RTO - situational TW

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of little kids with a 2 hour commute (I sought out a remote job because we live near my spouse's 5 day a week in person job), let me tell you how this is going to work.

I'm going to have to use a full day of leave for every appointment and every kid sick day, instead of a few hours split with my partner and/or making up work late. When I inevitably catch the flu or whatever after being home with sick kids, I'll be too low on leave to stay home longer, so I'll be bringing my illness on the train, metro, and into the office.

This is how it was with my oldest before I had a telework friendly job. I went in with pinkeye. I went in coughing and sneezing all day. I just didn't have the leave.

I have sympathy for you because this is new, but know that many of us have dealt with this all along and are proof that you’ll be okay.

+1 this was normal until 2020. But it also meant that women who are parents were less likely to advance in their roles. I had kids in daycare and remember breaking down in tears when I got a call to pick them up AGAIN because I thought I might lose my job.

Through remote work over the last 5 years I've been promoted twice and make almost double what I did before. Flexible schedules made that possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of little kids with a 2 hour commute (I sought out a remote job because we live near my spouse's 5 day a week in person job), let me tell you how this is going to work.

I'm going to have to use a full day of leave for every appointment and every kid sick day, instead of a few hours split with my partner and/or making up work late. When I inevitably catch the flu or whatever after being home with sick kids, I'll be too low on leave to stay home longer, so I'll be bringing my illness on the train, metro, and into the office.

This is how it was with my oldest before I had a telework friendly job. I went in with pinkeye. I went in coughing and sneezing all day. I just didn't have the leave.

I have sympathy for you because this is new, but know that many of us have dealt with this all along and are proof that you’ll be okay.

+1 this was normal until 2020. But it also meant that women who are parents were less likely to advance in their roles. I had kids in daycare and remember breaking down in tears when I got a call to pick them up AGAIN because I thought I might lose my job.

Through remote work over the last 5 years I've been promoted twice and make almost double what I did before. Flexible schedules made that possible.

I don't think we've begun to wrap our heads around how this is going to affect families and women. It's like 10 steps back. And before anyone says well the private sector has been doing this forever - no. Many many private sector workers have job flexibilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of little kids with a 2 hour commute (I sought out a remote job because we live near my spouse's 5 day a week in person job), let me tell you how this is going to work.

I'm going to have to use a full day of leave for every appointment and every kid sick day, instead of a few hours split with my partner and/or making up work late. When I inevitably catch the flu or whatever after being home with sick kids, I'll be too low on leave to stay home longer, so I'll be bringing my illness on the train, metro, and into the office.

This is how it was with my oldest before I had a telework friendly job. I went in with pinkeye. I went in coughing and sneezing all day. I just didn't have the leave.

I have sympathy for you because this is new, but know that many of us have dealt with this all along and are proof that you’ll be okay.

+1 this was normal until 2020. But it also meant that women who are parents were less likely to advance in their roles. I had kids in daycare and remember breaking down in tears when I got a call to pick them up AGAIN because I thought I might lose my job.

Through remote work over the last 5 years I've been promoted twice and make almost double what I did before. Flexible schedules made that possible.

I don't think we've begun to wrap our heads around how this is going to affect families and women. It's like 10 steps back. And before anyone says well the private sector has been doing this forever - no. Many many private sector workers have job flexibilities.

I'm PP and Im private sector. It wasnt until covid that remote work became common in my sector. But we absolutely won't go back now because of the benefits, especially for women. I go to the office 3x week and travel at least once a month. But if my kids are sick or if i have an appointment or anything really, no one blinks if I work remotely. I show up as much as I can and make arrangements for days I know Im needed in person, but have the flexibility to make smart decisions about my time otherwise.

This fed 5 days a week thing is most definitely intended to drive women out of the workforce.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctor’s appointments, working while sick, etc = ad hoc telework. Not “situational”.

Inclement weather, a building shut down for no heat/water/whatever = situational telework.

Let's say the building is closed for whatever reason... how would you even know if you aren't checking emails before you make the commute in?

