Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Article in the NYT today about DOGE talks about how Senator Ernst of Iowa recommended selling off fed bldgs and making more people remote to save money. So who knows.

That is good way to hire workforce across the country. It may be a good selling point to GOP.

I’m the SSA poster, and we’ve been doing this. Bigly. We already had Field Offices run by the state, paid for by the federal government. Post COVID, we’ve been opening what used to be DC based jobs nationwide and to FOs, which gives people in small towns across the country the opportunity to compete, while holding our payroll down, because they aren’t paying everyone DC locality. And it helps us, because Field office work is different than what DC based people do, and the DC based people who understood it have been retiring. We need the expertise.

Our division of 80 or so is easily in 10 states— likely more. Last where are you logging in from was the DMV and Baltimore— California, Colorado, Georgia, Florida, a couple New England, a NOLA, Birmingham… The only downside is that with core hours and time zones, we have a narrow band to schedule division wide meetings and training— it all has to start no earlier than 12:30 and end by 2:30. Longer training have to be run twice or recorded. 1:1 and small group meeting are often more flexible unless it’s still East Coast/ West Coast. And they do try to divide Branches by time zones. So, Branch 1 is West Coast, Branch 2 is East, Branch 3 is Central and Mountain.

So yeah, these red state Senators should be fighting for full telework with remote options. It brings high graded (GS 12-14 in our case) federal jobs to their districts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect people on formal remote work agreements are safer than people just doing telework.

Most formal remote workers in my agency are local remote, they were teleworking before Covid. We are already reducing headcount due to flat budget and increasing costs, so we don't really fill in positions left by retirees. Probably we hired only a few remote workers across countries since Covid.

Certainly non-local remote is going to be safer than local remote, since agencies would have to pay relocation for the former, but both are going to be safer than anyone teleworking 4 days a week right now.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am fully remote but fully expect that to change. Yes, I understand that some of us work the entire 8 hours or more, but realistically, most people work less when they work from home. I think it’s disingenuous not to concede that point. I’m not looking forward to RTO but I can concede that if I was in management, I’d want people in the office. We had a longer run post pandemic than most and I’m grateful that I had this brief period in life of remote but it’s a privilege that I never expected to go on indefinitely.

Many people work less when they’re in the office as well so the point about some working less when at home is moot. A poor performer will be a poor performer wherever they are, the difference is in the office they will drag others down with them with distracting questions/ conversations, feigned helplessness and other pointless in-person interactions.

I’m in management and I don’t feel strongly about people in the office. I feel strongly about output and my team has been great while fully remote. They were fine in-person as well but I see them going the extra mile while wfh. We were also able to hire people that I don’t think we would have been able to attract because of wfh. I’m worried about losing talent.

+1. We have strict productivity measures. I hit 85% monthly or I go on a PIP. I was hitting about 100% in the office. I hot above 110% easy at home. You want me in the office? Fine. You get 84.6% productivity.

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

SSA is Baltimore based. DC based was in two leased buildings. The leases had already run and gone to year long extensions pre-COVID, but we can’t get and keep an actual Commissioner, so no decisions were made (we were along in CBA negations to go from 60 to 80% telework). Then COVID and we all went 100% telework. They let both leases go in 2021-2022. There is now a small presence in downtown DC. Very small. NBU goes in 1-2 times a week. There is no room for more. Not hundreds of employees once a week, lets alone daily. Most federal space is leased, not owned by GSA. Since our space is no longer leased, it has to go through procurement. They had been in procurement to move from the space we had for THREE YEARS when COVID hit ,while doing one year extensions try to find appropriate space.

Federal leasing on the scale that gets people who were always 60% telework back in 100% takes forever and has to follow a federal procurement policy and look at things like proximity to where workers live and public transport. That’s the law. It’s a wee bit harder than— hey— there is an empty building go there.

And here is who everyone but true destroyer the government does not want to quit— people who understand and can implement SSA Regs. Which are COMPLICATED. You and your 40:credits? Maybe not. But for every normal situation, there is a MQGE + green card holder became citizen who was employed for a while by a small business that went into bankruptcy and didn’t comply with FICA. Because mostly I untangle and write justifications for very complicated, odd income stream, weird retirement situations and get people their benefits.

To do this technical, specialized legal stuff. When I start, 4-5 hours can pass, and I haven’t moved or noticed the time (which I need to stop doing, because it’s killing my body as I get older). I always thought 1 day in office a PP would be perfect for face to face meetings and training. The rest of the time? I’m ADHD. I was never able to do my technical writing in the office. It’s too complex and has too many distractions. So I did 90% of my work in the 60% telework part of my week. Now, I do significantly more in 5 days at home. I also work longer hours, because stopping something complex before it’s done is annoying. And I have extra time because no commute. I it in for credit. But I usually end up going over the 24 hours I can bank pretty fast, and taxpayers get free work.

I have zero public contact. And I have a meeting with my PL every other week and my manager once a month, plus a branch meeting once a month. Those would be nice in person. Training should be in person some. Training via Teams makes me want to poke my eye out. Everything else? Going in just slows me down.

Anonymous wrote:Omg how is this a question?
They told you all Feds back to work however also major layoffs day one.
Yes both of these are going to happen.

You are going to lose everything yes you idiots are.

They are going to burn the country to the ground you didn’t listen you voted for this crap now deal
With it.

Please let this be me! Especially if I lose full telework. I’m old enough and have been at this long enough that I would get one full year of severance for a RIF. Topped out DC metro 13. Plenty of time to figure out what to do next. My pension looks good. I’d take the year in a heartbeat. BUT, we are a major agency actually not based in DC. And we gave up the leases to both our major DC metro offices after COVID. We have a small building downtown with just enough room for NBU management to hotel 2 days a week each. I can’t go in if I want to. And we are bargaining unit with a new contract with 5 days of telework that expires after 20228. So yeah, good luck with that.

