If you're a fed, are you planning to quit or go back?

[Anonymous]

The RTO has nothing to do with increasing productivity. There are PLENTY of people that slack off more in the office than those that work from home (long lunch/bathroom breaks, chatting with colleagues, pretending to work while surfing the web, etc.). You have the same issues in office like at home.

They want butts in seats because it stimulates the economy. You use your car, gas, lunches, drycleaning etc. You get in an accident, insurance goes up, body shops get more work, car rentals get kick-back, it's all daisy chained. If you stay at home, a huge portion of potential capital is out of circulation.

If you can't properly manage people at home, you won't do it better if those same people are in the office. Inefficient and poor performers will do so regardless where they work from.

[Anonymous]

I'm fully remote out of state and will return to DC if ordered. My agency would have to reimburse me for packing/moving, lodging/per diem, and closing costs for buying a new house. My agency might have to beg Congress for more funds if enough of us come back.

[Anonymous]

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I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.


If people are doing work while at a ballet class or driving, that's clearly not ok (unless they have permission- though not while driving!) and should be dealt with on an individual basis. I agree.

I agree as well, but have not ever experienced anyone at my agency doing anything like this. We have a very high workload, and it would be noticeable quickly.

No one is at ballet class at my office either. That is shocking to read. The flexibility I see (and am ok with) is driving a kid to an activity for 15 minutes...and making the time up by working late. That does happen at my office. I do not do it an any regular basis but have driven my mom to an appointment, That would be a half day off if I did it from the office. Maybe 30 minutes if I am working from home.

So parents are driving 15 minutes to a child’s activity and then what? Working at ballet as previously saif? Driving 15 minutes home and then driving 15 minutes back to pick their child up before driving 15 minutes home again?

Most people I work with logging off at 3 are logging off to supervise young children, drive to and from activities, make dinner, and monitor homework. It is also disingenuous to say that these same people are working two hours every night after their children go to bed. I think most of us have also worked with people who continue to work while they are on vacation with young kids so in effect do not work because they are on a family vacation. Not having flexibility undermines morale but abuses of flexibility also undermine morale. Abuses occur when there are no guard rails: https://www.vaoig.gov/reports/administrative-investigation/va-improperly-awarded-108-million-incentives-central-office

That’s a management issue. No one in my fed office is doing that kind of thing.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’ll go back but flex my hours. There’s no way I’m sitting in my office until 5:30/6 5 days a week. If they take away maxiflex then forget it. Currently we allow people in our office to leave early and continue TW from home if they have long commutes or need flexibility for kid after school activities. Most of the working world allows flexibility. If the govt becomes so backwards about this with E and V in charge, I’ll leave.

Losing maxiflex is my major concern, too. Without it and with 5 days a week in the office I need to either start at 7am or pay $5‐600/ month for after care. But I've got almost 20 years of service and I believe in our mission so I'm sticking out. This too shall pass.

What do you do for childcare when school is closed on random days?

Take leave.

Seriously. My husband and I are feds and we have teenage children. Prior to Covid we both worked downtown 5 days a week. Feds get generous annual leave and we used to plan ahead and swap days off when our kids didn’t have school and were too young to stay home alone, or we hired babysitters if neither of us could take a day. I’m sure it was nice for parents to not have to do this in the last 4 years but you may have to return to what everyone else’s experience was pre-Covid.

So I had a big gap between kids 2 and 3. I remember what it was like pre-COVID to go into an office and have to manage sick days as a working parent.

But now that I am dealing with childcare issues again this third time in the post-COVID world I can tell you a few things:

Childcare options are still cut back (either smaller admissions and/or shorter hours due to staffing problems). Oh and prices are up of course!

There are also fewer extended day spots (again see staffing issues). Many people left the childcare industry when it collapsed during COVID closures and also the pay hasn’t kept up with inflation and wage growth in other sectors.

Even things like school break camps fill up quicker because some of the private ones I used to rely on don’t exist anymore. So the county run spots go fast.

I also think the fact that so many employers allow telework/Flex Time (both private and public sector) means that places that offer childcare have become used to parents being able to pick up earlier. Also my agency used to offer 5 days of backup care per year, but got rid of that because of all the increased work flexibility. Are they going to bring this back?

