RTO EO is up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Biden should have returned the gov to pre-COVID TW and enforced it and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead he let agencies take different approaches which then invited scrutiny and here we are. Swung completely in the other direction with TW eliminated (except situational so we can keep working when it snows). it was nice while it lasted but now we’re paying the price. He should have come down harder on it.

Should not have promoted closing schools for so long so parents had to stay home …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2020 everyone at my agency was given the option of going remote or teleworking. Most of us chose teleworking and enjoyed coming in 2 days a week. Instead of being rewarded for not choosing remote, we’ve been getting in trouble and being forced to come in 5 days a week now. It’s seriously not fair. Remote people are getting all the benefits and I doubt they’ll have to return to the office.

Local remote workers will probably have their agreements terminated since relocation expenses wouldn't be an issue.

Yes local remote should be low hanging fruit for them.

That’s also not “fair”, when some people doing the same job get to stay remote and others have to come in just because of where they live. I know that no one cares about fairness, just venting.

Okay well some of us will be in 5 days a week. Why should local remote people get to remain remote? Plenty of us like coming to the office but took the job based on situational telework being allowed.

My remote employees were local to begin with but then moved. Do I have to pay their relocations? I don’t have money like that in my own budget. Where is the money coming from??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biden should have returned the gov to pre-COVID TW and enforced it and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead he let agencies take different approaches which then invited scrutiny and here we are. Swung completely in the other direction with TW eliminated (except situational so we can keep working when it snows). it was nice while it lasted but now we’re paying the price. He should have come down harder on it.

Should not have promoted closing schools for so long so parents had to stay home …

Microsoft shouldn’t have invented Teams. The iPhone didn’t help either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2020 everyone at my agency was given the option of going remote or teleworking. Most of us chose teleworking and enjoyed coming in 2 days a week. Instead of being rewarded for not choosing remote, we’ve been getting in trouble and being forced to come in 5 days a week now. It’s seriously not fair. Remote people are getting all the benefits and I doubt they’ll have to return to the office.

Local remote workers will probably have their agreements terminated since relocation expenses wouldn't be an issue.

Yes local remote should be low hanging fruit for them.

That’s also not “fair”, when some people doing the same job get to stay remote and others have to come in just because of where they live. I know that no one cares about fairness, just venting.

Okay well some of us will be in 5 days a week. Why should local remote people get to remain remote? Plenty of us like coming to the office but took the job based on situational telework being allowed.

My remote employees were local to begin with but then moved. Do I have to pay their relocations? I don’t have money like that in my own budget. Where is the money coming from??

You had to approve their change in duty station when they moved. If you didn't have the money for relocation, you shouldn't have approved the new duty station.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biden should have returned the gov to pre-COVID TW and enforced it and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead he let agencies take different approaches which then invited scrutiny and here we are. Swung completely in the other direction with TW eliminated (except situational so we can keep working when it snows). it was nice while it lasted but now we’re paying the price. He should have come down harder on it.

Huh? Our agency has already been working under more restrictive telework policies than what we had before covid.

Same. Except it was unenforced. People just didn’t come in and their middle managers did nothing about it.

Sounds like a management problem. Ours enforced RTO when we were required to come in 50% time. People that didn’t were “encouraged to leave” before they were put on a PIP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OPM tomorrow:

"We trust that the Executive Branch knows the difference between remote work and telework, and also that they know that remote workers' duty stations are their homes. As such we interpret this EO to refer to just remote workers, and it requires remote workers to maintain their home duty stations."

Do you think Trump is that dumb.
His nominee to lead OPM is someone who shares his vision for restructuring the feds.
He will fire him if he doesn’t implement RTO. So will the heads of all agencies who refuse to follow the EO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OPM tomorrow:

"We trust that the Executive Branch knows the difference between remote work and telework, and also that they know that remote workers' duty stations are their homes. As such we interpret this EO to refer to just remote workers, and it requires remote workers to maintain their home duty stations."

Do you think Trump is that dumb.
His nominee to lead OPM is someone who shares his vision for restructuring the feds.
He will fire him if he doesn’t implement RTO. So will the heads of all agencies who refuse to follow the EO.

