Anonymous wrote:Just about EVERYONE can find a reason to work from home full time. And they will find it.

Pre-COVID I was a fed manager and I can attest that WFH is not sustainable long-term if there are major duties that absolutely must be done in-house, particularly for security reasons.

I had one employee who figured out a way to get a WFH based on RA 5 days a week. The reality is employee had purchased a country home 2 hours away from office and didn't want to commute anymore. Employee used a common health condition (I was told what it was) as the basis for RA and HR told us they must be accommodated. So be it.

Once this happened there were 3 more employees who used the same tactics to get WFH 5 days per week. It amounted to more than 50% of the team who could not do a majority of their critical/secure duties because they were at home.

Guess who wound up going to all the in-person required meetings, doing all the secure work, etc. Everyone else. There was no additional pay for these additional duties, however.

We had documented evidence that the WFH employees were NOT working, they were outside doing construction work on their country home, running an Ebay resale business out of their home, and doing the admin work for their spouse's business.

Went to HR and asked about getting job descriptions rewritten based on actual duties employees were performing and it would have reduced their grades substantially (Eg. GS-13s were ACTUALLY doing work at the GS-7 or 9 level.) So HR didn't want to go down that rat hole.

Once we tried for several days to get ahold of the country bumpkin who refused to answer personal phone and wasn't responding to e-mails. Bumpkin was actually annoyed that we were reaching out and considered it an "interruption" to the work they were doing around their country home.

Bottom line: HR didn't care and management didn't want to take it on because they feared accusations of discrimination.

What wound up happening is that these employees "worked" from home FOR YEARS because of RA and the American people paid their salaries for virtually nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just about EVERYONE can find a reason to work from home full time. And they will find it.

Pre-COVID I was a fed manager and I can attest that WFH is not sustainable long-term if there are major duties that absolutely must be done in-house, particularly for security reasons.

I had one employee who figured out a way to get a WFH based on RA 5 days a week. The reality is employee had purchased a country home 2 hours away from office and didn't want to commute anymore. Employee used a common health condition (I was told what it was) as the basis for RA and HR told us they must be accommodated. So be it.

Once this happened there were 3 more employees who used the same tactics to get WFH 5 days per week. It amounted to more than 50% of the team who could not do a majority of their critical/secure duties because they were at home.

Guess who wound up going to all the in-person required meetings, doing all the secure work, etc. Everyone else. There was no additional pay for these additional duties, however.

We had documented evidence that the WFH employees were NOT working, they were outside doing construction work on their country home, running an Ebay resale business out of their home, and doing the admin work for their spouse's business.

Went to HR and asked about getting job descriptions rewritten based on actual duties employees were performing and it would have reduced their grades substantially (Eg. GS-13s were ACTUALLY doing work at the GS-7 or 9 level.) So HR didn't want to go down that rat hole.

Once we tried for several days to get ahold of the country bumpkin who refused to answer personal phone and wasn't responding to e-mails. Bumpkin was actually annoyed that we were reaching out and considered it an "interruption" to the work they were doing around their country home.

Bottom line: HR didn't care and management didn't want to take it on because they feared accusations of discrimination.

What wound up happening is that these employees "worked" from home FOR YEARS because of RA and the American people paid their salaries for virtually nothing.

Timecard fraud is one of the easier issues to document and punish and you don't need to go through your management structure or HR to report it. That doesn't seem like it's the complaint here.

Anonymous wrote:Just about EVERYONE can find a reason to work from home full time. And they will find it.

Pre-COVID I was a fed manager and I can attest that WFH is not sustainable long-term if there are major duties that absolutely must be done in-house, particularly for security reasons.

I had one employee who figured out a way to get a WFH based on RA 5 days a week. The reality is employee had purchased a country home 2 hours away from office and didn't want to commute anymore. Employee used a common health condition (I was told what it was) as the basis for RA and HR told us they must be accommodated. So be it.

Once this happened there were 3 more employees who used the same tactics to get WFH 5 days per week. It amounted to more than 50% of the team who could not do a majority of their critical/secure duties because they were at home.

