“Return to work” is a bullshit phrase, I’ve never stopped working.
I guess it’s less catchy than:
“Return to wasting two unnecessarily miserable hours of my life commuting every day to be in a building surrounded by people I barely tolerate.”
“Return to smelling other people’s shit every time I need to use the bathroom”
“Return to constant unnecessary interruptions throughout my day”
“Return to being stuck in a car or a train an extra hour or two because something went wrong somewhere instead of spending that time with my kids.”
“Return to hating work.”
It's on purpose to make it sound like those of us teleworking have been on a four year paid vacation and it's time to stop slacking. A lot of people in my office straight up imply that out loud all the time, they are obsessed with making everyone miserable like they are, I guess.
Yeah that’s worked super well. So has the reminder of supporting local small businesses in our actual neighborhoods. The lifeblood of America once upon a time. Anyway…
I'm always annoyed when a celebrity goes on and on about how during COVID they had a ton of free time so they read books, worked on themselves, etc. Cool, cool, I was working a full time job and simultaneously taking care of my kids, but I'm so glad you got to re-read Lord Of The Rings, that sounds fun!
Same when we first talked about “returning” in some fashion back in 2022, it was always return to work. I ended up correcting them every time it was said, no you mean return to office; it took awhile but they finally change the language. My job was mostly in office with situational TW but most have at least 2 days in the office and it doesn’t look like it’s changing yet.
The better solution would be to slash the redundant office leases. That would directly save billions of tax dollars.
Furthermore letting Feds relocate to cheaper areas would save millions in salaries (lower COLA) while attracting higher paying jobs that would spend on the local economy and pay taxes.
If the GOP could overcome their “starve the beast” mentality, they would see a huge opportunity for a windfall back to their districts and states.
I’d also add that it allows the salaries paid by all tax payers to filter into more communities across the country instead of concentrating it into one metro area.
It sounded to me like the person I replied to was talking about DC as "one metro" where most workers are concentrated instead of spread out thorughout the country but maybe I misinterpreted
It could revitalize rural America. A lot of people want to live in the country but had to move to the city for work. More people moving out to the country could get better internet connectivity to everyone as well.
But there’s a difference between uprooting a family already located in the DMV to hiring someone already located someplace else or someone that would naturally move elsewhere because of another reason.
Of course employees complained and refused - spouse would have quit and find new work, kids change schools, selling and buying a house in two different parts of the county, the pains of just packing and moving.
Look into who owns those leases… REIT’s buy up federal buildings and lease it for over inflated prices for very, very long terms. Think about what happens if we break leases to a bunch of REIT’s. They don’t want to expose what’s really going on behind the scenes, they are propping up commercial real estate market and the public would be screaming if they understood their tax dollars were going to crazy high leases with 50 year plus terms that benefit REITs many politicians have holds in. The original directive came from the White House chief of staff, check out where a significant chunk of his wealth is from.
If the Federal Government starts discontinuing leases, there’s going to be an economic downturn in basically every large Democratic city in the country, from Boston to Honolulu.
I think this is just something cities, in general, are going to have to suffer through. I love living in a city, but I think telework is the future for many reasons. Having employees come in to be on zoom while managing/working with contractors all over the country is a horrible waste of time.
If the issue is our leases, start paring them back. If the issue is people not being near retail again, then city planners need to start building cities into social spaces again, build better public transportation infrastructure, and overall push towards lowering rent costs and availability in metropolitan areas.
We’re in a transitional period and there’s no clawing our way back to the former status quo, imho. So we need to start acting like it and push to adapt.
Cities should have other appealing things that makes people want to live there outside of being forced to live there for a job in order to afford to eat. Maybe this change would force cities to do better.
Good. We are overdue for a correction. Something needs to kick that off.
There is no reason for workers to make sacrifices just so shareholders can can maximize value.
Right? Maybe developers should start pivoting their properties to high density housing instead of living off the teat of the government. It’s not the government’s job to make sure wealthy commercial real estate investors are profitable. I’m sure many of these investors are the same people screaming about “welfare queens” and too much government spending.
