RTO. Different office?
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In my own experience, I've found that if you offer incentives, the people who typically quit first are the employees who can most readily find work elsewhere. IOW, the best ones.
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Based on my time in federal agencies, and stories from my wife and my friends, if the goal was to cut costs via reducing the workforce, the real solution (although brutal) to be effective would to empower (maybe even incentivize) agency leadership to reduce their workforce by 20% allowing them to fire anyone they want for any reason. Most people in a job can look around and see people who are absolutely not adding any value and are just filling a billet, a seat.... that's the bloat that needs to go.
Asking folks to return to the office (which costs the taxpayers more) or asking folks to retire early and get 8 months of free pay (also costing the taxpayers more) where most of those people will just switch to the contractor world (also costing the taxpayers more) is an approach for campaign marketing, but doesn't address the issue of reducing costs or workers adding no value.
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just now realizing my retirement date has been wayyyy moved up!
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Based on my time in federal agencies, and stories from my wife and my friends, if the goal was to cut costs via reducing the workforce, the real solution (although brutal) to be effective would to empower (maybe even incentivize) agency leadership to reduce their workforce by 20% allowing them to fire anyone they want for any reason. Most people in a job can look around and see people who are absolutely not adding any value and are just filling a billet, a seat.... that's the bloat that needs to go.
Asking folks to return to the office (which costs the taxpayers more) or asking folks to retire early and get 8 months of free pay (also costing the taxpayers more) where most of those people will just switch to the contractor world (also costing the taxpayers more) is an approach for campaign marketing, but doesn't address the issue of reducing costs or workers adding no value.
@89th said in RTO. Different office?:
Asking folks to return to the office ... doesn't address the issue of reducing costs or workers adding no value.
Gotta wonder what the private sector corporate bosses are thinking as more and more of them are hopping onto the RTO train.
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just now realizing my retirement date has been wayyyy moved up!
@NobodySock said in RTO. Different office?:
just now realizing my retirement date has been wayyyy moved up!
Let us know when it's time to congratulate you!
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well by wayyyy up, it is really only 3 months. But technically speaking, I would be done with work on Feb 6. This is alot to grasp right now and will wait a few days before responding to the offer as more details are fleshed out. This is really weird to think this may be my last pay period of 40 years work.
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@89th said in RTO. Different office?:
Asking folks to return to the office ... doesn't address the issue of reducing costs or workers adding no value.
Gotta wonder what the private sector corporate bosses are thinking as more and more of them are hopping onto the RTO train.
@Axtremus said in RTO. Different office?:
@89th said in RTO. Different office?:
Asking folks to return to the office ... doesn't address the issue of reducing costs or workers adding no value.
Gotta wonder what the private sector corporate bosses are thinking as more and more of them are hopping onto the RTO train.
Not sure. It saves the private company money to have remote workers, so I'd imagine they won't change as much. Again, Trump's RTO is literally costing the taxpayer more, it's the opposite of saving costs.
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Trump also said in his speech tonight that he wants federal workers to return to the office like the rest of Americans who have to work in an office. Of course, don't let the fact that 14% of the country (three years ago) work remotely, approximately 32 million adults in the US work remotely as of this year. What is funny is 14% of the federal government works remotely as of Dec 2024... so what Trump said doesn't add up at all, but who cares. @George-K are we at 30,573 yet?
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well by wayyyy up, it is really only 3 months. But technically speaking, I would be done with work on Feb 6. This is alot to grasp right now and will wait a few days before responding to the offer as more details are fleshed out. This is really weird to think this may be my last pay period of 40 years work.
@NobodySock said in RTO. Different office?:
well by wayyyy up, it is really only 3 months. But technically speaking, I would be done with work on Feb 6. This is alot to grasp right now and will wait a few days before responding to the offer as more details are fleshed out. This is really weird to think this may be my last pay period of 40 years work.
Be careful. There doesn’t seem to be any legal basis for the 8 month pay.
Also, is it really 8 months? Or is it ‘through September’? Reporting has been unclear about that. September would make sense for Trump/Musk because (as you surely know) that’s the end of the fiscal year so their first full year would be lighter.
I get that this week ‘8 months’ and ‘through September’ are the same thing but if one needed to stick around a bit to train someone in their duties it could start to make a difference.
Only non-witches get due process.
- Cotton Mather, Salem Massachusetts, 1692
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@Axtremus said in RTO. Different office?:
@89th said in RTO. Different office?:
Asking folks to return to the office ... doesn't address the issue of reducing costs or workers adding no value.
Gotta wonder what the private sector corporate bosses are thinking as more and more of them are hopping onto the RTO train.
Not sure. It saves the private company money to have remote workers, so I'd imagine they won't change as much. Again, Trump's RTO is literally costing the taxpayer more, it's the opposite of saving costs.
@89th said in RTO. Different office?:
Again, Trump's RTO is literally costing the taxpayer more, it's the opposite of saving costs.
I disagree a bit. People in the office go out to lunch, drive, take public transport, etc. Their purchases and the taxes help (probably more locally), but especially in a place like Wash DC.