My agency has an employee alert system- doesn't yours? They email, text and call you on your personal number. It's an automated system, so it's not like your boss is doing it.

Or back in the day, we had a phone tree and would all call each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of little kids with a 2 hour commute (I sought out a remote job because we live near my spouse's 5 day a week in person job), let me tell you how this is going to work.

I'm going to have to use a full day of leave for every appointment and every kid sick day, instead of a few hours split with my partner and/or making up work late. When I inevitably catch the flu or whatever after being home with sick kids, I'll be too low on leave to stay home longer, so I'll be bringing my illness on the train, metro, and into the office.

This is how it was with my oldest before I had a telework friendly job. I went in with pinkeye. I went in coughing and sneezing all day. I just didn't have the leave.

I have sympathy for you because this is new, but know that many of us have dealt with this all along and are proof that you’ll be okay.

+1 this was normal until 2020. But it also meant that women who are parents were less likely to advance in their roles. I had kids in daycare and remember breaking down in tears when I got a call to pick them up AGAIN because I thought I might lose my job.

Through remote work over the last 5 years I've been promoted twice and make almost double what I did before. Flexible schedules made that possible.

I'm the PP who posted about taking time off for kids and coming to work when actively sick myself. I know how this works because I did it before covid with my oldest, too. I went to work with terrible coughs, sneezing, even fevers and pinkeye when I was new at a job and didn't have any leave yet. Yes, we survived. But it has been nice to have a higher quality of life than survival.

[Anonymous]

DoD is saying situational telework is only for weather or other emergencies so not to benefit the employee. we were told we could not telework before a medical appointment or for a sick kid. I plan to leave my laptop at the office every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DoD is saying situational telework is only for weather or other emergencies so not to benefit the employee. we were told we could not telework before a medical appointment or for a sick kid. I plan to leave my laptop at the office every day.

Does it really benefit primarily the *employee* to be able to WFH while sick or recovering from surgery? I have 1000 hours of sick leave banked. I think it benefits the agency more than me to be able to work rather than get paid for watching TV for weeks while my foot heals.

[Anonymous]

For working mom, I value the most is the flexibility of me working at home or leaving workplace early for anything related to kid sickness, kid events, kid appointment or grandparent issues. I tell boss upfront that family is my priority. I already told my boss that I will come in late and leave early or work remotely on some weeks during summer because some summer camps that I have signed up are only 9am to 3pm. If they don't work with me, they know that I will leave. My job is in high demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our agency has said situational is ok. Immediate manager has claimed its fine for Dr appointments and other non reoccurring things but I am suspicious.

My supervisor said No telework for Dr appointment anymore, if there is an appointment in the middle of day, then employee may need to take whole day off, it is unlikely that employee will go to office for a few hours.

Did you have people abusing that? I have someone that had a medical appointment every day last week. She previously talked about scheduling appointments specifically to make a case for situational telework. I wouldn't ordinarily care, but it is going to look awfully suspicious if they look at timesheets and see she didn't come in at all one week.

Absent of any other direction from senior mangement, other than that situational telework is supposed be rare, I'm inclined to make my own policy that you need to some in-person for a portion of the day when yoi request situational telework for appointments.

She should be fired for being an idiot that takes doctors appointments every single day.

At first I thought she was just trying to take care of everything before we lost situational telework, but then it got ridiculous.

This makes sense. Feds are being threatened that they are going to lose benefits and also losing telework. If you've got an hour commute from the office and know you have to return it make sense to line everything up now and get it out of the way

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fortunate that I have a lot of sick leave saved. I am going to use it whenever I need it which will mean using a full day whenever I have an appointment.

I'm not. Sick leave counts toward my years for retirement. I won't be taking sick leave unless my fever is 103 and I can't get out of bed. Otherwise I'll be in the office.

Agree. I’m going to start using it. I have is much and thought it would onto retirement because I never use it. Now I will. Kids sick, I have an appointment - I will be taking the whole day because I can’t seen back and forth to the office in between appointments.


