Fork in the road letter

[Fireflyfishing]

But I go back to my earlier comment….did these people really think remote work would continue forever? They must have if they bought homes far removed from the parent organization.

Yes, I thought my remote position would last until I moved on. It is my duty station. Let me ask you this…do you think your duty station will last forever? Suppose you think it will until you retire or you decide to relocate/move on. Now the fed decides it needs your position elsewhere more than 50 miles away. Would you be ok with that decision from the feds? Whether you like telework or remote work is irrelevant. A change of duty station against the employee’s wishes is still an adverse action.

 

[ncstewart]

I do feel for the folks that are getting axed. Heck might be me later on if cuts keep coming. That being said anyone who thinks the government can’t do what they want ain’t been around it long enough. I’ve served in uniform and civilian DOD since I was 18. Did deployment to Iraq when I was 20. People think serve your country and it’ll take care of you. But the country don’t owe you as an individual anything. It owes the best to the major of this country. Not the fringe percent


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[PLhunter]

I don't think anyone involved has done any sort of calculation into the fallout and unintended consequences of all this. This is "I don't like it, so let's burn it down."

The work in office mandate is whatever sure that’s within the range of authority. The quit, we don’t appreciate you, go be productive in private industry, all coming from newly installed technocrats is the problem. The handing over access to all federal workers information and our payment system to some unknown unvetted tech bros.. also a problem.

They put out and retracted an executive order within a day and blamed a midair collision on DEI. Not a bit of this is intelligently calculated.

Leopards are eating our faces.

 

[roadrunner]

AI...doesnt have the ability to problem solve to a level that would be useful. It can tell me there is a problem and then I go solve the problem.

You might be surprised at how well it could, and more efficient from an end result standpoint.

AI will not be influenced by the moral dilemma of emotion the way it does with humans.

When it comes to AI making decisions and solving problems for humans, we should all be a little wary.

But this has nothing to do with the thread....

 

[PLhunter]

I don’t work for fed gov but I do work for state. Most of us are hybrid. With at least one office day a week. Our consultation staff numbers have gone up since going hybrid/remote. So that’s unlikely to go anywhere for us. Enforcement was really struggling with remote work. They had a meeting in person saying that if they didn’t get their numbers they would be pulled back into the office full time. Numbers went up. There is a way to do this and encourage accountability and productivity without all the drama and disruption to services. Best and brightest my ass.

 

[2531usmc]

I do feel for the folks that are getting axed. Heck might be me later on if cuts keep coming. That being said anyone who thinks the government can’t do what they want ain’t been around it long enough. I’ve served in uniform and civilian DOD since I was 18. Did deployment to Iraq when I was 20. People think serve your country and it’ll take care of you. But the country don’t owe you as an individual anything. It owes the best to the major of this country. Not the fringe percent


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For everybody that served in uniform and then transitioned to civil service, this is ground truth

 

[RMM]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/31/elon-musk-treasury-department-payment-systems/

Optimistic of you to think there will be a next administration. They are following project 2025 line for line.

Hey dude, take a deep breath and maybe a Xanax while you're at it. The sky isn't falling.

 

[nettereo16]

The access cutoff to the OPM system isn’t a good look for security reasons. At the same time, OPM let their system get hacked by China 10 years ago and my personal info was breached. I’m still bitter about it

Office of Personnel Management data breach - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[bowhuntercoop]

Leaving federal law enforcement after 10 years was the best decision ever. Couldn’t stand the union, the bs hug a thug mentality, and incompetent supervisors. Sooooo much better in the private sector.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

I get your frustration and have no arguments about rampant gov’t waste and needed reform, or even people showing up to the office for work.

Telework and remote work are two different things, however. If you were hired for a physical office duty location and have somehow moved to another location and are claiming telework, there is a serious issue right there. In my agency, telework still requires employees to physically show up to their office at least one day/week, two days/pay period. If supervisors and employees are breaking this protocol, that’s on them and they deserve the possible disciplinary actions owed to them. Removing telework and having employees be at the office everyday of their required tour off duty is not a big deal, from my perspective anyways.

Remote work, on the other hand, allows for residence anywhere. So if an employee is hired under these circumstances and guarantees, how is it fair or legal to pull the rug out from these employees and make them show up to a physical location? This is clearly an adverse action against the employee. If this employee is worth the squeeze, how is this administration retaining employees through merit? So do we remove these folks and rehire someone to replace them to make the blanket agenda work? Sounds like gov’t waste to me…this will vacate positions and cause a bog in hiring. Not to mention, there is a hiring freeze that has no end date.