Guess who wound up going to all the in-person required meetings, doing all the secure work, etc. Everyone else. There was no additional pay for these additional duties, however.

We had documented evidence that the WFH employees were NOT working, they were outside doing construction work on their country home, running an Ebay resale business out of their home, and doing the admin work for their spouse's business.

Went to HR and asked about getting job descriptions rewritten based on actual duties employees were performing and it would have reduced their grades substantially (Eg. GS-13s were ACTUALLY doing work at the GS-7 or 9 level.) So HR didn't want to go down that rat hole.

Once we tried for several days to get ahold of the country bumpkin who refused to answer personal phone and wasn't responding to e-mails. Bumpkin was actually annoyed that we were reaching out and considered it an "interruption" to the work they were doing around their country home.

Bottom line: HR didn't care and management didn't want to take it on because they feared accusations of discrimination.

What wound up happening is that these employees "worked" from home FOR YEARS because of RA and the American people paid their salaries for virtually nothing.

Anonymous wrote:Just about EVERYONE can find a reason to work from home full time. And they will find it.

Pre-COVID I was a fed manager and I can attest that WFH is not sustainable long-term if there are major duties that absolutely must be done in-house, particularly for security reasons.

I had one employee who figured out a way to get a WFH based on RA 5 days a week. The reality is employee had purchased a country home 2 hours away from office and didn't want to commute anymore. Employee used a common health condition (I was told what it was) as the basis for RA and HR told us they must be accommodated. So be it.

Once this happened there were 3 more employees who used the same tactics to get WFH 5 days per week. It amounted to more than 50% of the team who could not do a majority of their critical/secure duties because they were at home.

Guess who wound up going to all the in-person required meetings, doing all the secure work, etc. Everyone else. There was no additional pay for these additional duties, however.

We had documented evidence that the WFH employees were NOT working, they were outside doing construction work on their country home, running an Ebay resale business out of their home, and doing the admin work for their spouse's business.

Went to HR and asked about getting job descriptions rewritten based on actual duties employees were performing and it would have reduced their grades substantially (Eg. GS-13s were ACTUALLY doing work at the GS-7 or 9 level.) So HR didn't want to go down that rat hole.

Once we tried for several days to get ahold of the country bumpkin who refused to answer personal phone and wasn't responding to e-mails. Bumpkin was actually annoyed that we were reaching out and considered it an "interruption" to the work they were doing around their country home.

Bottom line: HR didn't care and management didn't want to take it on because they feared accusations of discrimination.

What wound up happening is that these employees "worked" from home FOR YEARS because of RA and the American people paid their salaries for virtually nothing.

Anonymous wrote:Just about EVERYONE can find a reason to work from home full time. And they will find it.

Pre-COVID I was a fed manager and I can attest that WFH is not sustainable long-term if there are major duties that absolutely must be done in-house, particularly for security reasons.

I had one employee who figured out a way to get a WFH based on RA 5 days a week. The reality is employee had purchased a country home 2 hours away from office and didn't want to commute anymore. Employee used a common health condition (I was told what it was) as the basis for RA and HR told us they must be accommodated. So be it.

Once this happened there were 3 more employees who used the same tactics to get WFH 5 days per week. It amounted to more than 50% of the team who could not do a majority of their critical/secure duties because they were at home.

Guess who wound up going to all the in-person required meetings, doing all the secure work, etc. Everyone else. There was no additional pay for these additional duties, however.

We had documented evidence that the WFH employees were NOT working, they were outside doing construction work on their country home, running an Ebay resale business out of their home, and doing the admin work for their spouse's business.

Went to HR and asked about getting job descriptions rewritten based on actual duties employees were performing and it would have reduced their grades substantially (Eg. GS-13s were ACTUALLY doing work at the GS-7 or 9 level.) So HR didn't want to go down that rat hole.