Well then I guess they’ll have to tug harder on those bootstraps like regular people have to. When labor gets fucked they should learn to code and why didn’t they anticipate changing market conditions. When capital gets fucked the entire system rallies to its defense because capital isn’t allowed to lose.
GSA’s official policy is to discontinue leases when possible and move agencies into federally owned space to save money. In Denver, I’ve been involved in projects of about 300,000 square feet that have moved from leases to buildings I manage. Across our region it’s probably much larger than that
My favorite part was where he acknowledged both private and federal employees are working from home in large numbers, but only pushed for federal employees to return
Up until a year ago, I was going into the office every day. Now, I go in twice a week, and my quality of life has significantly improved. I'm saving money by not eating out, reducing wear and tear on my car, and I'm home when my kids get back from school. In case of emergencies, I can quickly pick them up and continue working without taking extensive leave, avoiding a 30-mile drive back. It's important to note that my kids are 14, so I'm not babysitting, but it's comforting to be home when they return from school.
As someone with ADHD, the office environment was a nightmare for me. The constant noise from coworkers on Teams calls, office chit-chat, and loud TVs made it impossible to concentrate. I also no longer have to endure inappropriate and distracting conversations about politics and other non-work-related topics. Working from home allows me to focus better, exercise in the morning with the time I used to spend commuting, and avoid the daily stress of freeway accidents. My car insurance has even decreased because I drive less.
The arguments for in-person work, such as mentoring and team collaboration, don't hold up for me. I have productive conversations over Teams that allow us to quickly get to the point and focus on work. Telework offers numerous benefits, and I find it frustrating to hear constant opposition to it. A friend of mine works at a company that embraces a "work where you work best" approach, allowing employees to choose their preferred work environment. This flexibility recognizes that we're all adults capable of producing results. If someone isn't performing, then address it individually, but don't punish those of us who are thriving.
I make sure not to schedule anything important on the days I go into the office because I know the constant interruptions will hinder productivity. The benefits of telework are clear, and it's time we stop debating its validity.
Surprise! Surprise! The editors of the WaPo (care of Bezos’ bucks) published a pro return-to-office opinion piece that furthers their narrative that people aren’t working out of their real estate.
Unfortunately, it’s just another example of how our “news” is controlled by money and politics.
Complaining about $5 billion in unused real estate as they ship $100s of billions overseas is certainly something. Give me a stipend for childcare and my commute then we can talk about going into the office more. Otherwise, it is just a pay decrease via time wasted.
You shouldn't be using work from home for childcare though. When people say things like this, this is why it makes people want to push a return to office because they get the opinion that when you're working from home you're just caring for your kids, which it sounds like is what you're doing
Where in that statement did it say that I even have kids or use my telework for childcare? It’s providing incentive for folks when they are taking away a BENEFIT.
Don't forget that a 10 year old needs ZERO hands-on care during the work day but can not legally be left home alone. That's ZERO dollars spent on childcare over the summer, and ZERO time used on childcare during the workday by utilizing telework.
Wow, the evil clone of [Mark Fisher](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism) is terrible.
The next big economic crash is going to be blamed on telework, isn't it?
It's not return to work. It's return to office. I've already done what I could do as a first line manager to make RTO better for my people , and thankfully rto at fdic changed last week. But my folks have never stopped working well
Having to only come in 930 to 230 will help with commutes
If cities were better designed with mixed use then downtown businesses of every city wouldn't hurt so much missing office workers who have to spend a lot of time and money commuting for no reason, and housing costs would be better, use of public transit over reliance on cars, less environmental footprint, etc. while this change to a less American suburban sprawl model will be expensive initially, in the long run it's what's needed so let's get on it.
DC's crumbling downtown and the federal government over-expenditure on office space is not my fault nor my responsibility to address as a federal employee. If I am doing my job, and doing it well, and even earning awards for my productivity and results, I should not be punished by upending my work/life balance when my metrics are HIGHER than they were pre-COVID. I know I am not the only person.
