Is there anything they can’t ruin?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Flexibility is better for everyone involved, including employers. However I do not think it helps the dialogue when people are complaining violently about having to be in the office 9 to 5. It just sounds whiny. You either need to do it or find a new job. Acting like being in the office 9 to 5 is some great affront, is just feeding the narrative of entitled workers.

The problem for most people isn't the 9-5, it's the 7-9 and 5-7 commute, including the half an hour just trying to get into and out of the building. Also, this was sprung on us with four days notice. If you think I sound whiny, well, I think you sound stupid, so I guess we're even.

I understand, and yet the dialogue does sound whiny. You’re free to think my comment is stupid. I’m not as concerned about being even. Just don’t like feeding into the stereotypes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. This was what it was like when I had my kids in the late 2000s.

this is like saying because i didn't have maternity leave, no one should have maternity leave in the future

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remote job gone and replaced with 3 hours of commuting (and that’s early, avoiding peak traffic) AWS gone, well fine that wasn’t going to work for me with RTO anyway so I had already ditched that. Now they are talking about rigid start and end times, and if they have everyone coming and going at once 9-5 that is going to add at least another hour at each end just getting in and out of the building and garage and having to travel during peak traffic. and I’m going to just have to tell my teens they are on their own now because I am basically unavailable, and their dad is not in a position to help that much either. I might have to move in with my coworker during the week. Giving boarding school a second thought for my youngest. Maybe sleeping in my car? I don’t know. Sell my house, buy an RV and park next to work.

So what’s coming next? Is there anything they can’t/won’t touch? Health insurance? The ability to take a single day of sick leave without medical documentation?

Just get the RIFs over with please.

Take the fork if offered and find another job

My spouse is not at this agency but something similar and he literally has multiple job offers but he'd been sticking around because he does consider what he does important. The work he does keeps servicemembers safe, his nephew is a marine, his Dad, granddad, brother, etc were vets so he cares about this personally.

But the American people should consider carefully the impact of who they're forcing out.

The American people VOTED for this and perfectly fine with it. Or at least enough of them are.

I get your how your husband feels. I truly do. I used to feel the same way. So did/does my spouse. But the truth is we're chumps that the GOP and right wing has used as punching bags at will in their quest to destroy the federal government. Your husband should go make money that you two can sock away to help yourselves or others when the time comes. He's done his part.

[Anonymous]

My cousin she lives in NY and works in DC. Hired fully remote in Covid in 2020. She went back four days a week in person and is in heaven.

Got a little pied a tier in DC. Her husband deals with kids during week as he is WFH. She meets girlfriends dinner, goes to shows. Her place is walking distance office. She is married 20 years so this is heaven for her.

She is always posting on Facebook big photos of her new DC lifestyle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My cousin she lives in NY and works in DC. Hired fully remote in Covid in 2020. She went back four days a week in person and is in heaven.

Got a little pied a tier in DC. Her husband deals with kids during week as he is WFH. She meets girlfriends dinner, goes to shows. Her place is walking distance office. She is married 20 years so this is heaven for her.

She is always posting on Facebook big photos of her new DC lifestyle.

Another upside is that she will have plenty of divorce lawyers to choose from when her husband inevitably leaves her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why people used to live close in. Now they want to live way outside the beltway and also keep a downtown job. It’s a choice.

I live close in. My assigned office for the fully remote job I was hired into is way out. But please, keep talking.

People used to live close in when a house in Vienna VA was 200 k and people earned 70k. Now people still earn 70k and that house is a million dollars,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. This was what it was like when I had my kids in the late 2000s.

For me as well. However, times have changed. And the fact that you don't recognize that is kind of concerning. We can't be stuck in the past. In the olden days I also had a desktop computer. Now I have a laptop and I have security features on my laptop that allow me to work anywhere and my data is secure. If we have that technology, why shouldn't we use it? Why go in and out to an office and waste gas and pollute the air just because some people think we should be back in the 1980s.

.

Yes, that traditional job with the traditional commute was so much fun back when we were pregnant and had morning sickness and we could vomit into a plastic bag on the metro or get out and vomit into a trash can on the platform. Letting people work from home in those situations added a lot of humanity and dignity but sure let’s go back to the old way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So your job was listed as fully remote when you applied and accepted it?

Its crazy to me that they can just relocate your work location like that. What if you had moved to Idaho, would you be fired?

You haven’t been following this federal workforce issue at all?
Generally for people hired remotely and living outside the area, they are supposed to be assigned to a federal facility close to their home, if there is one. But then they’re just commuting to sit in a random office and telework.
There’s a chance they could be RIFd if there is no office for them, but so far in my agency they have been allowed to continue teleworking from home.