Once we tried for several days to get ahold of the country bumpkin who refused to answer personal phone and wasn't responding to e-mails. Bumpkin was actually annoyed that we were reaching out and considered it an "interruption" to the work they were doing around their country home.

Bottom line: HR didn't care and management didn't want to take it on because they feared accusations of discrimination.

What wound up happening is that these employees "worked" from home FOR YEARS because of RA and the American people paid their salaries for virtually nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone I work with has an RA for “severe pain” yet is all over FB posting all her activities every weekend.

How do you know what her RA is for?

She told me.

Anonymous wrote:I work with someone who has a RO because she suffered from fatigue after RTO and required medication to sleep (they told me they were applying). The thing that bugs me about it is the sleep issues are not every night but the never have to come to the office. Why not just liberal telework on the nights there is an issue and if medication works then??

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal agency executive here:

I see a number of RAs come across my desk. The real ones are very real and I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.

The ones that smell like bullsh#t…well, they have documentation and meet the standards my agency’s HR has set for approval.

My management position requires me to be in 5 days/week, but I hate the forced RTO of our BU employees. Morale is in the tank and the people who report up to me are all highly educated, self motivated people.

So if you can convince a doctor to give you an RA, go for it. You won’t get push back from me. I’ll support it assuming you don’t flaunt it with hard evidence that you’re faking it. If you don’t have an RA, well I have to be a hard ass on RTO.

I have not seen an RA yet for religious practices. But I will support it with minimal questions. Similarly, I have told staff to use S/L liberally and told them to not provide me with a write up about why they are using S/L. They already have to attest to the reason in our leave system and I don’t need more explanation.

Unfortunately, these are the rules of the game set by the current Administration. And I can’t hate on anyone who plays the game according to the rules they have set. So please get yourself an RA. My agency actually seems to hand out temporary RAs (30-120 days telework) easily.

I think it is really unfair to those of us who gut it out to give a RA for cases that don’t really deserve it. That’s not good for moral. I have no issue with my colleagues who have RAs for debilitating illnesses that makes commuting a true burden or to facilitate ongoing medical care. But I would be extremely annoyed if someone got an RA for something that I cope with myself.

Also note that OP’s issue is that this woman’s RA means that she can only perform menial tasks that can be done from home due to security needs. This means the rest of the team is overworked. That is a problem regardless of whether the RA is justified.

Executive here again: if she’s doing menial tasks that means she’s not getting promoted. If there’s an issue here - i.e. she’s doing tasks that are too low for her rated grade - then that’s a different discussion. At that point management should be looking at whether or not she needs to be demoted or if she needs to start taking on harder tasks that more accurately represent her grade level.

But none of that has anything to do with getting an RA. I have numerous GS 15s who work from home full-time on an RA and do extremely complicated work and lead initiatives commensurate with their grade level. I also have GS 8s doing more menial task from home on a full-time basis because they have an RA. The RA doesn’t play an issue in any of this.

The way my agency has it set up there’s a firewall between the RA decision process and me as a leader who oversees multiple teams and managers. In my opinion, this is smart. The employee applies for an RA to our HR division. I am informed by HR of the application and HR’s decision on the RA. HR asks me if I have any comments but at the end of the day I am not the decider of whether or not an employee gets an RA to work from home, either full-time or part-time. I prefer it this way because I can say the decision was out of my hands if anyone complains. Of course HR wants to know if I have any information about the employee and whether the need for an RA is truly legitimate and they will take that into consideration, particularly if there’s documentary evidence.

Again, please refer to my previous post: if you qualify for an RA go get it. That seems to be the easiest and most legitimate way to work from home. I think you’ll be surprised at what doctors are willing to do for patients in order to poke the eye of the federal government right now

Manager here. One concern I have is that we're starting to see a crackdown at my agency. Clearly necessary, long-term RAs are still going to keep getting through, but many more things on the edge are getting rejected. We can't do short-term RAs anymore, and it has gotten very hard to get limited part-time or as-needed RAs for telework.

