Parents of small children - how are you managing RTO?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe how many moms think oh well I had it tough so other moms should too. I had a very toxic job at one point— I would Never want someone else to have that job. I want things to IMPROVE.

Amen! We should be going forward, not backward. The complete lack of flexibility makes things more difficult than they should be. I don't understand why posters here can't empathize and want things to be better for all of us.

This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too. No one saying that before was BETTER. Because it wasn't. Flexibility is better for families and work didn't suffer. This is arbitrary BS designed to make things so hard that PEOPLE QUIT. That's the goal. How can others be so heartless and soulless that they *enjoy* and *justify* the idea of making things harder for families. That going backwards is good because everyone should suck it up like they did. All these "suck it up" posters would have gobbled up the chances at flexibility if they had been offered back then. They are liars if they say otherwise.

So. Many. Aholes.

Nope, we just made better more realistic choices. Smaller, less fancy homes closer to work. One car that's older and not luxury. A parent working PT or mommy-tracked or whatever was necessary to making family life work with young children. You can make these choices too. You just don't want to. Own it.

DP. I AM the part time mommy tracked parent now wasting 10 extea hours a week in traffic. Mind you, part time hours come along with part time pay but still full time childcare expenses.

Also to add, now that things have changed, the calculus is questionable on whether the job is even worth the time and effort anymore. However I'm not quitting specifically to give people like you, who think I belong better pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, a big middle finger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

+1 relatedly, in many workplaces the in-person jobs pay less. These are the bus drivers, police, firefighters, corrections officers, case workers, teachers, solid waste workers, etc. that are actually making society function on a daily basis, not the budget analysts, program managers and administrators that can WFH and whose jobs are important too but not essential.

Perhaps they could restructure payscales to have a second payscale for remote work that is a lower rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

I'm not really sure what you are asking (I'm promise I'm not being snarky). There are some jobs that have never switched to telework, because they cannot be done remotely. That hasn't changed. Patient care, animal care, lab work, on-site security, on and on. But there are lots of jobs that can be effectively done from a remote workstation at home. Why should someone whose job can be effectively completed off site be forced to commute?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

+1 relatedly, in many workplaces the in-person jobs pay less. These are the bus drivers, police, firefighters, corrections officers, case workers, teachers, solid waste workers, etc. that are actually making society function on a daily basis, not the budget analysts, program managers and administrators that can WFH and whose jobs are important too but not essential.

Perhaps they could restructure payscales to have a second payscale for remote work that is a lower rate.

This is a larger societal question that was especially laid bare during the pandemic; the fact that we underpay people critical to our society. But I don't see how this problem equates to forcing an office worker who can do their job at home to commute. The people who work on site benefit from things like a quicker commute/less traffic, easier parking, less pollution etc when some workers stay home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

+1 relatedly, in many workplaces the in-person jobs pay less. These are the bus drivers, police, firefighters, corrections officers, case workers, teachers, solid waste workers, etc. that are actually making society function on a daily basis, not the budget analysts, program managers and administrators that can WFH and whose jobs are important too but not essential.

Perhaps they could restructure payscales to have a second payscale for remote work that is a lower rate.

This is a larger societal question that was especially laid bare during the pandemic; the fact that we underpay people critical to our society. But I don't see how this problem equates to forcing an office worker who can do their job at home to commute. The people who work on site benefit from things like a quicker commute/less traffic, easier parking, less pollution etc when some workers stay home.

And I would add that I say this as someone who had to come onsite for a lot of my job. I loved having an easier commute and easier parking because others were working from home. And I enjoyed that I could sometimes telework a day a week for the things I did not need to be onsite to do and skip the commute that one day.

If some people have conditions that they don't like, we should try to improve those, not try to bring others down to increased suffering that doesn't actually improve the work/mission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s private school, many families keep their nannies until middle school so that they can pick their children up from school at 3:00, drive them to sports/tutoring/ extracurricular activities and then bring them home and prep dinner by the time the parents get home from work. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

It makes sense but these are very wealthy families.

I'm friends with a couple who are both Fed attorneys. They have 3 kids and have kept an au pair through middle school. They plan to leave the au pair program once the youngest can drive. They have a gap where all 3 kids will be in 3 different schools for a couple of years, so they need someone to be a driver and do some air traffic control at home. They are not a "wealthy family" in the sense of being wealthier than many of the federal employees posting here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

+1 relatedly, in many workplaces the in-person jobs pay less. These are the bus drivers, police, firefighters, corrections officers, case workers, teachers, solid waste workers, etc. that are actually making society function on a daily basis, not the budget analysts, program managers and administrators that can WFH and whose jobs are important too but not essential.

Perhaps they could restructure payscales to have a second payscale for remote work that is a lower rate.

I think if you compare the jobs in a single profession according to telework eligibility, the lower paying ones are remote. So that's already happening within individual professions.

You are talking about comparing different professions, though, and that should involve adjusting for demand, training, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

I think this is a bigger problem than the fact that some jobs can be done remotely while others can't. My private sector has some jobs that have to be 100% in person, some that are best done hybrid, and some that can be fully remote with occasional in-office meetings. It's apparent to everyone involved why they have whatever on-site requirements the do (and workers tend to have a lot of discretion), and as long as people like their jobs they come in where it makes sense.

If you absolutely hate your job, or your employer has done literally nothing to reconfigure the workplace (e.g. cluster people together or provide lunches on occasion), then that's going to create morale problems. But the solution isn't to make everyone RTO, it's to address why being in-office if your job requires it is so miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

+1 relatedly, in many workplaces the in-person jobs pay less. These are the bus drivers, police, firefighters, corrections officers, case workers, teachers, solid waste workers, etc. that are actually making society function on a daily basis, not the budget analysts, program managers and administrators that can WFH and whose jobs are important too but not essential.

