Saw the Trump comment re: telework and dismissal, any words of sane advice

[Anonymous]

What I don't think people understand is that while I'm meh on return to office, I could make it work. The people who would have the biggest mess on their hands would be the heads of my office. They're the ones who really really don't want RTO because it would cost them millions of dollars to secure all the office space and then still thousands of people who are remote, as far away as Hawaii in some cases, would just quit. We're a fee funded revenue generator, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agencies will drag this out as logistically, it can’t be implemented right away.

Oh yes it will Musk is cleaning house he is Mr skeleton crew

Jobs are toast

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So Trump was talking about a union contract for SSA workers. I imagine that just breaking a union contract is going to result in some sort of lawsuit. Details of who decides what have been discussed in many threads here. At any rate, it’s going to be slow and not some sort of instantaneous thing Trump can do to those SSA employees overnight.

He'll make it happen, believe him

You actually believe everything he says?? No, these things take time and no civil service protections won't disappear overnight.

What are you smoking we have no norms!!
There are no protections

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not start looking? You don’t have to accept a job if offered. See what’s out there!

+1 I think that's the right answer. You'll feel better if this doesn't feel totally out of your control. At least see what your other options might be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - have a few years and moved due to husbands job and my agency transitioned my role to remote because of my portfolio. I am far, far away and I truly miss DC but we cannot afford it and kids are in elementary school.

I find so much meaning in my work and I’d be willing to even go in satellite offices but I don’t know if that is enough. It just makes me sad that the address of my work will drive if I keep my job. I wonder if I’m being too positive and hopeful and should be jumping ship instead.

Why can’t you afford it when so many of us - and plenty of other people in your position - can?

I'm sorry, did you move to DC in 2023 or 2024 supporting a family on only one average federal income? (Because to do that your spouse may have to quit their job.) I don't know a lot of people in the position to do that with current housing prices. It's not 2000 or 2015 anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op - trump sucks and requiring in office work is the refuge of boomers and professional trolls (ie trump, Elon, people on this site)
You are right and they are wrong.
But in short yes they can implement and yes you should immediately start looking. To be fair you should not have moved so far from your work. We are cramped into an apt in manhattan for this reason - until you work for yourself you can’t assume wfh is on the table

"To be fair"? Man, it's the year 2024 and people on this site STILL can't imagine dual career couples. Many of us don't have the option to work next door to each other, or the income or desire to have one person drop out of the workforce permanently. People make a lot of compromises to try to make life work. Being able to apply for remote jobs was one way we did that.

[Anonymous]

Trump has no idea what is or isn't, and is throwing out platitudes with no care for practicalities, which is what you get when you have lived a life without consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I’m wrong, but I really don’t think they’re going to go after the fully remote folks who don’t even live near an office and were hired for a position advertised as remote or who converted to a remote position. I think this is going to affect local telework folks who have only had to go into the office 2-3 days a week.

I'm one of the 2-3 day people, and think that it's total BS that there are people who literally live down the street from me who were converted to remote...and that I'd be required to be in office five days a week and they could stay home full time.

[Anonymous]

Telework existed long before Covid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d wait this out and not make any immediate decisions unless you find a remote job.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - have a few years and moved due to husbands job and my agency transitioned my role to remote because of my portfolio. I am far, far away and I truly miss DC but we cannot afford it and kids are in elementary school.

I find so much meaning in my work and I’d be willing to even go in satellite offices but I don’t know if that is enough. It just makes me sad that the address of my work will drive if I keep my job. I wonder if I’m being too positive and hopeful and should be jumping ship instead.

I get what you are saying and if you were truly remote before covid I would think you’d be fine. But keep in mind that there are no guarantees with any job, be it public or private. Lot’s of people in the private sector are sad when they get laid off too. It sucks. Hope you find a work around.

DP, but I’m tired of people making comparisons to what happens in the private sector. Feds accepted their jobs based on the protections and benefits of the public sector including giving up careers making more money. I’m 15 years in and teleworked for a decade prior to COVID. I chose this over making more money because I wanted work/life balance as a mom.

