Biden wants RTO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They’re not talking about returning to office all 5 days of the week. Why is everyone losing their $hit over this?

I'm not losing my $hit, it is very frustrating, given that I have scheduled my kids' multiple therapies around thinking that I would only have to commute two days per pay period (if I am at home I can either use about an hour, vs. about 3 hours of leave, or do it in the early evening, since I have no commute). Now I may have to try to unwind that or pay someone to take them to them as scheduled. It definitely doesn't reflect appreciation for all of the extra hours I have put in for this job, and the work-related travel I already do, which takes me away from my family during non-business hours. I'm likely not quitting the job over it, but it's not a good thing for me or my kids.

What did you do before 2020? My kids were young before telework existed, and I had to use a lot of my leave for those types of things. It's nice to save your leave for just "fun" stuff, but this is life with kids.

It's this type of privilege that pisses the rest of the country off about Feds.

the rest of the country is not “pissed off” about Feds. That’s made-up bullsh*t propaganda by Republicans that will just morph into some other claim even if telework is off the table.

[Anonymous]

What did you do before 2020? My kids were young before telework existed, and I had to use a lot of my leave for those types of things. It's nice to save your leave for just "fun" stuff, but this is life with kids.

I used to be married, but now my spouse is deceased. Sorry to bother you with my "privilege."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a bad move. I'm a DOJ attorney, and constantly evaluating my private sector options. If WFH is reduced, I'll go with the money, understanding that I am being paid more and going in at least as often.

And the DOJ will replace you in a heartbeat. Bye!

Same, we have all of these people in their 60s and 70s threatening to retire if we return to the office and although I’d rather stay home too I hope we go back just enough for them all to retire from the jobs they’ve been sitting in for decades.

+1. They all believe they're irreplaceable. Call their bluff.

No one is replaceable but it takes a loooooooooong time to hire even one. If a few leave, that program will suffer

No, it really won't. Back in the Bush II administration, all of our vacancies were taken away, we were cut to whatever FTE on-board count we were at the moment.

And we didn't suffer. Instead we had to really think about which positions to replace.

There's a LOT of fluff and we all know it.

That is definitely not my experience. It takes us a year or two to replace someone and for the most part their work doesn't go away. I only know of one position in my division that was taken off the org chart - the only admin assistant, so now another division's admin assistant and a retired part time contractor do her work.

Yes, eventually the others will be replaced, but our work suffers in quality and timeliness for the year or two each position is vacant because everyone's covering multiple jobs.

Everyone thinks they're the one federal employee who does all the work. My coworkers think the same thing, meanwhile I watch an entire team take three days and two meetings to accomplish something that took my co-worker 30 minutes to do as they were spinning their wheels.

Sure there are some feds who work their butts off, and have truly important jobs -- Air Traffic Control, Border Patrol, VA doctors and nurses, etc -- but the vast majority of administrative positions are doing invented bull s*** work. Even all the federal lawyers on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What did you do before 2020? My kids were young before telework existed, and I had to use a lot of my leave for those types of things. It's nice to save your leave for just "fun" stuff, but this is life with kids.

I used to be married, but now my spouse is deceased. Sorry to bother you with my "privilege."

Sorry for your loss. Doesn't change the sentiment. My single mother managed alone with two kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What did you do before 2020? My kids were young before telework existed, and I had to use a lot of my leave for those types of things. It's nice to save your leave for just "fun" stuff, but this is life with kids.

I used to be married, but now my spouse is deceased. Sorry to bother you with my "privilege."

Sorry for your loss. Doesn't change the sentiment. My single mother managed alone with two kids.

You would have had more credibility if you didn’t repeat GOP propaganda.

[Anonymous]

Buildings are only 25% utilized so Biden wants to get them filled in his term before re-election.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My office is paying over $1M a year for rent and utilities for a nearly empty floor of an office building in the DC suburbs. That's just one 100 FTE group out of the entire fed workforce. GAO said most federal offices have less than 25% occupancy.

SOMETHING needs to happen. Either we return to the office more, or they let these leases go (doesn't even include the federally-owned buildings around the country).

My program terminated lease and consolidated spaces last year and now they are talking about bringing workers back, there is no space. The stupidity of the management has no end.

