> American taxpayers are wasting billions to pay for owned and leased federal office space that remain largely vacant
Maybe this is an opportunity for savings instead of a forced RTO?
Then again, I doubt it's worthwhile to reason about this decision; we've seen more controversial ones already (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42785891 ) and I guess this is not the final one.
Even though Trump was there for the stargate announcement, there are no government funds involved.
But why is Stargate controversial? If private companies want to spend $500 billion, why should we care? Yes I know part of it is debt financing.
But back to your point, look at the all of the wasteful military bases in the US and weapons programs that the military brass keeps trying to get rid of but the civilian leadership keeps blocking because of civilian job loss in thier districts.
Notwithstanding needing a military for geopolitical purposes, the government could also create jobs by repairing/rebuilding infrastructure like bridges, locks, public transit, rail lines, etc.
Is a bunch of tanks more or less useful than replacing a >50 year old bridge?
This will become a savings play in the long run. Forced RTO has generally been considered a headcount reduction approach, which checks out with new administrative direction. After RTO stabilizes, its likely the office assets will be optimized to minimize wasted office space.
As a headcount reduction measure it usually means that the people that stay are the ones that are not good at what they do, so they can't find another jobs.
The good ones have more opportunities, so they don't take the BS and leave for better working conditions.
An alternative is those that stay are more “under the gun”, whether it be due to having dependents or still needing to make a reputation for themselves. It’s simply a bet that the product/service you are selling will still keep selling* in sufficient amounts.
The larger the organization or more monopoly/monopsony position it has, the more these kind of games can be played.
*if not for money, then sufficient political capital such that you can win the next election. Or maybe you have a goal other than winning the next election.
The current administration doesn’t want a well run government. This has been the end goal of Republicans forever. Besides, any needed replacements will be those who kiss the ring. Loyalty is far more important than competence.
I havent seen any data that shows the people who RTO and "stay" are bad at their job. I think low preformers are going to get RIFed either way if they RTO or not. Those who RTO easily will generally be the employees who are already geographically close to the office, satisfied with their job, and see future career opportunities.
The good ones already have had the opportunity to leave all along, and if they are good enough, they may be able to set up a home based position. Maybe government roles do not need high performers at scale like the private sector does.
>I havent seen any data that shows the people who RTO and "stay" are bad at their job
Who would pay for a study like that? There's little chance it would yield positive results, and would likely just serve to cause embarrassment for the funder of said study.
Pay for a study? It would likely only be possible to do these studies at a company level, where there is enough sample in the headcount. There are plenty of People Analytics teams that exist on large F500's that would tackle a project like this.
> Maybe government roles do not need high performers at scale like the private sector does.
As a taxpayer, I respectfully disagree; as someone who wishes the government was more efficient, I disagree; as someone who complains about poorly thought-through red tape and bureaucracy, I disagree; as someone who cares about enforcing regulations that set minimum floors on the safety of our food, transportation, and drugs, I disagree; as someone who cares about the money poured into basic and applied science research without expectation of profit, I disagree.
what suggests that's the criteria that will be used for any RIF? seems to me that if you are a low performer but toe the party line that you will be safer than someone that is seen as rocking the boat and constantly pushing back.
Headcount reduction could increase the deficit, not reduce it. Wages are only 5% of the Federal budget; reducing headcount will likely increase waste and increase the spend on expensive contractors.
Especially since the administration is likely to target the IRS especially heavily for headcount reduction. That'll drastically impact revenue.
> Forced RTO has generally been considered a headcount reduction approach, which checks out with new administrative direction.
Reducing government workers may make things worse, as if you don't have enough internal man power and expertise you often have to rely on external consultants, which often cost much more and have things take longer:
if you think this will result in any significant head count reduction you are very mistaken… no one leaves government jobs once they get one and many people are there after taking a paycut coming from private sector. I work in federal government and have not heard a single person yet saying “well, shit, gotta get another job (in THIS market, emphasis mine).
