Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 10:52     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:Telework is such an old outdated term. Only the govt uses it.

I mean my company used that term in last in the 1990s when it literally was telework. We could do a conference call on home phone, call staff or boss on home phone, send a fax if I had a fax machine at home or use my home computer maybe to use dial up to check emails.

But I dont think we work on the telephone at home anymore.


Think telecommunications rather than telephone.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 10:46     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.


People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.





The funny thing is that the offices in those pictures aren’t even that dense. There’s a ton of open floor space in both of those pics. our government office has been reconfigured with mini-cubes and actually much more dense than either of those pictures.



+1, we are already putting more people into less space than those photos show.
Also, I don't think people realize that every space change costs money. You don't just take down walls (even cubes) or buy chairs or move furniture. It all costs money that had to be planned for already if you wanted to spend it in the near future.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 10:28     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
I have been working around the clock, so much so that I’m getting sick. I guess things for people that know they are leaving are quiet but the rest of us are busy pivoting or preparing to pivot.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 10:22     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:Telework is such an old outdated term. Only the govt uses it.

I mean my company used that term in last in the 1990s when it literally was telework. We could do a conference call on home phone, call staff or boss on home phone, send a fax if I had a fax machine at home or use my home computer maybe to use dial up to check emails.

But I dont think we work on the telephone at home anymore.


Cool.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 09:42     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Telework is such an old outdated term. Only the govt uses it.

I mean my company used that term in last in the 1990s when it literally was telework. We could do a conference call on home phone, call staff or boss on home phone, send a fax if I had a fax machine at home or use my home computer maybe to use dial up to check emails.

But I dont think we work on the telephone at home anymore.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 09:37     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.


People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.







They have already made our cubes smaller. There is no room for a second chair or a second laptop. I guess it will be stools with your computer on your lap. And even if they wanted to do that...they still need to remove all the cubes. This is not happening next week.


My office building also doesn't have rooms like that, it's mostly small offices.


Then you will double or triple up in the office, just kind of extrapolate the amount of square footage that an employee gets in that picture, and apply it to the rooms you have in your office. They do not care if work is done, they do not care if you quit, Are you not paying attention?


Your vision of the size of the offices in my building is not reality.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 09:35     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.


People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.







They have already made our cubes smaller. There is no room for a second chair or a second laptop. I guess it will be stools with your computer on your lap. And even if they wanted to do that...they still need to remove all the cubes. This is not happening next week.


My office building also doesn't have rooms like that, it's mostly small offices.


Then you will double or triple up in the office, just kind of extrapolate the amount of square footage that an employee gets in that picture, and apply it to the rooms you have in your office. They do not care if work is done, they do not care if you quit, Are you not paying attention?


Ok..After they remove the desks because there is no room for two desks in an office, my office does not have wifi and there is only 1 VPN connection per office/cube.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 09:20     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.


People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.







They have already made our cubes smaller. There is no room for a second chair or a second laptop. I guess it will be stools with your computer on your lap. And even if they wanted to do that...they still need to remove all the cubes. This is not happening next week.


My office building also doesn't have rooms like that, it's mostly small offices.


Then you will double or triple up in the office, just kind of extrapolate the amount of square footage that an employee gets in that picture, and apply it to the rooms you have in your office. They do not care if work is done, they do not care if you quit, Are you not paying attention?
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 09:01     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The EO is going to direct agency heads to develop a plan for RTO. It will be vague and nonspecific and provide no timeframe for implementation. It also will not create specific targets re: number of days in office.


Gosh I hope so.

Signed,
Fed who moved over 10 years ago with 3 days/week telework that never would have made the jump if I knew I'd have a 40+ mile commute 5x a week at some point


Why do you live so far from you job?

Maybe because they were offered a job 10 years ago with 3 days telework?
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 08:46     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The EO is going to direct agency heads to develop a plan for RTO. It will be vague and nonspecific and provide no timeframe for implementation. It also will not create specific targets re: number of days in office.


Gosh I hope so.

Signed,
Fed who moved over 10 years ago with 3 days/week telework that never would have made the jump if I knew I'd have a 40+ mile commute 5x a week at some point


Why do you live so far from you job?
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 08:35     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:The EO is going to direct agency heads to develop a plan for RTO. It will be vague and nonspecific and provide no timeframe for implementation. It also will not create specific targets re: number of days in office.


Gosh I hope so.

Signed,
Fed who moved over 10 years ago with 3 days/week telework that never would have made the jump if I knew I'd have a 40+ mile commute 5x a week at some point
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 08:02     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Ours were pretty normal, but we're right off PA Ave and barriers and fences are going up so people are teleworking more this week because getting into the office is starting to be more of a hassle. Managers were advised to be flexible about telework because of this.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 07:48     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
The EO is going to direct agency heads to develop a plan for RTO. It will be vague and nonspecific and provide no timeframe for implementation. It also will not create specific targets re: number of days in office.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 07:38     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.


People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.







That’s nice, but I work in an agency full of economists, attorneys, and CPAs. This is not a conducive environment to the type of work we do which requires quiet and concentration.


Same but I’m not sure some of these folks would care about the work being done really, they want to burn it all down. We don’t even have wifi though in the office so without a setup with docking stations for everyone the work really isn’t getting done…

I think there could be a really draconian sounding EO that’s then quietly replaced by more of a moderate policy in many cases with a lot of chaos and confusion in the meantime.
Anonymous
Post 01/15/2025 07:11     Subject: Are your federal agency offices eerily quiet?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:How many offices have room for the entire staff? Its not like this will happen next week. Leases will need to be signed. Cubes set up. Logistics of moving people and stuff.


People double up in cubes, work as a hive in a conference room and the cafeteria. We did that when a wing was under repair because of water damage.

Look at a Silicon Valley open office plan, they want to bring that here. No more cubes, 2x - 3x the density.







They have already made our cubes smaller. There is no room for a second chair or a second laptop. I guess it will be stools with your computer on your lap. And even if they wanted to do that...they still need to remove all the cubes. This is not happening next week.


My office building also doesn't have rooms like that, it's mostly small offices.