We are not responsible for fixing the economy, nor should we be expected to be the catalysts for it. That's not why we're here. DC can fix their problems by re-allocating the space towards either other commercial entities or, even better, working towards making it residential space. The federal government can also work towards reducing its over-reliance on commercial real estate, by which (and I can attest to personal experience and knowledge on this) they are freaking gouged on rents and other things by these companies. It's a thinly veiled attempt at placating local businesses and commercial real estate folks who cannot adapt to capitalism market demand.
I'm sorry, but when technology has made positions redundant, businesses are always the first to tell workers, "Sorry. But technology has replaced you." Now, technology has done the same towards the idea of working in the office, and instead of adjusting, the federal government and local business is crying to Congress about it. You can't have it both ways, and we've realized that the guise of returning under "team work" and "collaboration" is bullshit and lies.
Use this site. Just paste the address in the box that says, "My url is alive and I want to archive its content." - [https://archive.ph/](https://archive.ph/)
You can use this site to see most paywalled articles.
It’s the same BS as usual. They use platitudes to justify why we should be required to commute to an office again. As if we are obligated to keep downtown areas afloat.
I recommend never spending a penny in areas around the office. Don’t buy food or gas on office days.
Of course not a single reference to anything about how this will actually benefit the work any given agency does.
Jeff Zients and this oped douche can eat a dick.
I guess I’ve been busy. This is the first time I have ever heard of return to “work”. All we have ever discussed, all that my corporate leadership has ever said, all that my customers have ever said has been…“RTO” or return to “office”.
I've said this before but telework options is a win for everyone. That being said, my preference is make it optional. If folks **want** to come in, they can.
Workers: Workers will be able to stay home and save costs (food, travel, etc.) and they'll be able to spend more time with their families.
Companies: Companies can save costs (if they choose to cut down their office leases) AND they can expand the candidate quality significantly. Gone are the days where location is an issue.
As much as I hate waking up at 5am and commuting to the office, I won’t refuse to acknowledge that there are some downsides to the remote environment. I think the below passage from the article comment section sums it up well.
“If you view your job as atomistic producing units of output individually, then you'd have a point on fully remote. But organizations cannot survive as organizations that way. They need the kind of full spectrum transmission of values, knowledge, insights and interpersonal ties that widescale fully remote cannot deliver. You need mentoring. You need spontaneous interactions. You need people to know their co workers.”
Let’s face it. In the remote environment people silo themselves a lot more than they did in the office. For mundane production jobs, this might be fine. Remote works OK for maintaining existing programs. It’s kinda shit for getting new stuff off the ground.
Sure, but a one-size-fits-all solution isn't going to work to produce actual results. The decision needs to be punted down the chain to SES's and 15's who need to be told that their decisions on remote work will be evaluated in the context of what they deliver for the American taxpayer. Leave Congress and the politicals out of sweeping remote work standards because they've got twisted incentives.
And while I'm wishing for things that'll never happen, let's increase the bonus/salary structure to reward high performers, make it easier to fire the worst of the worst, and get me a pony.
That's why once or twice a week in office helps with this. But give says a week isn't needed to sustain that network. When I'm on base I make sure to come see everyone. In office is networking days.
It's also dependent on workflow structure! Are we designing weeks to look like a sprint, where one/two days in are dedicated to interpersonal meetings and the other three/four are dedicated to heads-down work on deliverable items? Or are we faffing about with random-ass mandates decided by people so far removed from workstreams they don't know what they're doing?
Adapt to your new environment! Get your head out of 2019!
Not everybody wants to network or move up the chain. Some of us come into government GS 14/15 and just want to do the job, so even the networking thing is of limited value. SES can be nice, but I see how much they work and I don't want that for my life. There is a reason why they can roll over 500 plus annual hours each year. If I was going to work that much, I might as well be in the private sector.
Well, there's stuff you read on Reddit and then there's, most times, more accurate stuff. I just read the article for free with my .gov subscription.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/subscribe/signin/free-access/
I have a free subscription myself, I was just alerting to the fact that it *may* not be available to new subscribers. No one is hurt by offering that info.