Employers, government or not, still wield far too much power over the personal lives of employees. I think it is rather meaningless to try and understand why RTO is en vogue now.
Why is the discussion so rarely focused on the fact that your boss can demand that you uplift your life or else you're fired, immediately and with impunity, and what you have to say about it means absolutely nothing?
Maybe I am baffled by this because I live and work in Europe where the relationship is a bit better (though I am not sure for how much longer it will remain as such). Americans seem very content to allow this behavior as normal because, obviously, other employees (but not me, I am a great employee!) must serve their stakeholders better so we can gain every bit of efficiency and increase precious income in the economy.
> must serve their stakeholders better so we can gain every bit of efficiency and increase precious income in the economy.
The problem with this characterization is that Americans hold the same kind view for all relationships, not just work-related relationships. For example: Married someone who starts making your life miserable? Too bad. It is your fault for choosing to have a relationship with the wrong person, they will tell you. There is no will to extend special concessions to force the spouse to play nice there either. The public is content to let you grin and bear it or end the relationship.
Consider me equally confused. What should be is what is. If it shouldn't be that way, it wouldn't be that way. What, exactly, is your question trying to ask?
Are you trying to ask me to invent hypotheticals of how things could be if there was some kind of parallel universe where Americans hold different relationship values? I can try to fumble around on that idea, even if it is a little silly.
A previous comment indicates that some people value autonomy in choosing where (as in physical location) to participate in a relationship, even if contrary to the desires of another party in the relationship, without reprisal. Perhaps we can work off that?
What does that mean in practice? Hard to say. I've never been to that parallel universe to truly understand it. But, perhaps, that means something like penalties for a party who chooses to leave a relationship if they are unhappy with how frequently another party is physically present in the relationship?
I'll admit I am too engrossed in the "American way" to go any deeper with that. It seems normal and expected to me that if any party wants to leave a relationship, it is their life to live and other parties should be accepting of their choice. Anything else is foreign to me. I can't offer much here as a result, but maybe someone from a different culture that sees relationships in a different light can chime in?
You must have accidentally pressed the wrong reply button originally?
The only thing that might even begin to resemble a critique that I posted was pointing out that the idea that American relationship norms in the workplace are driven by some kind of quest for economic productivity doesn't work because the same relationship culture is found across all types of relationships in America, even those without economic concern. It is not exclusive to one type of relationship as the original commenter was under the impression of.
But that's akin to noting that 1+1 equals 2 in follow up to someone stating that 1+1 must equal 666. Call that a critique if you want, but I don't see how that could possibly leap into having "some other model" in mind? Consider me even more confused than before.
Having just started working again after a long run out-of-a-job (and an even longer run outside of the office), I couldn't tell you, either. My job so far only requires a handful of tasks that can't be done remotely (and that, frankly, could be replaced with access to a print center and a courier). Still, I'm required to make a commute that's minimum one hour, and approaches two for the method I can afford. My bosses have also taken offense at my "lateness" (8-8:30 arrival time, instead of 8 on the dot or earlier; sorry, the 6:45 bus hits traffic). Lots of downtime. Few complaints about my actual performance.
This job could be fully remote. I'm actually trying not to puzzle over the reasons it's not, because that would just make me more frustrated. But, gun-to-my-head: it's inertia. People heavily invested - sometimes literally, often overleveraged - in the status quo, and not especially inclined to be open-minded or rational about changing it. You saw that it took a global crisis where employers were suddenly caught on their back foot in order for remote to gain any sort of real foothold (same for rethinking transit policy, etc.). And then they've spent the following years trying to claw everything back. Incumbency is a helluva drug (and the withdrawal is killer).
When you took the job, did you know it was in office work and how long the commute was going to be?
I mean I get frustration if “I was remote, but my company RTO’d”. Not so sure I understand “I intentionally took a job in the office a hour away but I am disappointed because I could do the job from home” mentality.
