RTO - situational TW

[Anonymous]

IME employees used minimal sick time while TW or working remote, allowing their sick leave balances to grow and grow. At some point someone will notice and say maybe we don’t need to give those employees so much paid sick leave. Same may apply for annual leave - when I worked in person I would have to use leave to go see my kid’s play at school, but while remote I could use less leave or just flex later in the day and not use leave at all.

If our administration was smart, they would offer remote workers the ability to stay remote but reduce salaries and adjust down leave accrual. Many would take that opportunity, and the government would save a lot of money.

Unfortunately they just want to burn it all down and keep the spoils for themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our agency has said situational is ok. Immediate manager has claimed its fine for Dr appointments and other non reoccurring things but I am suspicious.

My supervisor said No telework for Dr appointment anymore, if there is an appointment in the middle of day, then employee may need to take whole day off, it is unlikely that employee will go to office for a few hours.

Did you have people abusing that? I have someone that had a medical appointment every day last week. She previously talked about scheduling appointments specifically to make a case for situational telework. I wouldn't ordinarily care, but it is going to look awfully suspicious if they look at timesheets and see she didn't come in at all one week.

Absent of any other direction from senior mangement, other than that situational telework is supposed be rare, I'm inclined to make my own policy that you need to some in-person for a portion of the day when yoi request situational telework for appointments.

She should be fired for being an idiot that takes doctors appointments every single day.

At first I thought she was just trying to take care of everything before we lost situational telework, but then it got ridiculous.

Honestly she better have doctors notes. I’ve seen people disciplined for this. We were told you only get 4 hours of sick leave per appt (unless of course it’s some specialty appt that you drive hours away for).

When I worked downtown and my shuttle only ran during rush hour, I would schedule two appts in a day. Like dentist at 10am and doctor at 2pm because I was unable to come back into work after an appt.

I live a 2 hour train ride from the office (hired remote!) and have been thinking about stuff like this and trying to schedule as much as I can on the same days before RTO, so appointments are out of the way for a while. My providers just don't have the availability to allow me to do this though. I've been trying for weeks to get ANY PCP appointment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doctor’s appointments, working while sick, etc = ad hoc telework. Not “situational”.

Inclement weather, a building shut down for no heat/water/whatever = situational telework.

Let's say the building is closed for whatever reason... how would you even know if you aren't checking emails before you make the commute in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our agency has said situational is ok. Immediate manager has claimed its fine for Dr appointments and other non reoccurring things but I am suspicious.

My supervisor said No telework for Dr appointment anymore, if there is an appointment in the middle of day, then employee may need to take whole day off, it is unlikely that employee will go to office for a few hours.

Did you have people abusing that? I have someone that had a medical appointment every day last week. She previously talked about scheduling appointments specifically to make a case for situational telework. I wouldn't ordinarily care, but it is going to look awfully suspicious if they look at timesheets and see she didn't come in at all one week.

Absent of any other direction from senior mangement, other than that situational telework is supposed be rare, I'm inclined to make my own policy that you need to some in-person for a portion of the day when yoi request situational telework for appointments.

Both my supervisor and colleagues are cool person, it is not personal, it is unlikely that any of my colleagues did stupid thing, half of team on full remote already and the other half came to office one day per week, there is no reason for anyone to abuse situational teleworking.

Probably it is "instruction" from the top, they are just not going to do it anymore, it is more about how to deal with it after 5 days RTO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I had foot surgery last year. I was able to telework while recovering even though I could barely walk for 2 weeks. I guess employees will just have to take weeks of sick leave in these instances now.

I suspect you can get an RA for circumstances like this.

I don’t think they give out temporary reasonable accommodations? Our RAs take at least 3 months to be approved.

Managers can grant what's known as a local accommodation; EEO is not required for reasonable accommodations, but some managers prefer including EEO because managers can't request medical documentation. EEO can. If the condition is something obvious, like a broken leg, blindness, or pregnancy, the manager can address that request locally. If it's a condition that's not obvious, EEO is the better route.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctor’s appointments, working while sick, etc = ad hoc telework. Not “situational”.

Inclement weather, a building shut down for no heat/water/whatever = situational telework.

Let's say the building is closed for whatever reason... how would you even know if you aren't checking emails before you make the commute in?

DP. This has happened to our office before and I, an early bird, drove my 45 minutes in, only to get to the building and be turned away.

Our director received a text at some point a littler later and then texted supervisors and so on. But many were already headed to work by then.

[Anonymous]

Zero situational allowed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our agency has said situational is ok. Immediate manager has claimed its fine for Dr appointments and other non reoccurring things but I am suspicious.

My supervisor said No telework for Dr appointment anymore, if there is an appointment in the middle of day, then employee may need to take whole day off, it is unlikely that employee will go to office for a few hours.

Did you have people abusing that? I have someone that had a medical appointment every day last week. She previously talked about scheduling appointments specifically to make a case for situational telework. I wouldn't ordinarily care, but it is going to look awfully suspicious if they look at timesheets and see she didn't come in at all one week.

Absent of any other direction from senior mangement, other than that situational telework is supposed be rare, I'm inclined to make my own policy that you need to some in-person for a portion of the day when yoi request situational telework for appointments.