Executive here: it’s out of our hands. If HR is going to change policy, crack down and stop approving edge cases, c’est la vie. My principal seems very open to RAs so long as they are properly documented and are approved in an arms-length manner. My principal is also extremely sane and even keeled relative to the rest of this Administration. I guess at the end of the day, we are all trying to avoid the attention of OPM. At some points I suspect OPM will do a survey of RAs at the agencies and compliance with OPM best practices.

I’m going to laugh my ass off if all my Muslim employees get approved for 5 days/week telework for prayers. I’m almost certain my agency does not have a prayer room.

Like I said: take the RA if you can document a legitimate case. The rules of the road are there for everyone to follow.

you. sound. awesome. fist pump!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal agency executive here:

I see a number of RAs come across my desk. The real ones are very real and I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.

The ones that smell like bullsh#t…well, they have documentation and meet the standards my agency’s HR has set for approval.

My management position requires me to be in 5 days/week, but I hate the forced RTO of our BU employees. Morale is in the tank and the people who report up to me are all highly educated, self motivated people.

So if you can convince a doctor to give you an RA, go for it. You won’t get push back from me. I’ll support it assuming you don’t flaunt it with hard evidence that you’re faking it. If you don’t have an RA, well I have to be a hard ass on RTO.

I have not seen an RA yet for religious practices. But I will support it with minimal questions. Similarly, I have told staff to use S/L liberally and told them to not provide me with a write up about why they are using S/L. They already have to attest to the reason in our leave system and I don’t need more explanation.

Unfortunately, these are the rules of the game set by the current Administration. And I can’t hate on anyone who plays the game according to the rules they have set. So please get yourself an RA. My agency actually seems to hand out temporary RAs (30-120 days telework) easily.

I think it is really unfair to those of us who gut it out to give a RA for cases that don’t really deserve it. That’s not good for moral. I have no issue with my colleagues who have RAs for debilitating illnesses that makes commuting a true burden or to facilitate ongoing medical care. But I would be extremely annoyed if someone got an RA for something that I cope with myself.

Also note that OP’s issue is that this woman’s RA means that she can only perform menial tasks that can be done from home due to security needs. This means the rest of the team is overworked. That is a problem regardless of whether the RA is justified.

Executive here again: if she’s doing menial tasks that means she’s not getting promoted. If there’s an issue here - i.e. she’s doing tasks that are too low for her rated grade - then that’s a different discussion. At that point management should be looking at whether or not she needs to be demoted or if she needs to start taking on harder tasks that more accurately represent her grade level.

But none of that has anything to do with getting an RA. I have numerous GS 15s who work from home full-time on an RA and do extremely complicated work and lead initiatives commensurate with their grade level. I also have GS 8s doing more menial task from home on a full-time basis because they have an RA. The RA doesn’t play an issue in any of this.

The way my agency has it set up there’s a firewall between the RA decision process and me as a leader who oversees multiple teams and managers. In my opinion, this is smart. The employee applies for an RA to our HR division. I am informed by HR of the application and HR’s decision on the RA. HR asks me if I have any comments but at the end of the day I am not the decider of whether or not an employee gets an RA to work from home, either full-time or part-time. I prefer it this way because I can say the decision was out of my hands if anyone complains. Of course HR wants to know if I have any information about the employee and whether the need for an RA is truly legitimate and they will take that into consideration, particularly if there’s documentary evidence.

Again, please refer to my previous post: if you qualify for an RA go get it. That seems to be the easiest and most legitimate way to work from home. I think you’ll be surprised at what doctors are willing to do for patients in order to poke the eye of the federal government right now

Manager here. One concern I have is that we're starting to see a crackdown at my agency. Clearly necessary, long-term RAs are still going to keep getting through, but many more things on the edge are getting rejected. We can't do short-term RAs anymore, and it has gotten very hard to get limited part-time or as-needed RAs for telework.