When I took the job, I trusted my employers' word that the role's tasks required being in-person, against my own suspicions. That, combined with no other prospects, meant either I took the potentially raw deal or face destitution.
Now, I've had worse jobs, but that doesn't mean it's right that this one is arranged the way that it is. Not for me or for the business.
You're saying that no one has standing to criticize a deleterious deal after someone has taken it, and I have to reject that. It's the kind of attitude that excuses all kinds of exploitation because "you knew what you were getting into." In reality, you have people forced into definitively bad situations to avoid potentially worse ones, or ambiguity regarding the conditions that doesn't resolve itself until they're in the thick of it.
Go back to basics: if an employer is made aware that their work conditions are unreasonable, they should strive to make them reasonable, even if they have leeway not to because of a prior agreement. That's just an ethical reality. Such conscientiousness also engenders loyalty and trust; tapping the employment contract instead is why workers are happy to serve out their "term" and then quiet quit or actually quit.
The election was still pretty close to 50/50. Trump received 49.8% of the popular vote. Harris at 48.3%. Better to say "Americans seem to marginally prefer to allow this behavior as normal..."
Even that would be a wrong conclusion. I'm not sure all people who voted for the current POTUS are happy with higher pricing of diabetes drugs, forced RTO and other nonsense. Maybe some do, but for sure not all.
I am not from the US, but I have a curious anecdote.
My friends that consistently vote for extreme right wing are, perhaps ironically, the ones that will suffer the most if they ever get on power.
Why do they vote for the extreme right wing, you may be wondering? Mostly out of spite. They really hate people on the left, who they see as smug.
I am sort of a centrist, so I can get along with people no matter their political views (and mostly because I don't put politics front snd center of life anyway).
I feel like unpacking that, "They're smug," sentiment might yield important insights. I don't know why and I don't know what those insights might be yet, but that's my gut feeling. I also feel like there might be some analogy to the phenomenon where people who say, "I only give people respect when I get it from them," actually mean, "I only give people basic dignity when they defer unconditionally to my judgment or will."
Then again, maybe expectation is what's at the root of most suffering.
> I feel like unpacking that, "They're smug," sentiment might yield important insights.
I agree, but I never dug enough to get these answers. I just noticed the pattern of behavior.
I think that the progressive discourse since the turn of the millennium did get increasingly preachy, to the point where even I, who am sympathetic to many of their pleas, find them annoying quite often.
Another friend I have hypothesizes that what is generally seen as "left" during that time frame moved on from class struggle and economic inequality (which used to be major talking points in the 80s and 90s) to more soft social issues. As a result, some of the lower classes started to embrace ideas of those that blamed others for their misfortune (be it immigrants, gays, blacks, etc). I find that an interesting argument, but never took the time to more thoroughly inspect it.
I can't buy your friend's conclusion, because people have been blaming immigrants, [insert analague for gays here], blacks, etc. in America and beyond for at least 100 years.
That said, I think what I'm interested in picking at that word, "preachy". It's an inherently subjective sentiment, so what does it really mean, to this person or that one? Are they offended (or maybe angered, or maybe threatened, or maybe repulsed) by the message, or the way the message is conveyed, or real/imagined ramifications of the message, or...
I just don't want to take this feeling for granted without really understanding what it is, you know? Anything like it is rooted both in reality and our interior lives, even when the two are at odds; teasing out how much goes into which is a part of that process of understanding.
> I can't buy your friend's conclusion, because people have been blaming immigrants, [insert analague for gays here], blacks, etc. in America and beyond for at least 100 years.
Well, as I said, I am not from the US. This blatantly discriminatory discourse was a lot less fashionable back in the day. Not that there was no discrimination, but the political discourse was not as contaminated by it.
> That said, I think what I'm interested in picking at that word, "preachy". It's an inherently subjective sentiment, so what does it really mean
Of course it is subjective. A lot of things in politics are subjective, related to feelings, abstract ideas, concepts.
