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qsauce7 t1_j694yd5 wrote

Pretty fucking wild that people can argue with a straight face that overpriced retail (mostly national chains, mind you) and shitty cafes that sell $12 sandwiches are worth 1-2 hours of collective commuting time for each fed worker in the region.

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nfshakespeare t1_j68pey7 wrote

I’d be happy to listen to any well reasoned thought out argument about why. I spend more time working, less time distracted, and a full days worth of time per week not spent commuting, I spend more money at businesses in my local community. That three years later you haven’t figured out how to bolster your tax revenue is your fault and never has been in my job description. Restaurants will exist where there is demand and cease to exist where it isn’t. It has always been so. To demand I work in person, when there is no efficiency gained, purely for the purpose of me spending money to increase your tax revenue is unbelievably self serving and denigrating.

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giscard78 t1_j68wfh2 wrote

> I’d be happy to listen to any well reasoned thought out argument about why.

I think this varies wildly by job and that this doesn’t apply to most jobs in the federal government but in-person collaboration can be better depending on the context. I work in a research position that (in theory lol) supports policy. Some of the best conversations I’ve had are people with people in the five minutes before a meeting or that I run into in the hallway that I wouldn’t normally talk to.

If you’re endlessly filling out whatever paperwork HR people or 1101s or 2210s do, what I said above probably does not apply. For my specific type of role, there is a creative element to research that isn’t always done well via Teams. Not saying people need to be in-person everyday but occasionally in-person together can yield some pretty good results.

Im sure people are gonna downvote that I suggest some people be in-person sometimes lol.

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ExpeditiousTraveler t1_j6968cc wrote

> I think this varies wildly by job and that this doesn’t apply to most jobs in the federal government but in-person collaboration can be better depending on the context.

I think the stage of your career makes a big difference too. WFH is tough for entry level workers. Training isn’t as effective and you miss out on so many of those organic learning and mentoring opportunities. It also makes it harder for the people in the office with the most influence to get to know you. Having that personal relationship can be so important for advancement and/or if your performance is ever lacking.

We’re now seeing people that finished college remotely and have been working remotely for an extended period. At least in my field, as a whole, their skills are noticeably behind where I would expect them to be.

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nfshakespeare t1_j6a3lty wrote

Good point. For instance theatre over zoom is awful because the actors can’t interact. So a research project, where a creative solution is necessary may very well benefit from in person work. Still as you say that is a quite specific scenario.

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silly_frog_lf t1_j6cutfl wrote

You can have special days when you hang out together for those interactions. And those can exist remotely too if you make messaging small talk a normal part of the workday

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darockerj t1_j6dbltt wrote

tbh i’ve been wanting to return to an office bc it’s really hard for me to network and find mentors in a remote environment. i’m a new-ish tech employee and being without those resources has kind of left me without a paddle.

plus, remote work has been isolating. i miss having impromptu interactions with coworkers and seeing others throughout the day. honestly, i don’t care about efficiency. i don’t work to be efficient, i work to make money.

what i’ve been wanting is to feel like there’s a place i can go where i have a job to do. until then, i’m kind of just chained to a laptop in my apartment.

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Vortex2121 t1_j69lfza wrote

Opinion: No. WFH is an incentive to stay in feds and not go private. (We got a 4.6% pay raise. Inflation was 9.1%.)

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-myBIGD t1_j6ign7g wrote

Lol - people don’t leave the Fed. It’s an easy job with a guaranteed paycheck with bloated benefits.

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NoDesinformatziya t1_j6bzhzk wrote

It's not workers' jobs to prop up failed real estate.

I propose a new WaPo editorial: Commercial real estate conglomerates are parasites and can go get fucked.

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displacedredneck t1_j68lbau wrote

Man, the Post is filled with dumpster fire hot takes lately. That editorial board is cringey as fuck.

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burrito-disciple t1_j69phkr wrote

Tell me your only interactions with the Post are through Reddit without telling me your only interactions with the Post are through Reddit

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LevelDrawers t1_j6aoudx wrote

> Tell me your only interactions with the Post are through Reddit without telling me your only interactions with the Post are through Reddit

Tell me you spend too much time on reddit and can communicate only through used-up memes without... oh, shit, you know

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silly_frog_lf t1_j6cv8lv wrote

The editorial board of the Post has been cringy for a long time. One of my favorite cringe editorial was in the 2000s, when they praised Pinochet. It was their "right-wing dictatorships are great!" editorial that they bring out now and then. It was so disgusting.

