Five weeks in. RTO is literally killing me!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to read 21 pages on this, but FFS, the whining is out of control. Think of doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, grocery workers, construction workers, and the list goes on.

But poor, poor little you. Your life is so hard, having to go in to an office every day.

OK, PP. Those police officers, firefighters, and other workers presumably chose those jobs. Not everyone wants to work at a desk. That’s a good thing obviously, because our society needs all different roles filled in order to function. You know what else? The public was also safer when there weren’t so many cars out on the road every day. Fewer accidents to respond to and police officers, firefighters, and EMTs able to more quickly get to accidents and injured people.

My first job after college paid 28k and I never knew what my weekly schedule was going to be until the Friday before. Sometimes it started at 9am, went to 3pm then I had a 3 hour break and worked at another site 6-9pm. Then it was randomly different the next day. Whatever, I was young, just happy to have a job and be paying back my student loans.

My next job paid 28k and was in a call center 10:30am-7pm. The next one was 35k call center 8-4:30. Next one accounting office 46k 8-4:30. And so on and so forth. The point I am getting at is that in general, we work towards bettering ourselves and our skills in order to have better pay and work conditions. For some people, that can mean eventually working remotely after proving oneself responsible and hardworking, and to have that yanked back for no good reason other than for us to be made miserable is not merely an inconvenience.

Even though his parents are both white collar desk workers, my own son does not want to be a “laptop worker” instead he wants to be a physical therapist or sports trainer. So don’t worry, even the next generation has plenty of people who don’t want to work at a computer all day whether it’s at home or in an office.

And for those workers whose jobs require being at a physical location, their in person presence actually fulfills a purpose, as opposed to a desk worker being randomly assigned a closet to work in while the rest of their team works from other random rooms and locations hundreds of miles away. What’s the point? It’s depressing as f***.

Oh and I am posting this at 4:55 AM, because of insomnia related to IBS and psoriasis flares that just happened to appear within days/weeks of RTO and having to commute to an office 47 miles away after accepting a fully remote position.

Really, PP, just stop talking if you know so little.

DP.

I suspect that poster is simply saying we all have it rough. You have challenges. So do we all. I’m also up all night for my own work-related reasons (not a fed).

It doesn’t have to be a competition of who has it worse. It can generally stink all around.

NP. Yes we all have our challenges. Some are inherent to the job, like firefighting and nursing are just tough jobs in general with brutal schedules. Some challenges are inherent to imperfect human nature. We all can have sucky bosses or colleagues that make the job more miserable than it should be.

Feds are complaining because the new "challenges" imposed are totally arbitrary and done for the purpose of pissing us off personally and destroying the functionality of our jobs. This is a whole new dimension. Imagine if your boss just random decided that to stay employed this week, you must wear pink everyday, and next week you must greet everyone with a smile and audible hi. And also you need to spend 2 minutes jumping up and down on one foot. And oh you need to write a letter and get a doc note for every sick day you take. This is the sh*t we are talking about. The RTO in itself is arbitrary and stupid, but it is combined with countless other stupid policies that often make no sense, make being in the office miserable, and just makes everyone on edge and distracted the actual work that needs to get done.

I get it. My job throws pointless nonsense at me every day, most of which I didn’t sign up for when I was hired. These tasks add up and force me to work WAY WAY over 40 hours each week. Many of us deal with arbitrary, pointless changes that severely impact our weeks.

I’m not happy it’s happening to you. It’s not that I need others to suffer because I am. But to say this is unique to Feds isn’t true.

No, it is definitely not unique to Feds. However a lot of federal agencies forced people back because they were trying to please cabinet heads

The difference between feds and private offices is that private companies have space for their employees. Federal agencies largely downsized their offices during Covid, relying on remote work. Several agencies were told to get rid of any leases in privately owned spaces.

It is a very long process in the federal government for an agency to acquire new space, so the agencies cannot just go and lease new space on their own. They have to go through GSA As a result the federal employees are shoved together in small, inadequate spaces.

No, private companies don't. My husband was RTO. They have hotdesks and its first come first serve. He gets in super early but otherwise he'd have to bring his own chair and lap table, its that bad. He was working remotely long before covid. And, with the three hour commute each day, on a good day he's had to cut back the hours he works.