You have a nice agency. For my fed friend, the closest fed facility (belonging to a different agency than hers) refused to give her space, and the closest facility belonging to her agency was 85 miles away. It was either resign, or commute 170 miles a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am so tired of the people talking about what it was like in the late 90s/early 2000s. You could live on one income, you could buy a house inside the beltway for 25% of what it costs now, the list goes on. It's not the same. People had AWS and were teleworking some 20 years ago. It's not the same and stop saying it was.

Hahahaha. You could not live on one income in the 2000s.

Actually, you could and my family did [no family money supplementing, either], as did many others. But you don’t take fancy vacations, have a beach home, or pay for private school.

Every choice has consequences and people make different choices and that is grand.

But don’t lie and say it couldn’t be done. Maybe it can’t now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My cousin she lives in NY and works in DC. Hired fully remote in Covid in 2020. She went back four days a week in person and is in heaven.

Got a little pied a tier in DC. Her husband deals with kids during week as he is WFH. She meets girlfriends dinner, goes to shows. Her place is walking distance office. She is married 20 years so this is heaven for her.

She is always posting on Facebook big photos of her new DC lifestyle.

Another upside is that she will have plenty of divorce lawyers to choose from when her husband inevitably leaves her.

And therapists to deal with the kids’ issues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why people used to live close in. Now they want to live way outside the beltway and also keep a downtown job. It’s a choice.

I live close in. My assigned office for the fully remote job I was hired into is way out. But please, keep talking.

NP. It was not realistic think a fully remote job was a forever thing. Sorry, it stinks having the change up.
What did we do before?? I paid for before care, after care, an after school nanny once kid aged out of regular aftercare. Brought my kid to the office on snow days where school was closed and work was not (or took an annual leave day those times, saved leave just for those occasions).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am so tired of the people talking about what it was like in the late 90s/early 2000s. You could live on one income, you could buy a house inside the beltway for 25% of what it costs now, the list goes on. It's not the same. People had AWS and were teleworking some 20 years ago. It's not the same and stop saying it was.

Hahahaha. You could not live on one income in the 2000s.

Actually, you could and my family did [no family money supplementing, either], as did many others. But you don’t take fancy vacations, have a beach home, or pay for private school.

Every choice has consequences and people make different choices and that is grand.

But don’t lie and say it couldn’t be done. Maybe it can’t now.

Oh FFS. Feds aren’t sending their kids to private school unless one spouse isn’t a fed and makes a significantly higher salary.

Who are you AHs that come to these threads and make up falsehoods about Feds?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My cousin she lives in NY and works in DC. Hired fully remote in Covid in 2020. She went back four days a week in person and is in heaven.

Got a little pied a tier in DC. Her husband deals with kids during week as he is WFH. She meets girlfriends dinner, goes to shows. Her place is walking distance office. She is married 20 years so this is heaven for her.

She is always posting on Facebook big photos of her new DC lifestyle.

That sounds awful. I like spending time with my kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is why people used to live close in. Now they want to live way outside the beltway and also keep a downtown job. It’s a choice.

I live close in. My assigned office for the fully remote job I was hired into is way out. But please, keep talking.

NP. It was not realistic think a fully remote job was a forever thing. Sorry, it stinks having the change up.
What did we do before?? I paid for before care, after care, an after school nanny once kid aged out of regular aftercare. Brought my kid to the office on snow days where school was closed and work was not (or took an annual leave day those times, saved leave just for those occasions).

Jesus. We get it. You are miserable person determined to make everyone miserable and love living in the past. Can you move on now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it. This was what it was like when I had my kids in the late 2000s.

As someone who worked in the late 2000s, we were doing schedule shifts back then to avoid rushes at building entrances.

Sounds like they're just trying to get people to quit.

+1
Also had kids late 2000s. Spent lots of $ on before and aftercare for all of the elementary years, which most of my coworkers haven’t done due to flexible schedules. Also no maternity leave. So there were differences- we didn’t have a set start and end time, and agree that sucks and is punitive- but other things sucked working full time with kids.

But yes I agree a defined start and end time is bad for all of us. I might have to look into other transportation options if we go that way.

I have been in the labor market for 35 years and staggered work start times and AWS has been a major thing for that entire period. There are very few jobs where having everyone in the office at exactly the same hours is beneficial. This is all idiocy.

Huh. My first federal job at DoJ ran from 1997 to 2001. In that position, I worked closely with clients in USFWS, EPA, Energy, USFS, Dept of the Navy and probably some others. I can think of zero, literally zero, of these (non-admin/non-HR) people in all of those agencies (let's say GS12 and above) who worked from home. Like, none. I know because we'd meet all the time in person downtown. I can think of two EPA scientists who weren't there after 3 pm. Literally everyone else was in the office if we needed a 4 pm emergency meeting. Everyone worked between the hours of 8 and 6.

Do I want us to return to that? No. but for the love of god, PLEASE stop the lie that federal RTO is a novelty and WFH or ridiculous AWS like 0600-1400 has been the norm since the Nixon years. Not for the professional class.