It doesn’t add much to retirement. It adds only to the pension and not to your eligibility.

Much more valuable as time off to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DoD is saying situational telework is only for weather or other emergencies so not to benefit the employee. we were told we could not telework before a medical appointment or for a sick kid. I plan to leave my laptop at the office every day.

Does it really benefit primarily the *employee* to be able to WFH while sick or recovering from surgery? I have 1000 hours of sick leave banked. I think it benefits the agency more than me to be able to work rather than get paid for watching TV for weeks while my foot heals.

Not everyone has 1000 hours. I’m in the negative because I had to borrow sick leave to recover from my c-section, and that was over a year ago. So yes, being able to WFH when I’m sick benefits me because I would lose my job if I could not borrow any more sick leave and ran out of FMLA. And it allows me to recover faster if I’m not run ragged by commuting 2 hours every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DoD is saying situational telework is only for weather or other emergencies so not to benefit the employee. we were told we could not telework before a medical appointment or for a sick kid. I plan to leave my laptop at the office every day.

Does it really benefit primarily the *employee* to be able to WFH while sick or recovering from surgery? I have 1000 hours of sick leave banked. I think it benefits the agency more than me to be able to work rather than get paid for watching TV for weeks while my foot heals.

NP- I mean most of us have the same amount of work needed out of us. If you take a week off, you will be WAY behind when you return to work. Took me a year to dig out of cases that piled up while i was on my unpaid maternity leave back in the day. No one else does the work because you aren't there. So it does benefit employees too. I personally like to check in while on vacation because it helps keep the crises down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DoD is saying situational telework is only for weather or other emergencies so not to benefit the employee. we were told we could not telework before a medical appointment or for a sick kid. I plan to leave my laptop at the office every day.

Does it really benefit primarily the *employee* to be able to WFH while sick or recovering from surgery? I have 1000 hours of sick leave banked. I think it benefits the agency more than me to be able to work rather than get paid for watching TV for weeks while my foot heals.

NP- I mean most of us have the same amount of work needed out of us. If you take a week off, you will be WAY behind when you return to work. Took me a year to dig out of cases that piled up while i was on my unpaid maternity leave back in the day. No one else does the work because you aren't there. So it does benefit employees too. I personally like to check in while on vacation because it helps keep the crises down.

Agree, I do see it as a benefit to me to be able to get work done and not fall behind when I’m physically unable to get into the office, but I think it’s more of a benefit to the agency and taxpayer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For working mom, I value the most is the flexibility of me working at home or leaving workplace early for anything related to kid sickness, kid events, kid appointment or grandparent issues. I tell boss upfront that family is my priority. I already told my boss that I will come in late and leave early or work remotely on some weeks during summer because some summer camps that I have signed up are only 9am to 3pm. If they don't work with me, they know that I will leave. My job is in high demand.

+1 I've made this clear as well. Honestly, there's nothing they can do. They've made our situation as flexible as they can without drawing scrutiny from the administration. However, I'm pretty sure I will use up all my leave this summer and then some. It is what it is. I will quit and eat generic saltine crackers for every meal before my family suffers. I'm guessing this is their plan all along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For working mom, I value the most is the flexibility of me working at home or leaving workplace early for anything related to kid sickness, kid events, kid appointment or grandparent issues. I tell boss upfront that family is my priority. I already told my boss that I will come in late and leave early or work remotely on some weeks during summer because some summer camps that I have signed up are only 9am to 3pm. If they don't work with me, they know that I will leave. My job is in high demand.

+1 I've made this clear as well. Honestly, there's nothing they can do. They've made our situation as flexible as they can without drawing scrutiny from the administration. However, I'm pretty sure I will use up all my leave this summer and then some. It is what it is. I will quit and eat generic saltine crackers for every meal before my family suffers. I'm guessing this is their plan all along.

Different poster, and same. I will last as long as I can, but I don't think it will be very long. I am so mad to feel forced out of a career I love, but I am hoping that I find something better elsewhere. Maybe someday there will be federal employment that I would actually want to return to.