Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Telework is very helpful for people who need a lot of ongoing therapy/treatments. It allows them to minimize time off which allows them to continue working instead of taking sick leave. With telework they can take 2 hrs of sick leave then work 6 hours; with no telework they may have to take almost a full day of sick leave and not work at all. I have colleagues who will probably have to quit or go on FMLA if their RA is removed … and then we will be royally screwed because we are very short handed.

In the past, a lot of people would choose appointment locations close to where they work, rather than close to where they live.

Plenty of reasons for why that's not a great option.

a) there's a shortage of doctors right now in many fields - it can take months or longer to get an appointment with a practice as a new patient. And what happens when you finally make that switch, and then you get RIF-ed or your office is relocated and that practice is no longer close to where you work?

b) depending on where your office is, there may not be many options for medical care in the immediate area, especially if you are looking for a specialist.

c) I've personally noted that more and more doctors are practicing in the suburbs, rather than downtown. Doctors that I used to regularly see at their K St. offices are now at those offices one day a week or less, with the balance of their time at an office in Montgomery County. This makes it far easier to get an appointment at their Chevy Chase or Gaithersburg location than in DC.

d) Doctors aren't interchangeable. If you have a significant medical condition and need to see a specialist, and you find a good specialist, you want to stay with that doctor rather than switch to someone whose primary selling point is that they are the closest to your office. In my experience, many specialists are in locations not easily accessible by public transportation - Inova, Suburban Hospital, VHC, Sibley, etc. Assuming that one has a car but metros into work due to a lack of available parking (common for many in my office) it's a lot easier and quicker to get to those specialists by car from home than by public transportation from work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s amazing how much meaner people are on DCUM than on other parts of the internet

It’s because people don’t use the report button. Jeff deletes mean people like a flash.

The anti-fed trolling has increased dramatically this year.

There's very little trolling, just a lot of people (probably many of them feds) pointing out that telework doesn't need to be provided.

If you don’t have an RA, why is someone else’s accommodation your problem? Just a bunch of busybodies.

Because it’s not being fairly applied. Many of us don’t want to lie and get doctors to sign off on it.

I like RTO. I think if they gave us all 1-2 days of telework everyone would be happy. My agency had a lot of issues with remote work. Employees were not available when needed and of course fed supervisors couldn’t do anything about it. I had one where I had pages and pages of documentation of someone not doing work and not being available (missing meetings) and HR couldn’t do anything more than give warnings.

Then instead of ruining it for everyone, how about fixing what was wrong?

My proposal:
Eliminate AWS - people working 4 10s are not as productive as 5 8s because they get fewer core/productive hours
Institute and enforce daily core hours
Get rid of G phones that allowed telework abuse (like “attending meetings” while in the car line or at the dentist or whatever)
Enforce locality pay, no one should be living in Richmond and collecting a DC salary.
Make sure people are actually working where they are living and say they are living.
For a start.

Alternatively you could focus on work product and what is being accomplished. You know, the point of working.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s amazing how much meaner people are on DCUM than on other parts of the internet

It’s because people don’t use the report button. Jeff deletes mean people like a flash.

The anti-fed trolling has increased dramatically this year.

There's very little trolling, just a lot of people (probably many of them feds) pointing out that telework doesn't need to be provided.

If you don’t have an RA, why is someone else’s accommodation your problem? Just a bunch of busybodies.

Because it’s not being fairly applied. Many of us don’t want to lie and get doctors to sign off on it.

I like RTO. I think if they gave us all 1-2 days of telework everyone would be happy. My agency had a lot of issues with remote work. Employees were not available when needed and of course fed supervisors couldn’t do anything about it. I had one where I had pages and pages of documentation of someone not doing work and not being available (missing meetings) and HR couldn’t do anything more than give warnings.

Then instead of ruining it for everyone, how about fixing what was wrong?

My proposal:
Eliminate AWS - people working 4 10s are not as productive as 5 8s because they get fewer core/productive hours
Institute and enforce daily core hours
Get rid of G phones that allowed telework abuse (like “attending meetings” while in the car line or at the dentist or whatever)
Enforce locality pay, no one should be living in Richmond and collecting a DC salary.
Make sure people are actually working where they are living and say they are living.
For a start.

Why should someone with a full time telework RA be collecting a DC salary in the first place?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s amazing how much meaner people are on DCUM than on other parts of the internet

It’s because people don’t use the report button. Jeff deletes mean people like a flash.

The anti-fed trolling has increased dramatically this year.

There's very little trolling, just a lot of people (probably many of them feds) pointing out that telework doesn't need to be provided.

If you don’t have an RA, why is someone else’s accommodation your problem? Just a bunch of busybodies.

Because it’s not being fairly applied. Many of us don’t want to lie and get doctors to sign off on it.

I like RTO. I think if they gave us all 1-2 days of telework everyone would be happy. My agency had a lot of issues with remote work. Employees were not available when needed and of course fed supervisors couldn’t do anything about it. I had one where I had pages and pages of documentation of someone not doing work and not being available (missing meetings) and HR couldn’t do anything more than give warnings.