So yeah, the Post has decades of making horrible editorials

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burrito-disciple t1_j6ffrtr wrote

I feel like it's always a good sign when people on the left think a paper is too right wing, and people on the right think it's too liberal.

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silly_frog_lf t1_j6fjv98 wrote

If they ran an editorial saying how Stalin was tough, but industrialized USSR, I would feel the same way.

Some of these things go beyond team rivalries

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burrito-disciple t1_j6fkxxv wrote

Luckily for you there's plenty of papers and channels out there that can tell you exactly what you want to hear without ever risking exposing you to an opinion you might disagree with.

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silly_frog_lf t1_j6fpaxd wrote

Oh, dear. I have been defeated by your debating skills. You, are a word warrior of the internets.

Right before you die, instead of thinking about family and friends, you can smile and think, "I won an internet argument somewhere against someone because they thought supporting dictators was wrong. I showed them!"

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TopMagician6574 t1_j69wivu wrote

Can they just hurry up and go out of business so we don’t have to suffer through the hot-take clickbait phase from their editorial board?

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skratchpikl202 t1_j692bsp wrote

  1. I don't feel like commuting or spending $ on a commute so a bunch of property developers can become wealthier. Their buddies are already charging me outlandish amounts for housing.

  2. As much as we like to pretend, Covid is not over. Most buildings and employers do not provide a safe work environment. They refuse to invest in improved air quality measures, and force sick employees into the office. That three-week long super cold you had? It's not a super cold--your immune system has been damaged by Covid infections. Do you think these same employers will give a fuck if you end up disabled? They'll get rid of you and replace you with someone else.

  3. We're squandering the unique opportunities Covid provided us as the world began to change. We had our foot on the gas for telework, improved health care, better wages, lower rent, etc., and we're throwing that all away.

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silly_frog_lf t1_j6cw33x wrote

On your point number one. US business is organized, legalized corruption. The fairy tale is that business, like restaurants and real estate, deserve high profits because they took risks. Hey, if something happens, like a pandemic, they could lose it all!

Something happens, like a pandemic, and we see how business is pushing government to act in a way that punishes regular people, but which saves the formerly courageous investors.

If you have enough money, you have enough power to use the government to reduce risk. And we would call it corruption if this editorial was written in Argentina to pressure their government to save real estate businesses

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Xanny t1_j6al6qr wrote

Downtown should be full of people living there, not commuting from the suburbs in a locust swarm of single occupancy fugging cars.

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Milazzo t1_j68ljzl wrote

The cage rattling of the developers and commercial landlords is increasing. I could see a SOTU return to office announcement as a "Mission accomplished" kind of thing - leaders aren't going to be able to ignore the loss in tax revenues much longer.

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milo2049 t1_j6arky2 wrote

Maybe people are back in the office but bring their lunches because they can’t afford to eat a crappy sandwich that costs 15 dollars

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swampoodler t1_j68u2gv wrote

Just minimize office space and let people who want to be home be from home. Convert the rest into housing.

Unless you have a high level clearance. Then too bad, go in. 🫡

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IfUReadThisURLame t1_j68v5km wrote

The thing that's bothered me about hybrid is that my office doesn't have a great solution for giving us permanent space for personal effects.

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WR1206 t1_j6b5mox wrote

That’s the rub. That solution doesn’t exist

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derpycalculator t1_j6cvpnm wrote

Seriously. Some people want to go into the office. Let the VPs, older people who live alone, and parents who have too many kids in their house come into the office since they want to. Let everybody else work from home.

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alexmarcy t1_j6cwv4t wrote

Just take the docs home! Zero repercussions apparently 🫠

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rattledaddy t1_j6905s6 wrote

I stipulate this is an oversimplification, but…the parasite is unhappy that the host went on a diet. DC complains how the federal government is all up in their business without recourse to elect it (rightly, in my view) but also wants them to be all about their businesses. No subsidy like a federal subsidy!

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eccentr1que t1_j6a242g wrote

DC government has failed the citizens by relying on the federal government to support the economy. If this was any other city this argument would be laughed at and rejected. It is not the job of federal employees to keep the DC economy going. DC gov should realise and accept telework as the new reality

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FSOTFitzgerald t1_j6ld4fp wrote

Okay, but the end game here is the city of DC as we know it and many other cities around the country will cease to exist. Think Detroit 20-30 years ago. Businesses, infrastructure, services, all defunded so folks can WFH from BFE and eat Stouffer’s lasagna everyday.

