OT: Fed Employees impact
- Thread starter swampbo
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If you're more concerned about where someone does work over the overall size of government and how much quality output from the employee, I think you'll be disappointed with your oitcome and product/service.
I'm in favor of cutting big government, but I'd first cut the bottom 20%. I'd then assess what leased space I could ditch to reduce overhead. That may/may not create a need to further reduce staff to fit into remaining space. If a productive employee can work from home and carry his/ her overhead costs related to space, I'm fine with that.
Technology has advanced. I would use it and be more strategic than a 1960's style approach.
Most fed employees who work from home are doing so because there is no federal office space for them to work from. Trump just wants to create the narrative so he can start laying people off and replacing them with loyalists. Or maybe this is the start of DOGE. Not going to be pretty for a lot of workers either way. But no need to worry. Mr Tesla says it will only be very tough for a couple of years and then it will be better forever than it has ever been before !
A part of it is to incant some folks to quit voluntary or retire before they do RiFs.
Was with you until that last part. People treating government employees like non-people is tiresome, but everybody thinks their own cohort is the best, and the best way to work. Of course, there are lots of good federal employees. But there are lots of good employees in all sectors.
The problem is most people (not necessarily talking about you) seem to believe that federal employees are lazy, good for nothing individuals who are incapable of doing anything. Thus you have this thread implying that all federal employees do is sit at home watching Netflix. The reality is the stereotypical federal employee is the rare exception rather than the rule but that doesn’t fit the narrative.
I’ve got friends that did the work from home. One reloacted to IOP the other to Park City. Needless to say their employers don’t get 100% effort from them. I had another acquaintance that worked two diff jobs from home. I know not everyone is the same, but these are two examples.
How does people working from home or commuting to an office have any impact on the # of subscribers Netflix has?
Just curious how much work from home does everyone thinks @Larry_Williams @Cris_Ard @Paul Strelow do? Any guesses? Do these guys need to go to the office to work? Or is their office the Esso Club? Certainly don’t mean to drag these guys into it but imagine if Cris had to lease real estate in Clemson to make sure his guys went to work. Imagine if LDub and Paul could no longer claim their home or car as their office and lost the tax write off.
Point is not all jobs require an office, a desk, and a time clock to be effective or productive. Not all federal jobs are created equal. Not all private sector jobs need an office.
People just pissed they cannot work from home. If they can’t no one can’t.
For the employers, it’s just an easy way to cut bait. Hoping people quit and they can avoid paying unemployment.
Point is not all jobs require an office, a desk, and a time clock to be effective or productive. Not all federal jobs are created equal. Not all private sector jobs need an office.
People just pissed they cannot work from home. If they can’t no one can’t.
For the employers, it’s just an easy way to cut bait. Hoping people quit and they can avoid paying unemployment.
No offense to any of you IRS agents but I wish you had no jobs at all. Tired of paying taxes on something that was already taxed. 😊
And to the original question, I doubt it affects Netflix at the moment.
And to the original question, I doubt it affects Netflix at the moment.
Nobody is answering the question because it is a ridiculous one that assumes, without any evidence, that federal employees working from home are subscribing to Netflix only because they can watch shows and movies from home while working.
You’re a business owner. How do you measure productivity of your employees that have desk jobs?
You just do the exact same thing you're going to do here. Order the unsatisfactory workers back to the office. Same result without grandstanding for political purposes.
I think hybrid is most ideal. I choose to be in office more than out of office but being able to work from home a day or two is really beneficial. Take for example a doctor’s appointment I have today. I’m working from home and the office is 5 minutes from my house opposed to 1 hour from the office. So I’m saving almost 2 hours of working time today.
I can pick my daughter up from day care one day a week, which I absolutely love! Then I’m in the office most days.
Maybe I’m wrong but if a person doesn’t have the work ethic, character or integrity to do their jobs from home, they probably aren’t doing it fully in an office. I’m a grown man, I don’t need or want someone over my shoulder all the time. I’ve quit office jobs because of micro management.