Perhaps they could restructure payscales to have a second payscale for remote work that is a lower rate.

I believe there was actually a proposal for this. As a remote program manager I would have accepted it. Instead, preparing to commute 5 hours a day until I get RIF'd as nonessential.

When you lay off all the budget, HR, IT people, etc, it's true that things won't immediately fall apart. But expecting the public facing, in person field folks to add all those duties onto their core stuff won't be fun for them either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe how many moms think oh well I had it tough so other moms should too. I had a very toxic job at one point— I would Never want someone else to have that job. I want things to IMPROVE.

Amen! We should be going forward, not backward. The complete lack of flexibility makes things more difficult than they should be. I don't understand why posters here can't empathize and want things to be better for all of us.

This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too. No one saying that before was BETTER. Because it wasn't. Flexibility is better for families and work didn't suffer. This is arbitrary BS designed to make things so hard that PEOPLE QUIT. That's the goal. How can others be so heartless and soulless that they *enjoy* and *justify* the idea of making things harder for families. That going backwards is good because everyone should suck it up like they did. All these "suck it up" posters would have gobbled up the chances at flexibility if they had been offered back then. They are liars if they say otherwise.

So. Many. Aholes.

Nope, we just made better more realistic choices. Smaller, less fancy homes closer to work. One car that's older and not luxury. A parent working PT or mommy-tracked or whatever was necessary to making family life work with young children. You can make these choices too. You just don't want to. Own it.

DP. I AM the part time mommy tracked parent now wasting 10 extea hours a week in traffic. Mind you, part time hours come along with part time pay but still full time childcare expenses.

Also to add, now that things have changed, the calculus is questionable on whether the job is even worth the time and effort anymore. However I'm not quitting specifically to give people like you, who think I belong better pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, a big middle finger.

You have to choose what's best for you and your family based on the situation at hand, just like every other parent since the beginning of time. Quit, don't quit, change jobs, whatever. OP in her very first post already stated that she quit her RTO job for a part-time job so she already solved her issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

I'm not really sure what you are asking (I'm promise I'm not being snarky). There are some jobs that have never switched to telework, because they cannot be done remotely. That hasn't changed. Patient care, animal care, lab work, on-site security, on and on. But there are lots of jobs that can be effectively done from a remote workstation at home. Why should someone whose job can be effectively completed off site be forced to commute?

Because those same parents lose their ever-loving minds when their kid's in-person teacher gets a snow day the parent doesn't think they "deserve."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This is the crux of it. Too many people who feel they suffered so everyone else must too.
So. Many. Aholes.

But how does an agency balance it with those that can't telework?

I can't telework and I was in person all through covid. Morale for the in person workforce was awful and we constantly lost people who went for telework jobs. I spent $300 in gas alone to get to the office when my coworkers sat at home and complained if they had to come in one day per month to keep the network connection active.

You can't effectively run an agency when 80% of the workforce works at home and gets to live a vastly better life and tell the other 20% to suck it up.

If anyone has a serious answer to this then I'd love to hear it. Saying "suck it up" to the in person workforce isn't the answer.

+1 relatedly, in many workplaces the in-person jobs pay less. These are the bus drivers, police, firefighters, corrections officers, case workers, teachers, solid waste workers, etc. that are actually making society function on a daily basis, not the budget analysts, program managers and administrators that can WFH and whose jobs are important too but not essential.

Perhaps they could restructure payscales to have a second payscale for remote work that is a lower rate.

I believe there was actually a proposal for this. As a remote program manager I would have accepted it. Instead, preparing to commute 5 hours a day until I get RIF'd as nonessential.

When you lay off all the budget, HR, IT people, etc, it's true that things won't immediately fall apart. But expecting the public facing, in person field folks to add all those duties onto their core stuff won't be fun for them either.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I am one of those non public facing people and I absolutely agree those jobs are important and necessary. I just meant they are "non-essential" on an hourly/daily basis. They do have to be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s private school, many families keep their nannies until middle school so that they can pick their children up from school at 3:00, drive them to sports/tutoring/ extracurricular activities and then bring them home and prep dinner by the time the parents get home from work. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

It makes sense but these are very wealthy families.

I'm friends with a couple who are both Fed attorneys. They have 3 kids and have kept an au pair through middle school. They plan to leave the au pair program once the youngest can drive. They have a gap where all 3 kids will be in 3 different schools for a couple of years, so they need someone to be a driver and do some air traffic control at home. They are not a "wealthy family" in the sense of being wealthier than many of the federal employees posting here.

They are wealthy enough to afford 3 kids, and aupair and a house with a separate bedroom for the au pair and since the aupair is driving a 2nd or even 3rd vehicle no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my child’s private school, many families keep their nannies until middle school so that they can pick their children up from school at 3:00, drive them to sports/tutoring/ extracurricular activities and then bring them home and prep dinner by the time the parents get home from work. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

It makes sense but these are very wealthy families.

I'm friends with a couple who are both Fed attorneys. They have 3 kids and have kept an au pair through middle school. They plan to leave the au pair program once the youngest can drive. They have a gap where all 3 kids will be in 3 different schools for a couple of years, so they need someone to be a driver and do some air traffic control at home. They are not a "wealthy family" in the sense of being wealthier than many of the federal employees posting here.

They are wealthy enough to afford 3 kids, and aupair and a house with a separate bedroom for the au pair and since the aupair is driving a 2nd or even 3rd vehicle no?

+1 The average salary of federal workers in DC is around $100k, so $200k for a couple. Two GS15 attorneys might be bringing in close to $400k. That's much more than most dual fed families with kids (esp young kids).