Federal workers who telework one day a week could lose locality pay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

Our agency already has two feds sharing a cubicle, which is one reason we telework!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

I feel like GSA has rules about all of this stuff already, as they have to have everything public for leasing bids.

Putting anything like "having everyone stuff into a single conference room, exceeding fire capacity" is...it's not going to happen, folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

Our agency already has two feds sharing a cubicle, which is one reason we telework!

+1, lots of feds already share offices, have workstations in hallways, require contractors to be remote to save space. We're talking about exceeding the legal capacity of the building if everyone is in every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m just tired of being hated on. Like so insulted. members get served by Feds in so many ways they don’t even know yet they all are lt hate us all.

Same. We were told that the administration would want to "move fast" when they come in in a couple weeks. Moving fast means hard work and long hours. They want to do that while making life miserable for us and berating us. It's just not going to happen.

Agree. I dreading it truly. It is not exciting and lowering morale yet they want us to bust our butt for them. I’m just really sad about the name calling and assuming we are all scum bags.

I will do my best as I always do, but it will be with a heavy heart and maybe some sick days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

Right, I understand close conditions. But in out situation we literally cannot fit all of our employees in our office space, and I am pretty sure there are rules about how many toilets you need per employee. You can"t have six toilets for 800 employees.

[Anonymous]

So were this to pass the agencies would just increase the number of fully remote workers, I'm assuming. The agency higher ups don’t want to have to rent more office space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So were this to pass the agencies would just increase the number of fully remote workers, I'm assuming. The agency higher ups don’t want to have to rent more office space.

Who do you think will be the most "high up" at these agencies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So were this to pass the agencies would just increase the number of fully remote workers, I'm assuming. The agency higher ups don’t want to have to rent more office space.

Who do you think will be the most "high up" at these agencies?

Most of the actual running isn't done by the political appointees. They show up and make speeches but they're not around for stuff like the PAP negotiations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

Our agency already has two feds sharing a cubicle, which is one reason we telework!

+1, lots of feds already share offices, have workstations in hallways, require contractors to be remote to save space. We're talking about exceeding the legal capacity of the building if everyone is in every day.

If this passes just call the fire marshall each day to report violations.

[Anonymous]

If this was actually about money, this is what I think would be reasonable…

Remote? RUS. There will be some attrition from those in more competitive high CoL areas, but those in medium COL areas will probably deal with it. For reference, if you’re on a GI Bill and fully remote, the BAH payout is much lower if you’re in a high CoL area.

Telework? Prorated between locality and RUS based on number of days you go in. If you only need to go in once a week, you could, in theory, live further out in the exurbs. Plus there are increased commuting expenses based on how much you need to go in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!!! Right because someone that teleworks ONCE per week is doing so from Texas.

We all know that people who telework one day a week are using it for target runs, doctor’s appointments and laundry.

I'm fully remote now but when I was at one day a week I used my home days for my most complicated writing because no one would be coming in to interrupt me. In office someone was always coming by with questions.

This.
Working from home allows me to concentrate without as much disruption as I would experience in the office.

Many of my meetings are also much more productive because we can be in our computer systems while we are meeting, so instead of bring-backs, we get answers during the meeting. That is less disruptive than everybody banging away on their laptop looking stuff up during an in-person meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this was actually about money, this is what I think would be reasonable…

Remote? RUS. There will be some attrition from those in more competitive high CoL areas, but those in medium COL areas will probably deal with it. For reference, if you’re on a GI Bill and fully remote, the BAH payout is much lower if you’re in a high CoL area.

Telework? Prorated between locality and RUS based on number of days you go in. If you only need to go in once a week, you could, in theory, live further out in the exurbs.Plus there are increased commuting expenses based on how much you need to go in.

It would only be reasonable for new positions going forward. It's not reasonable to tell someone they're getting a 20% pay cut when they already own a house, have a working spouse that needs to be local, or have kids in a local school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this was actually about money, this is what I think would be reasonable…

Remote? RUS. There will be some attrition from those in more competitive high CoL areas, but those in medium COL areas will probably deal with it. For reference, if you’re on a GI Bill and fully remote, the BAH payout is much lower if you’re in a high CoL area.

Telework? Prorated between locality and RUS based on number of days you go in. If you only need to go in once a week, you could, in theory, live further out in the exurbs. Plus there are increased commuting expenses based on how much you need to go in.

I disagree on your second idea. If I have to go in at all, I have to live in the commuting area and it's expensive to do so. Going in x days vs. y days doesn't make my mortgage, grocercies, or taxes any cheaper.

But, as you said, none of it's about saving money anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Still no solution to address the fact that agencies do not have space for all of their employees. Many agencies gave up leased private office space and transitioned their employees to new space with limited time in the office. They cannot fit all of their employees in their offices at one time. The whole model is based on the idea that some employees work remotely.

You’re presuming that employees all deserve offices. I’m sure they’d be happy for you to be sharing offices and sitting on chairs in hallways.

Nope; but I am presuming that everyone gets a desk. My agency does not have enough space for every employee to be sitting at the office at the same time.

I worked for a local gov once that had 6 attorneys in a conference room with a couple sharing two sides of a desk. Don’t underestimate how bad conditions can be!

Our agency already has two feds sharing a cubicle, which is one reason we telework!

+1, lots of feds already share offices, have workstations in hallways, require contractors to be remote to save space. We're talking about exceeding the legal capacity of the building if everyone is in every day.

If this passes just call the fire marshall each day to report violations.

Fire marshals only have power to the extent the feds let them. Likewise, GSA regulations and rules are not laws; they can easily be changed through rule making