go? Any positive results from going the legal route?

RTO (commute itself and office environment) has destroyed my health and cratered my productivity. I’m blowing through leave like crazy just to survive.

Aside from real estate transactions and minimal assistance from attorney for a divorce, I have never needed and attorney. But it is so bad now, I feel I have no choice to spend the money.

Should I wait for the appeal? My employer is taking forever just to process my RA (second attempt) and I don’t have an interim RA approved so I am in office 5 days a week.

[Anonymous]

it's adversarial, and they'll probably find a way to push you out of your job - knowing that you won't have the funds > $100K or time >=10 years to fight back. BTDT

[Anonymous]

What is your ra, let's judge if you are trying to scam tax payers

[Anonymous]

As always, the devil is in the details. If you really truly need a RA due to a genuine medical limitation, that's one thing. If you just are upset you have to return to commuting to work because you don't like commuting, you don't like the lack of flexibility in your workday to do personal stuff, etc., you're wasting your time.

Did you commute successfully before WFH became a thing? What changed after you started to WFH, apart from your realizing that work from home appeals to you more than working in an office?

[Anonymous]

I’m not seeing a medical condition here. Doing your job has cratered your performance? I haven’t seen any RAs approved for remote work at my office. I have seen a lot approved but it’s usually different schedules or screen readers.

Even my physically disabled coworkers haven’t had RAs for remote work approved. One got a parking space though! (Which never happens unless you’re SES normally)

[Anonymous]

I have a coworker with driving anxiety who got a RA approved to return to WFH, but it took months.

She was also hired as WFH and worked fully remote before the pandemic, though, so that could have also factored into the decision.

[Anonymous]

I dont know anyone who has had luck with RA WFH. I know several senior high-performing staff who have had previous RAs for telework due to chronic medical conditions and physical disabilities who have had their renewals/extensions essentially denied. Their formal reconsideration requests denied. Their EEO counseling went nowhere. Next step is to sue, which is what DOGE wants, and then you have to report in anyway while the suit is pending and pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Staff are dragging things out by filing new request after new request bc then their existing accommodations are honored. If you don’t have an existing pre-DOGE reasonable accommodation for telework your odds are slim to none to get one now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I dont know anyone who has had luck with RA WFH. I know several senior high-performing staff who have had previous RAs for telework due to chronic medical conditions and physical disabilities who have had their renewals/extensions essentially denied. Their formal reconsideration requests denied. Their EEO counseling went nowhere. Next step is to sue, which is what DOGE wants, and then you have to report in anyway while the suit is pending and pay tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Staff are dragging things out by filing new request after new request bc then their existing accommodations are honored. If you don’t have an existing pre-DOGE reasonable accommodation for telework your odds are slim to none to get one now.

But many people were hired into fully remote positions pre-Doge and did not need a reasonable accommodation.

Or the location they’ve been told to report to is much further away than any office they reported to pre-Covid.

Or it’s been 8 years since they worked in person and have developed medical conditions they did not have previously. Which is common considering we all grow older, not younger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not seeing a medical condition here. Doing your job has cratered your performance? I haven’t seen any RAs approved for remote work at my office. I have seen a lot approved but it’s usually different schedules or screen readers.

Even my physically disabled coworkers haven’t had RAs for remote work approved. One got a parking space though! (Which never happens unless you’re SES normally)

You are conflating being physically present in a specific location with “doing your job”

[Anonymous]

We have had a number of TW RAs approved at my agency. Someone with chronic back pain, another temporary one with post partum issues and another temporary one for someone recovering from a cardiac surgery.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not seeing a medical condition here. Doing your job has cratered your performance? I haven’t seen any RAs approved for remote work at my office. I have seen a lot approved but it’s usually different schedules or screen readers.

Even my physically disabled coworkers haven’t had RAs for remote work approved. One got a parking space though! (Which never happens unless you’re SES normally)

You are conflating being physically present in a specific location with “doing your job”

The only thing that has changed is coming into an office. For an RA, something medically should be different between remote and in office work. I get it, I too would like to telework, but you can't let that destroy your performance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have had a number of TW RAs approved at my agency. Someone with chronic back pain, another temporary one with post partum issues and another temporary one for someone recovering from a cardiac surgery.

These temporary ones were not RAs. It was likely temporary approved telework. RAs are not given for transitory issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not seeing a medical condition here. Doing your job has cratered your performance? I haven’t seen any RAs approved for remote work at my office. I have seen a lot approved but it’s usually different schedules or screen readers.

Even my physically disabled coworkers haven’t had RAs for remote work approved. One got a parking space though! (Which never happens unless you’re SES normally)

You are conflating being physically present in a specific location with “doing your job”

No I think the OP has conflated the two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have had a number of TW RAs approved at my agency. Someone with chronic back pain, another temporary one with post partum issues and another temporary one for someone recovering from a cardiac surgery.

These temporary ones were not RAs. It was likely temporary approved telework. RAs are not given for transitory issues.

Not true, RAs can definitely be temporary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not seeing a medical condition here. Doing your job has cratered your performance? I haven’t seen any RAs approved for remote work at my office. I have seen a lot approved but it’s usually different schedules or screen readers.

Even my physically disabled coworkers haven’t had RAs for remote work approved. One got a parking space though! (Which never happens unless you’re SES normally)

You are conflating being physically present in a specific location with “doing your job”

The only thing that has changed is coming into an office. For an RA, something medically should be different between remote and in office work. I get it, I too would like to telework, but you can't let that destroy your performance.

That’s nice for you that RTO has minimal impact on your health and productivity or work affected by medical conditions affected by your environment or commute. Go have a cookie.