Employers have also gotten used to workloads continuing to progress regardless of illness, school breaks, etc. because parents can still work at least a few hours.

Overall there are more hurdles and expenses, plus major changes in work culture and expectations that didn’t exist with my first 2. Parents of teens brushing off these changes is about as useful as an older person talking about how they paid for college with their part time job. It’s just not relevant to today’s working parents and I say this as someone who has tweens and a preschooler.

I am sympathetic, but again these challenges have existed for working families for decades and parents have found a way to muddle through. As a kid my own parents hired young teenage babysitters for my siblings and I after school. My own kids got shut out of extended day one year because there weren’t enough spots and we hired someone’s housecleaner to pick them up and watch them for a few hours before we could commute home. Was it ideal? No, but it’s not for that long and is a necessary trade off if you have two working parents, commutes, and no extended family or other free care nearby. The comments from feds who want to be able to close the laptop at 5 every day and start family life sound out of touch to me.

Except it's not necessary. That's the whole point. There is no need to commute to a physical office every day in order to work on a computer and have Teams meetings. You are the one who sounds out of touch.

If your employer has decided that working in person in an office is necessary than you can comply or quit. That’s the whole point. The years of whining I’ve heard here is just exhausting, if you can find a better situation for yourself and your family I genuinely wish you well somewhere else but please stop complaining because working is hard.

DP but my employer has not decided this is necessary. In fact the head of my component and our overall agency leadership have done metric studies that prove telework is a success and tout it as a great tool for employee retention.

The issue is that fed employees don’t want to be used as pawns by billionaires in an effort to prop up commercial real estate prices. Can you really not understand that most of us are do not want to (and in my case I’m unwilling to and will leave) completely upend our work/life balance to be a part of this scheme? I have a job to serve the public, not to put my butt in a cubicle chair so the private sector can bilk taxpayers to prop up their real estate investment portfolios.

No sector is immune from change. Private sector employees have and are continuing to navigate RTO mandates. Most studies on RTO indicate hybrid produces the best results. This is really important for new employees and managers and critical for oversight. And the real estate portfolio languishing is government owned and taxpayer funded, which is inexcusable.

Perhaps they should sell the real estate. Needlessly putting people in a middle when they don’t need to be there does not make paying for the building any less wasteful.

This is exactly what republicans have proposed in multiple bills. Either use it or sell it. I don’t know why the current administration is insisting on hanging onto these buildings while at the same time not requiring RTO. And multiple agencies (like 17) utilized their space less than 25% of the time in 2023, which is again, very wasteful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm fully remote out of state and will return to DC if ordered. My agency would have to reimburse me for packing/moving, lodging/per diem, and closing costs for buying a new house. My agency might have to beg Congress for more funds if enough of us come back.

Your agency does not HAVE to reimburse you for anything in this new world.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I’m going back. My office is 15 minutes away with free parking. We have a amazing gym in a newly renovated building. I’m tired of having my dog stare at me all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm fully remote out of state and will return to DC if ordered. My agency would have to reimburse me for packing/moving, lodging/per diem, and closing costs for buying a new house. My agency might have to beg Congress for more funds if enough of us come back.

My remote agreement specifies that my agency will not reimburse my moving costs. Never thought it would be an issue but now I have no idea

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm fully remote out of state and will return to DC if ordered. My agency would have to reimburse me for packing/moving, lodging/per diem, and closing costs for buying a new house. My agency might have to beg Congress for more funds if enough of us come back.

My remote agreement specifies that my agency will not reimburse my moving costs. Never thought it would be an issue but now I have no idea

Agencies can offer relocation incentives and reimbursement. In this budget environment when they are trying to downsize I very much doubt they will do so.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Why do we have to go back to the old way of doing things if there are new and improved ways of doing so? For everyone who's saying we used to go in 5 days a week and we had to find childcare, etc- that's right. We did, including me. But needs and technology have evolved so if there's a better way that includes a healthier work-life balance and checks and balances to ensure work is being done, it just seems like a win-win to me. Keeps cars off the roads for people who do have to work in-person 100%, saves the government money in terms of leases/utility bills/transit subsidies, and makes for happier employees.

Seems like people just don't want others to have better circumstances than they did (just like when the government went to paid family leave- I scraped together enough leave and also had to take unpaid leave for my kids, but I am happy for the feds who get paid leave).

