Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.


If people are doing work while at a ballet class or driving, that's clearly not ok (unless they have permission- though not while driving!) and should be dealt with on an individual basis. I agree.

I agree as well, but have not ever experienced anyone at my agency doing anything like this. We have a very high workload, and it would be noticeable quickly.

You’ve never noticed anyone only being available from 9-3 and then sending an email at 9 pm to signal that they were working?

.

New poster - no, people in our office don’t do that - as the other PP says, maybe a 10 minute school pickup or similar but we can’t make up hours at night we didn’t work during the day.

I’m a fed who works at home. My kids have no school this week. I dropped them at camps at 9/9:30 and was online at 10. At 3 I w picked them up and stopped and ran an errand. I ran this by my boss ahead of time and took 3 hours of annual leave today. Based on child care I could find, if I didn’t work from home I would have needed a full 8 hours of leave today. Instead I was able to move our project forward.

You were being honest and took leave. I don’t know anyone who would take those three hours of leave. They would just say they worked a full day from home.

NP here. I would absolutely take leave because it's time card fraud to do otherwise and I believe most of my coworkers would follow the rules as well.

As would I. My bosses can see when I'm lohgged on and often message me.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have to go back to the old way of doing things if there are new and improved ways of doing so? For everyone who's saying we used to go in 5 days a week and we had to find childcare, etc- that's right. We did, including me. But needs and technology have evolved so if there's a better way that includes a healthier work-life balance and checks and balances to ensure work is being done, it just seems like a win-win to me. Keeps cars off the roads for people who do have to work in-person 100%, saves the government money in terms of leases/utility bills/transit subsidies, and makes for happier employees.

Seems like people just don't want others to have better circumstances than they did (just like when the government went to paid family leave- I scraped together enough leave and also had to take unpaid leave for my kids, but I am happy for the feds who get paid leave).

Signed- a fed with teens who doesn't begrudge anyone having a good work-life balance.

I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.

This sounds particular to your agency and like workloads are being poorly or unfairly managed.

At my agency everyone (parents and non-parents) use a flex band. Core hours for larger group meetings/trainings are 10-2 EST. We have some people in other time zones in the US who work around these HQ hours. For smaller group meetings we’ll work within each other’s calendar availability.

Work is a lot of research/writing and report drafting, which means a lot of it is done independently. As long as everyone is getting their stuff turned in on time it really doesn’t matter if employee A works 8-3:30, takes a kid to ballet and makes dinner, and then logs back on 7-8 while employee B works 6-2:30 and employee C works 9-5:30.

Plenty of agencies are built for this type of set up and the flexibility is what allows for recruitment and retention of quality people.

This. And will add that if anything, I work more hours than I need to and because our time management system is such a pain, do not ask for credit hours. I often work early, late, and on the weekend which allows me to pick up my three kids at three different times a few times a week. I produce more than my childless colleagues by a long shot.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have to go back to the old way of doing things if there are new and improved ways of doing so? For everyone who's saying we used to go in 5 days a week and we had to find childcare, etc- that's right. We did, including me. But needs and technology have evolved so if there's a better way that includes a healthier work-life balance and checks and balances to ensure work is being done, it just seems like a win-win to me. Keeps cars off the roads for people who do have to work in-person 100%, saves the government money in terms of leases/utility bills/transit subsidies, and makes for happier employees.

Seems like people just don't want others to have better circumstances than they did (just like when the government went to paid family leave- I scraped together enough leave and also had to take unpaid leave for my kids, but I am happy for the feds who get paid leave).

Signed- a fed with teens who doesn't begrudge anyone having a good work-life balance.

+1 It's textbook schadenfreude.

Another +1

Why aren’t these posters insisting we all hand wash laundry and give birth without an epidural. That is how things used to be done! Mothers before us struggled so we should too right?

No, it’s the whining. Look parents have a lot of benefits now I didn’t have. Like free parental leave - I had to use my own leave. But I don’t begrudge them that. Or other benefits.