Name the company where employees are having to bring their own chairs.

One of the big tech companies. He just keeps a chair and table in the trunk and makes the best of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to read 21 pages on this, but FFS, the whining is out of control. Think of doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, grocery workers, construction workers, and the list goes on.

But poor, poor little you. Your life is so hard, having to go in to an office every day.

OK, PP. Those police officers, firefighters, and other workers presumably chose those jobs. Not everyone wants to work at a desk. That’s a good thing obviously, because our society needs all different roles filled in order to function. You know what else? The public was also safer when there weren’t so many cars out on the road every day. Fewer accidents to respond to and police officers, firefighters, and EMTs able to more quickly get to accidents and injured people.

My first job after college paid 28k and I never knew what my weekly schedule was going to be until the Friday before. Sometimes it started at 9am, went to 3pm then I had a 3 hour break and worked at another site 6-9pm. Then it was randomly different the next day. Whatever, I was young, just happy to have a job and be paying back my student loans.

My next job paid 28k and was in a call center 10:30am-7pm. The next one was 35k call center 8-4:30. Next one accounting office 46k 8-4:30. And so on and so forth. The point I am getting at is that in general, we work towards bettering ourselves and our skills in order to have better pay and work conditions. For some people, that can mean eventually working remotely after proving oneself responsible and hardworking, and to have that yanked back for no good reason other than for us to be made miserable is not merely an inconvenience.

Even though his parents are both white collar desk workers, my own son does not want to be a “laptop worker” instead he wants to be a physical therapist or sports trainer. So don’t worry, even the next generation has plenty of people who don’t want to work at a computer all day whether it’s at home or in an office.

And for those workers whose jobs require being at a physical location, their in person presence actually fulfills a purpose, as opposed to a desk worker being randomly assigned a closet to work in while the rest of their team works from other random rooms and locations hundreds of miles away. What’s the point? It’s depressing as f***.

Oh and I am posting this at 4:55 AM, because of insomnia related to IBS and psoriasis flares that just happened to appear within days/weeks of RTO and having to commute to an office 47 miles away after accepting a fully remote position.

Really, PP, just stop talking if you know so little.

DP.

I suspect that poster is simply saying we all have it rough. You have challenges. So do we all. I’m also up all night for my own work-related reasons (not a fed).

It doesn’t have to be a competition of who has it worse. It can generally stink all around.

NP. Yes we all have our challenges. Some are inherent to the job, like firefighting and nursing are just tough jobs in general with brutal schedules. Some challenges are inherent to imperfect human nature. We all can have sucky bosses or colleagues that make the job more miserable than it should be.

Feds are complaining because the new "challenges" imposed are totally arbitrary and done for the purpose of pissing us off personally and destroying the functionality of our jobs. This is a whole new dimension. Imagine if your boss just random decided that to stay employed this week, you must wear pink everyday, and next week you must greet everyone with a smile and audible hi. And also you need to spend 2 minutes jumping up and down on one foot. And oh you need to write a letter and get a doc note for every sick day you take. This is the sh*t we are talking about. The RTO in itself is arbitrary and stupid, but it is combined with countless other stupid policies that often make no sense, make being in the office miserable, and just makes everyone on edge and distracted the actual work that needs to get done.

I get it. My job throws pointless nonsense at me every day, most of which I didn’t sign up for when I was hired. These tasks add up and force me to work WAY WAY over 40 hours each week. Many of us deal with arbitrary, pointless changes that severely impact our weeks.

I’m not happy it’s happening to you. It’s not that I need others to suffer because I am. But to say this is unique to Feds isn’t true.

No, it is definitely not unique to Feds. However a lot of federal agencies forced people back because they were trying to please cabinet heads

The difference between feds and private offices is that private companies have space for their employees. Federal agencies largely downsized their offices during Covid, relying on remote work. Several agencies were told to get rid of any leases in privately owned spaces.

It is a very long process in the federal government for an agency to acquire new space, so the agencies cannot just go and lease new space on their own. They have to go through GSA As a result the federal employees are shoved together in small, inadequate spaces.

