Not enough office space: safe from RTO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why people are so concerned about RTO?

Lives have been re-arranged around telework (yes, even by/especially by people who are legitimately working the hours they say they are working all the time). Not having those commutes, having the flexibility to start a load of laundry or a crock pot during "lunch," being there for a 5 pm sports practice when before you wouldn't have, being able to be at home with a tween on a day off while still working, and so much more.

Now imagine undoing all that re-arranging.

While I understand all that, I think feds need to understand:

A lot of us already went through this.

Like you're just late to the game. RTO has been a thing for 3 years. I know many people who arranged their lives around telework schedules only to be told at some point in the last few years that their employer was changing their telework policy and they'd be expected back in the office more days than they thought (or at all).

In fact, prior to Covid, I had a similar experience where I went out on maternity leave from a job where we had a certain telework arrangement and then was told, two weeks before coming back from leave, that the telework policy had changed to eliminate flex time and to reduce the number of telework days we could use, and it totally upended the childcare arrangements I'd spent months arranging. It sucked. But I figured it out and life went on.

The same will be true for all of you. This situation is going to work itself out. Given some of Trump's and Musk's proposals, I would actually view potential RTO as among the lower level problems we all might have to deal with here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why people are so concerned about RTO?

The pandemic broke a lot of our societies systems.

Childcare is understaffed and schools have few resources for after school care. No one wants to work these jobs since they are still underpaid and other jobs pay even more now because of increased minimum wage.

Traffic is far far worse for many reasons One is that no one takes public transit because of a perception of increased crime and potential for infection and hygiene awareness, people are driving and not carpooling anymore for similar reasons, many people are distracted on their phone and thus distracting driving makes for slower driving and more accidents. Also, there are far more gig drivers and delivery drivers on the road, which is increased traffic volume by an order of magnitude.

Finally, so much of work has gone online with virtual meetings and shared digital workspace that we go to an office to meet with someone on teams who is in another building. It is so pointless.

Really? My public school district has great extended care options and I go to work every day in person and don't think traffic is any worse than it ever was. Most days it's really not that bad. I go pick up my kids and everything. Just one person out here in reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of work do people do where you can concentrate with many, many people around you speaking all of the time? A call center? This can't be anything that involves any sort of mental concentration.

Frankly, very low level worker bees are responding to this, no quality work can be done in such an environment.

Yes, I'm on Teams calls a minimum of 4+ hours a day with people all over. I don't understand how that will work when we are all doing that.

At my place of work, people have headphones on and speak when they need to speak at a normal but not shouting volume. Invest in good head phones that have a noise canceling feature and it really isn't that big of a deal.

Go watch a movie like Superman from the 70s or the Apartment from the 60s. Huge open office plans with people doing all sorts of work like researching Lex Luther’s next world conquering scheme or developing an ad campaign. And that was before headphones. People can adapt fine, callers will get used to a small din in the background.

Sure executives had offices but was about status not productivity. They aren’t even there that much

[Anonymous]

My (private sector) office moved to an open floor plan with hot desks before the pandemic. For everyone, including leadership. To answer some questions:

We are provided with headsets to take calls/Teams meetings. Our phone system is now integrated into Teams so all calls come through our computers or cell phones.

We also have meeting rooms of various sizes that people can reserve for private conversations or calls. There are three small “phone booths” that you can’t reserve, but I can duck into to make a personal call (make appointments, get test results, etc).

We were remote for two years during COVID. When we came back in Jan 2022, we had to rearrange our lives to accommodate commutes, childcare, and meal prep. I empathize: it’s a rat race. There was a fair amount of turnover initially. We replaced some positions, and reorganized others (which meant promotions for those who didn’t leave). And the show went on. In some respects, it was good to get new perspectives.

Many of the people who took new remote positions eventually got called back. I think the days of wide-spread remote work are over. I also don’t think it matters if it’s not for a good reason. The people who pay us want to see our butts in the office. That’s a good enough reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why do you consider RTO to be unsafe.

It is very for our family as I have serious health isssues and my getting sick usually lands me in the hospital.

You should seek a reasonable accommodation or pursue disability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why people are so concerned about RTO?

The pandemic broke a lot of our societies systems.

Childcare is understaffed and schools have few resources for after school care. No one wants to work these jobs since they are still underpaid and other jobs pay even more now because of increased minimum wage.

Traffic is far far worse for many reasons One is that no one takes public transit because of a perception of increased crime and potential for infection and hygiene awareness, people are driving and not carpooling anymore for similar reasons, many people are distracted on their phone and thus distracting driving makes for slower driving and more accidents. Also, there are far more gig drivers and delivery drivers on the road, which is increased traffic volume by an order of magnitude.

Finally, so much of work has gone online with virtual meetings and shared digital workspace that we go to an office to meet with someone on teams who is in another building. It is so pointless.