But it’s the “oh it’ll be just impossible for me to RTO” that is making all Feds look bad.

Did you see the CNN story a week or two ago with some Feds claiming PTSD about possibly having to return to the office? That was shameful.

Well, I've developed agoraphobia and am putting in for a reasonable accommodation of, you guessed it, telework. Don't care if you think it's shameful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.


If people are doing work while at a ballet class or driving, that's clearly not ok (unless they have permission- though not while driving!) and should be dealt with on an individual basis. I agree.

I agree as well, but have not ever experienced anyone at my agency doing anything like this. We have a very high workload, and it would be noticeable quickly.

You’ve never noticed anyone only being available from 9-3 and then sending an email at 9 pm to signal that they were working?

.

New poster - no, people in our office don’t do that - as the other PP says, maybe a 10 minute school pickup or similar but we can’t make up hours at night we didn’t work during the day.

I’m a fed who works at home. My kids have no school this week. I dropped them at camps at 9/9:30 and was online at 10. At 3 I w picked them up and stopped and ran an errand. I ran this by my boss ahead of time and took 3 hours of annual leave today. Based on child care I could find, if I didn’t work from home I would have needed a full 8 hours of leave today. Instead I was able to move our project forward.

You were being honest and took leave. I don’t know anyone who would take those three hours of leave. They would just say they worked a full day from home.

NP here. I would absolutely take leave because it's time card fraud to do otherwise and I believe most of my coworkers would follow the rules as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.


If people are doing work while at a ballet class or driving, that's clearly not ok (unless they have permission- though not while driving!) and should be dealt with on an individual basis. I agree.

I agree as well, but have not ever experienced anyone at my agency doing anything like this. We have a very high workload, and it would be noticeable quickly.

You’ve never noticed anyone only being available from 9-3 and then sending an email at 9 pm to signal that they were working?

.

New poster - no, people in our office don’t do that - as the other PP says, maybe a 10 minute school pickup or similar but we can’t make up hours at night we didn’t work during the day.

I’m a fed who works at home. My kids have no school this week. I dropped them at camps at 9/9:30 and was online at 10. At 3 I w picked them up and stopped and ran an errand. I ran this by my boss ahead of time and took 3 hours of annual leave today. Based on child care I could find, if I didn’t work from home I would have needed a full 8 hours of leave today. Instead I was able to move our project forward.

You were being honest and took leave. I don’t know anyone who would take those three hours of leave. They would just say they worked a full day from home.

DP but how? What happens when someone tries to contact them on TEAMS and they’re not available for 3 hours? I’m in a role where people reach out to me frequently so it would be impossible for me to lie about working that time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have to go back to the old way of doing things if there are new and improved ways of doing so? For everyone who's saying we used to go in 5 days a week and we had to find childcare, etc- that's right. We did, including me. But needs and technology have evolved so if there's a better way that includes a healthier work-life balance and checks and balances to ensure work is being done, it just seems like a win-win to me. Keeps cars off the roads for people who do have to work in-person 100%, saves the government money in terms of leases/utility bills/transit subsidies, and makes for happier employees.

Seems like people just don't want others to have better circumstances than they did (just like when the government went to paid family leave- I scraped together enough leave and also had to take unpaid leave for my kids, but I am happy for the feds who get paid leave).

Signed- a fed with teens who doesn't begrudge anyone having a good work-life balance.

+1 It's textbook schadenfreude.

Another +1

Why aren’t these posters insisting we all hand wash laundry and give birth without an epidural. That is how things used to be done! Mothers before us struggled so we should too right?

Have you noticed all of the business leaders who have pushed RTO? Are they all a bunch of dinosaurs who just hate mid-day yoga and extra work time for gentle parenting? Wow you’re insufferable.

You’re insufferable. Those business leaders pushed it as a tool for stealth layoffs.

https://fortune.com/2024/07/24/return-to-office-mandates-layoffs-bamboohr-survey/

A quarter of bosses admit their return-to-office mandates were meant to make staff quit

Bosses have spent the better part of two years summoning their employees back to the office, making remote-loving workers “quiet quit” in protest, while others have threatened to quit for real. But that’s secretly what a significant chunk of CEOs were hoping for.

