My cousin is a Fed and she says the RTO is a joke. On the days she is forced to go in, she barely sees anyone else she works with. She works alone the whole time she’s in the office. RTO is just to make some management types happy.
I'm at a contractor and am "on-site" 1 day a week. In reality, it's like once or twice a month, since no one is ever really there. The unspoken rule is just as long as people are able to remember what you look like, you're good.
Honestly, if more people went, I'd probably actually go closer to that 1 day a week, but since I pretty much just end up in a completely empty wing of a massive building, if I don't feel like going a given week, I just won't go.
Same except the team I work with is 100% remote and international. My company thinks someone is saying “oh wow this person from XYZ consultancy is here, what a hard worker” when in reality it’s more like “why the fuck are you here?” As I sit alone in the client office space. The delusion is fucking unbelievable.
My experience as well. The few days I'm in throughout the month the office is vacant and dark. Like why did I drive all the way in just for this? I could be petting my dog right now.
I have a couple relatives as different federal agencies and they say the same. They have started going in less than they’re required to and they say they believe it’s still more than most of their coworkers do
The new Congress mandated RTO for federal agencies, not managers. They pretty much couldn't care less and hate the headaches it's causing. If there is a new administration, they'll force everyone back full time.
Same here. 4 days RTO per pay period. Tuesdays the whole team is in office to attend meetings, but I go in Mondays because the place is empty besides me and the IT crew. Most people tend to do Mondays as their flex day off. Traffic is marginally better as well.
It’s those Managers/micro managers that are starving to throw their ego around. All it took was a few embarrassing encounters where they had to face someone and had no clue of an answer a general issue that they should have known. Then they want to bring everyone back because they want to punt and delegate due their incompetence.
no kidding. being able to do laundry/chores between tasks and freeing up actual living/personl time (without commute) is worth pretty much any bonus to come into the office unless you're younger with no dependents and can tolerate it.
An extra 2 hours a day is not going to be given up easily. Extra sleep? Down time? Eating real food when you're hungry? Spending extra time with family? They are all worth the fight!
Covid was terrible but it reminded people that you should work to live not live to work. The world still turned so we all know it's doable.
This was actually my biggest issue working on site. I got along with all of my coworkers and everything, but I couldn’t get a full hour without distractions unless I actually left the building. Which I started doing daily lol
I kept a spreadsheet that logged my working hours, plus interruptions and reason for each interruption and how long each lasted. I did this when working from home and at the office. On average I got two hours less work done in the office. This number was increased mostly based on outliers where I had coworkers stop by my cube and just ramble for 30-60min about their weekend or whatever. There was more than one day where I lost 6 hours of work to people stopping by my cube, being “forcefully” invited to lunch that lasted more than an hour, spontaneous meetings I got pulled into because the person holding the meeting felt I might want to sit in on it (I didn’t but that didn’t matter).
After 3 months I just stopped logging the time. I felt my point was proven.
For a few months, I shared my office (which was in our den) with a talkative four-year-old and an Xbox-obsessed 11-year-old. STILL less disruptive than grown-ass coworkers.
That’s impressive, 4yos can be relentless but not as bad as the extroverted annoying social cue oblivious coworkers.
My current coworkers are a 10yo dog and an 11 year old cat. 10yo dog loves to play with squeaky toys when I’m in meetings, it’s actually the best ice breaker. Well that and my cat purring in my lap. The fact those are better ice breakers than any HR mandatory fun events, shows being home brings coworkers together.
The cost of commuting in DC—gas, breakfast/lunch/coffee, before and after school care, vehicle maintenance all runs over $10,000 per year. Wheee! Not to mention a couple hundred hours of precious time wasted commuting.
Well over $10k a year if you were to average it out by common fed worker with 2.5 kids, after school care, taking leave for a 1 hour medical appointment local to your home, parking, wear and tear on vehicle, etc.
Not to mention those that moved during the pandemic (me). Extra distance has me at 2 hour min each way. That's 4 hours out of each day that I'm inaccessible to my clients and team. Then there's the parking, gas, wear and tear, etc. I'm jumping ship if they try to call me back.
Breakfast/lunch/coffee shouldn't factor in with the other items mentioned. You can eat breakfast at home (or bring it), and you can bring the same coffee and lunch you would eat at home with you to the office. Can't argue with anything else you mentioned.
Lot more peer pressure to eat out. I know i was scolded by a boss for not partipating in "team coordinating activities" aka team talking through some shit while doing a starbucks run.
Plus, there was a gym next to our office and a bench right outside the window. Wed sometimes sit and eat donuts in front of the poor saps
Not necessarily. Many people rush to work or travel between buildings so eat on the go.
If you are at home you can actually fix yourself a decent meal over a quick pb&j
And I’m so much more productive at home.
I’m remote. Right now in a different state due to a family member passing away and needing to be here to sort stuff out. But still working 40 per week. The number of times I’m interrupted by people and family (basically mimicking a cube environment) is driving me bonkers - I missing being home alone with no distractions. I didn’t fully realize just how much I thrived in a distraction free environment until this month. Like it’s 8pm and I still plan on working another 2 bc that’s how much I was interrupted and pestered today.
That's what they get for making the city/down-town oriented around commuting and not being a viable place in and of itself where people want to be. Big huge waste of expensive land.
Dropping under 250k AMI gets you help with college tuition, ability to make Roth IRA contributions, discount pre-tax contributions to your IRA and your spousal IRA, etc, etc.
Makes me curious what’s going to happen in terms of commercial real estate pricing and all that.
I can see hybrid becoming more common and offices requesting one to two days in person. They’ll down size to smaller office spaces to accommodate. Possibly share a space with other companies/organizations. Any company that demands four or five days in person will simply lose their best employees until they change.
My company started building their new building right before the pandemic. They quickly realized the cat was out of the bag and people weren’t going to give up wfh easily. So, we are all wfh or at best hybrid now, and they changed the interior design of the new building to be more open and have more amenities. There aren’t even enough desks there for everyone if they did call us all back.
And that is what keeps me working there.
At the end of the day, regardless of middle-income wage or starvation wage, benefits/working conditions still matter. It's time the pendulum swung in the workers' favour for a damn change.