My agency is in the process of doing this now. Its very concerning. They will not have the space for every employee to return at the same time. They seem to think if they give up space their % occupancy will go up and they will be able to maintain our current work from home program (which only requires 2 days in the office per pay period). Seems like a big gamble to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My office is paying over $1M a year for rent and utilities for a nearly empty floor of an office building in the DC suburbs. That's just one 100 FTE group out of the entire fed workforce. GAO said most federal offices have less than 25% occupancy.

SOMETHING needs to happen. Either we return to the office more, or they let these leases go (doesn't even include the federally-owned buildings around the country).

My program terminated lease and consolidated spaces last year and now they are talking about bringing workers back, there is no space. The stupidity of the management has no end.

My agency is in the process of doing this now. Its very concerning. They will not have the space for every employee to return at the same time. They seem to think if they give up space their % occupancy will go up and they will be able to maintain our current work from home program (which only requires 2 days in the office per pay period). Seems like a big gamble to me.

I don't think the Administration has put an end to teleworking completely, but more people in more days. So not 100% Mon-Friday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What did you do before 2020? My kids were young before telework existed, and I had to use a lot of my leave for those types of things. It's nice to save your leave for just "fun" stuff, but this is life with kids.

I used to be married, but now my spouse is deceased. Sorry to bother you with my "privilege."

Sorry for your loss. Doesn't change the sentiment. My single mother managed alone with two kids.

You would have had more credibility if you didn’t repeat GOP propaganda.

And you would have more credibility if you didn't parrot Democrat propaganda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love WFH more than anyone, but there’s no question that RTO is much better for the local economy. Lunches, metro rides, parking fees, dry cleaners, etc.

Broken Window Fallacy or trolling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a bad move. I'm a DOJ attorney, and constantly evaluating my private sector options. If WFH is reduced, I'll go with the money, understanding that I am being paid more and going in at least as often.

And the DOJ will replace you in a heartbeat. Bye!

Same, we have all of these people in their 60s and 70s threatening to retire if we return to the office and although I’d rather stay home too I hope we go back just enough for them all to retire from the jobs they’ve been sitting in for decades.

+1. They all believe they're irreplaceable. Call their bluff.

No one is replaceable but it takes a loooooooooong time to hire even one. If a few leave, that program will suffer

No, it really won't. Back in the Bush II administration, all of our vacancies were taken away, we were cut to whatever FTE on-board count we were at the moment.

And we didn't suffer. Instead we had to really think about which positions to replace.

There's a LOT of fluff and we all know it.

That is definitely not my experience. It takes us a year or two to replace someone and for the most part their work doesn't go away. I only know of one position in my division that was taken off the org chart - the only admin assistant, so now another division's admin assistant and a retired part time contractor do her work.

Yes, eventually the others will be replaced, but our work suffers in quality and timeliness for the year or two each position is vacant because everyone's covering multiple jobs.

Everyone thinks they're the one federal employee who does all the work. My coworkers think the same thing, meanwhile I watch an entire team take three days and two meetings to accomplish something that took my co-worker 30 minutes to do as they were spinning their wheels.

Sure there are some feds who work their butts off, and have truly important jobs -- Air Traffic Control, Border Patrol, VA doctors and nurses, etc -- but the vast majority of administrative positions are doing invented bull s*** work. Even all the federal lawyers on here.

My entire team does a lot of work. There isn't a single slacker in my group. (There was one, but she quit, I now have a contractor working on her major project and am still trying to refill the position a full year later.)

Also, I'm kind of wondering if you're really a fed based on the sentence about taking 3 days and lots of meetings vs 30 minutes. There's tons of stuff we could get done in 30 minutes if multiple layers of management didn't want to get involved with the decision. It's not being slow with the work, it's the fact that we need to constantly brief up and get approvals to DO the work. Try doing it without those and the product gets yanked and upper management spends six months coming up with a new and more formalized approval process.

Is management bloat? Maybe. They're very fearful of political blowback so they want to be heavily involved in everything. But this doesn't in any way indicate that the actual SMEs and staff are "fluff."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

What did you do before 2020? My kids were young before telework existed, and I had to use a lot of my leave for those types of things. It's nice to save your leave for just "fun" stuff, but this is life with kids.