According to new research from BambooHR, a survey of over 1500 U.S. managers found that a quarter of C-suite executives hoped for some voluntary turnover among workers after implementing a RTO policy.

Meanwhile, one in five HR professionals admitted their in-office policy was meant to make staff quit.

.

If I could use RTO to weed out all of my colleagues who don’t work 8 hours a day I would also do that. Really hope it’s implemented immediately

Why? The plan is not to replace them with other people. How will it improve your life?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have to go back to the old way of doing things if there are new and improved ways of doing so? For everyone who's saying we used to go in 5 days a week and we had to find childcare, etc- that's right. We did, including me. But needs and technology have evolved so if there's a better way that includes a healthier work-life balance and checks and balances to ensure work is being done, it just seems like a win-win to me. Keeps cars off the roads for people who do have to work in-person 100%, saves the government money in terms of leases/utility bills/transit subsidies, and makes for happier employees.

Seems like people just don't want others to have better circumstances than they did (just like when the government went to paid family leave- I scraped together enough leave and also had to take unpaid leave for my kids, but I am happy for the feds who get paid leave).

Signed- a fed with teens who doesn't begrudge anyone having a good work-life balance.

+1 It's textbook schadenfreude.

Another +1

Why aren’t these posters insisting we all hand wash laundry and give birth without an epidural. That is how things used to be done! Mothers before us struggled so we should too right?

Have you noticed all of the business leaders who have pushed RTO? Are they all a bunch of dinosaurs who just hate mid-day yoga and extra work time for gentle parenting? Wow you’re insufferable.

Way to let the logic go right over your head.

I was literally pointing out the stupidity of the PP’s argument that we should do things a certain way because it was how things were done before. That is lame reasoning.

If there is a business need for RTO then that should be plenty easy for agency managers to articulate. But just saying we need to go back to doing something X way because “I it and now you need to do it too” is intellectually lazy and insufferable.

They don’t owe you an explanation and you don’t owe them any loyalty. Your management can decide they want everyone to RTO. If you disagree you should feel free to find a better situation and leave. Workers and employers should do what’s best for them however they see fit, what’s insufferable is the constant complaining. Please move on.

You’re right. They don’t have to give an explanation and I don’t have to stay. But I believe any decent manager would explain RTO is because of XYZ workload changes or whatever. Employee morale is going to be low if managers make employees do things (whether RTO, change a deadline, being loaned out to another component for a project etc.) with the explanation of “because I said so.” This is how you end up with a disengaged workforce where your top performers continually move on.

I am a grown adult with a professional degree. I don’t need to work for anyone bossing me around like a parent to a toddler. I have over 15 years experience as an attorney and many connections in the private sector. So my answer to the OP’s question is that I will likely move on for more money and/or more flexibility elsewhere if there is RTO. I’m waiting it out for now though in the hopes this won’t come to fruition because I like my job and hope to keep it. If you want to call message board discussion whining then … ok.

Also, if you don’t want to read “whining” then why did you open a thread in which the topic is literally asking Feds whether they plan to return to office or quit? Like OMG what did you think was going to be discussed here? You must struggle a lot in life if you manage to voluntarily click on something and then get disgruntled when people talk about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.


If people are doing work while at a ballet class or driving, that's clearly not ok (unless they have permission- though not while driving!) and should be dealt with on an individual basis. I agree.

I agree as well, but have not ever experienced anyone at my agency doing anything like this. We have a very high workload, and it would be noticeable quickly.

You’ve never noticed anyone only being available from 9-3 and then sending an email at 9 pm to signal that they were working?

.

New poster - no, people in our office don’t do that - as the other PP says, maybe a 10 minute school pickup or similar but we can’t make up hours at night we didn’t work during the day.