Further, with the hostile, toxic environment created with this Fork letter, who wants to come to work for the Feds now? If we’re going to get the “best of the best” to work for the Feds, will the Feds pay higher wages to attract these “best of the best” employees? If not, how are you going to fill positions in undesirable or unaffordable locations? Take SoCal for instance, I would like to know how the “best of the best” are hired for entry or professional level positions in an expensive and undesirable (IMO) location.

I am one of the executives in my agency and we have been talking about this extensively. We have several remote employees who were hired as remotes before covid. The EO allows for work at any federal office, so that is going into our proposal. We obviously want to try and comply without totally flipping our employees lives upside down.

 

[flathead#2]

Another email last night mentioning VERA's - Bring it on!!

 

[Weldor]

Be it telework or remote work as Federal employees:
-The number of non Federal employees/taxpayers that believe a federal employee can be fully engaged for months/years/decades away from any office and with minimal physical interaction is just about zero. One could interpret this as remote federal employees sticking a finger in the taxpayer’s eyes.
-As a federal employee myself, I have seen remote and telework employees drift away from being not just fully engaged but even being minimally engaged. The entitlement is amazing, they will fight tooth and nail to not to come into the office no matter how important the issue
-If a federal employee is performing poorly in an office setting, good luck fighting the union to change his performance. In a remote work environment….well, you might as well yell at the moon to get better behavior

But I go back to my earlier comment….did these people really think remote work would continue forever? They must have if they bought homes far removed from the parent organization.

I don’t think it’s a matter of being fair or unfair. It’s simply that these employees made a risk based decision. Sometimes the risky bet pays off and sometimes it does not.

Right on, the missing interpitaion here is Employee. You are a employee not a owner or entity. Suck it up buttercup. When you the employee hired on it was to work not sit at home. I watched this happen at a large defense contractor. it was perfect. production went in the tank and r&d died. They are all back and the company is making a slow turn around. IBM proved years ago remote work doe not work. Nothing like being on a important engineering call and listening to the toddler scream and the dog bark.

 

[Weldor]

You might be surprised at how well it could, and more efficient from an end result standpoint.

AI will not be influenced by the moral dilemma of emotion the way it does with humans.

When it comes to AI making decisions and solving problems for humans, we should all be a little wary.

But this has nothing to do with the thread....

Ask the UAW about AI and robots

 

[TaperPin]

The work in office mandate is whatever sure that’s within the range of authority. The quit, we don’t appreciate you, go be productive in private industry, all coming from newly installed technocrats is the problem. The handing over access to all federal workers information and our payment system to some unknown unvetted tech bros.. also a problem.

They put out and retracted an executive order within a day and blamed a midair collision on DEI. Not a bit of this is intelligently calculated.

Leopards are eating our faces.

It’s as if people are confusing what works in a reality TV show with real life. All the made up drama is definitely on purpose to desensitize people and take their focus off of important issues. The more quick superficial things in a person’s mind, the less time for deep thought into important issues.

 

[IDVortex]

If only companies would follow suit. I might be able to a afford to buy a home in Idaho if everyone moved back out.

 

[mtnrunner260]

I am one of the executives in my agency and we have been talking about this extensively. We have several remote employees who were hired as remotes before covid. The EO allows for work at any federal office, so that is going into our proposal. We obviously want to try and comply without totally flipping our employees lives upside down.

Does it seem there will be sufficient office space?

 

[.204smokechaser]

I’ll add something important that affects us hunters. Prescribed burning funding has been axed from the budget for the most part. The forests in the southeast need the prescribed burning and with no money to send those of us in the west to help out in say Arkansas to Florida anymore, hunters are going to feel that pinch of terrible looking forests unless they figure out that was a dumb idea to cancel the funds.

 

[2531usmc]

It’s as if people are confusing what works in a reality TV show with real life. All the made up drama is definitely on purpose to desensitize people and take their focus off of important issues. The more quick superficial things in a person’s mind, the less time for deep thought into important issues.

Stepping back and trying to see the larger issue. America is entering a very bad place as it grapples with a 37 trillion dollar deficit and is racking up one trillion dollars of debt every 100 days.

We kinda have two choices. One choice is to enter a crash financial diet and try to stabilize the finances. I think that we are beginning to see that here.

The Biden/Harris approach was to keep spending money we don’t have until everything hyperinflates and blows the country up.

And these discussions are noted on Rokslide. This thread, the stock threads, and most prominently on the bitcoin threads.

My opinion (not that anybody asked) is that we’re entering a period of debt inflected pain and this thread is a small reflection of that. We might as well buckle up because it’s gonna be a wild ride

 

[ncstewart]

Another email last night mentioning VERA's - Bring it on!!

Ya I seen this also. Figure a lot of people will be jumping on that.


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[PredatorSlayer]

Does it seem there will be sufficient office space?

Doubtful - if all agencies terminate remote work, there likely isn’t going to be office space for external agency employees.