She should be fired for being an idiot that takes doctors appointments every single day.

At first I thought she was just trying to take care of everything before we lost situational telework, but then it got ridiculous.

Are you sure these are just routine appointments? If one of my coworkers suddenly had medical appointments every day, I'd assume a new serious condition was being diagnosed (or at least investigated).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been told zero leniency and it’s only for when office is closed (which is sometimes when there are protests in the streets, snow or the internet stops working at work).

I have little kids and am constantly sick. So far I’ve had Covid, flu, enterovirus and pink eye 3x (omg we keep passing it around! It’s the worst). I have sick leave but does work really want me coming in when I’m coughing and likely still contagious? I’d be taking a week a month of sick leave during winter.

Another coworker is getting knee surgery. He’s taking the first 2 weeks off but was hoping to telework until he’s able to drive to work.

People taking nonstop leave will really hinder our productivity

Sick leave is very abused in the govt even more so that people were working remote instead of using sick leave .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our agency has said situational is ok. Immediate manager has claimed its fine for Dr appointments and other non reoccurring things but I am suspicious.

My supervisor said No telework for Dr appointment anymore, if there is an appointment in the middle of day, then employee may need to take whole day off, it is unlikely that employee will go to office for a few hours.

Did you have people abusing that? I have someone that had a medical appointment every day last week. She previously talked about scheduling appointments specifically to make a case for situational telework. I wouldn't ordinarily care, but it is going to look awfully suspicious if they look at timesheets and see she didn't come in at all one week.

Absent of any other direction from senior mangement, other than that situational telework is supposed be rare, I'm inclined to make my own policy that you need to some in-person for a portion of the day when yoi request situational telework for appointments.

She should be fired for being an idiot that takes doctors appointments every single day.

At first I thought she was just trying to take care of everything before we lost situational telework, but then it got ridiculous.

If you have too many sick days you must get a doctor's note

[Anonymous]

there is no way in hell I'm going to go into the office if I have a doctor's appointment. I have an hour commute for those 7 miles from my house to my job. I'm not commuting two hours to work two hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our agency has said situational is ok. Immediate manager has claimed its fine for Dr appointments and other non reoccurring things but I am suspicious.

My supervisor said No telework for Dr appointment anymore, if there is an appointment in the middle of day, then employee may need to take whole day off, it is unlikely that employee will go to office for a few hours.

Did you have people abusing that? I have someone that had a medical appointment every day last week. She previously talked about scheduling appointments specifically to make a case for situational telework. I wouldn't ordinarily care, but it is going to look awfully suspicious if they look at timesheets and see she didn't come in at all one week.

Absent of any other direction from senior mangement, other than that situational telework is supposed be rare, I'm inclined to make my own policy that you need to some in-person for a portion of the day when yoi request situational telework for appointments.

She should be fired for being an idiot that takes doctors appointments every single day.

At first I thought she was just trying to take care of everything before we lost situational telework, but then it got ridiculous.

Are you sure these are just routine appointments? If one of my coworkers suddenly had medical appointments every day, I'd assume a new serious condition was being diagnosed (or at least investigated).

Agree with that. I have an autoimmune condition that I have 5 doctors for. When I have a flare I have to go see all of them. It's truly annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I foresee mandatory situational telework coming, so feds will be required to work from home during inclement weather. If we get a storm this week and the government closes, they can't require us to work because our agreements are void

I work in a non fed government position. For us, you can either TW or use leave for weather events - no more adm leave. For sick you need to use a sick day - no TW. If you’re too sick to come in you’re too sick for us to pay you for the day.

Not sure I agree with this stance totally but when we t was more lax the abuse was rampant. You wouldn’t believe how often people were sick when they could TW but how infrequent it is under the new rules. So it’s hard to criticize. Really it hasn’t affected anyone who wasn’t abusing the opportunity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctor’s appointments, working while sick, etc = ad hoc telework. Not “situational”.

Inclement weather, a building shut down for no heat/water/whatever = situational telework.

Let's say the building is closed for whatever reason... how would you even know if you aren't checking emails before you make the commute in?

DP. This has happened to our office before and I, an early bird, drove my 45 minutes in, only to get to the building and be turned away.

Our director received a text at some point a littler later and then texted supervisors and so on. But many were already headed to work by then.

We have a system that texts and emails our personal accounts when the building is closed. Guess you could also check OPM status online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been told zero leniency and it’s only for when office is closed (which is sometimes when there are protests in the streets, snow or the internet stops working at work).

I have little kids and am constantly sick. So far I’ve had Covid, flu, enterovirus and pink eye 3x (omg we keep passing it around! It’s the worst). I have sick leave but does work really want me coming in when I’m coughing and likely still contagious? I’d be taking a week a month of sick leave during winter.

Another coworker is getting knee surgery. He’s taking the first 2 weeks off but was hoping to telework until he’s able to drive to work.

People taking nonstop leave will really hinder our productivity

Sick leave is very abused in the govt even more so that people were working remote instead of using sick leave .

Is there data to show this? Please share it.