I’m a fed who works at home. My kids have no school this week. I dropped them at camps at 9/9:30 and was online at 10. At 3 I w picked them up and stopped and ran an errand. I ran this by my boss ahead of time and took 3 hours of annual leave today. Based on child care I could find, if I didn’t work from home I would have needed a full 8 hours of leave today. Instead I was able to move our project forward.

You were being honest and took leave. I don’t know anyone who would take those three hours of leave. They would just say they worked a full day from home.

I really wish we could go in for three days and telework two. I feel like fully remote has issues for most agencies - you're lucky if yours is doing it right. Ours isn't. I will embrace going back for a few days, but if they go all out five days and take away all flexible work, I won't be able to do that for long. The juice isn't worth the squeeze for my family. And this is the goal right? To get tons of people to quit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have to go back to the old way of doing things if there are new and improved ways of doing so? For everyone who's saying we used to go in 5 days a week and we had to find childcare, etc- that's right. We did, including me. But needs and technology have evolved so if there's a better way that includes a healthier work-life balance and checks and balances to ensure work is being done, it just seems like a win-win to me. Keeps cars off the roads for people who do have to work in-person 100%, saves the government money in terms of leases/utility bills/transit subsidies, and makes for happier employees.

Seems like people just don't want others to have better circumstances than they did (just like when the government went to paid family leave- I scraped together enough leave and also had to take unpaid leave for my kids, but I am happy for the feds who get paid leave).

Signed- a fed with teens who doesn't begrudge anyone having a good work-life balance.

+1 It's textbook schadenfreude.

Another +1

Why aren’t these posters insisting we all hand wash laundry and give birth without an epidural. That is how things used to be done! Mothers before us struggled so we should too right?

Have you noticed all of the business leaders who have pushed RTO? Are they all a bunch of dinosaurs who just hate mid-day yoga and extra work time for gentle parenting? Wow you’re insufferable.

Way to let the logic go right over your head.

I was literally pointing out the stupidity of the PP’s argument that we should do things a certain way because it was how things were done before. That is lame reasoning.

If there is a business need for RTO then that should be plenty easy for agency managers to articulate. But just saying we need to go back to doing something X way because “I it and now you need to do it too” is intellectually lazy and insufferable.

They don’t owe you an explanation and you don’t owe them any loyalty. Your management can decide they want everyone to RTO. If you disagree you should feel free to find a better situation and leave. Workers and employers should do what’s best for them however they see fit, what’s insufferable is the constant complaining. Please move on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have to go back to the old way of doing things if there are new and improved ways of doing so? For everyone who's saying we used to go in 5 days a week and we had to find childcare, etc- that's right. We did, including me. But needs and technology have evolved so if there's a better way that includes a healthier work-life balance and checks and balances to ensure work is being done, it just seems like a win-win to me. Keeps cars off the roads for people who do have to work in-person 100%, saves the government money in terms of leases/utility bills/transit subsidies, and makes for happier employees.

Seems like people just don't want others to have better circumstances than they did (just like when the government went to paid family leave- I scraped together enough leave and also had to take unpaid leave for my kids, but I am happy for the feds who get paid leave).

Signed- a fed with teens who doesn't begrudge anyone having a good work-life balance.

+1 It's textbook schadenfreude.

Another +1

Why aren’t these posters insisting we all hand wash laundry and give birth without an epidural. That is how things used to be done! Mothers before us struggled so we should too right?

Have you noticed all of the business leaders who have pushed RTO? Are they all a bunch of dinosaurs who just hate mid-day yoga and extra work time for gentle parenting? Wow you’re insufferable.

Way to let the logic go right over your head.

I was literally pointing out the stupidity of the PP’s argument that we should do things a certain way because it was how things were done before. That is lame reasoning.