I used to be married, but now my spouse is deceased. Sorry to bother you with my "privilege."

Sorry for your loss. Doesn't change the sentiment. My single mother managed alone with two kids.

Damn, you're heartless.

Maybe it doesn't need to be so hard for PP. Maybe it didn't have to be so hard for your mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a bad move. I'm a DOJ attorney, and constantly evaluating my private sector options. If WFH is reduced, I'll go with the money, understanding that I am being paid more and going in at least as often.

And the DOJ will replace you in a heartbeat. Bye!

Same, we have all of these people in their 60s and 70s threatening to retire if we return to the office and although I’d rather stay home too I hope we go back just enough for them all to retire from the jobs they’ve been sitting in for decades.

+1. They all believe they're irreplaceable. Call their bluff.

No one is replaceable but it takes a loooooooooong time to hire even one. If a few leave, that program will suffer

No, it really won't. Back in the Bush II administration, all of our vacancies were taken away, we were cut to whatever FTE on-board count we were at the moment.

And we didn't suffer. Instead we had to really think about which positions to replace.

There's a LOT of fluff and we all know it.

That is definitely not my experience. It takes us a year or two to replace someone and for the most part their work doesn't go away. I only know of one position in my division that was taken off the org chart - the only admin assistant, so now another division's admin assistant and a retired part time contractor do her work.

Yes, eventually the others will be replaced, but our work suffers in quality and timeliness for the year or two each position is vacant because everyone's covering multiple jobs.

Everyone thinks they're the one federal employee who does all the work. My coworkers think the same thing, meanwhile I watch an entire team take three days and two meetings to accomplish something that took my co-worker 30 minutes to do as they were spinning their wheels.

Sure there are some feds who work their butts off, and have truly important jobs -- Air Traffic Control, Border Patrol, VA doctors and nurses, etc -- but the vast majority of administrative positions are doing invented bull s*** work. Even all the federal lawyers on here.

My entire team does a lot of work. There isn't a single slacker in my group. (There was one, but she quit, I now have a contractor working on her major project and am still trying to refill the position a full year later.)

Also, I'm kind of wondering if you're really a fed based on the sentence about taking 3 days and lots of meetings vs 30 minutes. There's tons of stuff we could get done in 30 minutes if multiple layers of management didn't want to get involved with the decision. It's not being slow with the work, it's the fact that we need to constantly brief up and get approvals to DO the work. Try doing it without those and the product gets yanked and upper management spends six months coming up with a new and more formalized approval process.

Is management bloat? Maybe. They're very fearful of political blowback so they want to be heavily involved in everything. But this doesn't in any way indicate that the actual SMEs and staff are "fluff."

Yet, here you are on DCUM on a Monday at 10:47am.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a bad move. I'm a DOJ attorney, and constantly evaluating my private sector options. If WFH is reduced, I'll go with the money, understanding that I am being paid more and going in at least as often.

And the DOJ will replace you in a heartbeat. Bye!

Same, we have all of these people in their 60s and 70s threatening to retire if we return to the office and although I’d rather stay home too I hope we go back just enough for them all to retire from the jobs they’ve been sitting in for decades.

+1. They all believe they're irreplaceable. Call their bluff.

No one is replaceable but it takes a loooooooooong time to hire even one. If a few leave, that program will suffer

No, it really won't. Back in the Bush II administration, all of our vacancies were taken away, we were cut to whatever FTE on-board count we were at the moment.

And we didn't suffer. Instead we had to really think about which positions to replace.

There's a LOT of fluff and we all know it.

That is definitely not my experience. It takes us a year or two to replace someone and for the most part their work doesn't go away. I only know of one position in my division that was taken off the org chart - the only admin assistant, so now another division's admin assistant and a retired part time contractor do her work.

Yes, eventually the others will be replaced, but our work suffers in quality and timeliness for the year or two each position is vacant because everyone's covering multiple jobs.

Everyone thinks they're the one federal employee who does all the work. My coworkers think the same thing, meanwhile I watch an entire team take three days and two meetings to accomplish something that took my co-worker 30 minutes to do as they were spinning their wheels.