Then instead of ruining it for everyone, how about fixing what was wrong?

My proposal:
Eliminate AWS - people working 4 10s are not as productive as 5 8s because they get fewer core/productive hours
Institute and enforce daily core hours
Get rid of G phones that allowed telework abuse (like “attending meetings” while in the car line or at the dentist or whatever)
Enforce locality pay, no one should be living in Richmond and collecting a DC salary.
Make sure people are actually working where they are living and say they are living.
For a start.

Anonymous wrote:It also appears HHS is no longer considering FMLA requests which seems downright illegal. Curious how that will play out. Feel bad for anyone who is pregnant or would need to apply for FMLA.

I doubt that’s true. I think the issue is that people who didn’t want to RTO are requesting 3 months of FMLA for stress or depression.

It also appears HHS is no longer considering FMLA requests which seems downright illegal. Curious how that will play out. Feel bad for anyone who is pregnant or would need to apply for FMLA.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would one of these bring back telework -

-Dem winning the next election
-A good economy
-Union strike

We have no unions and we’re prohibited by law from going on strike.

I’d like to see someone litigate the fact that we can’t go on strike. It’s insane. Every other country on earth gets to go on strike. I used to hear we couldn’t go on strike because we were treated well and had unions, but we don’t anymore. I think I have a right to go on strike.

It has been litigated.

Anonymous wrote:Why the federal government HR is so incompetent?
I am not a fed, but it seems the problem is not people who abuse the system. The problem is those who should distinguish real disabilities from fake ones, but can’t competently perform their job. Am I wrong?

I can answer this. Feds get sued and always, always lose in court or settle. Even when you have an iron tight case, we lose. So when you want to remove an employee, you have to go through warnings, PIPs and have an entire case file on someone.

HR is reluctant to go over a doctors recommendation even when they know the doctor is exaggerating and lying.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s amazing how much meaner people are on DCUM than on other parts of the internet

It’s because people don’t use the report button. Jeff deletes mean people like a flash.

The anti-fed trolling has increased dramatically this year.

There's very little trolling, just a lot of people (probably many of them feds) pointing out that telework doesn't need to be provided.

If you don’t have an RA, why is someone else’s accommodation your problem? Just a bunch of busybodies.

Because it’s not being fairly applied. Many of us don’t want to lie and get doctors to sign off on it.

I like RTO. I think if they gave us all 1-2 days of telework everyone would be happy. My agency had a lot of issues with remote work. Employees were not available when needed and of course fed supervisors couldn’t do anything about it. I had one where I had pages and pages of documentation of someone not doing work and not being available (missing meetings) and HR couldn’t do anything more than give warnings.

Anonymous wrote:Would one of these bring back telework -

-Dem winning the next election
-A good economy
-Union strike

We have no unions and we’re prohibited by law from going on strike.

I’d like to see someone litigate the fact that we can’t go on strike. It’s insane. Every other country on earth gets to go on strike. I used to hear we couldn’t go on strike because we were treated well and had unions, but we don’t anymore. I think I have a right to go on strike.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s amazing how much meaner people are on DCUM than on other parts of the internet

It’s because people don’t use the report button. Jeff deletes mean people like a flash.

The anti-fed trolling has increased dramatically this year.

There's very little trolling, just a lot of people (probably many of them feds) pointing out that telework doesn't need to be provided.

If you don’t have an RA, why is someone else’s accommodation your problem? Just a bunch of busybodies.

Some of us are the ones trying to figure out how to process them fairly and legitimately.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s amazing how much meaner people are on DCUM than on other parts of the internet

It’s because people don’t use the report button. Jeff deletes mean people like a flash.

The anti-fed trolling has increased dramatically this year.

There's very little trolling, just a lot of people (probably many of them feds) pointing out that telework doesn't need to be provided.

Well many of us actually had a collective bargaining agreement that included telework, and that was illegally revoked. So telework actually should be provided to everyone.

Wasn't that litigated, invalidating the collective bargaining agreement?

Anonymous wrote:Would one of these bring back telework -

-Dem winning the next election
-A good economy
-Union strike

Maybe, except the federal unions cannot strike. The best they can do is win their court cases but the administration will probably continue to appeal or just ignore the court decision.

A new Dem president likely won’t prioritize telework but maybe they would at least repeal the RTO order.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s amazing how much meaner people are on DCUM than on other parts of the internet

It’s because people don’t use the report button. Jeff deletes mean people like a flash.

The anti-fed trolling has increased dramatically this year.

There's very little trolling, just a lot of people (probably many of them feds) pointing out that telework doesn't need to be provided.

Well many of us actually had a collective bargaining agreement that included telework, and that was illegally revoked. So telework actually should be provided to everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s amazing how much meaner people are on DCUM than on other parts of the internet

It’s because people don’t use the report button. Jeff deletes mean people like a flash.

The anti-fed trolling has increased dramatically this year.

There's very little trolling, just a lot of people (probably many of them feds) pointing out that telework doesn't need to be provided.

If you don’t have an RA, why is someone else’s accommodation your problem? Just a bunch of busybodies.