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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I suspect people on formal remote work agreements are safer than people just doing telework.[/quote]

But most people “just doing telework” are under CBAs. Which cannot just be ignored by King Trump. They tried that in my agency. It was almost 3 years into litigation Trump was losing bigly when Biden won and the lawsuit was dropped.

Yes— managers are NBU. I’m BU, new contract puts it at 100%.  We just stayed 100% telework after COVID. NBU are back to 60% telework. And it’s frustrating. Because the space crunch even with just managers and just 2 days a week in office is such that managers no longer have offices. So you cannot actually talk to your manager about anything private or sensitive (from a contract or work perspective or a I need FMLA leave perspective). the days they are in the office. All 2 conference rooms disappear way too fast for them to duck in for a private chat.   So, my manager is in the office Monday or Tuesday, and therefore if it’s M/T, under the rules in our division, they are not available to talk about anything with PII or that requires clearance, or any personnel matters and am doing paperwork.  All case issues with PII, all sensitive conversations, all performance issues, all “what do I about my weak colleague missing a major deadline” may have to wait 2 days.  Or, in an emergency, you need to go to the hotel works when list and find a manager who doesn’t know you, your caseload, etc.  But, that’s the rule from OGC to protect PII/PHI of employees and the people we serve.  It’s a crappy way to manage people effectively.

Now, I have a nice home office in our 4th bedroom. If I’m not home alone and need to have a sensitive conversation, the door is shut and a white noise machine is running. (And Siri/ Alexa is off, which is actually written into our telework agreement).  And my now college kids have known since elementary school (because I’ve been a minimum of 60% telework for 18 years) to never, ever enter unless I am in my office and invite them in.  Now that kids are in college, I’ll leave the door cracked when I work and am not having a private conversation for pets to come and go. But if they are home on break and the door is closed, there is a two sided sign that says “if you knock this better be an emergency” or “feel free to say hi!”.

And it was nice to have my kids walk in from HS before and after COVID, say hello and flop on my sofa and give me the 5 minute run down (I get a 15 minute afternoon break, and that was what I used it for with kids— also a 15 minute morning break that I remember to take less than 10% of the time). It was nice. Nice enough to offset the salary decrease of being a fed?  I didn’t think so until middle school and high school, when my kids didn’t have a lot of time to sit around talking anyway, but we had a parent in the house after school.  And when my more anxious kid said freshman year of HS when I was going in 2 days a week that she didn’t know why, but she liked the days I was home, because she felt less anxious walking home from the bus.  And then that same kid was in telelearning during COVID started coming up and having lunch with me. And making a few chocolate chip cookies after she finished telelearning and bringing me one while she spent a few minutes telling me about her day (again, I used my 15 minute afternoon break).

Getting lost in “punishing feds” it’s full RTO is that you punish their whole family and create situations where work gets done slower.  Feds earn less because they believe in the mission (I certainly do)— and enjoy working with other mission driven people, they like the work-life balance, it’s nice to have one earner in a household with job security, and, I know there are exceptions, but the Feds I’ve worked with have been really nice people with a collaborative mindset. You take these things away, intentionally try to make work miserable, destroy the agency’s mission, take away job security? Im  stuck for another 5-7 years, when I retire. I’m too far into FERS, I have the highest bracket of leave, and I am carrying our health insurance, and plan to do so into retirement.   You will have to RIF me and pay the huge severance.  But the next generation of Feds really are going to be people who can’t get hired anywhere else and don’t care about mission (which matters so much more than you realize). Unless you want to make Fed salaries competitive to private practice?

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