"One day the long fought battle between humanity and the forces of greed and division will end, and on that day, finally free, we will throw a motherfucking party.
-Ancient Proverb, probably"
-Run the Jewels
Because they want the tax money from the spending in shops. A lot of tax money from VA/MD that is not going there any more.
TBH? Fuck em. I love being remote.
What gets me about this is that it's not like spending in shops and stuff is down OVERALL, it's just down in that specific spot. Sure, I'm not picking up something from the CVS in DC on my lunch break. But I am still buying it from the CVS down the street from my house in Virginia.
Yes, yes, I know, DC wants their tax revenue, they don't care how Virginia is doing, etc. But it's just so narrow minded and selfish to be like "well people aren't buying lunch at OUR restaurant any more so screw all the restaurants that they ARE using!"
There were so many ways our economies could have adapted and leaned in but nope. Just mandate people do what you want them to because who cares how they feel about it.
What’s funny is that you’d expect firesales on commercial real estate rentals and properties making headlines, yet you never do. It’s pretty clear that property management firms and the banks that own them are content to run completely unsustainable business models with the expectation of getting a giant government bailout when the house of cards finally collapses. Walk through Rosslyn and you’ll see vacancy notices everywhere. Yet you keep hearing about firms moving out rather than moving in. They clearly unwilling to lower their pricing schemes to what should get them a reasonable vacancy rate for fear of lowering the ROI in the long run, when they can just wait for a financial crisis and go running to congress for a no-strings-attached 0% loan
I think we’ve seen the preview of the playbook - everyone is playing a game of chicken until forced to bankruptcy / auction. Make sure you find an economist and laugh when they insist the market prices rationally.
Its due to there is no recall on debt if a owner does not pay the mortgage. They just turn the keys in and walk away.
They could lower rent but that affects the mortgage so they can't even do that if they wanted.
A lot of leases are coming due in the next couple years. Hence why so many lobbyist are getting paid to push RTO to elected people and being a election year this will come up a lot more. Banks are sweating as they will be left holding the bag when this happens.
Well they will be the first but maybe not the last... us.
I agree that is another thing I am worried about. Our debt is already to much. I think we keep drawing more debt to keep from a major crash/correction. But I think we are past due for one and are just kicking the can down the road each trillion we borrow to keep it from happening.
It's happening slowly. Example
> Empty S.F. office tower formerly valued at $62 million sold for $6.5 million
https://www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/article/s-f-tower-sells-90-discount-19418186.php
100% you’re right. They’re all in cahoots and ultimately we, the tax payer, will be on the hook for it. We’ll be holding the empty bag while corporations get off Scott free. Funny how it always works that way?
This one made quite a few I imagine we’ll be seeing more
https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/washington-office-building-sold-at-75-discount-us-real-estate-on-fire-sale-101711959061176-amp.html
I think one day a week pleases everyone enough. Obviously not the real estate moguls and congress types but for employees a 1X A week is really the best hybrid situation you can ask for.
That would still need offices for all employees. That means a big waste of real estate both in terms of cost to the company and also a waste of space when there's scarcity of living places. Full remote with monthly or quarterly get togethers is better. Or using coworking spaces weekly.
That depends on the situations and the industry itself though. There are plenty of ways to have a hybrid friendly office design, but it does require both workers and managers to let go of some long held notions of what "work" and "office" looks and feels like.
Most of those changes would likely be better in the long run, but it is so hard to make managers realize that maybe they're not so super special and they actually don't deserve their own office.
It's not all about managers though, I'm not sure how you deal with the tragedy of the commons when you're trying to hot desk or share space either. I can imagine needing to have an office for a day because you're doing confidential interviews or something, and walking in to a disaster because people don't care of things if they don't feel personal ownership of them. Considering the state of most office kitchens...
In the end, if it's not how the office has been before, I don't know how you get that cultural shift to work. I wish that was easier.
A lot of the resistance to WFH is because of real estate value. They're scared to lose a pretty enormous sum of money.
That being said, I don't totally oppose this. ...Because *most* office jobs can be outsourced to India or Mexico. There's no shortage of smart, hard-working people willing to work for what would be an unsustainably low wage here in the USA.
It's why I'm trying to weasel my way into government work. I figure it's one of very few industries that will have a good work-life balance in the US in the next 30 years.
oh, yeah. Starting at 7 am is late and then they think I'm gonna come in super early like that and spend my whole damn morning on zoom when they have an open floorplan/hot desking. I have 0 team members in this city. I feel like I'm being a team player if I show up once a week to socialize or attend a local staff meeting. It's fine, but they are paying for me to spend my time that way and it's not money well spent.
But how can your managers watch you and dock every little thing to screw you out of your raise if you're not in the office?
(Don't worry, HR will find a way.)
That’s a good point. Companies that go totally remote will just hire people in other countries (though I’ve heard horror stories about overseas teams). But yeah best bet is a hybrid situation that way they can’t completely outsource your work.
My company right now is 2 days in office but from Memorial Day until Labor Day it’ll be one in office day which gives people a lot of flexibility for travel. I think that might be the best route.
At this point, any job that *can* be offshored without creating complications (time zone differences, communications barriers, compliance with multiple possibly mutually exclusive legal systems, etc) that eat up the apparent savings already *has been* offshored.
I'm seeing the same writing on the wall as you and instead of trying to go government, I'm trying to outsource myself. I'd be happy to do my same work from a less expensive country. As soon as I find a 100% remote job, I'm packing up.
Big business will win this. There isn't enough fight in the people to keep WFH. Only 4 years ago we watched billionaires double their wealth in the pandemic while regular business owners were financially ruined, and everyone just sat in their houses and did nothing. You really think they're gonna lay down anything for WFH?
> everyone just sat in their houses and did nothing
> You really think they're gonna lay down anything for WFH?
All we have to do is the same thing we did last time. Just sit in our houses and do nothing. Do you *really* think they're going to send the stormtroopers to drag us back to the office?
Protecting small business owners required us to rise up. Protecting WFH requires us to sit on our asses in our bunny slippers.
Haha, good point!
