Biden wants RTO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that this thread is now 65 pages! Government workers are doing a lot of complaining. Sounds right. Notice that there’s not a thread of similar length for private sector workers?

We are passionate about what we do.

Ha! No one is talking about mission.

We know our mission. All 65 pages are about one aspect of how to complete mission better, more efficiently and more effectively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that this thread is now 65 pages! Government workers are doing a lot of complaining. Sounds right. Notice that there’s not a thread of similar length for private sector workers?

It’s a DC board. It’s the largest employer in the area. You think you’re clever but you’re not.

Not trying to be clever, just observant. There are lots of state and local government employees in the area and they’re not on DCUM complaining. Though the federal government is the largest employer in the area, private companies collectively employ more. If all the private employees were mad about RTO, why wouldn’t they be on here complaining? Sure, there is the random thread, but nothing of this size.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that this thread is now 65 pages! Government workers are doing a lot of complaining. Sounds right. Notice that there’s not a thread of similar length for private sector workers?

We are passionate about what we do.

Ha! No one is talking about mission.

Incorrect. Most of the posts I’ve made are about how RTO will negatively affect the workforce, and the reasons for that. That is relevant to how my agency fulfills its mission. I want to stay. I want my colleagues to stay. I love my actual work. I love serving the public. The conditions dictate whether it’s worth it to continue doing it. That’s something people in charge need to hear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that this thread is now 65 pages! Government workers are doing a lot of complaining. Sounds right. Notice that there’s not a thread of similar length for private sector workers?

It’s a DC board. It’s the largest employer in the area. You think you’re clever but you’re not.

Not trying to be clever, just observant. There are lots of state and local government employees in the area and they’re not on DCUM complaining. Though the federal government is the largest employer in the area, private companies collectively employ more. If all the private employees were mad about RTO, why wouldn’t they be on here complaining? Sure, there is the random thread, but nothing of this size.

Go ask them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RTO is going to cause some agencies to hemorrhage decent young-ish employees. One day a week already led to us losing a few attorneys for the private sector. They can’t afford to live close in and as soon as they have kids they can’t manage a commute that’s an hour plus. I’m in a weird boat where my spouse makes a lot of money so we live close in but has garbage health insurance which doesn’t work because one of our kids is SN.

+1. Some of the posters are delusional about how much it costs to live reasonably close in with kids, where there is access to safe public schools and housing. I bought my house in 2013 and prices have since skyrocketed, and I still had nearly an hour commute downtown from within Fairfax County. Why would I want to spend nearly 1.5 - 2 hours a day commuting when I could spend that time with my family, driving kids to activities, exercising, cooking a healthy meal, etc. Life is too short to waste it in a car to spend 8 hours in the office on Teams meetings. Furthermore, I am a Federal manager and most of my younger, hard-working staff all want telework - for the exact reasons I do, so they can balance their careers and home life. I don’t want to lose them and I certainly don’t want to force them in the office more. Our work is computer based and can be completed effectively from home. I also have staff more willing to work on an issue later in the day or earlier in the morning when they’re home. Staff is flexible and more engaged in the work because they have a manager who is flexible regarding where they do the work. For computer based work, RTO is not the answer. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s not going back.

I understand but has this all changed dramatically in the last 3 years since the pandemic started? My whole office used to commute 4 days a week deal with traffic or public transportation, figure out kids activities, etc and now just doing what they used to do is intolerable? I get that we had a few years with more flexibility but we're being asked to do what everyone did for decades and suddenly that's too hard and everyone will quit?

No, it’s that in the past three years, people discovered that by working from home, we can balance work and family demands much more easily. We used to also have no child labor laws. Should we go back to that?

And why should govt care about that? It's your personal choice/life isn't it?

NP. Because it's like putting toothpaste back in the tube. No one who enjoys it is willingly or for long going to give up that newfound flexibility now that they know it is possible. So basically you have a critical mass of people in every white collar industry who don't want to go back to the office. Most RTO efforts have fizzled out after a few weeks or months. I think that is likely to continue, because there are just so many people who like WFH. It's just the way it's going to be. Do not stand against the wind...