No, private companies don't. My husband was RTO. They have hotdesks and its first come first serve. He gets in super early but otherwise he'd have to bring his own chair and lap table, its that bad. He was working remotely long before covid. And, with the three hour commute each day, on a good day he's had to cut back the hours he works.

Well that's not good. To be fair most or my current knowledge of private companies is from friends and family members who work in big law and large national insurance compsnies, and their places have tons of office space.

It is what it is. They are lucky.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to read 21 pages on this, but FFS, the whining is out of control. Think of doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, grocery workers, construction workers, and the list goes on.

But poor, poor little you. Your life is so hard, having to go in to an office every day.

OK, PP. Those police officers, firefighters, and other workers presumably chose those jobs. Not everyone wants to work at a desk. That’s a good thing obviously, because our society needs all different roles filled in order to function. You know what else? The public was also safer when there weren’t so many cars out on the road every day. Fewer accidents to respond to and police officers, firefighters, and EMTs able to more quickly get to accidents and injured people.

My first job after college paid 28k and I never knew what my weekly schedule was going to be until the Friday before. Sometimes it started at 9am, went to 3pm then I had a 3 hour break and worked at another site 6-9pm. Then it was randomly different the next day. Whatever, I was young, just happy to have a job and be paying back my student loans.

My next job paid 28k and was in a call center 10:30am-7pm. The next one was 35k call center 8-4:30. Next one accounting office 46k 8-4:30. And so on and so forth. The point I am getting at is that in general, we work towards bettering ourselves and our skills in order to have better pay and work conditions. For some people, that can mean eventually working remotely after proving oneself responsible and hardworking, and to have that yanked back for no good reason other than for us to be made miserable is not merely an inconvenience.

Even though his parents are both white collar desk workers, my own son does not want to be a “laptop worker” instead he wants to be a physical therapist or sports trainer. So don’t worry, even the next generation has plenty of people who don’t want to work at a computer all day whether it’s at home or in an office.

And for those workers whose jobs require being at a physical location, their in person presence actually fulfills a purpose, as opposed to a desk worker being randomly assigned a closet to work in while the rest of their team works from other random rooms and locations hundreds of miles away. What’s the point? It’s depressing as f***.

Oh and I am posting this at 4:55 AM, because of insomnia related to IBS and psoriasis flares that just happened to appear within days/weeks of RTO and having to commute to an office 47 miles away after accepting a fully remote position.

Really, PP, just stop talking if you know so little.

DP.

I suspect that poster is simply saying we all have it rough. You have challenges. So do we all. I’m also up all night for my own work-related reasons (not a fed).

It doesn’t have to be a competition of who has it worse. It can generally stink all around.

NP. Yes we all have our challenges. Some are inherent to the job, like firefighting and nursing are just tough jobs in general with brutal schedules. Some challenges are inherent to imperfect human nature. We all can have sucky bosses or colleagues that make the job more miserable than it should be.

Feds are complaining because the new "challenges" imposed are totally arbitrary and done for the purpose of pissing us off personally and destroying the functionality of our jobs. This is a whole new dimension. Imagine if your boss just random decided that to stay employed this week, you must wear pink everyday, and next week you must greet everyone with a smile and audible hi. And also you need to spend 2 minutes jumping up and down on one foot. And oh you need to write a letter and get a doc note for every sick day you take. This is the sh*t we are talking about. The RTO in itself is arbitrary and stupid, but it is combined with countless other stupid policies that often make no sense, make being in the office miserable, and just makes everyone on edge and distracted the actual work that needs to get done.

I get it. My job throws pointless nonsense at me every day, most of which I didn’t sign up for when I was hired. These tasks add up and force me to work WAY WAY over 40 hours each week. Many of us deal with arbitrary, pointless changes that severely impact our weeks.

I’m not happy it’s happening to you. It’s not that I need others to suffer because I am. But to say this is unique to Feds isn’t true.

No, it is definitely not unique to Feds. However a lot of federal agencies forced people back because they were trying to please cabinet heads

The difference between feds and private offices is that private companies have space for their employees. Federal agencies largely downsized their offices during Covid, relying on remote work. Several agencies were told to get rid of any leases in privately owned spaces.