I just wonder what the response to the extra funding needed will be. My office needs extra space and furnishings (we have been only 1 day a week for a decade so significantly more) and then all the metro subsidies really add up too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OPM tomorrow:

"We trust that the Executive Branch knows the difference between remote work and telework, and also that they know that remote workers' duty stations are their homes. As such we interpret this EO to refer to just remote workers, and it requires remote workers to maintain their home duty stations."

Do you think Trump is that dumb.
His nominee to lead OPM is someone who shares his vision for restructuring the feds.
He will fire him if he doesn’t implement RTO. So will the heads of all agencies who refuse to follow the EO.

I think you overestimate how much he cares. He just wants to look like he did something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not entirely opposed to return to work, but there needs to be some limit on how far you have to travel. Our office moved way out to Maryland, so via public transportation it would take 1.5 to 2 hours to get there.

Why would there be a limit? If private businesses are forcing rto and it came from the government, government employees should rto too. It it a 60-90 minute drive each way for my spouse on a good day. There is no close public transportation so that would be a few hours including an uber or cab.

I don’t have problem with RTO but if you are going to treat me the same as a private business than I want the same level of pay (which is $40k more a year!).

Sure just as soon as we eliminate your pension and superior healthcare benefits. Actually why don’t you just go ahead and take that job for $40,000 more than you make now and call it and even trade?

DP. This is honestly incredibly outdated. The healthcare benefits are really very mediocre. I have a spouse in biglaw, a sibling in tech, and a sibling who is a firefighter and they all have superior health insurance. There are MANY private companies with much better benefits. The pension is also not what it used to be. No way the pension and healthcare benefits are worth an additional $40k over what you would get in the private sector. And this is the same old nonsense how can you compare salary plus benefits of one place to just salary at another?

This is why our agency hires a lot of non citizens on short term contracts for certain roles. Most of our fed positions don't pay enough and have poor benefits, so it's hard to attract American citizens.

This is false. I am a citizen and been a contractor for decades. Most of the contractors I work with are also citizens. My Fed bosses are paid well and have good benefits. I know lots of people want to be Feds. Before yesterday, there was job stability in being a Fed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biden should have returned the gov to pre-COVID TW and enforced it and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead he let agencies take different approaches which then invited scrutiny and here we are. Swung completely in the other direction with TW eliminated (except situational so we can keep working when it snows). it was nice while it lasted but now we’re paying the price. He should have come down harder on it.

Huh? Our agency has already been working under more restrictive telework policies than what we had before covid.

Yours may have but others have not and have implemented more liberal policies, hence the scrutiny by Congress that led this.

Yeah but they aren’t playing it all straight when they claim only 6 percent of feds are in the office, the actual number is like 50-60 percent right? And what percentage of the remaining don’t come in because 1) they were specifically hired remotely and don’t live near a fed office or 2) no longer have an office to go to. In those two cases it really bothers me that they are being painted as lazy feds. I know people that don’t like WAH but don’t have an office anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biden should have returned the gov to pre-COVID TW and enforced it and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead he let agencies take different approaches which then invited scrutiny and here we are. Swung completely in the other direction with TW eliminated (except situational so we can keep working when it snows). it was nice while it lasted but now we’re paying the price. He should have come down harder on it.

Should not have promoted closing schools for so long so parents had to stay home …

What schools were closed during the Biden administration?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Biden should have returned the gov to pre-COVID TW and enforced it and we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead he let agencies take different approaches which then invited scrutiny and here we are. Swung completely in the other direction with TW eliminated (except situational so we can keep working when it snows). it was nice while it lasted but now we’re paying the price. He should have come down harder on it.

Should not have promoted closing schools for so long so parents had to stay home …

What schools were closed during the Biden administration?

MCPS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Despite talking about Remote Work Agreements, this EO by its terms only affects teleworkers. Remote Workers' houses are their duty stations; they *do* work there in person. It's teleworkers who don't.

The EO orders agencies to terminate remote work agreements. Then send everyone, all employees, RTO. There will be no remote workers or home work stations.

[Anonymous]

People are already getting fired for shenanigans with remote arrangements.

[Anonymous]

If I’m told to RTO 5 days a week I will go in 2 days a week and wait for any repercussions. Good luck trying to fire me before 2028.