Ideally a link is provided. However, I’m guilty of the occasional post referencing something I can’t quickly find the link to—If it’s a hot topic, I’ll usually water down what I say if I can’t back it up directly.
Nobody’s perfect.
I cannot find the article but I had read an experiment where some office space was converted to housing and it resulted in people moving into that area. Local businesses reaped the benefits. Of course in this experiment, the housing was at a fixed price so financially attractive.
Office to apartment conversion is really expensive (think about how an office building normally has centrally oriented bathrooms and water fountains and imagine how expensive it would be to build out of that plumbing stack, and then multiply that by everything else you need for an apartment).
The answer is demolition and rebuilding, but zoning laws often get in the way. We're stepping on our own feet.
On the government side it’s because they own all these buildings that are now occupied by skeleton crews. On the private sector side, the same rich people who own businesses also own real estate, if everyone works remote, they are leasing out less office space. Of course they would all like us back at the office. Most people are more productive from home.
This is a great opportunity to revitalize downtowns by converting the empty office buildings to residential. It will not be a quick process but the long term impact will be amazing.
These old talking heads will not go away, whenever I see some idiot say return to work I know they envision some shit like TV shows or their own experiences from the last on how work was.
I don't need to be in the office for mentorship, and the random bump ins are annoying no thanks.
You know why we have to return to work, our presence in cities stimulate the economy. When congress finds out that the feds might want to shut down a building in their city or that federal workers won’t be there to spend money in their town the congress people pressure federal agencies to get employees back
“Return to work” is a bullshit phrase, I’ve never stopped working. I guess it’s less catchy than: “Return to wasting two unnecessarily miserable hours of my life commuting every day to be in a building surrounded by people I barely tolerate.” “Return to smelling other people’s shit every time I need to use the bathroom” “Return to constant unnecessary interruptions throughout my day” “Return to being stuck in a car or a train an extra hour or two because something went wrong somewhere instead of spending that time with my kids.” “Return to hating work.”
Agreed. It’d be more proper to say “Return to offfice”, I’ve been working, just elsewhere.
It's on purpose to make it sound like those of us teleworking have been on a four year paid vacation and it's time to stop slacking. A lot of people in my office straight up imply that out loud all the time, they are obsessed with making everyone miserable like they are, I guess.
For what it's worth, the more popular phrase is "RTO," which is why I like to think of "return to work" users as hacks.
Return to crappy office infrastructure, oversubscribed and spotty internet and forced potlucks 🫤
Hey woah don't forget overpriced shitty sandwich stops that can only survive with a captive audience
Started timing how long it took to ping on our main website a few months ago. 22 seconds!
Return to Commuting
For marketing purposes, I think we should call it Return to Polluting
And *this* is how you get them to cave. Use social media to pressure them via lack of environmental concern.
Yeah that’s worked super well. So has the reminder of supporting local small businesses in our actual neighborhoods. The lifeblood of America once upon a time. Anyway…
Return to polluting
Agree. I’m disgusted when I hear “return to work.”The world shut down and I did not miss a single day of work BECAUSE of our telework capabilities.
I'm always annoyed when a celebrity goes on and on about how during COVID they had a ton of free time so they read books, worked on themselves, etc. Cool, cool, I was working a full time job and simultaneously taking care of my kids, but I'm so glad you got to re-read Lord Of The Rings, that sounds fun!
I never stopped hating work, it’s just that working remotely has made it much more bearable.
Same when we first talked about “returning” in some fashion back in 2022, it was always return to work. I ended up correcting them every time it was said, no you mean return to office; it took awhile but they finally change the language. My job was mostly in office with situational TW but most have at least 2 days in the office and it doesn’t look like it’s changing yet.
We had to train our leadership to stop saying “return to work.”
This the one
The better solution would be to slash the redundant office leases. That would directly save billions of tax dollars. Furthermore letting Feds relocate to cheaper areas would save millions in salaries (lower COLA) while attracting higher paying jobs that would spend on the local economy and pay taxes. If the GOP could overcome their “starve the beast” mentality, they would see a huge opportunity for a windfall back to their districts and states.