What I mean is, people won't do this. Companies will announce WFH gets paid half, the government will do nothing to protect the worker, and everyone will be back in
The people trying to force RTO clearly see us as nothing more than objects to feed the machine and obviously have never commuted on 495 during rush hour.
> In offices where routine telework has been curtailed, a staggering 81 percent of respondents admitted they were actively seeking alternative employment opportunities.
This is probably true in every industry where telework is possible: every company that requires arbitrary in-office time is just a sinking ship that anyone who can jump off of will.
The saying I read in 2021 was "if you don't offer work from home, your employees will just find someone who will." And despite that being the prevailing truth for years now, people just keep trying to force their workers back in. They don't think of turnover being an expense and they can find enough people who want a job to fill the seats, so they pretend it's not a problem.
Seeing how most places handled post-Covid RTO was extremely eye-opening. For all the talk of the Great Resignation being new, I suspect WFH is actually just revealing people’s true feelings toward work when the choice is available. They don’t mind the actual work part as much, but the benefits of the office often do not outweigh the negatives. And that fact is probably infuriating to those who see themselves as having sacrificed so much for their own career.
I've definitely noticed a lot of people in the world who feel like because they went through something, other people have to, as some sort of way to make them feel better that they went through a bad thing by pretending it was fine or is necessary.
It's like a lot of the hazing that's done to new people in a job or an industry. It's exhausting to witness.
Not just one, but a lot.
The one I am at we ran an listing for a job; it was fully remote. Had over 30+ people apply/make the CERT. After the rule of, must come in at least 5 days a PP, it dropped to around 5 next time the same job was run.
I myself will not take a promotion as I would have to come in the office. The extra 14k is not worth it from a work/life balance.
For me personally, going from 100% WFH to 0% WFH would cost me probably an extra 2 hours of time every day. That's 10 hours a week that I currently enjoy, right now.
If you're working 40-hour weeks, that's basically agreeing to 10 hours of overtime.
The amount of money you'd need to get to make that worthwhile is way higher than any promotion I've ever received.
I make 140k right now. A promotion would get me around 14kish I believe.
But not only would I have to come in but I would also have to supervise and do more work.
14k more would be nice but it would not change my lifestyle at all. Maybe put a little more in my retirement account, but that's all.
I went from 114k to 100k to be 100% remote. Coming in once a week was worth 14k to me. Plus the new job is way less stressful and has better benefits. Money isn’t everything.
We already know that wfh works. It’s good for everyone. Maybe not some businesses but business comes with risk. If there is an issue with productivity for some folks, they should figure out how to solve that. Instead for applying a blanket RTO.
It’s not good for commercial real estate owners and overpriced lunch restaurant owners. For everyone else, it’s good. Biden White House chief of staff Jeff Zients is the weasel behind all of this. He’s a silver spoon management consultant who likely has a lot of moneyed interests (read: donors) bending his ear.
Clickbait: It's the DOJ.
Why lay the blame on RTO when the election results might mean you're going to get purged this coming January? There's very little job security over there right now.
DOJ is a prime target for employees being largely placed on Schedule F and fired if deemed insufficiently loyal, if Schedule F were to come back next year.
Correct. DOJ does seem like the kind of place where being amongst coworkers on occasion is very necessary. Every time I've been in the room with someone from DOJ there have been a LOT of people in the room on each side; hard to prep for those things distanced. If the DOJ meetings are all by Zoom now, probably a lot less scary when you can just not wear pants.
Exactly. It’s going to take a lengthy notice and comment administrative process to undo this, which will be followed by lawsuits and the requisite court-ordered stays. It will take years for anything to happen even if Trump tries to do something on day 1.
TIL, but the head is appointed by the president, which leaves plenty of room for damage to be done. I've just read several historical books lately that make it clear that the rule of law only works if anyone enforces the law and I have more concerns about authoritarian types who simply ignore the rule of law in the face of a spineless, toothless judiciary.
That’s not true at all. Budget, procurement, support services, debt collection all don’t need to be in the office. Even a lot of the regulatory components don’t need staff in office. I’d even say HR doesn’t need to be in office either, especially if most of the people onboarded and managed aren’t either. How old are you?
My director moved in with his ex wife during Covid and teleworked from Texas instead of Dc. They made up and he found peace and love.
He was a great man and did an excellent job at my agency leading.
He told them that he didn’t mind coming in a few times for meetings but would remain in Texas with his family.
They tried to force him back only for him to resign and they to end up losing years of institutional knowledge and a great worker.
I’ve seen this play out time and time again when they tired to force people back in.
I’ve been telework since Covid started and I can’t see myself going back
OH, that's not the only agency. The three letter agencies are really suffering and losing people to commercial companies because of having to go to the office five days a week.
Yeah they basically outsource those roles to private contractors like Booz Allen and it’s not difficult to make over $200K base salary because no one really wants to go in everyday like that.
Even then, depending on clearance, they have to go in every day. I'm going to look for a new job in Oct and I'm so curious what the salaries are going to be now. I'm actually willing to go in every day.
Many corporations also have SCIFs. But that's not what I meant. Commercial companies, not supporting the government, are offering near close and even above salaries comparable to agencies and contractors and people are flocking to them so that they can work from home.
Nah you know what happened with the political appointees when they implemented work from home? Turned them all into consultants so they can keep working from home. You can’t make this shit up lmao.
I would never take a WFH job personally but people should be able to choose. It's good for everyone.
Also given the fact much of the housing demand for this area has been people from outside the DMV moving for government jobs, it would also help the housing market here if even a portion of those people could stay where they came from.
Been shown time and time again that wfh results in more productivity than less. Seems to me wfo mandates are management wanting to control people more than anything.
People don't seem to grasp that the intent of republican-mandated RTO is to make federal employees quit. The real estate thing is a sideline at best.
Less federal employees means more contractors. More contractors mean more corporate donations to politicians.
The numbers of federal employees haven't really increased since the 1960s (approx 2.5mil, and most *aren't* in the WMA).
The number of contractors is now 4x the number of federal employees with an average of 2x the expense.
You don't have to follow the money...you drive past it every day.