Don't assume Govt will try to put it back. Getting a new one is always an option (i.e., let those who want to leave, leave).

Problem with that is the number of people who like to WFH. Sure there will be efforts to RTO, but I believe over the long term they will all fizzle. Because sooner or later people rebel, find ways to make exceptions, change policies, etc. It's human nature.

Why is that a problem? The number that matters is the number of people who leave. For every 100 WFH "I'm gonna leave if you make me come back", I doubt more than 10 would actually leave. Govt is a big system. It will chugging along with or without those 10 folks. And others will love to join even then

You may be right that most people who claim that they’d leave won’t. But to think this isn’t a problem is myopic. They’ll be the better people, and they’ll take expertise and familiarity and corporate memory with them. They’ll be replaced with people who don’t care about WFH or aren’t able to compete for the more desirable WFH/flexible jobs. That’s a cohort that is on average not going to be as good as the people who left, even when they get up to speed (however long that takes). And the turnover cost of a government employee is ballpark half a year’s productivity.

So if you’re right, and of 100 people only 10 leave, then you’ll end up with something like the top 10% going, replaced by people in the bottom 50%, and paying 5% that year for the privilege. If you owned a 100-person company this kind of maneuver could tank your business. The government will survive but will get worse, and people will complain about how it’s worse and not realize that it was not a bug but a feature.

Do you think Goldman, Twitter and Tesla are worse now that their employees are back in the office five days a week? Do you think Meta, Apple, Google and Amazon are worse off now that their employees are back to work three days a week? I use these companies as examples because DCUM use them as benchmarks for everything career related almost.

[Anonymous]

Dear god, please understand that the federal government is nothing like a large tech company, and even those large tech companies have subcultures to accommodate—they also aren’t subject to congressional oversight and budget constraints or political pressure. They do what works for them and can change course on the fly on a case by case basis.

This whole conversation is completely absurd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RTO is going to cause some agencies to hemorrhage decent young-ish employees. One day a week already led to us losing a few attorneys for the private sector. They can’t afford to live close in and as soon as they have kids they can’t manage a commute that’s an hour plus. I’m in a weird boat where my spouse makes a lot of money so we live close in but has garbage health insurance which doesn’t work because one of our kids is SN.

+1. Some of the posters are delusional about how much it costs to live reasonably close in with kids, where there is access to safe public schools and housing. I bought my house in 2013 and prices have since skyrocketed, and I still had nearly an hour commute downtown from within Fairfax County. Why would I want to spend nearly 1.5 - 2 hours a day commuting when I could spend that time with my family, driving kids to activities, exercising, cooking a healthy meal, etc. Life is too short to waste it in a car to spend 8 hours in the office on Teams meetings. Furthermore, I am a Federal manager and most of my younger, hard-working staff all want telework - for the exact reasons I do, so they can balance their careers and home life. I don’t want to lose them and I certainly don’t want to force them in the office more. Our work is computer based and can be completed effectively from home. I also have staff more willing to work on an issue later in the day or earlier in the morning when they’re home. Staff is flexible and more engaged in the work because they have a manager who is flexible regarding where they do the work. For computer based work, RTO is not the answer. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s not going back.

I understand but has this all changed dramatically in the last 3 years since the pandemic started? My whole office used to commute 4 days a week deal with traffic or public transportation, figure out kids activities, etc and now just doing what they used to do is intolerable? I get that we had a few years with more flexibility but we're being asked to do what everyone did for decades and suddenly that's too hard and everyone will quit?

No, it’s that in the past three years, people discovered that by working from home, we can balance work and family demands much more easily. We used to also have no child labor laws. Should we go back to that?

And why should govt care about that? It's your personal choice/life isn't it?

NP. Because it's like putting toothpaste back in the tube. No one who enjoys it is willingly or for long going to give up that newfound flexibility now that they know it is possible. So basically you have a critical mass of people in every white collar industry who don't want to go back to the office. Most RTO efforts have fizzled out after a few weeks or months. I think that is likely to continue, because there are just so many people who like WFH. It's just the way it's going to be. Do not stand against the wind...