Really? My public school district has great extended care options and I go to work every day in person and don't think traffic is any worse than it ever was. Most days it's really not that bad. I go pick up my kids and everything. Just one person out here in reality.

Where do you live and commute? When do you drive? We are in APS and there is a waitlist which has existed since Mar of last year for extended day for THIS year.

I commute to Nationals Park area, and 395 is an abomination, and traffic is bad all around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What kind of work do people do where you can concentrate with many, many people around you speaking all of the time? A call center? This can't be anything that involves any sort of mental concentration.

I'm an in house attorney, but the policy applies to everyone including the CEO, CFO, GC, senior exec team, VPs, etc. Everyone. It's a multi-national company with >100k employees.

There are "team rooms" you can use for meetings and private conversations, but you can't camp in those either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why people are so concerned about RTO?

Because it takes planning to rearrange your family life around a new commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why people are so concerned about RTO?

Because it takes planning to rearrange your family life around a new commute.

So the smart thing to do is start planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My (private sector) office moved to an open floor plan with hot desks before the pandemic. For everyone, including leadership. To answer some questions:

We are provided with headsets to take calls/Teams meetings. Our phone system is now integrated into Teams so all calls come through our computers or cell phones.

We also have meeting rooms of various sizes that people can reserve for private conversations or calls. There are three small “phone booths” that you can’t reserve, but I can duck into to make a personal call (make appointments, get test results, etc).

We were remote for two years during COVID. When we came back in Jan 2022, we had to rearrange our lives to accommodate commutes, childcare, and meal prep. I empathize: it’s a rat race. There was a fair amount of turnover initially. We replaced some positions, and reorganized others (which meant promotions for those who didn’t leave). And the show went on. In some respects, it was good to get new perspectives.

Many of the people who took new remote positions eventually got called back. I think the days of wide-spread remote work are over. I also don’t think it matters if it’s not for a good reason. The people who pay us want to see our butts in the office. That’s a good enough reason.

I am an empty nester so this will not upend my life aside from using up 10 hours a week commuting, costing the taxpayers $14 a day for my metro ride and some rent since we have no office space. I have not worked in the office more than 1 day a week in a decade And not at all in 3 years Most people on my project are scattered nationwide. I hope the taxpayers are happy with their spending priorities. I have a feeling most have no idea what is going on aside from Musk wants it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why people are so concerned about RTO?

Because it would mean a cross country move which we are not in a position to do. So I guess it would mean unemployment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why people are so concerned about RTO?

I'd have to quit. Flexible telework is the only thing allowing me to be in the workforce. My spouse's job requires random on call hours and frequent last minute international travel. He is also a Fed so he doesn't really get compensated well for the hassle. So once we had kids, I had to quit my job to be available and I was unemployed for several years. Since I was unemployed, I had to start over and my pay sucks (GS7). It's not enough to outsource much of anything in order to RTO, but at the moment with tbe telework flexibility, I dont need to and it brings in thousands that I wasnt able to previously (which we save).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of work do people do where you can concentrate with many, many people around you speaking all of the time? A call center? This can't be anything that involves any sort of mental concentration.

I'm an in house attorney, but the policy applies to everyone including the CEO, CFO, GC, senior exec team, VPs, etc. Everyone. It's a multi-national company with >100k employees.

There are "team rooms" you can use for meetings and private conversations, but you can't camp in those either.

DH's company had that for years in-house, and it was incredibly inefficient compared to people having offices. Constantly rescheduling daily confidential calls because the conference rooms were in use, used too long, suddenly unavailable due to some other priority, and so on. Half the day was spent in endless and pointless logistics instead of work. It's all he complained about after work every day-- all the crap that couldn't get done because there were no offices. Utterly stupid. Many people were on the verge of quitting when COVID sent everyone home, and they never went back to buildings. So much better with remote work, but actual offices are still the better plan for most jobs. Now they get things done in a timely and efficient manner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why people are so concerned about RTO?

Because it takes planning to rearrange your family life around a new commute.

So the smart thing to do is start planning.

You need to know where you will be to plan.

I don't work for the gov, but I know this is a really stupid and inefficient waste of taxpayer money. People should be livid about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We got rid of some office space during pandemic, remote employees have changed office location, although most remote employees are remote locally. Basically, some employees change teleworking status (before Covid) to remote status, with SF 50 duty station changed too.

There is no funding to get more office space (flat funding, majority of funding goes to employees' salary; while salary/other costs increase annually, there is not even enough money to fill every vacancy).

Why do you consider RTO to be unsafe.

It is very for our family as I have serious health isssues and my getting sick usually lands me in the hospital.

You should seek a reasonable accommodation or pursue disability.

The company is saying no to my spouse. I tried for disability years ago and was declined. I could probably try again but I don't have the energy to fight it again and it may be too late. I cannot work anymore.