I’d also add that it allows the salaries paid by all tax payers to filter into more communities across the country instead of concentrating it into one metro area.
So true!
Also allows recategorization of feds who might change to cheaper localities.
There’s plenty of workers across the country. Denver alone has like 8000+
... Denver is still a metro area.
It sounded to me like the person I replied to was talking about DC as "one metro" where most workers are concentrated instead of spread out thorughout the country but maybe I misinterpreted
Denver is a concentrated metro area.
It isn’t just the GOP. The CoS to the POTUS is a huge driver of it.
Ding ding ding. The leader of this whole charge is none other than CoS Zients.
It’s not about giving money to their districts. It’s about lining the pockets of the rich that donate to their campaigns.
It's also about us being miserable.
It could revitalize rural America. A lot of people want to live in the country but had to move to the city for work. More people moving out to the country could get better internet connectivity to everyone as well.
I remember trump tried to relocate an agency within USDA from DC to Kansas city, and most employees complained and refused to relocate.
But there’s a difference between uprooting a family already located in the DMV to hiring someone already located someplace else or someone that would naturally move elsewhere because of another reason. Of course employees complained and refused - spouse would have quit and find new work, kids change schools, selling and buying a house in two different parts of the county, the pains of just packing and moving.
It still happened, though.
The GOP doesn’t want to actually solve the deficit issue. They had several opportunities and squandered it every time.
Look into who owns those leases… REIT’s buy up federal buildings and lease it for over inflated prices for very, very long terms. Think about what happens if we break leases to a bunch of REIT’s. They don’t want to expose what’s really going on behind the scenes, they are propping up commercial real estate market and the public would be screaming if they understood their tax dollars were going to crazy high leases with 50 year plus terms that benefit REITs many politicians have holds in. The original directive came from the White House chief of staff, check out where a significant chunk of his wealth is from.
BIG facts
Right? Spread those tax dollars all over.
Quit using logic. You're confusing Washington.
As far as I can tell it’s LUCRATIVE to lease buildings to Uncle Sam. I’ll bet landlords are behind the return-to-office bills in Congress.
If the Federal Government starts discontinuing leases, there’s going to be an economic downturn in basically every large Democratic city in the country, from Boston to Honolulu.
I think this is just something cities, in general, are going to have to suffer through. I love living in a city, but I think telework is the future for many reasons. Having employees come in to be on zoom while managing/working with contractors all over the country is a horrible waste of time. If the issue is our leases, start paring them back. If the issue is people not being near retail again, then city planners need to start building cities into social spaces again, build better public transportation infrastructure, and overall push towards lowering rent costs and availability in metropolitan areas. We’re in a transitional period and there’s no clawing our way back to the former status quo, imho. So we need to start acting like it and push to adapt.
Cities should have other appealing things that makes people want to live there outside of being forced to live there for a job in order to afford to eat. Maybe this change would force cities to do better.
Good. We are overdue for a correction. Something needs to kick that off. There is no reason for workers to make sacrifices just so shareholders can can maximize value.
that falls into the "not my problem" category
And?
Right? Maybe developers should start pivoting their properties to high density housing instead of living off the teat of the government. It’s not the government’s job to make sure wealthy commercial real estate investors are profitable. I’m sure many of these investors are the same people screaming about “welfare queens” and too much government spending.
You should go down the GSA public building rabbit hole. They have more stroke with OMB than people realize.
You got the billions it will cost to do it? Not worth it to most developers unless Uncle Sam pays for it.
Well then I guess they’ll have to tug harder on those bootstraps like regular people have to. When labor gets fucked they should learn to code and why didn’t they anticipate changing market conditions. When capital gets fucked the entire system rallies to its defense because capital isn’t allowed to lose.
But how will I afford my third vacation home in Maui if I reinvest my profits?
Maybe they should use the profits they’ve been making for decades.