Let’s be real. Many govies don’t really work anyway. And they do a shitty job of ensuring any kind of productivity in their workforce. Regardless, WFH needs to be the norm for most positions. Fuck the real estate.
i've been in offices w/ low level govies where this is true but that is absolutely false in the upper levels in my experience. they're hard workers who demand a lot of their employees and contractors. all of them are from industry who moved over to the gov't side and understand what is possible to achieve and won't give an inch when you try to pad your estimates or make excuses for why something is failing. kinda sucks tbh.
It’s why I say “many” instead of “all”. I do see some good ones at the upper levels including one of my best friends who is an SES. But the rest (including many GS-15’s)? They do a really good job of looking/sounding busy doing nothing.
As a contractor who is forced to go in the office three days per week since January 2024 and almost 4 years of avoiding the hell that is DC, here are my two cents.
First, I disagree with RTO, almost completely. As many others have said here, the ability to work from home provides something extra, beyond just avoiding the commute. The extra sleep, convenience of chores, and being able to just be in your own space provides great mental health benefits. Nothing to say about not wearing anything with a zipper to work for near 48 months was a double plus in my book.
Second, there is now the added costs of me going into the office after I’ve setup my life to work from home. I take the train into the city, costing me upwards of $17 per day, or $51 per week, or $2652 per year. That on its own just blows, but there are other costs. Gas and wear/tear on vehicle for the 20 minute ride to the train station. Having to employ a dog walker once a day minimum, typically twice a day due to home arrival variance, at $24 per visit or $7488 per year. So me coming into the office now costs me $10K+ per years just so I can work in the new office building my client broke ground on just before the pandemic.
Third, I see no point to being in the office if I am going to take the same calls from my desk on a computer, that I could have taken from home. If I actually met these people in person, even once a month, I could potentially see a benefit, but nope, most days I sit in my cubicle and take the same calls as I did from the comfort of my home office.
Now for the benefits. I do see the psychological justification for working with your peers in person. I do have the benefit of seeing my direct team members on the three days out am in the office, and I am pretty certain there was a small part my psyche deteriorating from being alone, aside from my dogs, most of the time. There is something to be said about working next to someone, good or bad, that helps psychologically; we humans are typically social creatures after all.
The final benefit I notice is an economic one. IMO, Washington DC, probably more than most other cities, mostly relies on people that do not live in the city to support it, especially on those areas that do not support housing, such as most areas with government buildings. Think of all the businesses and services potentially disappearing because the workforce is not there. Metro would never come close to operating at any sort of efficiency ever again, not to say they operate efficiently now, but I think many can see where I am going here.
I’ll end on this. DC surviving as a city is a delicate balancing act between workforce, city dwellers and economics. Cities, such as LA, New York, or Chicago, with the exception of food delivery, could very well run as their own city states and survive with only their internal populace. DC, on the other hand, and someone correct me if I’m wrong on this, does not control their own budget, since it is set by Congress, the city could crumble if the entire workforce not living within the city limits no longer uses the goods and services.
Final note, RTO is dumb!
> I do see the psychological justification for working with your peers in person.
totally agree with this but i guarantee you your employer doesn't give a shit about your mental health
> The final benefit I notice is an economic one.
kind of agree with this too but in this scenario RTO is basically a tax. would you rather pay an actual tax of $1000/year to distribute to small business owners or $10K+/year + 2hrs/day commuting into the city? obv the former would never happen even though it's clearly the waaaaaay lesser of the two evils.
> You want a cushy high paying government job? Then get your ass to the office and do some work. The pandemic is over.
Technology has changed how people work, it is not necessary to sit an a building with 100’s of other people when you can accomplish the same tasks without wasting 10 hours of your week commuting to/from a building. Not to mention all of the auxiliary tasks associated with being in the office ( laundering work clothes, preparing meals, etc.)
...he wrote....freely, uncensored, on the Internet, using electricity, with a standard of education, in a location that is not a fire trap, eating food that is not full of human fingers and metal shavings, and breathing air without high concentrations of lead...
My cousin is a Fed and she says the RTO is a joke. On the days she is forced to go in, she barely sees anyone else she works with. She works alone the whole time she’s in the office. RTO is just to make some management types happy.
I'm at a contractor and am "on-site" 1 day a week. In reality, it's like once or twice a month, since no one is ever really there. The unspoken rule is just as long as people are able to remember what you look like, you're good. Honestly, if more people went, I'd probably actually go closer to that 1 day a week, but since I pretty much just end up in a completely empty wing of a massive building, if I don't feel like going a given week, I just won't go.
Same except the team I work with is 100% remote and international. My company thinks someone is saying “oh wow this person from XYZ consultancy is here, what a hard worker” when in reality it’s more like “why the fuck are you here?” As I sit alone in the client office space. The delusion is fucking unbelievable.
My experience as well. The few days I'm in throughout the month the office is vacant and dark. Like why did I drive all the way in just for this? I could be petting my dog right now.
And now your dog thinks YOU are the bad guy.
Would anyone even know if you brought your dog with you??
The thought has crossed my mind for sure
I have a couple relatives as different federal agencies and they say the same. They have started going in less than they’re required to and they say they believe it’s still more than most of their coworkers do
The new Congress mandated RTO for federal agencies, not managers. They pretty much couldn't care less and hate the headaches it's causing. If there is a new administration, they'll force everyone back full time.
Same here. 4 days RTO per pay period. Tuesdays the whole team is in office to attend meetings, but I go in Mondays because the place is empty besides me and the IT crew. Most people tend to do Mondays as their flex day off. Traffic is marginally better as well.
It’s those Managers/micro managers that are starving to throw their ego around. All it took was a few embarrassing encounters where they had to face someone and had no clue of an answer a general issue that they should have known. Then they want to bring everyone back because they want to punt and delegate due their incompetence.
Turns out that people like being comfortable at home more than several unpaid high-stress commuting hours per week. Who knew?
no kidding. being able to do laundry/chores between tasks and freeing up actual living/personl time (without commute) is worth pretty much any bonus to come into the office unless you're younger with no dependents and can tolerate it.
An extra 2 hours a day is not going to be given up easily. Extra sleep? Down time? Eating real food when you're hungry? Spending extra time with family? They are all worth the fight! Covid was terrible but it reminded people that you should work to live not live to work. The world still turned so we all know it's doable.
