RTO EO is up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the Trump administration's position is that people who are not committed to their jobs need to start looking. They use willingness to be in person as a measure of that. It's an imperfect measure, to be sure, but there aren't a lot of good measures to be had. Performance reviews are not reliable and also there isn't anything the administration can do to fix that. But they can try to get people back in the offices.

They also want to revitalize the business districts that relied on people coming to work. Good or bad, we will all be better off for thriving brick and mortar businesses and less Chinese Amazon products.

I don't think it's a bad thing to shake this up. Change is hard. We may need to move to a smaller place to make it work. I don't know, but I try to understand the motivations for things and believe there is some good here.

One of the local news stations ran a segment yesterday on Mayor Bowser. She was strongly pushing feds returning to work. The segment said she has been begging the Biden admin to enforce return to the office, and she actually flew down to Marlago to convince Trump to do this.

The reasons cited were revitalizing/saving the business downtown, and as a means to conbat the surging crime in DC over the past 4 years.

This return to work is not solely a trump thing.

It is actually a bipartisan measure between far right trump and far left mayor bowser.

Again, Trump is plotting to SELL the government’s DC office space. He is also plotting to end office leases and drive down prices in DC. Likely so his real estate friends can get the properties cheaper.

https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/commercial/the-u-s-government-has-a-landlord-and-trump-isnt-a-fan-872c469e?mod=mhp

The Trump administration is considering selling two-thirds of the federal government’s office stock to the private sector, according to people familiar with the transition operations.

About three-quarters of the 70 million square feet of office space the GSA leases from private landlords in D.C. is also likely to be canceled, according to Don Peebles, a longtime Washington, D.C.-based developer. A sharp rise in GSA canceled leases would pressure D.C. landlords, many of which count on the GSA as an anchor tenant.

[…]

Much of what it can sell, Peebles said, will likely be at fire-sale prices. That could drag down the worth of other D.C. office buildings, which have already plunged in value in recent years.

“Buildings will sell for 30 cents on the dollar,” Peebles said. “It’s a paradigm shift. There will be a dramatic reset on property values.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This comes down to trust. Teleworkers are saying: trust us, we’re being productive at home and not watching the kids/watching TV/taking a nap/taking a walk, etc. The new administration is saying it no longer trusts them.

Like you can’t watch Netflix on your phone or take a long coffee break, lunch break (or two) while you’re in the office? The point of ending telework, terminating remote work agreements, Schedule F, etc. is to get federal employees to quit or in the alternative empower political appointees to fire them for any reason. If a teleworker isn’t getting their work done at home it’s unlikely they will get it done in the office. Regardless of where such an employee works it’s the employees manager who should be responsible for holding them accountable.

Punishing productive employees who do good work is not great for the overall health of an organization.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

Me too. I go in 2 days now and will continue to do so until I’m fired.

To be fair, no orders have been issued just yet. I need to know what my agency heads want me to do. For now I will follow my current telework agreement.

But pp if you are told to go in 5 days and only go in 2, that’s time card fraud and insubordination. You can easily be fired. Is it worth your job?

This why people hate government workers

People need not have opinions on “government workers”, you all reek of jealousy and it’s not a good look. Continue to live your miserable lives.

+1

They are obsessed with us because they’re a bunch of Petty Crockers who fall for the “government workers are lazy” trope used as a sleight of hand by rich politicians to deflect from the real waste and abuse.

It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Glad I got my popcorn early.

Does it turn you on when other people’s lives are upended?

Drama llama? RTO is hardly an upending - have some perspective

I haven’t been complaining too much about this, mostly because I’ve felt very lucky to be a remote worker and knew it would end someday, but don’t minimize it but saying it doesn’t upend things. I’ll spend 2ish less hours/day with my kids, who are young and still want to spend time with me. My young kids routine is going to change quite a bit (only one parent at home in the morning, most likely) which will be stressful and require adjustment. I haven’t yet figured out a way to keep the exercise routine I’ve had for 2+ years that has greatly improved my physical and mental health, and see my kids at all on those days. And we have a dog who does not enjoy being alone all day.

These are all the problems of privilege, and I recognize that. They still create stress and disruption.

One thing for sure - I’m cutting back to working 40 hours per week!

Cry
Me a River

So you don’t support families? Why would you want parents unnecessarily spending 2 fewer hours with their kids in order to sit alone on Teams calls?

Why don’t you support technology and want to take advantage of the efficiencies it brings? Do you also want us using fax machines?