And I am the first party that used the word "preachy" to describe my perception to more progressive discourse. This word implies an excessive appeal to morality, which used to be a hallmark of reactionary discourse when I was young - homosexuality, videogames, heavy metal, Dungeons & Dragons, et cetera and so forth was rallied against for being evil, moraly abject, satanic, and ao on.
From the turn of the millennium, more or less when progressive discourse shifted from socioeconomic concerns to more purely social issues, the talking points adopted the same tone. You don't fully support affirmative action? You are racist. You don't fully support abortion? You hate women. You like action movies that feature a strong male figure? You are misogynistic. It's all very tiresome.
> You don't fully support affirmative action? You are racist. You don't fully support abortion? You hate women. You like action movies that feature a strong male figure? You are misogynistic.
It's everywhere, this thinking in sides with no ground in between. Someone says something which in their mind it is in support of cause A, so if you contradict them -- even ask them a honest question they can't answer -- you are undermining their effort to support A, therefore you must be anti-A. If you're not in camp A, you're in camp B.
> This is a very common - and very self-serving - trope: the poor dummies who vote against their economic interests.
I did not call them poor dummies, and I never said anything about economic interests. Are you projecting your own perceived prejudices on me?
> Haven't you and I voted for taxes ? Possibly progressive taxes ? Possibly even progressive taxes whose sole purpose was wealth redistribution ?
> I have voted for things like that and they are absolutely counter to my own economic interests.
Except those things are not counter to my economic interests? I certainly wouldn't suffer with less economic inequality.
> Shouldn't we expect participants in a democracy to consider more than simple economic benefits when casting votes ?
Absolutely. I just mentioned that my friends that vote for the extreme right wing do so out of spite. They put their spite and anger above other interests. That is nuanced on its own right.
> If your own decisions are complex and nuanced why would you assume that's not the case for others ?
Once again you are assuming that I consider my own voting decisions somehow superior - or "complex and nuanced" as you put it. What implies that I consider them to be simpletons.
Except my original reply had no such connotations. I am not a giant my friend, I am just a windmill.
That's interesting, I didn't know od this book. But it is similar to the anecdote I was pointing to.
They would rather vote for politicians that will increase economic inequality by benefitting the upper classes with tax breaks and dismantle every semblance of a safety net for the general population, just because they really hate the people on the left.
I perceive this because whenver their extreme right has any victory (and I say this in the broader sense, for example, if the leftist government gas to withdraw a proposal because it was successfully blocked) they don't celebrate that the proposal that was withdrawn was bad, they celebrate that those assholes in the left got pwned.
The left and the right have routinely ignored “rural White America”. Trump at least pays lip service to them. Of course all of his policies actively hurt them. But as long as he can stir up discontentment and use the religious right, he is good.
I’m not saying that’s the reason he won this time. It’s entirely the fault of the DNC and them doing the real life version of “Weekend at Bernie’s” with Biden.
You can't post like this here and I've banned the account.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I work closely with federal employees and I have not seen that. The benefits are some of the best in the world. With near-guaranteed pay raises, cost of living adjustments, discount public transit, and countless other pensions and perks, it's not easy to get a federal job. I have friends who have been trying for years to get hired but it has been very competitive for them.
Gov job in tech is like any other job, the best employees who can work together successfully to solve problems is best optimized over a wide area (spatially). There are other benefits of strong employee rights and stability in work, ability to transfer to other departments a pretty simple process (which opens the type of work you can do while still being employed so much easier), and good health/retirement packages. These are motivators for people to want to stay with the Gov when already hired in, but to new and existing talent that have more options, the lack of remote and/or telework can be make or break. If we actually want a Gov that can perform, because people do that work and thus would want good people, we should be not artificially constraining ourselves on how to achieve that goal.
The civilian government agencies spent 248B on contract services in 2023 [1]. Not all of that was professional services, but I expect that we will see an increase in that number as more services are contracted out and a decrease in direct government workforce; a government contractor can still work remotely.