It is a very long process in the federal government for an agency to acquire new space, so the agencies cannot just go and lease new space on their own. They have to go through GSA As a result the federal employees are shoved together in small, inadequate spaces.

No, private companies don't. My husband was RTO. They have hotdesks and its first come first serve. He gets in super early but otherwise he'd have to bring his own chair and lap table, its that bad. He was working remotely long before covid. And, with the three hour commute each day, on a good day he's had to cut back the hours he works.

I would like to know the rationale for a private company bringing employees back to that environment. In the federal government, the rationale is clearly trying to comply with current demands of the administration. They gave up the space because they never anticipated the need.

+1 obviously a troll saying someone is bringing their own chair to a private sector job

No, many worked at home before Covid so they don’t have the space. They ramped up and did more hires over the years so not enough space. If you get in super early you are generally ok but otherwise you share desks, bring your own, etc. The team is all over the place in the building and the supervisor hides in their office.

[Anonymous]

A Nun who is a teacher on Long Island was in paper yesterday. She lost part of one arm above elbow in an accident at 14.

She joined the Convent at 16 and just turned 106 and still teaches.

So she just celebrate her 90th year as a teacher. All in person and all with only one arm.

And you have trouble at 5 weeks.

A 106 year old women with one arm can make it to work every day and you cant, think about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The responses here just demonstrate how many Americans are interested in watching other people needlessly suffer if they themselves had to do it at some point. This is why people aren’t having kids anymore. We live in such a sadistic country. It’s pathetic. Shame on all of you. We have all of this technology that should liberate us to have balance and find peace and we are intent on ensuring all it does is create chaos and porn and internet gambling. You think you’re brave and talented because you drove to an office for 30 years and said yes mam and no sir? No
Wonder you’re fascinated with trump.

I always thought we were supposed to want to make society better. Thanks to people before us, we have occupational safety standards, labor protections, kids attend school instead of factories, etc.

I had to take unpaid leave after giving birth, which sucked and was hard on my family and meant returning to work sooner than I would have liked. But I am thrilled at progress being made toward paid parental leave. DH and I also had to pay back student loans, while being stretched by childcare expenses. Again, this sucked. I totally support making it easier for people to afford education and pay off loans.

The people who are all crabs in a bucket are truly a drain on progress.

I also find it funny how many people don’t bat an eye at companies like Tesla not paying taxes or CEOs getting 40 million dollar golden parachutes, but are up in arms over some fed making $120k/year getting to telework with a flex schedule so they can pick their kid up from the bus stop at 4 PM.

Like my God some of you are so unbelievably bitter and petty, I hope progress leaves you behind.

It isn’t about being bitter or petty.

It’s the “we have it so bad and nobody else does” attitude. The complaints on this thread are falling flat because they are things many professionals have been enduring all along.

People aren’t gleeful that you’re suffering, too. They are simply trying to inform you that your long commute, pointless mandates you must follow, childcare concerns, etc., are challenges endured by many. And there’s an “it’s okay for you but woe for me” attitude that hits in a bad place.

This. Feds respond 1) The person is lying about their RTO and Feds are the only white collar workers who have to RTO 5 days anywhere in the country 2) The person RTOing makes more $$ than them so it’s ok for them to RTO 3) The person RTOing is less educated then them so it’s ok for them to RTO.

This is just an echo chamber. There is no room for anyone else who has RTO’d to commiserate or provide perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The responses here just demonstrate how many Americans are interested in watching other people needlessly suffer if they themselves had to do it at some point. This is why people aren’t having kids anymore. We live in such a sadistic country. It’s pathetic. Shame on all of you. We have all of this technology that should liberate us to have balance and find peace and we are intent on ensuring all it does is create chaos and porn and internet gambling. You think you’re brave and talented because you drove to an office for 30 years and said yes mam and no sir? No
Wonder you’re fascinated with trump.

I always thought we were supposed to want to make society better. Thanks to people before us, we have occupational safety standards, labor protections, kids attend school instead of factories, etc.