Of course I do. I have a family. I have a full time job I commute to every day. I have 4 kids. 2 of them in top 25 colleges, 2 in HS. I think my support of my family has been just stellar. You need to grow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These responses are hilarious — immediately and predictably latching into the one clause that they think tells them what they want to hear. “Exceptions” by definition are a small minority. You should not expect to be one of them.

There is also the part about compliance with laws. Many of us are part of bargaining units that have telework contracts, so that provides an additional legal hurdle. Plus “as soon as practicable” is not very soon when you don’t even have an office.

At the very least this isn’t happening overnight for many of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This comes down to trust. Teleworkers are saying: trust us, we’re being productive at home and not watching the kids/watching TV/taking a nap/taking a walk, etc. The new administration is saying it no longer trusts them.

Like you can’t watch Netflix on your phone or take a long coffee break, lunch break (or two) while you’re in the office? The point of ending telework, terminating remote work agreements, Schedule F, etc. is to get federal employees to quit or in the alternative empower political appointees to fire them for any reason. If a teleworker isn’t getting their work done at home it’s unlikely they will get it done in the office. Regardless of where such an employee works it’s the employees manager who should be responsible for holding them accountable.

Punishing productive employees who do good work is not great for the overall health of an organization.

No it's not. All of these pages are just chock full of people defending WFH by saying it gives them time to do chores, workout, cook dinner, pick up kids, go to practices etc. NEVER is the WFH argument presented as more productive time to work.

[Anonymous]

Agree with PP. Unproductive workers will continue to be unproductive in the office just like they were in 2019. The under-performers are content working for the federal government and will do what they can to hold onto their jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is so unfair to people that teleworked a few days a week prior to COVID.

Life is not fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the Trump administration's position is that people who are not committed to their jobs need to start looking. They use willingness to be in person as a measure of that. It's an imperfect measure, to be sure, but there aren't a lot of good measures to be had. Performance reviews are not reliable and also there isn't anything the administration can do to fix that. But they can try to get people back in the offices.

They also want to revitalize the business districts that relied on people coming to work. Good or bad, we will all be better off for thriving brick and mortar businesses and less Chinese Amazon products.

I don't think it's a bad thing to shake this up. Change is hard. We may need to move to a smaller place to make it work. I don't know, but I try to understand the motivations for things and believe there is some good here.

One of the local news stations ran a segment yesterday on Mayor Bowser. She was strongly pushing feds returning to work. The segment said she has been begging the Biden admin to enforce return to the office, and she actually flew down to Marlago to convince Trump to do this.

The reasons cited were revitalizing/saving the business downtown, and as a means to conbat the surging crime in DC over the past 4 years.

This return to work is not solely a trump thing.

It is actually a bipartisan measure between far right trump and far left mayor bowser.

A lot of fed offices are in dumpy parts of the city where we don’t feel safe to walk around at lunchtime (and there are not many amenities anyway). And even if there were I’m not wasting my money on lunchtime takeout or coffee. I’ll just pack it from home.

I guess it may help WMATA but at the cost to the taxpayers because we’ll be getting transit subsidies.

If Bowser wants to revitalize DC she should start with crime and mentally ill people on the streets making others uncomfortable (e.g. the guy who was allowed to flash everyone until he finally showed his junk to a bunch of preschoolers).

Also many feds live in MD/VA. I don’t have any particular incentive to make the dumpy areas of DC nice. I’ll keep spending my money in Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Got an email from our leadership this morning that they aren’t changing any policies on telework. We’ve been 4 days per pay period. Heard from a colleague that OGC told them the CBA trumps the EO. They also got beat up last budget cycle over lease costs and they don’t want to go ask for more money for enough office space for everyone to be in office full time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think the Trump administration's position is that people who are not committed to their jobs need to start looking. They use willingness to be in person as a measure of that. It's an imperfect measure, to be sure, but there aren't a lot of good measures to be had. Performance reviews are not reliable and also there isn't anything the administration can do to fix that. But they can try to get people back in the offices.

They also want to revitalize the business districts that relied on people coming to work. Good or bad, we will all be better off for thriving brick and mortar businesses and less Chinese Amazon products.

I don't think it's a bad thing to shake this up. Change is hard. We may need to move to a smaller place to make it work. I don't know, but I try to understand the motivations for things and believe there is some good here.

One of the local news stations ran a segment yesterday on Mayor Bowser. She was strongly pushing feds returning to work. The segment said she has been begging the Biden admin to enforce return to the office, and she actually flew down to Marlago to convince Trump to do this.

The reasons cited were revitalizing/saving the business downtown, and as a means to conbat the surging crime in DC over the past 4 years.