The mindset for acquisition is typically anything not core to an agency's mission should be bought on the open market at the lowest price technically acceptable. This tends to select against small businesses who can provide stellar services but can't just cut rates willy nilly for extended delivery time periods.
In effect, government contracting is a large jobs program.
Government often goes too far. You should outsource not things that are not your core values, but things you cannot trust someone else to do. Maintenance often needs to be something you do in house because you cannot trust someone else to take care of it. That someone in house will of course outsource the labor (toilet clogged once - the in house person uses a plunger - if that toilet clogs often they call a plumber to fix what is wrong), but you need someone in house to decide if you need to hire the labor in the first place, otherwise you end up paying a plumber to replace a toilet that works fine but got too much put into it one time.
You can buy the same on healthcare.gov. And if you retire early, you can plan it so your income stays below the ACA subsidy limits and the premiums go down to near zero.
Although, you will need to pay extra for concierge care/direct primary care either way to see a doctor in a timely manner.
I’ve worked at 10 jobs and 7 of those were after the ACA became effective. Out of those latter 7, I’ve worked for companies with 60 employees to the second largest employer in the US. The ACA has set an acceptable minimal of how bad private insurance can be.
> The benefits are some of the best in the world. With near-guaranteed pay raises, cost of living adjustments, discount public transit, and countless other pensions and perks,
This also describes working at Amazon, minus the pension. The real difference is really just the pension.
Up through this year a relatively large benefit of being a federal employee is that you're not nearly as susceptible to job loss as your private sector peers. Most new administrations promise to shake a bunch up but don't actually cut jobs in any meaningful way.
This administration may be different, of course, if it delivers what it promised.
Oh no, no, the REAL benefit is the JOB PROTECTION. As a federal employee, once you've made it out of your probationary period (6mo - 1 year) it is nearly impossible to be fired. There are no PIP's in the government.
And sounds like intentional dismantling of government and government institutions. Also, cost of living for folks that stay will likely go up considerably with having to pay for commuting...
I predict getting a government job is going to become increasingly popular as the private sector will be much much faster in eliminating positions using AI.
Fully loaded, government wages aren't as bad as they seem on on paper. Price out an annuity from an insurance company with payouts equal to a government pension. The quote might be above $2M.
If you contribute the max to a 401k for 30 years you should have around 2 million (and don't put everything into stupid investments, which many 401ks make hard). But that is $20k/year that doesn't go into your wallet. Of course inflation needs to factor in - 30 years ago your max contribute was about half of today ($9,240.00 vs $23,500.00) and so your expected result would have been more like 1 million. But if you contributed the max for all those 30 years you are probably close to 2 million. If you start today for 30 years you should be quite a bit more than 2 million - but how much I cannot predict. I'm assuming above that you get an employer match which most do.
The above assumes you have a 401k. Those plans are more available than any previous retirement option (other than social security which nearly everyone has and is mandatory). However even though 401k is available to more people than previous workplace retirement plans, there are still large numbers who don't get a 401k (someone who can have one but chooses not to is also an issue).
The above is US centric. Many people reading this don't live in the US and so have completely different options that I have no idea about.
But wasn't DOGE created to eliminate some of those jobs? In which case, the question becomes: Will supply be willing to show up for the market price, which may soon become zero or even negative?
Gotta give it to DOGE, which already eliminated Co-founder/CO-CEO and its top lawyer. They seem to be walking the talk. But I'd consider it totally serious if Musk's position is eliminated in before his kids move to next grade mainly due to not meeting targets or missing 5 days a week at work mandate.
Pensions compete with self-directed retirement in the same way that a salary competes with founding your own business: they take all the risk and all the mental effort and give you something you can (mostly) rely on without any added effort, in exchange for a smaller return than is technically possible if you took the risk and planning effort yourself.
Some people would definitely be better off managing their own retirement, but just due to the way these things work my bet is about half of all people (the left of the bell curve) would be better off with a pension.