Also, we are an agency that both sides of the aisle really wants to function effectively, because we have a huge, politically powerful constituency that does not divide into red or blue.

Before you say “fire day 1”, book at how much severance feds get. I’m 52 with 21 years in and get a full year, which is the max (there is a big multiplier for every year over age 50). Do you want to pay me for a full year while I work another job? Be my guest.

Anonymous wrote:I suspect people on formal remote work agreements are safer than people just doing telework.

Most formal remote workers in my agency are local remote, they were teleworking before Covid. We are already reducing headcount due to flat budget and increasing costs, so we don't really fill in positions left by retirees. Probably we hired only a few remote workers across countries since Covid.

I suspect people on formal remote work agreements are safer than people just doing telework.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

My agency was in 2 private buildings- one we fully occupied and one partially. At some point they stopped leasing the partially occupied one and put everyone into the fully occupied one.

Then, they allowed everyone to telework 80% years prior to the pandemic and made plans to leave that building and move to another private building that we now partially occupy. I think there might be another federal department in that building but there are also private companies too.

So we moved to a new private building with greatly reduced space based on their expectation that we would telework 80% of the time.

Np. My agency consolidated space in our HQ building and other federal workers are now on the floors we used to occupy. In the field offices we gave up expensive leases and moved to less expensive and substantially smaller spaces. We started to experiment with this consolidation in the field during budget cuts in 2013 so some people have been teleworking at least 50% of the time for over a decade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

My agency moved location to a smaller building, with the intention of not everyone fitting into the new location.

DOGE Doucheb@gs don't care.

Y'all think they are going to think with reason? No. They will force people back, wait for the natural attrition and no, they won't rent more space. After the attrition, they might sell off fed buildings because the rent-back is a boon to the oligarch class.

OP is screwed as are all of you feds who don't want to RTO. Maybe it's temp, maybe. but don't count on it.

Also, this "my team rocks remote"...i call BS. I manage a hybrid team and they are fantastic but not as responsive or fantastic remote. In our two days together, we do more than in the other 3.

Except bolded, you are not wrong. I don’t know why ppl think those two care about anything but headcount

I’m not a Fed but I have family members who are and I’ve been trying to get in myself. The draw for me was telework. Without it, I am no longer interested. I think RTO is real and will result in early retirement and lots of resignations which will eliminate the need to lay people off. This will be a lot less painful than eliminating 50% of the workforce (or whatever their goal is). People who want their jobs will be able to stay because they will be needed. People who prioritize WFH will go elsewhere. I’m sorry for people who started off remote or telework and expected it to always be this way but not as much for those who were hired initially to be in the office. It sucks but at least they enjoyed more than 4 years of flexibility. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back in 4 years.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

My agency moved location to a smaller building, with the intention of not everyone fitting into the new location.

DOGE Doucheb@gs don't care.

Y'all think they are going to think with reason? No. They will force people back, wait for the natural attrition and no, they won't rent more space. After the attrition, they might sell off fed buildings because the rent-back is a boon to the oligarch class.

OP is screwed as are all of you feds who don't want to RTO. Maybe it's temp, maybe. but don't count on it.

Also, this "my team rocks remote"...i call BS. I manage a hybrid team and they are fantastic but not as responsive or fantastic remote. In our two days together, we do more than in the other 3.

I am always intrigued by people who can't seem to understand that the way things work at their workplace may not apply to other workplaces. Do you really not realize this? You think what works best for your office will work best for all?

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

My agency was in 2 private buildings- one we fully occupied and one partially. At some point they stopped leasing the partially occupied one and put everyone into the fully occupied one.

Then, they allowed everyone to telework 80% years prior to the pandemic and made plans to leave that building and move to another private building that we now partially occupy. I think there might be another federal department in that building but there are also private companies too.

So we moved to a new private building with greatly reduced space based on their expectation that we would telework 80% of the time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

My agency moved location to a smaller building, with the intention of not everyone fitting into the new location.

DOGE Doucheb@gs don't care.

Y'all think they are going to think with reason? No. They will force people back, wait for the natural attrition and no, they won't rent more space. After the attrition, they might sell off fed buildings because the rent-back is a boon to the oligarch class.

OP is screwed as are all of you feds who don't want to RTO. Maybe it's temp, maybe. but don't count on it.

Also, this "my team rocks remote"...i call BS. I manage a hybrid team and they are fantastic but not as responsive or fantastic remote. In our two days together, we do more than in the other 3.

Maybe...you're not as good a manager as you think.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To those of you saying your depth has reduced office space—-what does this mean? Has the building been sold to a developer and your area is now a condo?

My agency moved location to a smaller building, with the intention of not everyone fitting into the new location.

DOGE Doucheb@gs don't care.

Y'all think they are going to think with reason? No. They will force people back, wait for the natural attrition and no, they won't rent more space. After the attrition, they might sell off fed buildings because the rent-back is a boon to the oligarch class.

OP is screwed as are all of you feds who don't want to RTO. Maybe it's temp, maybe. but don't count on it.

Also, this "my team rocks remote"...i call BS. I manage a hybrid team and they are fantastic but not as responsive or fantastic remote. In our two days together, we do more than in the other 3.

Anonymous wrote:DOGE is just two guys in room. They’re not Congress, an office or anything. Baddies how long til Trump gets sick if musk and moves on to his next shiny object?

I gave it a Scaramuchi but was wrong. I don't think he'll make it Jan. 6, I mean inauguration day.