If there is a business need for RTO then that should be plenty easy for agency managers to articulate. But just saying we need to go back to doing something X way because “I it and now you need to do it too” is intellectually lazy and insufferable.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do we have to go back to the old way of doing things if there are new and improved ways of doing so? For everyone who's saying we used to go in 5 days a week and we had to find childcare, etc- that's right. We did, including me. But needs and technology have evolved so if there's a better way that includes a healthier work-life balance and checks and balances to ensure work is being done, it just seems like a win-win to me. Keeps cars off the roads for people who do have to work in-person 100%, saves the government money in terms of leases/utility bills/transit subsidies, and makes for happier employees.

Seems like people just don't want others to have better circumstances than they did (just like when the government went to paid family leave- I scraped together enough leave and also had to take unpaid leave for my kids, but I am happy for the feds who get paid leave).

Signed- a fed with teens who doesn't begrudge anyone having a good work-life balance.

I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.

This sounds particular to your agency and like workloads are being poorly or unfairly managed.

At my agency everyone (parents and non-parents) use a flex band. Core hours for larger group meetings/trainings are 10-2 EST. We have some people in other time zones in the US who work around these HQ hours. For smaller group meetings we’ll work within each other’s calendar availability.

Work is a lot of research/writing and report drafting, which means a lot of it is done independently. As long as everyone is getting their stuff turned in on time it really doesn’t matter if employee A works 8-3:30, takes a kid to ballet and makes dinner, and then logs back on 7-8 while employee B works 6-2:30 and employee C works 9-5:30.

Plenty of agencies are built for this type of set up and the flexibility is what allows for recruitment and retention of quality people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.


If people are doing work while at a ballet class or driving, that's clearly not ok (unless they have permission- though not while driving!) and should be dealt with on an individual basis. I agree.

I agree as well, but have not ever experienced anyone at my agency doing anything like this. We have a very high workload, and it would be noticeable quickly.

You’ve never noticed anyone only being available from 9-3 and then sending an email at 9 pm to signal that they were working?

.

New poster - no, people in our office don’t do that - as the other PP says, maybe a 10 minute school pickup or similar but we can’t make up hours at night we didn’t work during the day.

I’m a fed who works at home. My kids have no school this week. I dropped them at camps at 9/9:30 and was online at 10. At 3 I w picked them up and stopped and ran an errand. I ran this by my boss ahead of time and took 3 hours of annual leave today. Based on child care I could find, if I didn’t work from home I would have needed a full 8 hours of leave today. Instead I was able to move our project forward.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I’m a fed with teenagers and I don’t begrudge younger parents flexibility but I think the cost of this is often to their coworkers who are doing their work while they are at afternoon ballet class, or kind of paying attention on a work call while driving. The rest of us would be better off if you were fully doing your job, which is much harder to manage and track remotely. I can’t stand Trump and am dreading most of the administration, except for the scaling back of telework. My coworkers and I are all for it.


If people are doing work while at a ballet class or driving, that's clearly not ok (unless they have permission- though not while driving!) and should be dealt with on an individual basis. I agree.

I agree as well, but have not ever experienced anyone at my agency doing anything like this. We have a very high workload, and it would be noticeable quickly.

You’ve never noticed anyone only being available from 9-3 and then sending an email at 9 pm to signal that they were working?

Manager here. Core hours at our agency are 10am-3pm. So I do not have a problem with someone working 9am-3pm, getting offline for a few hours to pick up kids, take them to soccer practice, etc., then getting back online after the kids are in bed to put in their remaining hours. You seem to find it objectionable though. Why is that?

I am also a people manager and I think it’s laughable that you think the parents of young children on your team are working from 8-11 pm on Friday night or for that matter most nights of the week. And for years on end? No. It’s not happening anywhere. Your faux naïveté makes me think you abuse the system as much if not more than your directs.

Yes, some people on my team work at night after their young children are in bed. Some work early in the morning before anyone else is awake. Why is that so hard for you to believe? Nobody is getting away with anything. We all have heavy workloads and real deadlines to meet. If people weren't putting in their hours, it would be very obvious. It's weird that you find the idea of people working a flexible schedule "laughable". It's actually pretty common in 2024. You sound like a crusty old dinosaur. Glad you don't manage me!