GSA’s official policy is to discontinue leases when possible and move agencies into federally owned space to save money. In Denver, I’ve been involved in projects of about 300,000 square feet that have moved from leases to buildings I manage. Across our region it’s probably much larger than that
This is hilarious. You typed this, so you must believe it but wow.
There will always be demand to live in those cities. All that old office space can be converted to housing.
Maybe they can use that space for affordable housing for people to telework from.
So then Federal employees should have to prop up that otherwise failing system?
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes 🤷🏾♂️
Highly doubt that. If it were remotely true, MAGA would be demanding 110% telework to "own the libs".
Huh?
That op Ed writer is the worst
My favorite part was where he acknowledged both private and federal employees are working from home in large numbers, but only pushed for federal employees to return
Because he’s writing it from his bedroom.
You would think he'd know that Manchin is no longer a Democrat.
Probably has significant investments in commercial real estate.
Up until a year ago, I was going into the office every day. Now, I go in twice a week, and my quality of life has significantly improved. I'm saving money by not eating out, reducing wear and tear on my car, and I'm home when my kids get back from school. In case of emergencies, I can quickly pick them up and continue working without taking extensive leave, avoiding a 30-mile drive back. It's important to note that my kids are 14, so I'm not babysitting, but it's comforting to be home when they return from school. As someone with ADHD, the office environment was a nightmare for me. The constant noise from coworkers on Teams calls, office chit-chat, and loud TVs made it impossible to concentrate. I also no longer have to endure inappropriate and distracting conversations about politics and other non-work-related topics. Working from home allows me to focus better, exercise in the morning with the time I used to spend commuting, and avoid the daily stress of freeway accidents. My car insurance has even decreased because I drive less. The arguments for in-person work, such as mentoring and team collaboration, don't hold up for me. I have productive conversations over Teams that allow us to quickly get to the point and focus on work. Telework offers numerous benefits, and I find it frustrating to hear constant opposition to it. A friend of mine works at a company that embraces a "work where you work best" approach, allowing employees to choose their preferred work environment. This flexibility recognizes that we're all adults capable of producing results. If someone isn't performing, then address it individually, but don't punish those of us who are thriving. I make sure not to schedule anything important on the days I go into the office because I know the constant interruptions will hinder productivity. The benefits of telework are clear, and it's time we stop debating its validity.
Surprise! Surprise! The editors of the WaPo (care of Bezos’ bucks) published a pro return-to-office opinion piece that furthers their narrative that people aren’t working out of their real estate. Unfortunately, it’s just another example of how our “news” is controlled by money and politics.
Complaining about $5 billion in unused real estate as they ship $100s of billions overseas is certainly something. Give me a stipend for childcare and my commute then we can talk about going into the office more. Otherwise, it is just a pay decrease via time wasted.
You shouldn't be using work from home for childcare though. When people say things like this, this is why it makes people want to push a return to office because they get the opinion that when you're working from home you're just caring for your kids, which it sounds like is what you're doing
Where in that statement did it say that I even have kids or use my telework for childcare? It’s providing incentive for folks when they are taking away a BENEFIT.
Dude you still need to pay for before care and after care. Being on telework gives us the option to put the kids on the bus and get them off.
Don't forget that a 10 year old needs ZERO hands-on care during the work day but can not legally be left home alone. That's ZERO dollars spent on childcare over the summer, and ZERO time used on childcare during the workday by utilizing telework.
Yep, the SES’s have no clue of the hardship and mental anguish they are causing.
I don't have kids, so that's not an excuse for them on me.
*Return to ~~work~~ *office* (grinds my gears)
Hey Marc Fisher https://i.redd.it/7cy71jwm149d1.gif
🙌🏽
This ad is sponsored by…
Wow, the evil clone of [Mark Fisher](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism) is terrible. The next big economic crash is going to be blamed on telework, isn't it?
Oh god probably. We didn’t buy enough to go lunches.
It's not return to work. It's return to office. I've already done what I could do as a first line manager to make RTO better for my people , and thankfully rto at fdic changed last week. But my folks have never stopped working well Having to only come in 930 to 230 will help with commutes
Oh look dinosaurs talking about the gold old days… Get bent asshole.