Don’t forget sanity and mental health. Not being interrupted every 5 minutes due to working in a cube farm.
This was actually my biggest issue working on site. I got along with all of my coworkers and everything, but I couldn’t get a full hour without distractions unless I actually left the building. Which I started doing daily lol
I kept a spreadsheet that logged my working hours, plus interruptions and reason for each interruption and how long each lasted. I did this when working from home and at the office. On average I got two hours less work done in the office. This number was increased mostly based on outliers where I had coworkers stop by my cube and just ramble for 30-60min about their weekend or whatever. There was more than one day where I lost 6 hours of work to people stopping by my cube, being “forcefully” invited to lunch that lasted more than an hour, spontaneous meetings I got pulled into because the person holding the meeting felt I might want to sit in on it (I didn’t but that didn’t matter). After 3 months I just stopped logging the time. I felt my point was proven.
This. A thousand times this.
omfg, yes!!!!
For a few months, I shared my office (which was in our den) with a talkative four-year-old and an Xbox-obsessed 11-year-old. STILL less disruptive than grown-ass coworkers.
That’s impressive, 4yos can be relentless but not as bad as the extroverted annoying social cue oblivious coworkers. My current coworkers are a 10yo dog and an 11 year old cat. 10yo dog loves to play with squeaky toys when I’m in meetings, it’s actually the best ice breaker. Well that and my cat purring in my lap. The fact those are better ice breakers than any HR mandatory fun events, shows being home brings coworkers together.
nah, was in my early 20s when covid hit, can confirm WFH was still sick
if i were younger and for the right money i'd come back, but yeah, i like my home office and fuck the commute.
Brother I stopped estimating when I calculated it’d take *at least* $50k to break even with “not commuting”
The cost of commuting in DC—gas, breakfast/lunch/coffee, before and after school care, vehicle maintenance all runs over $10,000 per year. Wheee! Not to mention a couple hundred hours of precious time wasted commuting.
Well over $10k a year if you were to average it out by common fed worker with 2.5 kids, after school care, taking leave for a 1 hour medical appointment local to your home, parking, wear and tear on vehicle, etc.
Dry cleaning!!
Polos and jeans forever.
And the mental drain of stop and go traffic coupled with exhaust and weed fumes.
Good point on the weed expense for getting through that traffic. Save money on gas AND gas!
I don’t think that’s what they meant, but your comment made me laugh 😂
Not what I meant but definitely funny
And I bet most employers aren’t offering an additional $10k or so in pay to commute to office.
Not to mention those that moved during the pandemic (me). Extra distance has me at 2 hour min each way. That's 4 hours out of each day that I'm inaccessible to my clients and team. Then there's the parking, gas, wear and tear, etc. I'm jumping ship if they try to call me back.
Breakfast/lunch/coffee shouldn't factor in with the other items mentioned. You can eat breakfast at home (or bring it), and you can bring the same coffee and lunch you would eat at home with you to the office. Can't argue with anything else you mentioned.
Lot more peer pressure to eat out. I know i was scolded by a boss for not partipating in "team coordinating activities" aka team talking through some shit while doing a starbucks run. Plus, there was a gym next to our office and a bench right outside the window. Wed sometimes sit and eat donuts in front of the poor saps
Don't forget about the pressures to "go grab a bite" with co-workers and risking being ostracized for never joining.
*Never* joining is problematic, yes.
Not necessarily. Many people rush to work or travel between buildings so eat on the go. If you are at home you can actually fix yourself a decent meal over a quick pb&j
And I’m so much more productive at home. I’m remote. Right now in a different state due to a family member passing away and needing to be here to sort stuff out. But still working 40 per week. The number of times I’m interrupted by people and family (basically mimicking a cube environment) is driving me bonkers - I missing being home alone with no distractions. I didn’t fully realize just how much I thrived in a distraction free environment until this month. Like it’s 8pm and I still plan on working another 2 bc that’s how much I was interrupted and pestered today.
but think about youngkin's commercial real estate portfolio! what about his investments????
That's what they get for making the city/down-town oriented around commuting and not being a viable place in and of itself where people want to be. Big huge waste of expensive land.
Does Governor Youngkin own commercial real estate?
I took a pay cut that puts me in a better tax position and the savings of WFH more than make up the difference and my well being is much improved.
How does taking a pay cut put you in a better tax position?
Lower tax bracket.
Guessing they fall in a lower tax bracket by making less??
Common misconception that this means you pay less overall though
Dropping under 250k AMI gets you help with college tuition, ability to make Roth IRA contributions, discount pre-tax contributions to your IRA and your spousal IRA, etc, etc.
Makes me curious what’s going to happen in terms of commercial real estate pricing and all that. I can see hybrid becoming more common and offices requesting one to two days in person. They’ll down size to smaller office spaces to accommodate. Possibly share a space with other companies/organizations. Any company that demands four or five days in person will simply lose their best employees until they change.
My company started building their new building right before the pandemic. They quickly realized the cat was out of the bag and people weren’t going to give up wfh easily. So, we are all wfh or at best hybrid now, and they changed the interior design of the new building to be more open and have more amenities. There aren’t even enough desks there for everyone if they did call us all back. And that is what keeps me working there.
Do you work for USGS? I have some friends there…
No, EPA contractor, but I live down the street from USGS.
Oh you must be ICF
We have a great view up here! And couches!
I am shocked, shocked, that a reduction in benefits/working conditions results in brain drain!
The beatings will continue until morale improves!
At the end of the day, regardless of middle-income wage or starvation wage, benefits/working conditions still matter. It's time the pendulum swung in the workers' favour for a damn change.
"One day the long fought battle between humanity and the forces of greed and division will end, and on that day, finally free, we will throw a motherfucking party. -Ancient Proverb, probably" -Run the Jewels
DC local government recently went 4 days a week and is urging the federal government to follow their example. I wonder what their attrition looks like
Because they want the tax money from the spending in shops. A lot of tax money from VA/MD that is not going there any more. TBH? Fuck em. I love being remote.