Executive here: it’s out of our hands. If HR is going to change policy, crack down and stop approving edge cases, c’est la vie. My principal seems very open to RAs so long as they are properly documented and are approved in an arms-length manner. My principal is also extremely sane and even keeled relative to the rest of this Administration. I guess at the end of the day, we are all trying to avoid the attention of OPM. At some points I suspect OPM will do a survey of RAs at the agencies and compliance with OPM best practices.

I’m going to laugh my ass off if all my Muslim employees get approved for 5 days/week telework for prayers. I’m almost certain my agency does not have a prayer room.

Like I said: take the RA if you can document a legitimate case. The rules of the road are there for everyone to follow.

Anonymous wrote:Report the slacking worker to doge it's a scam and unfair

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone I work with has an RA for “severe pain” yet is all over FB posting all her activities every weekend.

How do you know what her RA is for?

Anonymous wrote:Someone I work with has an RA for “severe pain” yet is all over FB posting all her activities every weekend.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Federal agency executive here:

I see a number of RAs come across my desk. The real ones are very real and I wouldn’t wish them on anyone.

The ones that smell like bullsh#t…well, they have documentation and meet the standards my agency’s HR has set for approval.

My management position requires me to be in 5 days/week, but I hate the forced RTO of our BU employees. Morale is in the tank and the people who report up to me are all highly educated, self motivated people.

So if you can convince a doctor to give you an RA, go for it. You won’t get push back from me. I’ll support it assuming you don’t flaunt it with hard evidence that you’re faking it. If you don’t have an RA, well I have to be a hard ass on RTO.

I have not seen an RA yet for religious practices. But I will support it with minimal questions. Similarly, I have told staff to use S/L liberally and told them to not provide me with a write up about why they are using S/L. They already have to attest to the reason in our leave system and I don’t need more explanation.

Unfortunately, these are the rules of the game set by the current Administration. And I can’t hate on anyone who plays the game according to the rules they have set. So please get yourself an RA. My agency actually seems to hand out temporary RAs (30-120 days telework) easily.

I think it is really unfair to those of us who gut it out to give a RA for cases that don’t really deserve it. That’s not good for moral. I have no issue with my colleagues who have RAs for debilitating illnesses that makes commuting a true burden or to facilitate ongoing medical care. But I would be extremely annoyed if someone got an RA for something that I cope with myself.

Also note that OP’s issue is that this woman’s RA means that she can only perform menial tasks that can be done from home due to security needs. This means the rest of the team is overworked. That is a problem regardless of whether the RA is justified.

Executive here again: if she’s doing menial tasks that means she’s not getting promoted. If there’s an issue here - i.e. she’s doing tasks that are too low for her rated grade - then that’s a different discussion. At that point management should be looking at whether or not she needs to be demoted or if she needs to start taking on harder tasks that more accurately represent her grade level.

But none of that has anything to do with getting an RA. I have numerous GS 15s who work from home full-time on an RA and do extremely complicated work and lead initiatives commensurate with their grade level. I also have GS 8s doing more menial task from home on a full-time basis because they have an RA. The RA doesn’t play an issue in any of this.

The way my agency has it set up there’s a firewall between the RA decision process and me as a leader who oversees multiple teams and managers. In my opinion, this is smart. The employee applies for an RA to our HR division. I am informed by HR of the application and HR’s decision on the RA. HR asks me if I have any comments but at the end of the day I am not the decider of whether or not an employee gets an RA to work from home, either full-time or part-time. I prefer it this way because I can say the decision was out of my hands if anyone complains. Of course HR wants to know if I have any information about the employee and whether the need for an RA is truly legitimate and they will take that into consideration, particularly if there’s documentary evidence.

Again, please refer to my previous post: if you qualify for an RA go get it. That seems to be the easiest and most legitimate way to work from home. I think you’ll be surprised at what doctors are willing to do for patients in order to poke the eye of the federal government right now

Manager here. One concern I have is that we're starting to see a crackdown at my agency. Clearly necessary, long-term RAs are still going to keep getting through, but many more things on the edge are getting rejected. We can't do short-term RAs anymore, and it has gotten very hard to get limited part-time or as-needed RAs for telework.