> I wish the fed gov would see the writing on the wall.

It does, the clowns in the Wilson Bldg don't. Fed leadership knows they can't compete on salary and a lot of other things, but working conditions has been and will continue to be a metric in talent management.

Illinois still has Dem senators, gotta move it to Alabama. I'm sure it's purely coincidence lots of FBI functions have been forcibly moved to a place most Black feds left for a reason. Ditto the USDA moves etc.

Some of the wines that come out of way southern Illinois are actually really, really good and vineyards are genuinely gorgeous. I also really love Carbondale, that’s a great small town. A criminally underrated part of the country, and another place I wouldn’t mind living 😅

Republicans: Best we can do is mandatory in the office in rural southern Illinois.

It didn’t change people, it provided proof for the long held belief: “I could do this job just as easily at home.”

And for most email jobs, it is true, and the last 3 years bore this out. Now there’s concrete proof it’s true, so the argument is stronger.

Have any of the remote/teleworking policies changed? From the way they are currently written it will be hard to force anyone back

People didn’t change. It’s not like people enjoyed their commute before the pandemic. We came in because it was the only option.

Now? We’ve seen that the technology and infrastructure is able to make it work. Everyone is seeing that they can do the exact same work, at equal or better efficiency, from the comfort of their home, without having to sit for an hour in their car, bus, train, whatever.

It means more time for sleeping, or to spend time with family, or for fitness, or hobbies. It means saving money on lunches (or time spent packing one, and healthier lunch too).

And now they’re being told to give that up and come back to the office, for vague indeterminate reasons like “we miss you” or “you have to be here for team building”.

There are three categories of people who seem to be pushing to kill telework:

• Senior management who can afford to live close to their office and who have a dedicated parking space

• extroverts who have no social life outside the office and rely on their coworkers to be their social life support

• Real estate/business owners who rely on commuters/office workers to make income.

I have no sympathy for any of the above.

If the wheels haven't fallen off of the bus after nearly 3 years of working from home, I'm having a really hard time seeing a good reason for why exactly workers are being forced back into the office. IMO if you want to make new hires come in - person fine, but it's been 3 years now and your existing employees have all made changes to their own lifestyles. This basically amounts to constructive dismissal for many.

I am glad the unions are sticking up for workers here in the face of stupid policy changes.

I’d spend the next thirty years happily working for my agency if they’d move some of us (or let me move) to Chicago, incredibly good rent prices in a cool city plus that relatively high locality adjustment is an absolute dream.

That's why you use a burner email address.

You're just being lazy. It says "CONTINUE READING THIS STORY WITH A FREE ACCOUNT."

Will be interesting to see if there's another push like in the Trump administration to move agencies out of DC since the pandemic and the union has proved a lot of federal work can be done elsewhere.

>never demanded the right to work at home.

You're not familiar with the several and many Telework acts passed by the federal government over the years? One of the most important factors for the ease with which a lot of agencies were able to go fully remote was years and years of regularly scheduled telework.

It's more than 1000 characters, so I can't post it all at once. And I don't have time to do more than that.

Ah yes, they only need your email, address, place of work, phone number, and full name. But it’s free!

We just had a town hall in my directorate where they said that 'changes might be coming' to bring us in three days a week and that remote position waivers are paused.

And many of the questions in the chat were, has the mayor's office released a safety plan for the metro? (crickets). What is [agency] doing to ensure that people don't leave for higher pay and remote work in the private sector (crickets). When will there be solid policy? (crickets)

Holy shit, get it together. I myself had a job interview elsewhere today. I wish the fed gov would see the writing on the wall. If you don't support your employees.... why should we support you?

Nice try Bisnow shill

Agencies have gotten themselves into a bind. Large recruitment efforts have been centered on offering workplace flexibilities. Locality pay determinations have been favorably offered for telework/remote staff to get locality pay for the official duty station of their employer, but they work in an alternative work site. It is only a matter of time, before the goose is cooked and things start to be audited. People who moved to Wyoming and fly into the city a few times each month, will get their Wyoming locality pay (+16.2% adjustment), and that is a big negative delta from the District of Columbia's locality pay (+32.49 adjustment). It is going to be sad, comical, and scary for some.

We are only in the beginning stages of this work place flexibility audit and/or fall-out.

Agencies are reviewing, updating, and informing staff of their Telework Policy changes in a piecemeal manner. I strongly suspect, as special interest groups (The DC Mayor, Chamber of Commerce, etc.) keep applying pressure we will all get more clear guidance. People vote with their feet, I have heard people say they were taking a job two GS levels lower, due to the fact they would get to work remotely. Telework or remote work is only tier one of the battle. Tier two is good faith conversations about locality pay determinations.

well now that you mention, my IBS is pretty debilitating sometimes…

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We have reliably known, for at least a decade, that significant commuting is a net negative on individual and public health. With the cost of living in the DC being as extreme as it is, many people are forced into supercommuting practices, which has significant negative health consequences in the long-term. It’s fantastic that so many people can opt out of commuting, it’s an amazing development for individual and public health.

I would be completely fine in going to the office like I do now after my year probation is up if I could get an equivalent unit for the same price in a similar neighborhood in DC (absolutely no shot) or my pay was doubled so I could afford DC.

>up with it. I imagine that making people go back into the office with the commutes that they have will massively impact on employee retention and overall quality of life, especially considering federal employees’ relatively low pay. I’m glad the unions are fighting this, and hopefully most of us can stay remote/hybrid forever.

A full year of a long commute sounds horrible. Please, please, please think liberally about reasonable accommodations ("RA"). Let's just say, a little birdie told me: some folks have argued successfully they need a RA for telework because they can not wear a mask due to their asthma. Telework can be granted for medical reasons (i.e., asthma...etc.), since most agencies have a policy in place that folks need to wear a mask if they think they have been exposed to COVID-19. Heck, you might even have Anthropophobia. Just saying.

Paywall

The pandemic really changed people, because before 2020, most people commuted to/from their jobs and never demanded the right to work at home.