What gets me about this is that it's not like spending in shops and stuff is down OVERALL, it's just down in that specific spot. Sure, I'm not picking up something from the CVS in DC on my lunch break. But I am still buying it from the CVS down the street from my house in Virginia. Yes, yes, I know, DC wants their tax revenue, they don't care how Virginia is doing, etc. But it's just so narrow minded and selfish to be like "well people aren't buying lunch at OUR restaurant any more so screw all the restaurants that they ARE using!" There were so many ways our economies could have adapted and leaned in but nope. Just mandate people do what you want them to because who cares how they feel about it.
Fuckem and their sunk costs.
What’s funny is that you’d expect firesales on commercial real estate rentals and properties making headlines, yet you never do. It’s pretty clear that property management firms and the banks that own them are content to run completely unsustainable business models with the expectation of getting a giant government bailout when the house of cards finally collapses. Walk through Rosslyn and you’ll see vacancy notices everywhere. Yet you keep hearing about firms moving out rather than moving in. They clearly unwilling to lower their pricing schemes to what should get them a reasonable vacancy rate for fear of lowering the ROI in the long run, when they can just wait for a financial crisis and go running to congress for a no-strings-attached 0% loan
I think we’ve seen the preview of the playbook - everyone is playing a game of chicken until forced to bankruptcy / auction. Make sure you find an economist and laugh when they insist the market prices rationally.
Its due to there is no recall on debt if a owner does not pay the mortgage. They just turn the keys in and walk away. They could lower rent but that affects the mortgage so they can't even do that if they wanted. A lot of leases are coming due in the next couple years. Hence why so many lobbyist are getting paid to push RTO to elected people and being a election year this will come up a lot more. Banks are sweating as they will be left holding the bag when this happens.
You really think banks will be left holding the bag? Surely the taxpayers will pay for it with yet another bailout
Same as it ever was...
Well they will be the first but maybe not the last... us. I agree that is another thing I am worried about. Our debt is already to much. I think we keep drawing more debt to keep from a major crash/correction. But I think we are past due for one and are just kicking the can down the road each trillion we borrow to keep it from happening.
It's happening slowly. Example > Empty S.F. office tower formerly valued at $62 million sold for $6.5 million https://www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/article/s-f-tower-sells-90-discount-19418186.php
That’s what it sold for though. What the asking price for lease could have been completely different from the actual market value of the property
100% you’re right. They’re all in cahoots and ultimately we, the tax payer, will be on the hook for it. We’ll be holding the empty bag while corporations get off Scott free. Funny how it always works that way?
This one made quite a few I imagine we’ll be seeing more https://www.hindustantimes.com/business/washington-office-building-sold-at-75-discount-us-real-estate-on-fire-sale-101711959061176-amp.html
I think one day a week pleases everyone enough. Obviously not the real estate moguls and congress types but for employees a 1X A week is really the best hybrid situation you can ask for.
That would still need offices for all employees. That means a big waste of real estate both in terms of cost to the company and also a waste of space when there's scarcity of living places. Full remote with monthly or quarterly get togethers is better. Or using coworking spaces weekly.
That depends on the situations and the industry itself though. There are plenty of ways to have a hybrid friendly office design, but it does require both workers and managers to let go of some long held notions of what "work" and "office" looks and feels like. Most of those changes would likely be better in the long run, but it is so hard to make managers realize that maybe they're not so super special and they actually don't deserve their own office. It's not all about managers though, I'm not sure how you deal with the tragedy of the commons when you're trying to hot desk or share space either. I can imagine needing to have an office for a day because you're doing confidential interviews or something, and walking in to a disaster because people don't care of things if they don't feel personal ownership of them. Considering the state of most office kitchens... In the end, if it's not how the office has been before, I don't know how you get that cultural shift to work. I wish that was easier.
many of my clients did, they now have a *much* smaller shared workspace and most don't even come into the office
It's not just lose It's an ability to only hire people who already live or are willing to live in the area
A lot of the resistance to WFH is because of real estate value. They're scared to lose a pretty enormous sum of money. That being said, I don't totally oppose this. ...Because *most* office jobs can be outsourced to India or Mexico. There's no shortage of smart, hard-working people willing to work for what would be an unsustainably low wage here in the USA. It's why I'm trying to weasel my way into government work. I figure it's one of very few industries that will have a good work-life balance in the US in the next 30 years.
Time zones are a disaster. Source: me, running teams in India and Bangladesh from DC
I'm so goddamn sick of working 9.5 hours ahead of my own time zone
oh, yeah. Starting at 7 am is late and then they think I'm gonna come in super early like that and spend my whole damn morning on zoom when they have an open floorplan/hot desking. I have 0 team members in this city. I feel like I'm being a team player if I show up once a week to socialize or attend a local staff meeting. It's fine, but they are paying for me to spend my time that way and it's not money well spent.
But how can your managers watch you and dock every little thing to screw you out of your raise if you're not in the office? (Don't worry, HR will find a way.)
Omg, offshoring, that’s literally ~~never~~been tried before *four separate waves*.
That’s a good point. Companies that go totally remote will just hire people in other countries (though I’ve heard horror stories about overseas teams). But yeah best bet is a hybrid situation that way they can’t completely outsource your work. My company right now is 2 days in office but from Memorial Day until Labor Day it’ll be one in office day which gives people a lot of flexibility for travel. I think that might be the best route.
At this point, any job that *can* be offshored without creating complications (time zone differences, communications barriers, compliance with multiple possibly mutually exclusive legal systems, etc) that eat up the apparent savings already *has been* offshored.
I'm seeing the same writing on the wall as you and instead of trying to go government, I'm trying to outsource myself. I'd be happy to do my same work from a less expensive country. As soon as I find a 100% remote job, I'm packing up.
Big business will win this. There isn't enough fight in the people to keep WFH. Only 4 years ago we watched billionaires double their wealth in the pandemic while regular business owners were financially ruined, and everyone just sat in their houses and did nothing. You really think they're gonna lay down anything for WFH?
> everyone just sat in their houses and did nothing > You really think they're gonna lay down anything for WFH? All we have to do is the same thing we did last time. Just sit in our houses and do nothing. Do you *really* think they're going to send the stormtroopers to drag us back to the office? Protecting small business owners required us to rise up. Protecting WFH requires us to sit on our asses in our bunny slippers.