I had to take unpaid leave after giving birth, which sucked and was hard on my family and meant returning to work sooner than I would have liked. But I am thrilled at progress being made toward paid parental leave. DH and I also had to pay back student loans, while being stretched by childcare expenses. Again, this sucked. I totally support making it easier for people to afford education and pay off loans.

The people who are all crabs in a bucket are truly a drain on progress.

I also find it funny how many people don’t bat an eye at companies like Tesla not paying taxes or CEOs getting 40 million dollar golden parachutes, but are up in arms over some fed making $120k/year getting to telework with a flex schedule so they can pick their kid up from the bus stop at 4 PM.

Like my God some of you are so unbelievably bitter and petty, I hope progress leaves you behind.

It isn’t about being bitter or petty.

It’s the “we have it so bad and nobody else does” attitude. The complaints on this thread are falling flat because they are things many professionals have been enduring all along.

People aren’t gleeful that you’re suffering, too. They are simply trying to inform you that your long commute, pointless mandates you must follow, childcare concerns, etc., are challenges endured by many. And there’s an “it’s okay for you but woe for me” attitude that hits in a bad place.

This. Feds respond 1) The person is lying about their RTO and Feds are the only white collar workers who have to RTO 5 days anywhere in the country 2) The person RTOing makes more $$ than them so it’s ok for them to RTO 3) The person RTOing is less educated then them so it’s ok for them to RTO.

This is just an echo chamber. There is no room for anyone else who has RTO’d to commiserate or provide perspective.

You’ve made up a straw man about Feds, then said you have no room to talk while talking. You can just ignore threads, you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A Nun who is a teacher on Long Island was in paper yesterday. She lost part of one arm above elbow in an accident at 14.

She joined the Convent at 16 and just turned 106 and still teaches.

So she just celebrate her 90th year as a teacher. All in person and all with only one arm.

And you have trouble at 5 weeks.

A 106 year old women with one arm can make it to work every day and you cant, think about that.

I’ll be sure to relay this to the factory workers hurt by NAFTA. They should feel blessed to be in the U.S. not whining about losing their jobs. Or something. Children are STARVING somewhere

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to read 21 pages on this, but FFS, the whining is out of control. Think of doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, grocery workers, construction workers, and the list goes on.

But poor, poor little you. Your life is so hard, having to go in to an office every day.

OK, PP. Those police officers, firefighters, and other workers presumably chose those jobs. Not everyone wants to work at a desk. That’s a good thing obviously, because our society needs all different roles filled in order to function. You know what else? The public was also safer when there weren’t so many cars out on the road every day. Fewer accidents to respond to and police officers, firefighters, and EMTs able to more quickly get to accidents and injured people.

My first job after college paid 28k and I never knew what my weekly schedule was going to be until the Friday before. Sometimes it started at 9am, went to 3pm then I had a 3 hour break and worked at another site 6-9pm. Then it was randomly different the next day. Whatever, I was young, just happy to have a job and be paying back my student loans.

My next job paid 28k and was in a call center 10:30am-7pm. The next one was 35k call center 8-4:30. Next one accounting office 46k 8-4:30. And so on and so forth. The point I am getting at is that in general, we work towards bettering ourselves and our skills in order to have better pay and work conditions. For some people, that can mean eventually working remotely after proving oneself responsible and hardworking, and to have that yanked back for no good reason other than for us to be made miserable is not merely an inconvenience.

Even though his parents are both white collar desk workers, my own son does not want to be a “laptop worker” instead he wants to be a physical therapist or sports trainer. So don’t worry, even the next generation has plenty of people who don’t want to work at a computer all day whether it’s at home or in an office.

And for those workers whose jobs require being at a physical location, their in person presence actually fulfills a purpose, as opposed to a desk worker being randomly assigned a closet to work in while the rest of their team works from other random rooms and locations hundreds of miles away. What’s the point? It’s depressing as f***.

Oh and I am posting this at 4:55 AM, because of insomnia related to IBS and psoriasis flares that just happened to appear within days/weeks of RTO and having to commute to an office 47 miles away after accepting a fully remote position.

Really, PP, just stop talking if you know so little.