Don't assume Govt will try to put it back. Getting a new one is always an option (i.e., let those who want to leave, leave).

Problem with that is the number of people who like to WFH. Sure there will be efforts to RTO, but I believe over the long term they will all fizzle. Because sooner or later people rebel, find ways to make exceptions, change policies, etc. It's human nature.

Why is that a problem? The number that matters is the number of people who leave. For every 100 WFH "I'm gonna leave if you make me come back", I doubt more than 10 would actually leave. Govt is a big system. It will chugging along with or without those 10 folks. And others will love to join even then

You may be right that most people who claim that they’d leave won’t. But to think this isn’t a problem is myopic. They’ll be the better people, and they’ll take expertise and familiarity and corporate memory with them. They’ll be replaced with people who don’t care about WFH or aren’t able to compete for the more desirable WFH/flexible jobs. That’s a cohort that is on average not going to be as good as the people who left, even when they get up to speed (however long that takes). And the turnover cost of a government employee is ballpark half a year’s productivity.

So if you’re right, and of 100 people only 10 leave, then you’ll end up with something like the top 10% going, replaced by people in the bottom 50%, and paying 5% that year for the privilege. If you owned a 100-person company this kind of maneuver could tank your business. The government will survive but will get worse, and people will complain about how it’s worse and not realize that it was not a bug but a feature.

Do you think Goldman, Twitter and Tesla are worse now that their employees are back in the office five days a week? Do you think Meta, Apple, Google and Amazon are worse off now that their employees are back to work three days a week? I use these companies as examples because DCUM use them as benchmarks for everything career related almost.

Who knows. Only thing for sure is those companies have unhappy employees now. Employees are your number one asset. Having unhappy workforce creates a lot of problems down the road.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dear god, please understand that the federal government is nothing like a large tech company, and even those large tech companies have subcultures to accommodate—they also aren’t subject to congressional oversight and budget constraints or political pressure. They do what works for them and can change course on the fly on a case by case basis.

This whole conversation is completely absurd.

DP. The point is that the best companies in the world think RTO is important. Why wouldn’t the best federal government in the world want to follow their example?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear god, please understand that the federal government is nothing like a large tech company, and even those large tech companies have subcultures to accommodate—they also aren’t subject to congressional oversight and budget constraints or political pressure. They do what works for them and can change course on the fly on a case by case basis.

This whole conversation is completely absurd.

DP. The point is that the best companies in the world think RTO is important. Why wouldn’t the best federal government in the world want to follow their example?

My point is that you are GROSSLY simplifying reality. Amazon lets its beat employees do what they want, and doesn’t worry about the mouth breathers on the hill calling them up to testify about why staff isn’t in the office buying lunch from local businesses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love WFH more than anyone, but there’s no question that RTO is much better for the local economy. Lunches, metro rides, parking fees, dry cleaners, etc.

Excuse me but RTO will cost me $1000/month. It’s not my responsibility to prop up the local economy at the expense of my own retirement or kids’ college fund.

That’s an underestimation.

There’s another thread about what “hacks” people use to juggle two commuters. The cost of coming in every day is really not small. Raising a family when both parents are out of the house 12 hours a day is hard and expensive. In my case—

300 per month to park, plus gas and mileage.
50 per week in dry cleaning (min)
350 per month for bi-weekly house keeping
400 for after school care if we can’t stagger our commutes
400 for dog walking

Plus whatever extra we spend on eating out for convenience since time is so tight.

Plus a work wardrobe and a gym membership near the office.

Plus private school or any educational enrichment you want for your kids since you can’t be with them as much.

So should people who have to work in person (doctors, nurses, teachers, construction workers, restaurant workers, etc) get a mandated in-person pay differential? I'd be cool with that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love WFH more than anyone, but there’s no question that RTO is much better for the local economy. Lunches, metro rides, parking fees, dry cleaners, etc.

Excuse me but RTO will cost me $1000/month. It’s not my responsibility to prop up the local economy at the expense of my own retirement or kids’ college fund.