Signed- a fed with teens who doesn't begrudge anyone having a good work-life balance.

+1 It's textbook schadenfreude.

Another +1

Why aren’t these posters insisting we all hand wash laundry and give birth without an epidural. That is how things used to be done! Mothers before us struggled so we should too right?

No, it’s the whining. Look parents have a lot of benefits now I didn’t have. Like free parental leave - I had to use my own leave. But I don’t begrudge them that. Or other benefits.

But it’s the “oh it’ll be just impossible for me to RTO” that is making all Feds look bad.

Did you see the CNN story a week or two ago with some Feds claiming PTSD about possibly having to return to the office? That was shameful.

I-95 does indeed cause PTSD, a form of road shock.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm fully remote out of state and will return to DC if ordered. My agency would have to reimburse me for packing/moving, lodging/per diem, and closing costs for buying a new house. My agency might have to beg Congress for more funds if enough of us come back.

Your agency does not have to offer that for remote workers. Some have to when they change a duty station but going from remote to a duty station is fully the employee’s responsibility. They will not beg Congress for more money, if they have to they can furlough everyone unpaid for up to 22 days per year to save money while they wait for enough people to quit who haven’t moved to the new duty station. You don’t have the leverage here you think you do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm fully remote out of state and will return to DC if ordered. My agency would have to reimburse me for packing/moving, lodging/per diem, and closing costs for buying a new house. My agency might have to beg Congress for more funds if enough of us come back.

My remote agreement specifies that my agency will not reimburse my moving costs. Never thought it would be an issue but now I have no idea

Agencies can offer relocation incentives and reimbursement. In this budget environment when they are trying to downsize I very much doubt they will do so.

When I said I never thought it would be an issue I meant I never thought I would have to move so I wasn’t concerned. I probably can’t move back anyway so I have bigger problems if that comes to pass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I’m going back. My office is 15 minutes away with free parking. We have a amazing gym in a newly renovated building. I’m tired of having my dog stare at me all day.

Then why are you going back now? Didn't you always have the option?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The RTO has nothing to do with increasing productivity. There are PLENTY of people that slack off more in the office than those that work from home (long lunch/bathroom breaks, chatting with colleagues, pretending to work while surfing the web, etc.). You have the same issues in office like at home.

They want butts in seats because it stimulates the economy. You use your car, gas, lunches, drycleaning etc. You get in an accident, insurance goes up, body shops get more work, car rentals get kick-back, it's all daisy chained. If you stay at home, a huge portion of potential capital is out of circulation.

If you can't properly manage people at home, you won't do it better if those same people are in the office. Inefficient and poor performers will do so regardless where they work from.

Reality...I will take my free metro ride in to work. Lunch out? Maybe a couple of times a year. Same as when I work from home. Dry cleaning? I avoid buying clothes that require it to avoid the expense. I will have to quit my gym membership since I will be spending 2 hours a day commuting. I would say a net loss to the economy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm fully remote out of state and will return to DC if ordered. My agency would have to reimburse me for packing/moving, lodging/per diem, and closing costs for buying a new house. My agency might have to beg Congress for more funds if enough of us come back.

For a Federal position?? Are you a doctor or something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The RTO has nothing to do with increasing productivity. There are PLENTY of people that slack off more in the office than those that work from home (long lunch/bathroom breaks, chatting with colleagues, pretending to work while surfing the web, etc.). You have the same issues in office like at home.

They want butts in seats because it stimulates the economy. You use your car, gas, lunches, drycleaning etc. You get in an accident, insurance goes up, body shops get more work, car rentals get kick-back, it's all daisy chained. If you stay at home, a huge portion of potential capital is out of circulation.

If you can't properly manage people at home, you won't do it better if those same people are in the office. Inefficient and poor performers will do so regardless where they work from.

It’s not just about managing poor performers. It’s information sharing, oversight, and norms (time management and appropriateness). It’s very hard to share norms when you are not in person. Many young or less experienced employees are also less likely to ask for help when remote.

The biggest companies in the world aren’t RTOing because they want to help Goldman Sachs’ commercial real estate portfolio. It’s genuinely bad for development and there are real oversight risks that shouldn’t be understated.