My DH is private sector so I’m aware of what can happen in the private sector. But he makes more money than me including employee stock and bonuses.

I and many Feds are having the rug pulled out from under us by a president who doesn’t give a crap about this country. He’s doing it to create a civil service full of loyalists and so he can destroy programs he doesn’t like without going through Congress. So no, this is a absolutely nothing like anything that has happened in the private sector.

That was the case for *a few* feds, and I'm sure it's true for you. But the vast majority of feds are in positions where they didn't take a pay cut, or in fact make more than they would otherwise, and have fantastic benefits on top of it. The notion that every single fed is a sacrificing compensation for work-life balance and "the mission" is perpetuated by a few vocal lawyers on DCUM who left Biglaw for federal positions. And, knowing more then a few of them over the years, half of them were or would have been washouts from private practice anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - have a few years and moved due to husbands job and my agency transitioned my role to remote because of my portfolio. I am far, far away and I truly miss DC but we cannot afford it and kids are in elementary school.

I find so much meaning in my work and I’d be willing to even go in satellite offices but I don’t know if that is enough. It just makes me sad that the address of my work will drive if I keep my job. I wonder if I’m being too positive and hopeful and should be jumping ship instead.

I get what you are saying and if you were truly remote before covid I would think you’d be fine. But keep in mind that there are no guarantees with any job, be it public or private. Lot’s of people in the private sector are sad when they get laid off too. It sucks. Hope you find a work around.

DP, but I’m tired of people making comparisons to what happens in the private sector. Feds accepted their jobs based on the protections and benefits of the public sector including giving up careers making more money. I’m 15 years in and teleworked for a decade prior to COVID. I chose this over making more money because I wanted work/life balance as a mom.

My DH is private sector so I’m aware of what can happen in the private sector. But he makes more money than me including employee stock and bonuses.

I and many Feds are having the rug pulled out from under us by a president who doesn’t give a crap about this country. He’s doing it to create a civil service full of loyalists and so he can destroy programs he doesn’t like without going through Congress. So no, this is a absolutely nothing like anything that has happened in the private sector.

That was the case for *a few* feds, and I'm sure it's true for you. But the vast majority of feds are in positions where they didn't take a pay cut, or in fact make more than they would otherwise, and have fantastic benefits on top of it. The notion that every single fed is a sacrificing compensation for work-life balance and "the mission" is perpetuated by a few vocal lawyers on DCUM who left Biglaw for federal positions. And, knowing more then a few of them over the years, half of them were or would have been washouts from private practice anyway.

Source needed, particularly as it applies to feds who are eligible for telework. Otherwise you’re just making up facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My agency was 80% telework for years, including Trump 1.0. We didn't have the physical space (in a private building) and still don't have space (just moved this fall to another private building with a smaller footprint based on pre-pandemic plans of 80% telework). Assume there are occupancy laws that can't force us all into a space meant for 25% of us at any given time?

Forcing the government to spend more money for physical office space because of unnecessary return to office would be the most Trump/DOGE thing imaginable.

I don't know how many times this needs to be said before you all get it, but RTO is being used to shrink the size of the federal workforce. It's not the being in the office is more efficient, or costs less; it's that there will be attrition, people who leave won't be replaced, and federal programs will suffer. That's not an unintended consequence, it's the point. That's why all of you who are in remote locations, not WFH in near your office, are in danger - you're the most likely to quit. That you are competent and perform valuable functions doesn't matter at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I’m wrong, but I really don’t think they’re going to go after the fully remote folks who don’t even live near an office and were hired for a position advertised as remote or who converted to a remote position. I think this is going to affect local telework folks who have only had to go into the office 2-3 days a week.

I'm one of the 2-3 day people, and think that it's total BS that there are people who literally live down the street from me who were converted to remote...and that I'd be required to be in office five days a week and they could stay home full time.

Well, exactly. Nobody should need to be in full time, unless they’re doing top secret work or they do physical in person work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Telework existed long before Covid.

Yes, it was pushed a way to save money and retain employees.

The only point for RTO is to make people leave the workforce by attrition. That’s what the tech companies do, and now somehow we have crazy tech company CEO’s implementing their strategy on Feds.