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eccentr1que t1_j6mpit5 wrote

Lol that's not right. Some people will still want to live in cities. The issue is cities aren't working hard enough to encourage people to choose to come live there.

Why are cities like London, Paris, NYC appealing places to live? Because those cities have diverse economies that have any kind of thinks you want. DC could be a small version of those large cities, it has cultural attractions, the zoo, nature nearby. The city has a pretty good food scene as well. There are areas yet to be improved and good leaders look for ways to improve

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meshuggahdaddy t1_j6ag385 wrote

It's hard to justify that much prime real estate being empty. Turn it into housing

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TheFaucetIsStillOn t1_j68nxme wrote

i actually am so thankful for when people like this let their opinion be known. now we know who needs artificial human interaction everyday to feel something. they can never live for themselves lmao

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NorseTikiBar t1_j698zra wrote

"Artificial human interaction" is generally how I would regard Zoom/Teams meetings tbh.

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BBASPN69 t1_j68zx0s wrote

or they own, are invested in, or benefit from the presence of commercial real estate

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Torker t1_j69aeah wrote

Devil’s advocate- solitary confinement is the worst punishment we have and considered human rights violation. So humans do need some social interaction. I suppose arguing on Reddit can fill that need, which is “artificial human interaction”.

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HanaBothWays t1_j69plgz wrote

Where does this idea come from that people aren’t getting any face-to-face social interaction if they aren’t going to the office?

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silly_frog_lf t1_j6cw7ql wrote

Instead of having daily interaction with strangers, I have it with my family

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derpycalculator t1_j6cwd5i wrote

The people who aren’t getting face-to-face-social-interaction-outside-of-work themselves.

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derpycalculator t1_j6cw7d3 wrote

They do need human interaction… but let them get it outside of work! I know a few people at work who 50+ and single and living alone. They enjoy coming into the office. They openly say they need the social interaction.

How terrible that they’re not getting their social needs met outside of work. People at work come and go. Idk why you’d want your social network built around a group of people you will be in contact with for 2-4 years.

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EastoftheCap t1_j695g6e wrote

It’s either going to happen orderly under Biden or very abruptly with regional job loss under a Republican president after 2024.

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NPRjunkieDC t1_j6a9to4 wrote

I seriously doubt the GOP will get their act together

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Milazzo t1_j69qaf3 wrote

Little of column a, little of column b is my guess

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TheGreekMachine t1_j6eg4np wrote

I like how GOP is so anti-work from home simply because it upsets people.

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TheGreekMachine t1_j6d0ksd wrote

  1. Stop bootlicking big business investors

  2. the market is speaking and unfortunately some business are going to go out of business, this is how the economy works

  3. as a tax payer why should my federal taxes need to be used to subsidize DC? DC needs to build its own economy. If agencies are more efficient and can hire better people with work from home, why should it not continue?

  4. landlords in dc need to stop crying and LOWER their prices on commercial real estate or CONVERT it to housing/mixed use. My company right now is looking for a new office space. Our lease is up and we want new, more compact space with about 40% less footprint because of work from home. We’ve had three preliminary agreements fall through with commercial spaces because their investors have intervened and told the property managers they refuse to lease ½ floors because “the market will come back and soon people will be demanding full floors when work from home ends”. These companies are literally leaving money on the table because they insist they can wait out the WFH “fad”. The DC commercial real estate market was already on a downturn before Covid…it’s time we stopped allowing these dinosaurs to dominate the discourse on the future of the workplace.

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WontStopAtSigns t1_j6gwf7k wrote

I'm pretty sure AI could have paraphrased all the shit takes and wrote a better argument than this piece.

​

We aren't coming back. Hell, half my staff don't even live here anymore. They're gone now. We caught covid TWICE this year, so no, I don't want to get on a cattle car every morning again so I can go work for people that in March 2020 called an *in person* meeting to tell us 3 people had covid and we were beginning indefinite telework. Nope. Get fucked.

​

I already had a liberal telework schedule and my wife was full remote already in 2019. This was coming whether or not the soulless real estate cartel, the boomer boss, or the mayor can believe it. We were going to get here in the next decade. Covid only accelerated the inevitable.

​

If my boss looked at me with a straight face and said I was returning to the office so I could sit in an empty room and attend video meetings, I would quit. No one else is qualified to sit at my desk. We're currently short at least 6 people. Checkmate.