This return to work is not solely a trump thing.

It is actually a bipartisan measure between far right trump and far left mayor bowser.

Mayor Bowser is not far left.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This comes down to trust. Teleworkers are saying: trust us, we’re being productive at home and not watching the kids/watching TV/taking a nap/taking a walk, etc. The new administration is saying it no longer trusts them.

Like you can’t watch Netflix on your phone or take a long coffee break, lunch break (or two) while you’re in the office? The point of ending telework, terminating remote work agreements, Schedule F, etc. is to get federal employees to quit or in the alternative empower political appointees to fire them for any reason. If a teleworker isn’t getting their work done at home it’s unlikely they will get it done in the office. Regardless of where such an employee works it’s the employees manager who should be responsible for holding them accountable.

Punishing productive employees who do good work is not great for the overall health of an organization.

No it's not. All of these pages are just chock full of people defending WFH by saying it gives them time to do chores, workout, cook dinner, pick up kids, go to practices etc. NEVER is the WFH argument presented as more productive time to work.

No they aren’t. They are full of people accusing them of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Glad I got my popcorn early.

Does it turn you on when other people’s lives are upended?

Drama llama? RTO is hardly an upending - have some perspective

I haven’t been complaining too much about this, mostly because I’ve felt very lucky to be a remote worker and knew it would end someday, but don’t minimize it but saying it doesn’t upend things. I’ll spend 2ish less hours/day with my kids, who are young and still want to spend time with me. My young kids routine is going to change quite a bit (only one parent at home in the morning, most likely) which will be stressful and require adjustment. I haven’t yet figured out a way to keep the exercise routine I’ve had for 2+ years that has greatly improved my physical and mental health, and see my kids at all on those days. And we have a dog who does not enjoy being alone all day.

These are all the problems of privilege, and I recognize that. They still create stress and disruption.

One thing for sure - I’m cutting back to working 40 hours per week!

Cry
Me a River

So you don’t support families? Why would you want parents unnecessarily spending 2 fewer hours with their kids in order to sit alone on Teams calls?

Why don’t you support technology and want to take advantage of the efficiencies it brings? Do you also want us using fax machines?

Of course I do. I have a family. I have a full time job I commute to every day. I have 4 kids. 2 of them in top 25 colleges, 2 in HS. I think my support of my family has been just stellar. You need to grow up.

There’s the rub. You’re jealous of any families to have a flexibility to make their lives easier that you didn’t get to have. And it’s weird that you’re not merely indifferent to whether Feds have to RTO. You are trying to insist that their lives won’t be upended as if you know the personal family/employment situation of every fed returning to office. Like why do you care one way or another? It’s so fake to pretend you are someone who cares about families but the totally act like you know better than families what their lives are like.

I am glad I’m not petty like you. I had to take unpaid leave after my kids are born, but I’m glad there is now paid parental leave. If suddenly paid parental leave went away, I would have sympathy and understand that was making life unnecessarily harder for families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Got an email from our leadership this morning that they aren’t changing any policies on telework. We’ve been 4 days per pay period. Heard from a colleague that OGC told them the CBA trumps the EO. They also got beat up last budget cycle over lease costs and they don’t want to go ask for more money for enough office space for everyone to be in office full time.

4 days in office or 4 days telework?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This comes down to trust. Teleworkers are saying: trust us, we’re being productive at home and not watching the kids/watching TV/taking a nap/taking a walk, etc. The new administration is saying it no longer trusts them.

Like you can’t watch Netflix on your phone or take a long coffee break, lunch break (or two) while you’re in the office? The point of ending telework, terminating remote work agreements, Schedule F, etc. is to get federal employees to quit or in the alternative empower political appointees to fire them for any reason. If a teleworker isn’t getting their work done at home it’s unlikely they will get it done in the office. Regardless of where such an employee works it’s the employees manager who should be responsible for holding them accountable.

Punishing productive employees who do good work is not great for the overall health of an organization.

No it's not. All of these pages are just chock full of people defending WFH by saying it gives them time to do chores, workout, cook dinner, pick up kids, go to practices etc. NEVER is the WFH argument presented as more productive time to work.

Did you skim over all the posts from people saying they’re able to work longer hours, jump on calls with people in other time zones, attend important meetings instead of taking a sick day to stay home, work through snow days, etc.

With RTO people are going to work their set hours, nothing more. They will not be available once they log off. And they will be staying home when sick or when it snows, so that meetings will have to be rescheduled and deadlines pushed.

You clearly have selective reading skills.