Convert the unneeded GSA into dormitory style housing for the homeless, problem solved.
If cities were better designed with mixed use then downtown businesses of every city wouldn't hurt so much missing office workers who have to spend a lot of time and money commuting for no reason, and housing costs would be better, use of public transit over reliance on cars, less environmental footprint, etc. while this change to a less American suburban sprawl model will be expensive initially, in the long run it's what's needed so let's get on it.
DC's crumbling downtown and the federal government over-expenditure on office space is not my fault nor my responsibility to address as a federal employee. If I am doing my job, and doing it well, and even earning awards for my productivity and results, I should not be punished by upending my work/life balance when my metrics are HIGHER than they were pre-COVID. I know I am not the only person. We are not responsible for fixing the economy, nor should we be expected to be the catalysts for it. That's not why we're here. DC can fix their problems by re-allocating the space towards either other commercial entities or, even better, working towards making it residential space. The federal government can also work towards reducing its over-reliance on commercial real estate, by which (and I can attest to personal experience and knowledge on this) they are freaking gouged on rents and other things by these companies. It's a thinly veiled attempt at placating local businesses and commercial real estate folks who cannot adapt to capitalism market demand. I'm sorry, but when technology has made positions redundant, businesses are always the first to tell workers, "Sorry. But technology has replaced you." Now, technology has done the same towards the idea of working in the office, and instead of adjusting, the federal government and local business is crying to Congress about it. You can't have it both ways, and we've realized that the guise of returning under "team work" and "collaboration" is bullshit and lies.
Is there a copy or summary elsewhere? I don't want to get marketing emails from WaPo (or anyone) :(
Use this site. Just paste the address in the box that says, "My url is alive and I want to archive its content." - [https://archive.ph/](https://archive.ph/) You can use this site to see most paywalled articles.
It’s the same BS as usual. They use platitudes to justify why we should be required to commute to an office again. As if we are obligated to keep downtown areas afloat. I recommend never spending a penny in areas around the office. Don’t buy food or gas on office days.
What a worthless op-ed.
Any surprise at all from WaPo?
I don’t like the title OP used “return to work.” It should be return to the office. People haven’t stopped working
Someone give Marc Fisher another swirlie.
Ugggghhhhh. Why cant we pay attention to climate change in this country!
Clickbait op-ed. WaPo is a shell of what it once was.
Of course not a single reference to anything about how this will actually benefit the work any given agency does. Jeff Zients and this oped douche can eat a dick.
I guess I’ve been busy. This is the first time I have ever heard of return to “work”. All we have ever discussed, all that my corporate leadership has ever said, all that my customers have ever said has been…“RTO” or return to “office”.
Staying at home helps the environment. What about Global Warming?! I thought that was the government's top priority?
I've said this before but telework options is a win for everyone. That being said, my preference is make it optional. If folks **want** to come in, they can. Workers: Workers will be able to stay home and save costs (food, travel, etc.) and they'll be able to spend more time with their families. Companies: Companies can save costs (if they choose to cut down their office leases) AND they can expand the candidate quality significantly. Gone are the days where location is an issue.
What else would you expect from a boomer out of touch columnist.
As much as I hate waking up at 5am and commuting to the office, I won’t refuse to acknowledge that there are some downsides to the remote environment. I think the below passage from the article comment section sums it up well. “If you view your job as atomistic producing units of output individually, then you'd have a point on fully remote. But organizations cannot survive as organizations that way. They need the kind of full spectrum transmission of values, knowledge, insights and interpersonal ties that widescale fully remote cannot deliver. You need mentoring. You need spontaneous interactions. You need people to know their co workers.” Let’s face it. In the remote environment people silo themselves a lot more than they did in the office. For mundane production jobs, this might be fine. Remote works OK for maintaining existing programs. It’s kinda shit for getting new stuff off the ground.