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Stock_Ad_8145 t1_j6i4yhl wrote

Let creative destruction take place.

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schroberg_pk t1_j68t53o wrote

I know I will be downvoted but this is my experience and what I heard. I have a couple of things waiting for Federal Government processing and I can definitely say that it is way slower compared to before and no there is no backlog anymore. Perhaps we cannot generalize but obviously for some departments, this model doesn’t work. Usually people realize who slowed down their performance when they go back to office. Probably a hybrid model would be a win-win for everybody.

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CounselorNebby t1_j69i0zl wrote

What you describe is a small majority of federal work. Most federal work is not public facing. Forcing everyone back to an office to address a problem within a few areas of the government is unreasonable.

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dadonnel t1_j6b4mwt wrote

Gotta keep in mind that a lot of agencies are struggling to fill positions just like many businesses right now. Ending WFH could be even more detrimental to that effort.

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HanaBothWays t1_j6bjp5y wrote

A lot of this is because what was originally a slow-moving attrition crisis in the Federal Government became a fast-moving crisis under the previous administration.

Republican-dominated governments always screw over the civil service and degrade its ability to do its job including service to citizens.

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swampoodler t1_j68uawf wrote

Things are definitely slower now than before but unsure if it’s due to work from home or just an increase in general government negligence.

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TheGreekMachine t1_j6czkj4 wrote

You’re going to get downvoted because you’re using a personal anecdote as evidence for changing the lives of tens of thousands of people. And further, the evidence you’re providing doesn’t even prove the conclusion you come to.

Correlation does not equal causation. Because an agency is now slow doesn’t mean it’s because of WFH it could simply be because they change their process or a new person is doing this job and they are bad at it.

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SheWhoErases86 t1_j6gen5a wrote

The return to the office mentality/these hit pieces probably funded by butthurt corporate companies trying to convince/guilt-trip workers to feel bad about their stress reducing freedom to WFH is the most bootlicking propaganda I’ve seen in a long time.

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[deleted] t1_j69a8ci wrote

[removed]

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displacedredneck t1_j69bnqu wrote

Holy dogwhistles. Get fucked you suburban prick.

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[deleted] t1_j69d89c wrote

[removed]

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NorseTikiBar t1_j69fshj wrote

That's why population is growing and housing is still expensive due to demand, right?

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HanaBothWays t1_j69pu4w wrote

Filthy city people are hiding under your bed, waiting to get you when you fall asleep.

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[deleted] t1_j69i3ji wrote

[deleted]

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HanaBothWays t1_j69q9c4 wrote

My company’s internal metrics indicate that we’re all as productive now when most of us are primarily WFH as we were when most of us were in the office pre-COVID, so I figure I am too.

Same productivity, less stressed, overall happier.

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tameobo t1_j69rc51 wrote

Do you not miss the personal/non work related conversations that you may have had with co-workers/managers that may no longer exist? I think there is a lot of value in getting to know your boss, which is much harder to do when you’re remote.

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BlueCollarGuru t1_j6abbz9 wrote

We’re here to work. Not socialize. That’s what friends are for.

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HanaBothWays t1_j69tuw4 wrote

??? We still have those conversations all the time on teleconferences before and after meetings and on Teams chats.

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tameobo t1_j69xgtu wrote

Teams chats and the 30 seconds of “how’s it going” before a meeting replacing a lunch or happy hour? All I’m saying is there is a ton of value being left on the table when you are working from home.

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HanaBothWays t1_j69z6z3 wrote

> Teams chats and the 30 seconds of “how’s it going” before a meeting

You assume that is the extent of my non-work social interaction with my co-workers.

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3rdAmendment1st t1_j6a9r8m wrote

If you want to work in an office, go right ahead, but don’t presume that you can judge everyone else by your own standards. My productivity and cohesion with my coworkers (many of whom are based internationally) while WFH has been absolutely fine and in many cases better since I’m not spending two hours a day commuting every day.

Ordering everyone back into an office because corporate landlords and Mayor Empty Suit have the sads isn’t a compelling argument.

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ComfortableInterest8 t1_j6a8w1p wrote

Absolute false, I can get things done instead of making meaningless small talk about what people did over the weekends. Also I’m incentivized to get things done because once I’m done I can go workout or take a walk, unlike at the office where you have to sit there until some arbitrary time. You may like the social part of the office, I don’t really look to my job for that aspect of my life. Both of us are right, but why dictate what the other group has to do?

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