Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:35
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A huge part of switching to federal service was the flexibility with compressed days and telework. Now I'm mandated 5 days a week and full time in office. Last summer was I took a lot of leave. Couldn't think of another way to handle camp and no school. Had some babysitters but with min wage $18 was not cheap for even a high schooler. There has to be a better way. We still have situational telework and maxiflex/credit hours. Spouse travels a lot for work and also in office. Please share! What type of fed schedule works? How to maximize the remaining flexibilities?
before covid fed jobs were 5 days a week in person but you could do a compressed day and get 1 day off every few weeks or something. get used to it, get a nanny, daycare, or summer camps we all had to before COVID.
Lies. I’ve been doing ad hoc, then situational, then recurring telework since 2006.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:22
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A huge part of switching to federal service was the flexibility with compressed days and telework. Now I'm mandated 5 days a week and full time in office. Last summer was I took a lot of leave. Couldn't think of another way to handle camp and no school. Had some babysitters but with min wage $18 was not cheap for even a high schooler. There has to be a better way. We still have situational telework and maxiflex/credit hours. Spouse travels a lot for work and also in office. Please share! What type of fed schedule works? How to maximize the remaining flexibilities?
So last summer, you were watching your kids but billing the US taxpayer as if you were working 40 hours a week?
Not OP but try to at least read. She said the kids were in camp.
Being able to pick your kids up when camp ends, because you are not commuting at that time, is not billing the taxpayer for anything. If you had kids or a commute you would know that.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:17
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:A huge part of switching to federal service was the flexibility with compressed days and telework. Now I'm mandated 5 days a week and full time in office. Last summer was I took a lot of leave. Couldn't think of another way to handle camp and no school. Had some babysitters but with min wage $18 was not cheap for even a high schooler. There has to be a better way. We still have situational telework and maxiflex/credit hours. Spouse travels a lot for work and also in office. Please share! What type of fed schedule works? How to maximize the remaining flexibilities?
So last summer, you were watching your kids but billing the US taxpayer as if you were working 40 hours a week?
Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:16
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Remember generations of families survived summers with no telework. We just were more tired, spent more $$ and saw our kids less.
Camps were way cheaper then.
And they were not hard to get into. My mom wasn't working two phones to get us into camp on registration day, she just mailed in a post card and we were enrolled. And a bus took us from the neighborhood to the park for day camp every day.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:13
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A huge part of switching to federal service was the flexibility with compressed days and telework. Now I'm mandated 5 days a week and full time in office. Last summer was I took a lot of leave. Couldn't think of another way to handle camp and no school. Had some babysitters but with min wage $18 was not cheap for even a high schooler. There has to be a better way. We still have situational telework and maxiflex/credit hours. Spouse travels a lot for work and also in office. Please share! What type of fed schedule works? How to maximize the remaining flexibilities?
before covid fed jobs were 5 days a week in person but you could do a compressed day and get 1 day off every few weeks or something. get used to it, get a nanny, daycare, or summer camps we all had to before COVID.
I teleworked 4 days/week before covid. And all my private sector and gov contractor friends and neighbors are still fully remote or hybrid with majority telework. I am the only person on my whole street who commutes 5 days.
It's one thing to say the job is the job and you can quit. But don't pretend RTO is a return to normalcy - 5 days a week in the office hasn't been common for 10 years or more, and still isn't.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:13
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Find a high school or college student to do camp drop-off or pickup for you.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:11
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Remember generations of families survived summers with no telework. We just were more tired, spent more $$ and saw our kids less.
Camps were way cheaper then.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:10
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Use all day camps. That’s what many of us do (and yes, it’s a large expense). Or one of you can quit your job.
If you’re working, you should have your young kids in child care. And $18 is a steal per hour for a summer babysitter.
Stop being cheap and lazy.
Stop being a jerk. A lot of camps are 9:00-4:00. Some have aftercare but personally my kids hate staying that long.
The options are split up the drop off and pick up with your spouse or another family, take leave frequently, or get a summer sitter.
I’m not being a jerk but clearly I struck a nerve. Many of us are in this same summer camp position.
OP needs to use one of the many suggestions already offered. Since folks are having processing issues, I’ll summarize them here:
-Rotate pickup and drop off (if you’re in a two parent household)
-Research other camps
-Hire a sitter
-Use leave
-Carpool with other families
And sorry, but if your kids “hate staying there long,” that’s something for you to troubleshoot. Plenty of parents have kids in before and after care for the school year too.
Many parents do not have the option of just picking up our kids whenever we want. We have to work around the confines of our work schedules.
Every camp we did last summer after care was a ghost town and miserable. I think vast majority of parents teleworked enough to pickup by 3pm most days.