It's getting ready to change, I think. I know of several companies who at the highest levels are arguing about it. These are huge companies who I would say have 25-30% working from home and another 60% with the option. Aside from logistical people who need to be there for shipping.
Not saying it's going to change, but they are trying to weed out the advocates in position of authority it seems. It's always made me wonder if these CEO's have attended a certain meeting on "what the plan should be" because they almost all start doing the same things.
There is a big fuss and push to get people back to work or find ones who will.
I dont mind working from home, for the record. I don't have a strong enough opinion either way. I love a routine, but im more efficient as a person in my everyday life when I WFH.
Just follow who the politicians invest in and you too can be sitting at home watching Netflix.
The bolded sentences could be stated about almost all “issues” addressed in Washington.
But you cannot score political points that way, so we get extreme “solutions” by whichever side is in power. It’s exhausting.
I haven't worked in an office since 2003.
Probably cause few supervisors give a proper evaluation. Document document document but it’s just easier to right a positive evaluation then deal with consequences.
Imagine how much more productive you would be if you had to drive though Clemson to get to work. Your readers should petition @Cris_Ard to get you a proper office, one of those news rooms with landlines, a teletype, and an answering machine. I would gladly pay another five shillings a year if it helps you write three more articles on why the forward pass will destroy football and one long form piece on how the synthesizer is not REAL music.
I’d like a schedule like that. In truth I can do it to a certain extent. If I have inclement weather, contractor at the house, crap like that my boss lets me work from home.
The nature of my job makes it really hard for me to work from home for extended periods. But I can do it. It just puts a burden on the rest of the team for some aspects (or those tasks get delayed).
My experience is that in-person meetings are more productive. But I would guess that depends on the company.
Just FWIW, my job is totally different from a bunch of other jobs.
I can 100-percent understand, in general, how leadership might strongly prefer their workforce come into an office.
I worked full time "in office" for 40 consecutive years. Who teaches people to actually do the job? A mentor system and direct interaction with superiors was necessary to bring people up to speed. A complicated job like IRS investigator must take over a year to learn and become proficient. The "spreadsheet bitches" - project managers job is all about communicating and is going to evolve with AI.
Other than I think it's politics in general, not just Washington, I can't like this enough. It truly is exhausting.
Side story: When the Post and Courier decided to put someone in Clemson and I was interviewing for the job the top editor at the paper (a total hard ass, mostly in a good way) kept asking me if I was cut out to work from home. In fact, he straight up told me: "I don't think you're cut out to work from home."
It turned out I was. But I think his general concern/skepticism was well placed.
If someone works well while working from home it's great. But it can also be an inefficient mess if you hire someone who's not cut out for it.
When I was in the office I'd always get sidetracked by needless conversation. So a story that should've taken me an hour to write would take me two or three hours.
I think it all is just different strokes for different folks and it depends on what type of person you are and what's in your wheelhouse in terms of efficiency/focus.
Some folks are much more efficient in an office setting because of the structure and the "leaving work at work" so to speak.
It turned out I was. But I think his general concern/skepticism was well placed.
If someone works well while working from home it's great. But it can also be an inefficient mess if you hire someone who's not cut out for it.
When I was in the office I'd always get sidetracked by needless conversation. So a story that should've taken me an hour to write would take me two or three hours.
I think it all is just different strokes for different folks and it depends on what type of person you are and what's in your wheelhouse in terms of efficiency/focus.
Some folks are much more efficient in an office setting because of the structure and the "leaving work at work" so to speak.
I'd use a different way to describe them, but you're not wrong haha. There's a gap in leadership and lots of college graduates filled the void the older people didn't want to do. Spreadhseets and reports. They need people to do those until something else comes along that will do it better.
