Reply to New OPM memo on RTO

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I didn't have school aged kids before telework so what did people do? Did people put their kids in before/aftercare/camps/school for 10 hours a day? How did people find time for extracurriculars if elementary kids are in aftercare until 5:30-6? [/quote]

My kids were not yet school aged when COVID started so they were still in daycare/preschool. But even before COVID DH and I both teleworked multiple days per week so that at least one of us was home. Usually the commuting spouse would do morning drop off since they had to head out anyway and then the teleworking parent would do pickup so the kids didn’t have to be there past 5.

I think a lot of parents of school aged kids teleworked at least hybrid before COVID. It’s not like March 2020 marked the invention of WAH. For those who need longer hours, they use aftercare, but staffing has gotten harder in the childcare sector so spots are limited with long waitlists. Or maybe if you’re lucky you can find a martial arts type place that has a van to do school pickup and take them to do activities.

I also think a lot of the parents were just not in the workforce or were underemployed. I guess this administration thinks that is preferable to go back to.

My kids a now in extracurriculars starting as early as 4:30/5. To keep them in we’d have to take leave some days, use carpools, stagger hours, not really sure yet … thankfully my DH’s private sector job has been remote since 2018 and his colleagues are scattered across the country with no office to go to, so I guess he would have to take on more of the kid shuffling at home if I go back 5 days (holding out hope my agency’s CBA holds). I would try to jump ship out of government quickly though if forced to commute 5 days/week.[/quote]

The schedule and juggling you describe is very normal. My husband is 5x/week and I am remote and do more juggling, but I can’t do it all while working during the day, so we have a nanny who helps after school with driving while I am working. Millions of people do this and it is not fun, but it is the norm. [/quote]

Let me guess, either you don’t live in the DC area, or your husband is a high earner in the private sector. My husband and I are both feds and would not be able to afford a nanny to drive our two elementary aged kids to activities.

As others have mentioned camps alone offer garbage hours and after care to add on another $200 to a camp week that already costs $500 is cost prohibitive.

Our kids were 2 and 5 when Covid hit and we sucked it up and maintained our work performance and duties even though it felt impossible. We had no help. This feels like a real “f you” after we have been dedicated career civil servants over many years for different administrations.

We don’t have a problem with returning to the office, but, the extremism is the issue. Why strip people of flexibilities they had prior to Covid? Why suggest total eradication of telework? If we can even keep 1-2 days per week that will help most people feel like they can stay a little sane and manage all of their work/life balances and priorities. [/quote]

Its tone deaf to act like this is a brand new and insurmountable problem. Many people are working in person for the last few years, many of them have kids, and many of them are not high earners.

Before and after care exists for a reason. If you cant flex your schedule you use it. And stop signing up for activities that start before 6pm.[/quote]

Please. Like you wouldn’t be upset if you lost a pre-Covid job benefit, not based on your performance, not even based on your specific employer’s needs/metrics, rather based on some boot licking idiot’s bad data and pettiness. Yeah, we’ll deal. But I guarantee this isn’t going to improve government services. Telework flexibilities made us more nimble and responsive and frankly pretty happy employees (at least at my agency).[/quote]

We're just going to mass lose people that we desperately needed.  Just a month ago they laid out a hiring plan to try to keep our timelines within the goals.  We have to report our metrics to congress.[/quote]

Just like all of the people who promised to leave the country if Trump was elected found out that moving to another country isn’t that easy, most people will find out that there aren’t a lot of WFH jobs that pay 6 figures out there. However, some people (mostly with money) were able to migrate, and some top performers with a specialized skill set will get better, higher paying jobs in the private sector. Most wont.  There is fierce competition for the limited number of remote jobs that are out  there and companies get many applicants for each and every position.  I’m guessing that most aren’t looking to hire a bunch of Feds who resigned so that they don’t have to commute to an office [/quote]

I can’t imagine spending my time anonymously lecturing people who are legitimately upset about a huge change to their work life balance. You must have a sad life to delight in others’ job stress.[/quote]

I'm the person this idiot is lecturing and here's the deal:  I can personally make this work.  But my colleagues will quit and the work my organization does will fall apart.  I've worked on hiring, I know the staff, how hard we've been recruiting and what the competition for our staff is.  We have people come in to interview with other multiple offers and the only way we've won them is the work/life balance and remote work. [/quote]

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