Sure there are some feds who work their butts off, and have truly important jobs -- Air Traffic Control, Border Patrol, VA doctors and nurses, etc -- but the vast majority of administrative positions are doing invented bull s*** work. Even all the federal lawyers on here.

My entire team does a lot of work. There isn't a single slacker in my group. (There was one, but she quit, I now have a contractor working on her major project and am still trying to refill the position a full year later.)

Also, I'm kind of wondering if you're really a fed based on the sentence about taking 3 days and lots of meetings vs 30 minutes. There's tons of stuff we could get done in 30 minutes if multiple layers of management didn't want to get involved with the decision. It's not being slow with the work, it's the fact that we need to constantly brief up and get approvals to DO the work. Try doing it without those and the product gets yanked and upper management spends six months coming up with a new and more formalized approval process.

Is management bloat? Maybe. They're very fearful of political blowback so they want to be heavily involved in everything. But this doesn't in any way indicate that the actual SMEs and staff are "fluff."

Yet, here you are on DCUM on a Monday at 10:47am.

It's called use or lose annual leave 😎

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re now seriously arguing that if Trump were president he wouldn’t be ordering federal workers back to the office? Really?

No Ms. Strawman, we are not arguing that because Trump is not in office and its irrelevant.
Really.

Only replying to the poster who said they wouldn’t vote Biden 2024 because of RTO. Republicans are much more hellbent on making life difficult for Feds.

This is not as clear an issue as you'd think, and I'll take my chances with a Republican if Biden continues this nonsense. For example, the former chair of FDIC was a Republican and was very pro-WFH, then she quit and now her successor, who is a Democrat, has been endlessly trying to find ways to undercut WFH, even though the CBA allows full-time WFH for most employees. The Republican former chair was pro-WFH because she thought it was good for cutting costs associated with expensive building leases.

Also, if you look back historically, pay raises for federal employees have been more generous under Republican administrations. Remember all those pay freezes under Obama? (Don't rely on the pay raise that happened in the past year, which was an anomaly in the grand scheme.)

I'm a Democrat, but while most stuff that happens at the national level really doesn't impact me, forcing me to go back to the office absolutely does, and so for the first time in my life, I will vote for a Republican president if Biden continues this effort.

I’m a fed who loves telework and think the RTO pitch is definitely driven by private sector financial interests. And I’m not some huge fan of Biden either, but there’s no way I’m voting Republican when women’s reproductive rights are being taken away and guns are one of the top killers of children in this country. I’m not giving up my morals in some total gamble that maybe a Republican will be more telework friendly. Also, remember which party is trying to decrease the power of unions, which have a huge part in negotiating telework agreements at many agencies.

It’s just such a bizarre take to vote R over this.

1. Reproductive rights aren't changing for the better anytime soon. That battle is lost. The Supreme Court is 6-3.
2. Gun deaths are out of control in DC. What have Biden and Boswer done to prevent these gun deaths?
3. How is Biden honoring unions when he seems to believe that he can single-handedly force federal employees back to the office?

Maybe you should start demanding that Biden actually show some results for your vote.

We know that Republicans that currently lead the party will make life hell for Federal employees.
I mean, Biden should do better, but he knows we have no other real options.

Or maybe Biden is doing the right, and even the Democratic, thing. Democrats typically support urban centers and those areas are the most hurt by 100% WFH. As for the right thing, maybe WFH folks need to think about more than themselves. In fact, the world is pretty interconnected and the ramifications of urban decay can easily feed to areas where WFH folks thought they were isolated. The pandemic has made people extremely selfish.

Why the fudge should I care about issues like urban decay. Sure, "because we live in a society." But why us? No one cared to pay us enough to live there, so why is this one sided? If you want us to care now, you should have at least pretended to care about us.

I never understand selfish civil servants who don’t care about their communities. Why did you get into this line of work if you don’t care about broader issues in society?

What did DC ever do for Federal employees, besides have a horrible Metro system and charge high prices for parking? They treat us like we’re a bank account. What about the high paid lawyers and lobbyists, why not ask them for money?

DC’s metro system is one if the best in the country. Name 5 US cities with better public transit in and out of the urban center. Now we can use it to get to another airport.

Europe has long surpassed us in this respect, but DC’s metro is a plus for the city.