Pensions are also risky when you’re young because so much of their value depends on the final salary. Leave a job young without those promotions and 5 years of service can mean almost nothing 30+ years later in retirement.
Where you sit on that bell curve isn’t obvious at age 20, but it’s much clearer at age 40. Benefiting people who have already messed things up and swap.
Thus that single binary choice after college is likely suboptimal.
When my dad started work in the 1970s he only had a pension which he - like most his age - didn't bother participating in. He latter got old enough to realize that he should save (probably when a new job offered a 401k with match) and regretted it so much he looked things up. Turns out that if he joined until that company laid him off he would get $0.75/month from the pension once he turned 65. In short a stupid investment. Those who were older like you say did much better.
there is one big advantage of a pension: you cannot outlive them. If you die at 65 (as my dad did) bad luck, but if you live to 109 you still get that income to live on.
Assuming the entity paying the pension has the cash. Not a problem for the federal government, obviously, but for other governments, and especially non government entities, running out of cash is a possibility.
Another risk is not having it be sufficiently inflation adjusted. An investment in SP500, however, would protect you from declines in the currency’s purchasing power.
Most pensions since the 1970s or prehaps before are government insured in the us. But my family has stories of the relative who worked for a company for decades the company sent bankrupt when he was 60 and the pension was invested in the now worthless company stock.
the above is why I tend to oppose employee owned conpanies. Too much risk for the common man to have so much net worth in their job.
Even insured, they constantly require bailouts by federal Congress because PBGC can’t handle the load, depending on the political influence of the group being bailed out.
Auto manufacturing, teamsters, coal miners, etc. Only question is how much pull your group has in Congress.
The biggest pension (and IRA/401k) bailout, however, is the implicit backstop the US provides the public equity markets. Might as well cut out the middleman and own the inflation protected asset yourself rather than accept a defined benefit in someone else’s control.
How long? That was happening from the beginning, they have to direct their hate to new terms to keep it fresh, but generally, anything different to how they did it in the 1950s must be eliminated
It's very clear you meant this as a joke here, but we will see a constant stream of people claiming that the image we saw was caused by light reflecting on a weather balloon or something.
We're still waiting guidance as to whether this applies just to remote work or if it includes telework. (A few years ago, we were told that the difference was remote workers worked completely remote; but, teleworkers have a cubicle or office.) The Executive Order says "remote work arrangements"; but, it then says. "require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis" Most of our personnel telework one, sometimes two, days per week. We do have a couple of remote workers, who are military spouses and they're wondering if that falls under the possible exemptions.
We'll see. The Executive Order allows for exemptions, "provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary." The big question is what criteria shall be used for those exemptions.
As someone who cares about government efficiency, I hope it’ll service as an escape hatch to help agencies avoid the worst impacts of this policy. But I’m sure it’ll be a a way to reward political appointees with perks that career civil servants don’t get.
This will be interesting to see how this plays out in DC. Gridlock traffic? Will Metro ridership will go back to pre-Covid levels? I am skeptical this will be nothing more than a hybrid work arrangement for most people.
Simultaneously they also want to sell a bunch of federal real estate - I support that, but it seems like there's an inherent contradiction there.
People assume effective bureaucracy is small bureaucracy but ultimately the size and effectiveness aren't correlated - you're just creating queues if it's too small.
Word on the street (although there are a lot of words on the street, so take it for what you will) is that the decision was made based a report that many workers would quit over it. Even ignoring that, it is hard to imagine that some wouldn't quit over it. Coupled with the hiring freeze, there is no apparent contradiction.
It is not like the Presidential team has been shy about letting it be known that these jobs are on the chopping block anyway. If people will leave by their own accord then it is a lot easier than forcing them out.
there's no contradiction at all - the purpose of this is to make most of the structure of the State less effective and to let your friends clean up by buying property at low prices.
people need to adjust their world view, the transition to kleptocracy has already happened. we are in the afterwards now.
