Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?

[Anonymous]

No. Normal number of folks at the office today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.

Ours does.

[Anonymous]

Lots of people at mine and lots of stuff happening before change in administration

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.

Ours does.

Ours does not. Many people were hired from other states and have remote status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The potential EO still doesn’t address how this will affect fully remote workers (not in DC). I guess we’ll find out more next week.

I'm wondering the same, especially for remote roles converted from telework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are typically busy on Tuesdays, with a number of standing meetings with senior folks, and generally a lot of activity. It's eerily quiet today. Also, a lot of senior folks are just out of pocket, which isn't normal.

It’s the feeling of dread and impending doom.

[Anonymous]

So what happens if people keep teleworking anyway? They’re all fired? What a joke.

It takes my agency 6 months to implement a new version of adobe. It’ll take them at least 5 times that to implement thousands of people suddenly all coming back to the office at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Last week was 3 snow days, many people took leave, and scrambled to get something done on Thur and Fri despite all that disruption.

So this is the first week really back from the holiday lull and vacation.

People are catching up on emails, reports etc, , that's why its quiet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.

People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.

Ours does.

Ours does not. Many people were hired from other states and have remote status.

Ours doesn't either. There is another person sitting at my desk the 50 % of the time that I am not there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.

Ours does.

Ours does not. Many people were hired from other states and have remote status.

Ours doesn't either. There is another person sitting at my desk the 50 % of the time that I am not there.

The executive order will completely eliminate remote work, essentially rolling back progress to the 1970s when remote work wasn’t even a concept. Ironically, remote workers will be MOST affected as they are ones expected to leave—because that’s the intended outcome anyway for all this shenanigans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.

People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.





The funny thing is that the offices in those pictures aren’t even that dense. There’s a ton of open floor space in both of those pics. our government office has been reconfigured with mini-cubes and actually much more dense than either of those pictures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.

People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.

That’s nice, but I work in an agency full of economists, attorneys, and CPAs. This is not a conducive environment to the type of work we do which requires quiet and concentration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So what happens if people keep teleworking anyway? They’re all fired? What a joke.

It takes my agency 6 months to implement a new version of adobe. It’ll take them at least 5 times that to implement thousands of people suddenly all coming back to the office at the same time.

This isn't the flex you think it is. It's a sad state of affairs in certain agencies (not all!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.

People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.

They have already made our cubes smaller. There is no room for a second chair or a second laptop. I guess it will be stools with your computer on your lap. And even if they wanted to do that...they still need to remove all the cubes. This is not happening next week.