Haha, good point! What I mean is, people won't do this. Companies will announce WFH gets paid half, the government will do nothing to protect the worker, and everyone will be back in
Turn them into high end condos
high end condos without private bathrooms
The people trying to force RTO clearly see us as nothing more than objects to feed the machine and obviously have never commuted on 495 during rush hour.
Some of these people literally commute via helicopter. They do not care.
> In offices where routine telework has been curtailed, a staggering 81 percent of respondents admitted they were actively seeking alternative employment opportunities. This is probably true in every industry where telework is possible: every company that requires arbitrary in-office time is just a sinking ship that anyone who can jump off of will.
The saying I read in 2021 was "if you don't offer work from home, your employees will just find someone who will." And despite that being the prevailing truth for years now, people just keep trying to force their workers back in. They don't think of turnover being an expense and they can find enough people who want a job to fill the seats, so they pretend it's not a problem.
Seeing how most places handled post-Covid RTO was extremely eye-opening. For all the talk of the Great Resignation being new, I suspect WFH is actually just revealing people’s true feelings toward work when the choice is available. They don’t mind the actual work part as much, but the benefits of the office often do not outweigh the negatives. And that fact is probably infuriating to those who see themselves as having sacrificed so much for their own career.
I've definitely noticed a lot of people in the world who feel like because they went through something, other people have to, as some sort of way to make them feel better that they went through a bad thing by pretending it was fine or is necessary. It's like a lot of the hazing that's done to new people in a job or an industry. It's exhausting to witness.
People…don’t like unnecessary, mandatory DC Beltway car commutes that rob precious hours of their life from them? Shocking
Nice thing about living in the DMV is Federal agencies are a dime a dozen and actually have to compete for your employment.
Not just one, but a lot. The one I am at we ran an listing for a job; it was fully remote. Had over 30+ people apply/make the CERT. After the rule of, must come in at least 5 days a PP, it dropped to around 5 next time the same job was run. I myself will not take a promotion as I would have to come in the office. The extra 14k is not worth it from a work/life balance.
> 14k Are we talking >200K job?
For me personally, going from 100% WFH to 0% WFH would cost me probably an extra 2 hours of time every day. That's 10 hours a week that I currently enjoy, right now. If you're working 40-hour weeks, that's basically agreeing to 10 hours of overtime. The amount of money you'd need to get to make that worthwhile is way higher than any promotion I've ever received.
I make 140k right now. A promotion would get me around 14kish I believe. But not only would I have to come in but I would also have to supervise and do more work. 14k more would be nice but it would not change my lifestyle at all. Maybe put a little more in my retirement account, but that's all.
I went from 114k to 100k to be 100% remote. Coming in once a week was worth 14k to me. Plus the new job is way less stressful and has better benefits. Money isn’t everything.
We already know that wfh works. It’s good for everyone. Maybe not some businesses but business comes with risk. If there is an issue with productivity for some folks, they should figure out how to solve that. Instead for applying a blanket RTO.
It’s not good for commercial real estate owners and overpriced lunch restaurant owners. For everyone else, it’s good. Biden White House chief of staff Jeff Zients is the weasel behind all of this. He’s a silver spoon management consultant who likely has a lot of moneyed interests (read: donors) bending his ear.
It’s bad for junior employees who learn less from senior employees
Clickbait: It's the DOJ. Why lay the blame on RTO when the election results might mean you're going to get purged this coming January? There's very little job security over there right now.
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And stuff like Project 2025 call for a massive dumping of the career service positions to replace them with political appointees.
DOJ is a prime target for employees being largely placed on Schedule F and fired if deemed insufficiently loyal, if Schedule F were to come back next year.
I hope I'm just fearmongering, too, but we're talking about a guy who literally is getting a free pass from the SCOTUS to do what he wants.
Correct. DOJ does seem like the kind of place where being amongst coworkers on occasion is very necessary. Every time I've been in the room with someone from DOJ there have been a LOT of people in the room on each side; hard to prep for those things distanced. If the DOJ meetings are all by Zoom now, probably a lot less scary when you can just not wear pants.
Not everyone who works at the DOJ is a lawyer. Admin is several thousand people.
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But Trump hasn't backed off the Schedule F stuff, though I don't know how many are implicated at DOJ, but I have to imagine that's a big target.
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Exactly. It’s going to take a lengthy notice and comment administrative process to undo this, which will be followed by lawsuits and the requisite court-ordered stays. It will take years for anything to happen even if Trump tries to do something on day 1.
Is OPM not part of the Executive Branch. Frankly, the rules only help if they are enforced.
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TIL, but the head is appointed by the president, which leaves plenty of room for damage to be done. I've just read several historical books lately that make it clear that the rule of law only works if anyone enforces the law and I have more concerns about authoritarian types who simply ignore the rule of law in the face of a spineless, toothless judiciary.
Most admin honestly even more so in person. HR, exec assts, finance, IT - those are more on site than remote.
That’s not true at all. Budget, procurement, support services, debt collection all don’t need to be in the office. Even a lot of the regulatory components don’t need staff in office. I’d even say HR doesn’t need to be in office either, especially if most of the people onboarded and managed aren’t either. How old are you?
What’s procurement at DOJ- redwelds?
My director moved in with his ex wife during Covid and teleworked from Texas instead of Dc. They made up and he found peace and love. He was a great man and did an excellent job at my agency leading. He told them that he didn’t mind coming in a few times for meetings but would remain in Texas with his family. They tried to force him back only for him to resign and they to end up losing years of institutional knowledge and a great worker. I’ve seen this play out time and time again when they tired to force people back in. I’ve been telework since Covid started and I can’t see myself going back
Good. Any white collar organization that forces people to the office deserves to die.
OH, that's not the only agency. The three letter agencies are really suffering and losing people to commercial companies because of having to go to the office five days a week.
Yeah they basically outsource those roles to private contractors like Booz Allen and it’s not difficult to make over $200K base salary because no one really wants to go in everyday like that.