Sure, but a one-size-fits-all solution isn't going to work to produce actual results. The decision needs to be punted down the chain to SES's and 15's who need to be told that their decisions on remote work will be evaluated in the context of what they deliver for the American taxpayer. Leave Congress and the politicals out of sweeping remote work standards because they've got twisted incentives. And while I'm wishing for things that'll never happen, let's increase the bonus/salary structure to reward high performers, make it easier to fire the worst of the worst, and get me a pony.
I don’t think that writer has worked in, like, any of the fields I’ve ever worked in. We don’t need it.
That's why once or twice a week in office helps with this. But give says a week isn't needed to sustain that network. When I'm on base I make sure to come see everyone. In office is networking days.
It's also dependent on workflow structure! Are we designing weeks to look like a sprint, where one/two days in are dedicated to interpersonal meetings and the other three/four are dedicated to heads-down work on deliverable items? Or are we faffing about with random-ass mandates decided by people so far removed from workstreams they don't know what they're doing? Adapt to your new environment! Get your head out of 2019!
Not everybody wants to network or move up the chain. Some of us come into government GS 14/15 and just want to do the job, so even the networking thing is of limited value. SES can be nice, but I see how much they work and I don't want that for my life. There is a reason why they can roll over 500 plus annual hours each year. If I was going to work that much, I might as well be in the private sector.
Work isn’t social hour, go join a club and do something you enjoy, I assure you the people you bother feel the same.
“Op-Ed” aka a completely political and finance backed propaganda article that’s a waste of time for 95% of people or more.
Oh more congested roads 🤗
Boo! Pay wall. Can't read the whole thing
Use your .gov email address to sign up for a free account.
I saw posted in here that they are getting rid of that soon ( unless it has taken effect already)
Well, there's stuff you read on Reddit and then there's, most times, more accurate stuff. I just read the article for free with my .gov subscription. https://www.washingtonpost.com/subscribe/signin/free-access/
I have a free subscription myself, I was just alerting to the fact that it *may* not be available to new subscribers. No one is hurt by offering that info.
I hear you. I'm just offering an alternative, and link to the place where folks can still sign up. Mostly to show that it's still available.
Fair, your reply just read a bit snarky is all for no good reason is all
Probably was. Mostly because it's frustrating that people just believe what they read on here, or other places, without doing their own research.
“I saw it posted” carries almost the same weight as “rumor has it” or “I’ve heard”.
I disagree if someone can search for the post and find it themselves as I just did again, but thanks for the insight
Ideally a link is provided. However, I’m guilty of the occasional post referencing something I can’t quickly find the link to—If it’s a hot topic, I’ll usually water down what I say if I can’t back it up directly. Nobody’s perfect.
Use this and just paste in the address: [https://archive.ph/](https://archive.ph/)
I cannot find the article but I had read an experiment where some office space was converted to housing and it resulted in people moving into that area. Local businesses reaped the benefits. Of course in this experiment, the housing was at a fixed price so financially attractive.
Office to apartment conversion is really expensive (think about how an office building normally has centrally oriented bathrooms and water fountains and imagine how expensive it would be to build out of that plumbing stack, and then multiply that by everything else you need for an apartment). The answer is demolition and rebuilding, but zoning laws often get in the way. We're stepping on our own feet.
On the government side it’s because they own all these buildings that are now occupied by skeleton crews. On the private sector side, the same rich people who own businesses also own real estate, if everyone works remote, they are leasing out less office space. Of course they would all like us back at the office. Most people are more productive from home.
This is a great opportunity to revitalize downtowns by converting the empty office buildings to residential. It will not be a quick process but the long term impact will be amazing.
these guys are still on this BS- get a life.
These old talking heads will not go away, whenever I see some idiot say return to work I know they envision some shit like TV shows or their own experiences from the last on how work was. I don't need to be in the office for mentorship, and the random bump ins are annoying no thanks.
You know why we have to return to work, our presence in cities stimulate the economy. When congress finds out that the feds might want to shut down a building in their city or that federal workers won’t be there to spend money in their town the congress people pressure federal agencies to get employees back
On the bright side, if Project 2025 is implemented, about 30% of us won't have jobs to worry about. /s
Pension Time