DP.

I suspect that poster is simply saying we all have it rough. You have challenges. So do we all. I’m also up all night for my own work-related reasons (not a fed).

It doesn’t have to be a competition of who has it worse. It can generally stink all around.

NP. Yes we all have our challenges. Some are inherent to the job, like firefighting and nursing are just tough jobs in general with brutal schedules. Some challenges are inherent to imperfect human nature. We all can have sucky bosses or colleagues that make the job more miserable than it should be.

Feds are complaining because the new "challenges" imposed are totally arbitrary and done for the purpose of pissing us off personally and destroying the functionality of our jobs. This is a whole new dimension. Imagine if your boss just random decided that to stay employed this week, you must wear pink everyday, and next week you must greet everyone with a smile and audible hi. And also you need to spend 2 minutes jumping up and down on one foot. And oh you need to write a letter and get a doc note for every sick day you take. This is the sh*t we are talking about. The RTO in itself is arbitrary and stupid, but it is combined with countless other stupid policies that often make no sense, make being in the office miserable, and just makes everyone on edge and distracted the actual work that needs to get done.

I get it. My job throws pointless nonsense at me every day, most of which I didn’t sign up for when I was hired. These tasks add up and force me to work WAY WAY over 40 hours each week. Many of us deal with arbitrary, pointless changes that severely impact our weeks.

I’m not happy it’s happening to you. It’s not that I need others to suffer because I am. But to say this is unique to Feds isn’t true.

No, it is definitely not unique to Feds. However a lot of federal agencies forced people back because they were trying to please cabinet heads

The difference between feds and private offices is that private companies have space for their employees. Federal agencies largely downsized their offices during Covid, relying on remote work. Several agencies were told to get rid of any leases in privately owned spaces.

It is a very long process in the federal government for an agency to acquire new space, so the agencies cannot just go and lease new space on their own. They have to go through GSA As a result the federal employees are shoved together in small, inadequate spaces.

No, private companies don't. My husband was RTO. They have hotdesks and its first come first serve. He gets in super early but otherwise he'd have to bring his own chair and lap table, its that bad. He was working remotely long before covid. And, with the three hour commute each day, on a good day he's had to cut back the hours he works.

Name the company where employees are having to bring their own chairs.

One of the big tech companies. He just keeps a chair and table in the trunk and makes the best of it.

I don't see why private companies can't get more space. It takes longer in government because there is a competitive bid process. A private company can just pick space and sign a lease.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not going to read 21 pages on this, but FFS, the whining is out of control. Think of doctors, nurses, police officers, firefighters, grocery workers, construction workers, and the list goes on.

But poor, poor little you. Your life is so hard, having to go in to an office every day.

OK, PP. Those police officers, firefighters, and other workers presumably chose those jobs. Not everyone wants to work at a desk. That’s a good thing obviously, because our society needs all different roles filled in order to function. You know what else? The public was also safer when there weren’t so many cars out on the road every day. Fewer accidents to respond to and police officers, firefighters, and EMTs able to more quickly get to accidents and injured people.

My first job after college paid 28k and I never knew what my weekly schedule was going to be until the Friday before. Sometimes it started at 9am, went to 3pm then I had a 3 hour break and worked at another site 6-9pm. Then it was randomly different the next day. Whatever, I was young, just happy to have a job and be paying back my student loans.

My next job paid 28k and was in a call center 10:30am-7pm. The next one was 35k call center 8-4:30. Next one accounting office 46k 8-4:30. And so on and so forth. The point I am getting at is that in general, we work towards bettering ourselves and our skills in order to have better pay and work conditions. For some people, that can mean eventually working remotely after proving oneself responsible and hardworking, and to have that yanked back for no good reason other than for us to be made miserable is not merely an inconvenience.

Even though his parents are both white collar desk workers, my own son does not want to be a “laptop worker” instead he wants to be a physical therapist or sports trainer. So don’t worry, even the next generation has plenty of people who don’t want to work at a computer all day whether it’s at home or in an office.