The human aspect of industries will always need to be there. The art of a deal and closing a deal and making deals is a skill that will be hard to just do away with entirely. Finding another way to give you the data can and likely will be replaced. AI will be the new Spreadsheet B*tches, for lack of a better term.
I don’t understand why it’s such a debate, all typical office jobs are more efficiently done in an office. The folks who want to work from home or do a hybrid gaslight folks like it should be a right.
I worked for an S&P 400 EPC firm contracted to the federal government for a few years that utilized TCA timekeeping and we’d occasionally have audits of productive vs nonproductive time and that’s eye opening.
At least with the older generation of project management, the number of meetings that could have been an email that I sit through on a weekly basis is rough. Another position I held (post covid, where our management insisted on everyone being full-time in office, btw) where the amount of “collaborative time” spent in superfluous meetings just appeasing needy managers approached 10-20% of my weekly work hours. I’m 25% hybrid now and it’s great to have at least one day per week where I can multitask and get work done if the meeting isn’t value added. I make good money and work very hard, and I’ve got a great boss who does a good job communicating expectations and holding us accountable with our production and output quality. More effective managers solve a lot of the telework issues but we’ve got a whole generation of management who have been indoctrinated with a paternalistic desk watching approach instead.
Also, as far as federal work goes, fixed firm+incentive contracts solve a lot of productivity issues. When contractors get paid primarily by the FTE rather than by the completion of scope, it causes principal-agent problems.
For anyone with a commute it can come close to half a day. I’ve got a 40 minute ride in and normal work starts over an hour before the doctor’s office opens, so if I manage to get the very first appointment of the day, spend 30 minutes at the doctor, grab a coffee or some drive through breakfast on my way in, and then commute in, I’m coming up on 3 hours after normal start time. For workers in metros where the traffic is far worse than exurban SC, it’s even more.
My experience as a director has been that when my staff were WFH, my better employees were even better at home, and my worse employees were even worse.
For my better employees, they actually worked longer hours with less distraction. My lesser employees struggled without someone over their shoulder and subsequent lack of accountability in the day to day that comes with it.
FYI, I have been a Fed Employee about six years. I have some flexibility to work from home but definitely prefer office. I just like being able to go down the hall or over to the next bldg to handle issues. I am not a huge fan of email or Chat when a quick phone call can resolve things. I am certain my attention span would not permit me to work 100% remote. However, I realize certain people have the discipline and mental capacity to function without me popping into their office once a week.
FYI, working from home today due to this weather.
Oh and damn 2003? I’ve been reading you since the Chronicles days, I think. I turned 50 this year. So that means we’ve been in a relationship longer than me and my wife.
Where's the data for "more efficiently done in an office". For the two years my company was in lockdown before coming back. That wasn't played out.
I am not pretending anything should be a right. I am saying a lot of people are leaving companies where they were required to go back into the office (despite no evidence their work had suffered) and are now moving towards companies that are more progressive in that area. There is a lot of overhead saved by the company willing to do remote, there is less office drama, sexual harassments, etc. All that being said, the one area I think I've seen where there is a clear dropoff is training. I'm sure it varies from role to role and company to company.
Training is a huge loss imo. I think the productivity loss aspect is definitely overplayed by management who lack the tools to do anything but look over shoulders constantly. In 2020 we started up a new nuclear facility with 80% of our workforce doing their jobs remotely but the company was a global engineering firm that had a lot of experience working that way already.
I thrive on the hybrid schedule, but realize some folks are wired differently. I hated being at home every day in 2020, but I would seek other opportunities if being in the office Monday - Friday was required again.
As far as productivity, my biggest time sucks are in the office - meetings that should be emails, walking by someone’s office turning into 30 minutes of chitchat, etc. I care a lot less about being “yellow” on Teams if I’m in the office.
As far as productivity, my biggest time sucks are in the office - meetings that should be emails, walking by someone’s office turning into 30 minutes of chitchat, etc. I care a lot less about being “yellow” on Teams if I’m in the office.
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