That’s an underestimation.

There’s another thread about what “hacks” people use to juggle two commuters. The cost of coming in every day is really not small. Raising a family when both parents are out of the house 12 hours a day is hard and expensive. In my case—

300 per month to park, plus gas and mileage.
50 per week in dry cleaning (min)
350 per month for bi-weekly house keeping
400 for after school care if we can’t stagger our commutes
400 for dog walking

Plus whatever extra we spend on eating out for convenience since time is so tight.

Plus a work wardrobe and a gym membership near the office.

Plus private school or any educational enrichment you want for your kids since you can’t be with them as much.

So should people who have to work in person (doctors, nurses, teachers, construction workers, restaurant workers, etc) get a mandated in-person pay differential? I'd be cool with that.

No. A better solution is higher pay for everyone, and they can make a choice about where to live based on the in-office expectations. Locality based pay works fine. It’s based on where you live not where you work anyway, in case you weren’t aware. Maybe it should be more granular than it is!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love WFH more than anyone, but there’s no question that RTO is much better for the local economy. Lunches, metro rides, parking fees, dry cleaners, etc.

Excuse me but RTO will cost me $1000/month. It’s not my responsibility to prop up the local economy at the expense of my own retirement or kids’ college fund.

That’s an underestimation.

There’s another thread about what “hacks” people use to juggle two commuters. The cost of coming in every day is really not small. Raising a family when both parents are out of the house 12 hours a day is hard and expensive. In my case—

300 per month to park, plus gas and mileage.
50 per week in dry cleaning (min)
350 per month for bi-weekly house keeping
400 for after school care if we can’t stagger our commutes
400 for dog walking

Plus whatever extra we spend on eating out for convenience since time is so tight.

Plus a work wardrobe and a gym membership near the office.

Plus private school or any educational enrichment you want for your kids since you can’t be with them as much.

So should people who have to work in person (doctors, nurses, teachers, construction workers, restaurant workers, etc) get a mandated in-person pay differential? I'd be cool with that.

If it’s making it hard to hire and retain, yes. Nurses are in extremely high demand right now by the way. Teacher salaries should be higher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that this thread is now 65 pages! Government workers are doing a lot of complaining. Sounds right. Notice that there’s not a thread of similar length for private sector workers?

It’s a DC board. It’s the largest employer in the area. You think you’re clever but you’re not.

Not trying to be clever, just observant. There are lots of state and local government employees in the area and they’re not on DCUM complaining. Though the federal government is the largest employer in the area, private companies collectively employ more. If all the private employees were mad about RTO, why wouldn’t they be on here complaining? Sure, there is the random thread, but nothing of this size.

NP and I bet if you asked Jeff there are probably less than 20 unique posters posting in this thread. I wouldn't read anything into the size of the thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s interesting that this thread is now 65 pages! Government workers are doing a lot of complaining. Sounds right. Notice that there’s not a thread of similar length for private sector workers?

We are passionate about what we do.

Ha! No one is talking about mission.

Incorrect. Most of the posts I’ve made are about how RTO will negatively affect the workforce, and the reasons for that. That is relevant to how my agency fulfills its mission. I want to stay. I want my colleagues to stay. I love my actual work. I love serving the public. The conditions dictate whether it’s worth it to continue doing it. That’s something people in charge need to hear.

You think Jeff Zients is on here reading through the comments and changing his mind? This is 65 pages of federal workers mostly complaining about how it’s harder for them personally to leave their homes to work, as most of the private sector is now doing. I find it so embarrassing, I hope no one in charge is reading this much whining.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dear god, please understand that the federal government is nothing like a large tech company, and even those large tech companies have subcultures to accommodate—they also aren’t subject to congressional oversight and budget constraints or political pressure. They do what works for them and can change course on the fly on a case by case basis.

This whole conversation is completely absurd.

DP. The point is that the best companies in the world think RTO is important. Why wouldn’t the best federal government in the world want to follow their example?

The best companies also make their offices a nice place to work, with plenty of employee perks, instead of hoping their employees spend $10 on lunch at a sandwich shop.