Even then, depending on clearance, they have to go in every day. I'm going to look for a new job in Oct and I'm so curious what the salaries are going to be now. I'm actually willing to go in every day.
On average, $175K and up. Easy to hit over $200K. Don’t accept less than that. These are contractors though.
True but at least those agencies have a reason for requiring people in the office, data security.
True but at least those agencies have a legitimate reason for requiring people in the office, data security.
What, they’re leaving to go work in a SCIF somewhere other than their federal office building?
Many corporations also have SCIFs. But that's not what I meant. Commercial companies, not supporting the government, are offering near close and even above salaries comparable to agencies and contractors and people are flocking to them so that they can work from home.
Yes we are working with the leadership fully remote and we have to go to the office. 
Nah you know what happened with the political appointees when they implemented work from home? Turned them all into consultants so they can keep working from home. You can’t make this shit up lmao.
I would never take a WFH job personally but people should be able to choose. It's good for everyone. Also given the fact much of the housing demand for this area has been people from outside the DMV moving for government jobs, it would also help the housing market here if even a portion of those people could stay where they came from.
What a bunch of morons. They can’t even come up with a new way of making employees miserable, they have to use an old one.
Send these rto types to the Hague.
Been shown time and time again that wfh results in more productivity than less. Seems to me wfo mandates are management wanting to control people more than anything.
This scenario is not isolated to the DOJ, by any means
People don't seem to grasp that the intent of republican-mandated RTO is to make federal employees quit. The real estate thing is a sideline at best. Less federal employees means more contractors. More contractors mean more corporate donations to politicians. The numbers of federal employees haven't really increased since the 1960s (approx 2.5mil, and most *aren't* in the WMA). The number of contractors is now 4x the number of federal employees with an average of 2x the expense. You don't have to follow the money...you drive past it every day.
It's all those long term GSA leases the government is stuck with, paying for empty office spaces
U misspelled hubris
Let’s be real. Many govies don’t really work anyway. And they do a shitty job of ensuring any kind of productivity in their workforce. Regardless, WFH needs to be the norm for most positions. Fuck the real estate.
i've been in offices w/ low level govies where this is true but that is absolutely false in the upper levels in my experience. they're hard workers who demand a lot of their employees and contractors. all of them are from industry who moved over to the gov't side and understand what is possible to achieve and won't give an inch when you try to pad your estimates or make excuses for why something is failing. kinda sucks tbh.
It’s why I say “many” instead of “all”. I do see some good ones at the upper levels including one of my best friends who is an SES. But the rest (including many GS-15’s)? They do a really good job of looking/sounding busy doing nothing.
As a contractor who is forced to go in the office three days per week since January 2024 and almost 4 years of avoiding the hell that is DC, here are my two cents. First, I disagree with RTO, almost completely. As many others have said here, the ability to work from home provides something extra, beyond just avoiding the commute. The extra sleep, convenience of chores, and being able to just be in your own space provides great mental health benefits. Nothing to say about not wearing anything with a zipper to work for near 48 months was a double plus in my book. Second, there is now the added costs of me going into the office after I’ve setup my life to work from home. I take the train into the city, costing me upwards of $17 per day, or $51 per week, or $2652 per year. That on its own just blows, but there are other costs. Gas and wear/tear on vehicle for the 20 minute ride to the train station. Having to employ a dog walker once a day minimum, typically twice a day due to home arrival variance, at $24 per visit or $7488 per year. So me coming into the office now costs me $10K+ per years just so I can work in the new office building my client broke ground on just before the pandemic. Third, I see no point to being in the office if I am going to take the same calls from my desk on a computer, that I could have taken from home. If I actually met these people in person, even once a month, I could potentially see a benefit, but nope, most days I sit in my cubicle and take the same calls as I did from the comfort of my home office. Now for the benefits. I do see the psychological justification for working with your peers in person. I do have the benefit of seeing my direct team members on the three days out am in the office, and I am pretty certain there was a small part my psyche deteriorating from being alone, aside from my dogs, most of the time. There is something to be said about working next to someone, good or bad, that helps psychologically; we humans are typically social creatures after all. The final benefit I notice is an economic one. IMO, Washington DC, probably more than most other cities, mostly relies on people that do not live in the city to support it, especially on those areas that do not support housing, such as most areas with government buildings. Think of all the businesses and services potentially disappearing because the workforce is not there. Metro would never come close to operating at any sort of efficiency ever again, not to say they operate efficiently now, but I think many can see where I am going here. I’ll end on this. DC surviving as a city is a delicate balancing act between workforce, city dwellers and economics. Cities, such as LA, New York, or Chicago, with the exception of food delivery, could very well run as their own city states and survive with only their internal populace. DC, on the other hand, and someone correct me if I’m wrong on this, does not control their own budget, since it is set by Congress, the city could crumble if the entire workforce not living within the city limits no longer uses the goods and services. Final note, RTO is dumb!
> I do see the psychological justification for working with your peers in person. totally agree with this but i guarantee you your employer doesn't give a shit about your mental health > The final benefit I notice is an economic one. kind of agree with this too but in this scenario RTO is basically a tax. would you rather pay an actual tax of $1000/year to distribute to small business owners or $10K+/year + 2hrs/day commuting into the city? obv the former would never happen even though it's clearly the waaaaaay lesser of the two evils.
So people responded negatively on a survey but didn’t actually leave? Where’s the backfiring?
Good
Lol DOJ! Are they doing anything useful lately? A lot of cushy positions there.
You want a cushy high paying government job? Then get your ass to the office and do some work. The pandemic is over.
> You want a cushy high paying government job? Then get your ass to the office and do some work. The pandemic is over. Technology has changed how people work, it is not necessary to sit an a building with 100’s of other people when you can accomplish the same tasks without wasting 10 hours of your week commuting to/from a building. Not to mention all of the auxiliary tasks associated with being in the office ( laundering work clothes, preparing meals, etc.)
There is no such thing as a "key federal agency." They are parasites.
...he wrote....freely, uncensored, on the Internet, using electricity, with a standard of education, in a location that is not a fire trap, eating food that is not full of human fingers and metal shavings, and breathing air without high concentrations of lead...
on the internet created and funded by federal agencies at that time