And for those workers whose jobs require being at a physical location, their in person presence actually fulfills a purpose, as opposed to a desk worker being randomly assigned a closet to work in while the rest of their team works from other random rooms and locations hundreds of miles away. What’s the point? It’s depressing as f***.

Oh and I am posting this at 4:55 AM, because of insomnia related to IBS and psoriasis flares that just happened to appear within days/weeks of RTO and having to commute to an office 47 miles away after accepting a fully remote position.

Really, PP, just stop talking if you know so little.

DP.

I suspect that poster is simply saying we all have it rough. You have challenges. So do we all. I’m also up all night for my own work-related reasons (not a fed).

It doesn’t have to be a competition of who has it worse. It can generally stink all around.

NP. Yes we all have our challenges. Some are inherent to the job, like firefighting and nursing are just tough jobs in general with brutal schedules. Some challenges are inherent to imperfect human nature. We all can have sucky bosses or colleagues that make the job more miserable than it should be.

Feds are complaining because the new "challenges" imposed are totally arbitrary and done for the purpose of pissing us off personally and destroying the functionality of our jobs. This is a whole new dimension. Imagine if your boss just random decided that to stay employed this week, you must wear pink everyday, and next week you must greet everyone with a smile and audible hi. And also you need to spend 2 minutes jumping up and down on one foot. And oh you need to write a letter and get a doc note for every sick day you take. This is the sh*t we are talking about. The RTO in itself is arbitrary and stupid, but it is combined with countless other stupid policies that often make no sense, make being in the office miserable, and just makes everyone on edge and distracted the actual work that needs to get done.

I get it. My job throws pointless nonsense at me every day, most of which I didn’t sign up for when I was hired. These tasks add up and force me to work WAY WAY over 40 hours each week. Many of us deal with arbitrary, pointless changes that severely impact our weeks.

I’m not happy it’s happening to you. It’s not that I need others to suffer because I am. But to say this is unique to Feds isn’t true.

No, it is definitely not unique to Feds. However a lot of federal agencies forced people back because they were trying to please cabinet heads

The difference between feds and private offices is that private companies have space for their employees. Federal agencies largely downsized their offices during Covid, relying on remote work. Several agencies were told to get rid of any leases in privately owned spaces.

It is a very long process in the federal government for an agency to acquire new space, so the agencies cannot just go and lease new space on their own. They have to go through GSA As a result the federal employees are shoved together in small, inadequate spaces.

No, private companies don't. My husband was RTO. They have hotdesks and its first come first serve. He gets in super early but otherwise he'd have to bring his own chair and lap table, its that bad. He was working remotely long before covid. And, with the three hour commute each day, on a good day he's had to cut back the hours he works.

Name the company where employees are having to bring their own chairs.

One of the big tech companies. He just keeps a chair and table in the trunk and makes the best of it.

I don't see why private companies can't get more space. It takes longer in government because there is a competitive bid process. A private company can just pick space and sign a lease.

They can, they are just about maximizing space and sometimes those spaces take years to build out due to gov't requirements. It was not well thought out at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A Nun who is a teacher on Long Island was in paper yesterday. She lost part of one arm above elbow in an accident at 14.

She joined the Convent at 16 and just turned 106 and still teaches.

So she just celebrate her 90th year as a teacher. All in person and all with only one arm.

And you have trouble at 5 weeks.

A 106 year old women with one arm can make it to work every day and you cant, think about that.

I’m going to guess she didn’t have young kids to raise and there are other people helping with meals and chores at the convent. And is she sitting in traffic to commute 3 hours round trip while her employer actively antagonizes her and goads her into quitting? Has her own government tried to hurt her and actively taken glee in her suffering?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's killing me is the lack of flexibility. My kids just can't stop getting sick. They're old enough that they could nap/watch TV (they're lethargic while sick) and I could telework.

Instead, I'm just taking full days of leave. Work is piled sky high at work due to this and also because so many people quit. Unsustainable.

Man Up. My Mom had a job, my wife's mom had a job. We went to school sick all the time. I dont recall a single time my Mom or Dad took off cause I was sick.

I do recall once the nurse called my Mom at work and said there is a problem as I am sick, my Mom said sounds like your problem.