It’s one of the oldest financial tricks in the book to sell your commercial real estate to a private company for a quick buck and then lease it back. It’s what many of the private equity companies do.
I suspect under the current administration they will sell the buildings to their cronies.
Disappointing, but hardly surprising at this point.
The idea that productivity will be improved by increased "supervision" is hilarious. It will cause the higher performers to start looking elsewhere; but perhaps that is the aim.
Lower performers (maybe even average performers) actually work better if the boss physically present. I wonder if it will all even out because of the ratio of high performers in the federal government.
Are you writing this from experience? If so, is this from experience as a boss, as a low (maybe even average) performer, or a high performer? How do you know that your statement is true?
Not OP. But we all have different motivating factors each with their own level of efficacy.
As someone with ADHD (and who knows what else), I've found it very helpful to have some sort of colleague or peer or "boss"-type supervision or nudging, and I say this as a "high performer" if we want to use that term. This kind of motivation is almost non-existent in a WFH context as check ins and other such regular interactions are very high-pressure.
My point is that one cannot make blanket statements about "low performers performing better under supervision". I say this as someone who prefers to work from an office at least 4 days a week.
You're right, each of us have differing motivations. That doesn't give anyone license to promote their own point of view and tar everyone else with the same brush.
This comment isn't intended as an opinion on RTO, but one of the things that's helped me with ADHD has been to go for frequent walks after short bursts of work – I've actually thrived at remote work for that reason. We've all had to learn our own techniques to get our brains to cooperate with our goals.
I think that performance optimization is not a one size fits all thing. Much of performance has to do with if you are the right fit for a specific environment. Some low performers can become high performers if they are in the right place and vice versa. By narrowing the environment you make it worse overall.
They literally stated as much:
"“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome"
“High performance” people don’t take quiet jobs like that because it’s a sink.
They take jobs like that to stay well, well away from toxic, imperialist crap like the band you see gathered behind Trump in his inauguration photos…
I wish more sensible Americans would see this as the start of a new expansionist initiative that it all is and act accordingly.
Edit: all you who slander humanities reading so much should really spend much more time in history and philosophy beyond the first chapters of “how awesome was Rome you guys”
It's amazing that in our lifetimes we got to witness both the creation of the internet and the destruction of America.
Attacking clean energy, defunding medical research, mass purging federal workers. The Trump administration has done more to harm Americans in a few days than Al-Qaeda, the Soviets, Iran or China could have hoped to do in years.
My condolences to everyone affected by this and my thanks to everyone working to maintain a functioning society through this time.
With all the BS the new administration is coming up with, I guess the federal government lose anyone competent that is not a very loyal Trump supporter.
The cost of dealing with remote employees who are not contributing as they should falls on the agencies. That's not insignificant. By requiring everyone to return, that cost is eliminated (or at least much less). IMO, in-person, on-site that cost is much less and the problems are easier to spot early and deal with before they get worse or become more widespread (more and more workers start slacking off).
> IMO, in-person, on-site that cost is much less and the problems are easier to spot early and deal with before they get worse
Yeah that's an opinion alright.
I expect it's mostly shared by managers who are unable or unwilling to really think through the question of how they can monitor their employees' productivity.
If you need to visibly see someone working to measure where their productivity is versus your expectations, you're probably not a very good manager and you don't have a great handle on what your people are doing.
> American taxpayers are wasting billions to pay for owned and leased federal office space that remain largely vacant
Maybe this is an opportunity for savings instead of a forced RTO?
Then again, I doubt it's worthwhile to reason about this decision; we've seen more controversial ones already (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42785891 ) and I guess this is not the final one.
Even though Trump was there for the stargate announcement, there are no government funds involved.
But why is Stargate controversial? If private companies want to spend $500 billion, why should we care? Yes I know part of it is debt financing.
But back to your point, look at the all of the wasteful military bases in the US and weapons programs that the military brass keeps trying to get rid of but the civilian leadership keeps blocking because of civilian job loss in thier districts.