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You know…I completely get that many jobs/situations/individuals can perform equal or better working from home, but study after study keeps suggesting that on the whole, working in a centralized office leads to higher output and more productivity. That’s why so many private companies are going back to in-office. Forget the government… Amazon, Google, Apple, Salesforce, Zoom (how funny is that?), Blackrock, CitiGroup, Goldman Sachs, Disney, and on and on… All are insisting their employees return to the office…
And give it one contract, and I suspect Government Contractors are going to be facing a similar dilemma…
And none of those have the accountability and oversight issues that Federal Employees have…
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@NobodySock said in RTO. Different office?:
well by wayyyy up, it is really only 3 months. But technically speaking, I would be done with work on Feb 6. This is alot to grasp right now and will wait a few days before responding to the offer as more details are fleshed out. This is really weird to think this may be my last pay period of 40 years work.
Be careful. There doesn’t seem to be any legal basis for the 8 month pay.
Also, is it really 8 months? Or is it ‘through September’? Reporting has been unclear about that. September would make sense for Trump/Musk because (as you surely know) that’s the end of the fiscal year so their first full year would be lighter.
I get that this week ‘8 months’ and ‘through September’ are the same thing but if one needed to stick around a bit to train someone in their duties it could start to make a difference.
@jon-nyc said in RTO. Different office?:
@NobodySock said in RTO. Different office?:
well by wayyyy up, it is really only 3 months. But technically speaking, I would be done with work on Feb 6. This is alot to grasp right now and will wait a few days before responding to the offer as more details are fleshed out. This is really weird to think this may be my last pay period of 40 years work.
Be careful. There doesn’t seem to be any legal basis for the 8 month pay.
Also, is it really 8 months? Or is it ‘through September’? Reporting has been unclear about that. September would make sense for Trump/Musk because (as you surely know) that’s the end of the fiscal year so their first full year would be lighter.
I get that this week ‘8 months’ and ‘through September’ are the same thing but if one needed to stick around a bit to train someone in their duties it could start to make a difference.
Also has anyone checked the fine print (if there is any) to see if this overrides any normal retirement benes? I don't mean pension, of course, but, say, being paid out unused vacation or whatever.
IOW they could be giving with one hand and taking away with the other, even unintentionally because this was surely rushed.
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Just got back from a business trip to DC. Talked to a few friends who are federal staff (Dept of Labor, Dept of Homeland Security, etc)... the first two I talked to said they bring a book to work and about half the workforce just sits in a conference room or hallway and reads since there aren't enough computers or workstations or internet bandwidth for everyone. They said they could easily log-in from home and do their job, but since they aren't allowed they just sit for 2-3 days each week and read a novel. I'll think of this as I pay my taxes soon!
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Just got back from a business trip to DC. Talked to a few friends who are federal staff (Dept of Labor, Dept of Homeland Security, etc)... the first two I talked to said they bring a book to work and about half the workforce just sits in a conference room or hallway and reads since there aren't enough computers or workstations or internet bandwidth for everyone. They said they could easily log-in from home and do their job, but since they aren't allowed they just sit for 2-3 days each week and read a novel. I'll think of this as I pay my taxes soon!
@89th said in RTO. Different office?:
Just got back from a business trip to DC. Talked to a few friends who are federal staff (Dept of Labor, Dept of Homeland Security, etc)... the first two I talked to said they bring a book to work and about half the workforce just sits in a conference room or hallway and reads since there aren't enough computers or workstations or internet bandwidth for everyone. They said they could easily log-in from home and do their job, but since they aren't allowed they just sit for 2-3 days each week and read a novel. I'll think of this as I pay my taxes soon!
How are they going to be able to answer Elon's email if they don't have internet access?????
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Ha, that's a great question. None of that is exaggerated above btw. Even on my own team, there are two federal staffers, one of which is a guy who has been on the job 6 months. Newly married, just landed this job... really would be a shame if he's fired despite the legitimacy of his duties.
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To update some questions here, The Fork in the Road promise to those who submit their intention to resign, includes all benefits as if one was still working actively. Time served, annual/sick leave accrual, etc. And yes, it is no longer 8 months, it is how ever long it will be from the day my agency informs me I am now on administrative leave until September 30th. I am still working. I am sure all agencies are scrambling to make sense out of all of this. And yeah, they just chopped off the head of the probationary employees as obviously that has the least bite back. So we received a new email from Elon's son over the weekend. It asked us to reply with 5 tasks that one accomplished during the last work week. It was to be sent back to them with a copy to one's supervisor. My agency quickly put out an email to all directing us to NOT reply to this email yet. I was a little bit surprised that I received this email as I am one of the 75,000 who took the offer, so one would think that those folks should have been omitted from this email. Oh well. Neither here nor there, but I am hearing and feeling the pain of 2 million federal colleagues who are living in fear for their future right now, as I am a member of a couple FB federal employee groups. They all feel victim to this chainsaw when more prudent methods could have been more methodical and approached with professionalism and real intent to save the government money instead of seeing it today for what it is. Retribution. Trump and Republicans have always hated the federal workforce. They are part of the deep state you know?
