Part of the reason metro sucks is because they never collect fares. I ride the bus regularly and usually the fare box is out of order.

Of course. They don't want CRE to collapse. It's up to workers making $65k per year to spend all of their money on fuel and public transportation costs so that the billionaires and banks don't lose their shirts in horrifically overpriced CRE.

Businesses should start comoensating employees for time spent commuting to and from the office as well as for gas or public transportation costs if they want workers in. Why should workers have to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours per year, uncompensated, to go do office work that could be entirely done remotely? If businesses were forced to compensate employees for all of the time and costs for work commutes, the silver lining might be that they'll demad cheaper and faster transport - i.e. better public transportation infrastructure. It's time employees no longer subsidize costs for businesses to get their employees into the office. Companies need to start ponying up for costs and hours spent on commutes.


This also conflicts tons with all of the so-called social equity goals of businesses trying to help the environment. What a collosal waste of fossil fuels that will have to be burnt unnecessarily just to haul people into an office to do work that can be done remotely.

The WH is “encouraging” all federal agencies in the DMV to be back to 50% in-office attendance (5 days per pay period) by next spring. If you work at a federal agency and aren’t yet back to half time in office, it is coming. The goal is for all federal agencies in DC to be back to pre-COVID levels of telework by next fall.

Here are several reasons this happened.

1) Buildings sitting empty. Why is the building being rented if nobody is in it? So you cannot justify that in your budget. Well, force people back in.

2)Business are complaining to the mayor and city council that without people coming into the office, they cant survive

3)Parking. DC garage companies are a mafia. Always have been. You can thank Marion Barry. People are not driving in and parking? There goes their $

4)Parking enforcement and traffic enforcement. While DC traffic enforcement is not something I remember being an issue, the parking enforcement is and always has been. Nobody driving into the city? There goes your revenue from ticketing people.

5) Metro. Less people riding trains. So more revenue goes down and there go the unions getting mad that their people are getting cut as they are not needed with decreased ridership. And in general, less riders=less revenuer in general for a crumbling public transportation infrastructure. Metro sucks, it is a shell of what it used to be.

6.Control. At one point, with people working from home, administrations lost oversight. Having people who could and did do their jobs without issue from home forced back into the office reeks of micro management.

Alot of people moved out of DC during COVID and moved to places like anywhere in WV in the panhandle, Adams County, PA, Frederick & Washington County MD and Louden & Frederick County, VA since they wanted bigger homes, land and low crime. Now, the "bettors" want them back in the grime. Do you think management will be returning? I know from experience, they are not where I work and it is the same at several other companies and government agencies.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So DC government is forcing middle class government workers to subsidize billionaire commercial building owners. Nice.

I guess it's too hard to come up with a more innovative way to repurpose those buildings.

How are the workers subsidizing commercial building owners given DC owns many of its buildings and otherwise are on long term leases long since executed?

Exactly. I've asked my employees to come into the office 3 days per week. It's important that people see and work with each other.

It’s going to lead to a lot of brain drain. There’s already a lot of turn over by smart, hard working people using government jobs as a stepping stone, but some have stayed longer due to the generous telework policies. Those that can will jump to private sector gigs that are still offering hybrid and remote. Vacancies will be harder to fill and they’ll end up hiring worse candidates. So I guess business as usual for the DC government…

Anonymous wrote:So DC government is forcing middle class government workers to subsidize billionaire commercial building owners. Nice.

I guess it's too hard to come up with a more innovative way to repurpose those buildings.

How are the workers subsidizing commercial building owners given DC owns many of its buildings and otherwise are on long term leases long since executed?

Anonymous wrote:How many DC government office workers are there? (Not federal)

36,000 I think.

How many DC government office workers are there? (Not federal)

It’s hard to ask the criminals to show up in person 7 days a week but let everyone else get off easy.

So DC government is forcing middle class government workers to subsidize billionaire commercial building owners. Nice.

I guess it's too hard to come up with a more innovative way to repurpose those buildings.

Maybe it will help downtown DC become more lively

Smooth transition going forward

At my current firm, we're required to be in the office 4x a week. I can also do my job from home but they want us here, and they sign my paycheck, and I like not being homeless, so I will do it.

Joining the state of Virginia - all in.