Yeah this isn’t the great story you think it is. Some of us have higher standards for raising kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A Nun who is a teacher on Long Island was in paper yesterday. She lost part of one arm above elbow in an accident at 14.

She joined the Convent at 16 and just turned 106 and still teaches.

So she just celebrate her 90th year as a teacher. All in person and all with only one arm.

And you have trouble at 5 weeks.

A 106 year old women with one arm can make it to work every day and you cant, think about that.

She lost her arm at two, not 14.

https://nypost.com/2025/05/19/us-news/long-island-nun-the-worlds-oldest-at-112-shares-four-words-of-advice-after-a-lifetime-of-service/

And so what? She followed her vocation. Irrelevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's killing me is the lack of flexibility. My kids just can't stop getting sick. They're old enough that they could nap/watch TV (they're lethargic while sick) and I could telework.

Instead, I'm just taking full days of leave. Work is piled sky high at work due to this and also because so many people quit. Unsustainable.

Man Up. My Mom had a job, my wife's mom had a job. We went to school sick all the time. I dont recall a single time my Mom or Dad took off cause I was sick.

I do recall once the nurse called my Mom at work and said there is a problem as I am sick, my Mom said sounds like your problem.

Yeah this isn’t the great story you think it is. Some of us have higher standards for raising kids.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The responses here just demonstrate how many Americans are interested in watching other people needlessly suffer if they themselves had to do it at some point. This is why people aren’t having kids anymore. We live in such a sadistic country. It’s pathetic. Shame on all of you. We have all of this technology that should liberate us to have balance and find peace and we are intent on ensuring all it does is create chaos and porn and internet gambling. You think you’re brave and talented because you drove to an office for 30 years and said yes mam and no sir? No
Wonder you’re fascinated with trump.

I always thought we were supposed to want to make society better. Thanks to people before us, we have occupational safety standards, labor protections, kids attend school instead of factories, etc.

I had to take unpaid leave after giving birth, which sucked and was hard on my family and meant returning to work sooner than I would have liked. But I am thrilled at progress being made toward paid parental leave. DH and I also had to pay back student loans, while being stretched by childcare expenses. Again, this sucked. I totally support making it easier for people to afford education and pay off loans.

The people who are all crabs in a bucket are truly a drain on progress.

I also find it funny how many people don’t bat an eye at companies like Tesla not paying taxes or CEOs getting 40 million dollar golden parachutes, but are up in arms over some fed making $120k/year getting to telework with a flex schedule so they can pick their kid up from the bus stop at 4 PM.

Like my God some of you are so unbelievably bitter and petty, I hope progress leaves you behind.

It isn’t about being bitter or petty.

It’s the “we have it so bad and nobody else does” attitude. The complaints on this thread are falling flat because they are things many professionals have been enduring all along.

People aren’t gleeful that you’re suffering, too. They are simply trying to inform you that your long commute, pointless mandates you must follow, childcare concerns, etc., are challenges endured by many. And there’s an “it’s okay for you but woe for me” attitude that hits in a bad place.

This. Feds respond 1) The person is lying about their RTO and Feds are the only white collar workers who have to RTO 5 days anywhere in the country 2) The person RTOing makes more $$ than them so it’s ok for them to RTO 3) The person RTOing is less educated then them so it’s ok for them to RTO.

This is just an echo chamber. There is no room for anyone else who has RTO’d to commiserate or provide perspective.

What are you talking about? The tech companies went RTO before the Fed's did. Many started in Jan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's killing me is the lack of flexibility. My kids just can't stop getting sick. They're old enough that they could nap/watch TV (they're lethargic while sick) and I could telework.

Instead, I'm just taking full days of leave. Work is piled sky high at work due to this and also because so many people quit. Unsustainable.

Man Up. My Mom had a job, my wife's mom had a job. We went to school sick all the time. I dont recall a single time my Mom or Dad took off cause I was sick.

I do recall once the nurse called my Mom at work and said there is a problem as I am sick, my Mom said sounds like your problem.

Yeah this isn’t the great story you think it is. Some of us have higher standards for raising kids.

+1

That's a sad brag. My dad took off when we were sick. Sometimes my mom did but rarely.