What is your federal agency telling you re: RTO? (No other rants/comments!)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont understand the space issue.

Way back Charles Schwab in the late 90s rolled out 9/80s. worked your 80 hours over 9 days and got every tenth day over. The tenth day off was spread evenly hence freeing up 10 percent more office space.

One company even did 10 hour work days spread hour freeing up 20 percent office space and employees got one day off each week.

Or do hoteling, hot desks, get rid of offices, cubes move to long tables, shift work.

My last in-person company the floor was designed in 1980s with big private offices, large cubes, lots of conferences rooms, large lobby area. It sat 350. We got rid off all but one conference room, got rid of nearly every office, got rid of cubes and went bullpen style. At the peak we had 800 people in that space for 350 no problem.

It is not likely possible for my built in 1930 building to do this. It’s built around 3 courtyards, so work space is skinny on both sides of the hallways, even removing all the walls, which does not seem structurally likely, you’d only be able to line up desks single file in the vast majority of the spaces. It wouldn’t accommodate tables for people to sit at, there wouldn’t be enough space to put chairs all around a table without having people smashed against the wall on one side. Even in the rooms that are currently cube filled, they can only have cubes two deep, one in many places.

we did long skinny tables. Employees could not store stuff at work. No separation.. Think a very skinny dining room table the laptops almost touched each other.

[Anonymous]

Oh and wait till telephone booth size offices come.

At my old companies hipt soho location in NYC we had two or three long skinny tables, a few phone booth sized things to make calls or zoom, coaches and stuff you plop on to work. Think like two couches facing each other and six of us on them. no meeting space or lunch place, You went to hallway or starbucks to hold a meeting.

Was maybe 800 square feet and we have 30 or 40 peoplesome days. One large room no walls Thast he future

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For supervisors, how are you handling discussions around this with your employees? I find it challenging to balance toeing the company line for risk of being fired with being sympathetic to how disruptive this will be to people’s lives (though I feel some of the DCUM responses are a bit entitled also)

I'm a supervisor and I honestly don't care.

Take the deal and come to work or quit. I'm sick and tired of the entitlement from other federal workers. Democracy goes both ways. We all sat through years of DEI training and the other craziness during the Biden years that a lot of us disagreed with. I remember sitting in training and having some GS14 patronize us and tell us if we disagreed with DEI then we were racist. Hope she likes unemployment and all the other people who joined in enjoy their commutes.

"Elections have consequences" - Barrack Hussein Obama

Your post has some racist dogwhistle language in it. I’m glad you’re not my supervisor. You shouldn’t be allowed to manage anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Commerce intends to get rid of situational telework.

They also wanted everyone in today after telling staff on Friday. They have now said Wednesday and they will figure out space at that time.

I heard they exempted the PTO from this, though?

There were exempted from the commerce memo. They released their own with the same wording a few hours later

They want all the examiners back in the building? They won't fit, there's no room.

No room exactly. They've recently given up two buildings.. Not to mention that the PTO has had telework available to attorneys since 1997!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Commerce intends to get rid of situational telework.

They also wanted everyone in today after telling staff on Friday. They have now said Wednesday and they will figure out space at that time.

I heard they exempted the PTO from this, though?

There were exempted from the commerce memo. They released their own with the same wording a few hours later

They want all the examiners back in the building? They won't fit, there's no room.

No room exactly. They've recently given up two buildings.. Not to mention that the PTO has had telework available to attorneys since 1997!

No idea where they'll put us...or the thousands of people that are based out of small satellite offices.

Sounds like they're going to try to void the CBA. I have no idea how this will work - I'm guessing the union will sue. But who knows.

I have been teleworking for 15+ years. The PTO telework is not a Covid thing. It was a thing way before for retention and recruiting.

[Anonymous]

Same as PP....I will quit if they do make us come back. I have planned my life around this for 15 years and I can't go back to the office. I'm so upset.

[Anonymous]

Will RTO cover unionized employees or does the union bargaining take precedence?

What about independent agencies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For supervisors, how are you handling discussions around this with your employees? I find it challenging to balance toeing the company line for risk of being fired with being sympathetic to how disruptive this will be to people’s lives (though I feel some of the DCUM responses are a bit entitled also)

I'm a supervisor and I honestly don't care.

Take the deal and come to work or quit. I'm sick and tired of the entitlement from other federal workers. Democracy goes both ways. We all sat through years of DEI training and the other craziness during the Biden years that a lot of us disagreed with. I remember sitting in training and having some GS14 patronize us and tell us if we disagreed with DEI then we were racist. Hope she likes unemployment and all the other people who joined in enjoy their commutes.

"Elections have consequences" - Barrack Hussein Obama

Your post has some racist dogwhistle language in it. I’m glad you’re not my supervisor. You shouldn’t be allowed to manage anyone.

It's probably someone that doesn't actually work for the federal government. I've been at my agency for over a decade and we never had any DEI training. And if there was anything to that effect it certainly was not mandatory.

[Anonymous]

The USPTO is a weird one. Telework has always been their thing. I thought they worked on a quota system? Seems like making them come in would make them less productive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The USPTO is a weird one. Telework has always been their thing. I thought they worked on a quota system? Seems like making them come in would make them less productive.

Yes (and true of nearly everyone) but Musk etc. have been very clear that productivity is not the goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The USPTO is a weird one. Telework has always been their thing. I thought they worked on a quota system? Seems like making them come in would make them less productive.

There's a lot of offices besides USPTO that work on a strict quota system being told to come in. I work at one of them. It's a complete waste of time and resources.

[Anonymous]

My division in DOJ returned last week full time.
Those that
Moved out of the area have to commute to field office; no exceptions.

They took attendance twice last week. Just knock on office door and check your name off.
Not sure how they are verifying ones going to field offices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My division in DOJ returned last week full time.
Those that
Moved out of the area have to commute to field office; no exceptions.

They took attendance twice last week. Just knock on office door and check your name off.
Not sure how they are verifying ones going to field offices.

Wow, taking attendance is wild.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My division in DOJ returned last week full time.
Those that
Moved out of the area have to commute to field office; no exceptions.

They took attendance twice last week. Just knock on office door and check your name off.
Not sure how they are verifying ones going to field offices.

Wow, taking attendance is wild.

What is your position? Are they doing this to attorneys as well or just administrative staff?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For supervisors, how are you handling discussions around this with your employees? I find it challenging to balance toeing the company line for risk of being fired with being sympathetic to how disruptive this will be to people’s lives (though I feel some of the DCUM responses are a bit entitled also)

I'm a supervisor and I honestly don't care.

Take the deal and come to work or quit. I'm sick and tired of the entitlement from other federal workers. Democracy goes both ways. We all sat through years of DEI training and the other craziness during the Biden years that a lot of us disagreed with. I remember sitting in training and having some GS14 patronize us and tell us if we disagreed with DEI then we were racist. Hope she likes unemployment and all the other people who joined in enjoy their commutes.

"Elections have consequences" - Barrack Hussein Obama

Your post has some racist dogwhistle language in it. I’m glad you’re not my supervisor. You shouldn’t be allowed to manage anyone.

It's probably someone that doesn't actually work for the federal government. I've been at my agency for over a decade and we never had any DEI training. And if there was anything to that effect it certainly was not mandatory.

As I have written elsewhere here I probably had over 30 hours of mandatory DEI training during the Biden administration. Most of it done at night because I was too busy during the day.