Bloomberg hits out at federal worker WFH in WP editorial

[Anonymous]

Metrics are required for budgeting and manpower analysis, so I think agencies actually do know their people have been extremely productive the last several years. But even without releasing internal information, there's plenty of public news about what agencies have been doing (and plenty of editorials complaining about how much they're doing). All the things that the govenrment is in the news for? They are done by government workers.

As a PP said, there has never been enough space for everyone to be in the office at once: even before covid, we had 2 and 3 people per office and we used WFH to work it out. Personally I went on a 4/1 schedule 2 years before covid. I have coworkers who have been fully remote for a decade. We're all working our butts off.

I don't think the monopoly point is quite apt. DC jobs are mostly not customer-facing, and also there are quite a few private companies that are effectively monopolies and from which I get disappointing - often remote - customer service. I'm not saying bad service is okay, but it's weird to pretend that that I can just shop around for a - what, grocery? internet provider? - and make my choice based on the quality of their in-person service. That's not how most consumer interactions happen for non-billionaires.

I agree that office space should be reduced, though.

[Anonymous]

Bloomberg has never supported working from home. Never ever. He wants all his employees in the office and he has other weird beliefs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who cares what he thinks?

Instead of shrugging, what’s your response to his argument?

DP here. I don't know... if I have to commute every day I'll quit the government and find a different job. They absolutely will not recruit and retain workers without WFH. Most agencies already have hybrid work so it's not like government workers are all staying home at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article conflates numerous issues.

One is that the government is paying for empty office space. 100% agree with that complaint. Consolidate.

Another is that the lack of employees commuting downtown harms local businesses. While that is true, it is a nearly zero sum game where somewhere else is benefiting from WFH.

The final big complaint seems to be that there is no oversight of federal employees and they could be slacking at home. The problem with this argument is that all jobs should have some sort of criteria/deliverable/etc that defines how the employee is doing, regardless of where they are sitting. Bloomberg just assumes that the workforce is less efficient working from home, but that hasn’t been proven at all.

If you read DCUM posts, you know there’s a problem. If you know people who work at agencies, you know there is a problem. If you try to get service at some government offices, you know there’s a problem. There is a problem.

This isn’t a coherent argument - it’s just repeating a phrase.

I work at a fed agency and there were slackers before and there are now. Location of work doesn’t matter.

Agree, they were there before and they will be there in the future. A friend of mine worked for a federal agency in the 1980s and told stories of people sleeping / reading their books at their desks. slacking happens at every office everywhere in every industry.

My agency has gotten a lot more productive since we all went remote. The people we serve have seen more results, not less, after full WFH came about. I personally now work more hours than when I was working in the office, mostly because I am no longer concerned with commuting. So the government is getting a lot more free labor, and a lot more production, of out me from home.

[Anonymous]

Billionaire over leveraged in commercial real estate say what?

[Anonymous]

The republicans want every federal employee back in an office full time, now even the democrats are saying we need to get back to the office including the current White House. When are the dc bureaucrats going to realize that the wfh pandemic benefits they enjoyed will not last forever and most of the rest of the country has been back to their offices for years now.

[Anonymous]

Soooo they are just going to ignore that many Feds have always slacked at work and there are never consequences? Working in the office pre pandemic didn’t allow for less slackers.