I think many people just leave their elementary kids home all day on screens.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 22:08
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A huge part of switching to federal service was the flexibility with compressed days and telework. Now I'm mandated 5 days a week and full time in office. Last summer was I took a lot of leave. Couldn't think of another way to handle camp and no school. Had some babysitters but with min wage $18 was not cheap for even a high schooler. There has to be a better way. We still have situational telework and maxiflex/credit hours. Spouse travels a lot for work and also in office. Please share! What type of fed schedule works? How to maximize the remaining flexibilities?
I will forever despise Trump for killing a functioning remote / partially remote workforce that allowed workers to have work/life balance. I am so thankful i was able to work partially or fully remote while I had young kids. We had a nanny (before any of you nosy MFers ask) but I could see them during the day, no commute, I could take them to dr. visits taking minimal leave. . . .
It was a perfect situation. Then- boom- 5 days RTO for no good reason. I said FU and retired.
But I will never forgive his cruelty and stupidity, or the people who cheered it. All miserable fuxxs making everyone else miserable too.
Sorry OP. It sucks and you have my sympathy.
Wow is watching your own kids really that horrible?
By quitting my job, losing 2/3 of our household income and our health insurance? Yes, that's really that horrible.
LIKE spending time with my kids. I NEED to work. These policies made it harder to do both.
Ironic you had a female nanny you had in person 5 days a week no remote and you were her employer. You are a MAGA at heart
Anonymous
05/06/2026 21:52
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:My office allows 2 weeks LWOP without having to justify up the chain. That could possibly buy some time.
I don’t want to take LWOP. Who is going to do my work while I’m out?? I’m also a supervisor and I don’t want my employees out more than they need to be. Haven’t you heard- we’re all critically understaffed. I would prefer to let employees leave at 3:30 and then they can telework for 2 more hours later. My team is high performing and I can track their work output, which is more important to me than their hours.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 21:51
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Back before Covid parents did this all the time… you either did all day camps (just like school with before/after care) or hired a summer sitter. We always had an after-school sitter we kept during the summers so when our kid went to a camp further away from home, DH and I took turns doing drop-off and the babysitter did pickup. So the one doing drop-off got to work late and stayed late.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 21:48
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A huge part of switching to federal service was the flexibility with compressed days and telework. Now I'm mandated 5 days a week and full time in office. Last summer was I took a lot of leave. Couldn't think of another way to handle camp and no school. Had some babysitters but with min wage $18 was not cheap for even a high schooler. There has to be a better way. We still have situational telework and maxiflex/credit hours. Spouse travels a lot for work and also in office. Please share! What type of fed schedule works? How to maximize the remaining flexibilities?
before covid fed jobs were 5 days a week in person but you could do a compressed day and get 1 day off every few weeks or something. get used to it, get a nanny, daycare, or summer camps we all had to before COVID.
Before COVID my fed job was 3 days wfh/2 days in office per week. The agency had operated that way for years.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 21:19
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:A huge part of switching to federal service was the flexibility with compressed days and telework. Now I'm mandated 5 days a week and full time in office. Last summer was I took a lot of leave. Couldn't think of another way to handle camp and no school. Had some babysitters but with min wage $18 was not cheap for even a high schooler. There has to be a better way. We still have situational telework and maxiflex/credit hours. Spouse travels a lot for work and also in office. Please share! What type of fed schedule works? How to maximize the remaining flexibilities?
before covid fed jobs were 5 days a week in person but you could do a compressed day and get 1 day off every few weeks or something. get used to it, get a nanny, daycare, or summer camps we all had to before COVID.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 21:16
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:A huge part of switching to federal service was the flexibility with compressed days and telework. Now I'm mandated 5 days a week and full time in office. Last summer was I took a lot of leave. Couldn't think of another way to handle camp and no school. Had some babysitters but with min wage $18 was not cheap for even a high schooler. There has to be a better way. We still have situational telework and maxiflex/credit hours. Spouse travels a lot for work and also in office. Please share! What type of fed schedule works? How to maximize the remaining flexibilities?
I will forever despise Trump for killing a functioning remote / partially remote workforce that allowed workers to have work/life balance. I am so thankful i was able to work partially or fully remote while I had young kids. We had a nanny (before any of you nosy MFers ask) but I could see them during the day, no commute, I could take them to dr. visits taking minimal leave. . . .
It was a perfect situation. Then- boom- 5 days RTO for no good reason. I said FU and retired.
But I will never forgive his cruelty and stupidity, or the people who cheered it. All miserable fuxxs making everyone else miserable too.
Sorry OP. It sucks and you have my sympathy.
Wow is watching your own kids really that horrible?
By quitting my job, losing 2/3 of our household income and our health insurance? Yes, that's really that horrible.
I LIKE spending time with my kids. I NEED to work. These policies made it harder to do both.
Anonymous
05/06/2026 21:15
Subject: Office fed parent - summer schedule hacks?
My office allows 2 weeks LWOP without having to justify up the chain. That could possibly buy some time.