Follow the money.
The government is heavily involved with stargate bc it’s only possible due to fast tracking and eliminating regulations for them to build
As far as I know, none of the data center builders have had major problems with states or the federal government.
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Isn't the US military just a disguised jobs program? A way out for the poor and underprivileged?
you say that like it's a bad thing
> you say that like it's a bad thing
Notwithstanding needing a military for geopolitical purposes, the government could also create jobs by repairing/rebuilding infrastructure like bridges, locks, public transit, rail lines, etc.
Is a bunch of tanks more or less useful than replacing a >50 year old bridge?
This will become a savings play in the long run. Forced RTO has generally been considered a headcount reduction approach, which checks out with new administrative direction. After RTO stabilizes, its likely the office assets will be optimized to minimize wasted office space.
As a headcount reduction measure it usually means that the people that stay are the ones that are not good at what they do, so they can't find another jobs.
The good ones have more opportunities, so they don't take the BS and leave for better working conditions.
A poorly run government may be an end goal itself for the current administration
An alternative is those that stay are more “under the gun”, whether it be due to having dependents or still needing to make a reputation for themselves. It’s simply a bet that the product/service you are selling will still keep selling* in sufficient amounts.
The larger the organization or more monopoly/monopsony position it has, the more these kind of games can be played.
*if not for money, then sufficient political capital such that you can win the next election. Or maybe you have a goal other than winning the next election.
The current administration doesn’t want a well run government. This has been the end goal of Republicans forever. Besides, any needed replacements will be those who kiss the ring. Loyalty is far more important than competence.
I havent seen any data that shows the people who RTO and "stay" are bad at their job. I think low preformers are going to get RIFed either way if they RTO or not. Those who RTO easily will generally be the employees who are already geographically close to the office, satisfied with their job, and see future career opportunities.
The good ones already have had the opportunity to leave all along, and if they are good enough, they may be able to set up a home based position. Maybe government roles do not need high performers at scale like the private sector does.
>I havent seen any data that shows the people who RTO and "stay" are bad at their job
Who would pay for a study like that? There's little chance it would yield positive results, and would likely just serve to cause embarrassment for the funder of said study.
There's barely any scientific evidence for anything related to hiring and firing. It's all confirmation bias and indoctrination.
Pay for a study? It would likely only be possible to do these studies at a company level, where there is enough sample in the headcount. There are plenty of People Analytics teams that exist on large F500's that would tackle a project like this.
> Maybe government roles do not need high performers at scale like the private sector does.
As a taxpayer, I respectfully disagree; as someone who wishes the government was more efficient, I disagree; as someone who complains about poorly thought-through red tape and bureaucracy, I disagree; as someone who cares about enforcing regulations that set minimum floors on the safety of our food, transportation, and drugs, I disagree; as someone who cares about the money poured into basic and applied science research without expectation of profit, I disagree.
> I think low preformers are going to get RIFed
what suggests that's the criteria that will be used for any RIF? seems to me that if you are a low performer but toe the party line that you will be safer than someone that is seen as rocking the boat and constantly pushing back.
I mean do you really need a “study” for this?
If you are good at your job and you are forced to return to office, you have other choices and you get another job.
If you don’t have other choices because you aren’t good at your job, you return to the office.
It’s the ultimate “Dead Sea Effect”.
https://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-...
> I think low preformers are going to get RIFed
Has the Trump administration ever made competence a requirement for employment? He wants RFK to be the head of health and human services
Headcount reduction could increase the deficit, not reduce it. Wages are only 5% of the Federal budget; reducing headcount will likely increase waste and increase the spend on expensive contractors.
Especially since the administration is likely to target the IRS especially heavily for headcount reduction. That'll drastically impact revenue.
Republicans have never cared about reducing the deficit. Trump isn’t even a traditional Republican. He definitely doesn’t care about the deficit
https://www.investopedia.com/democrats-vs-republicans-who-ha...
> Forced RTO has generally been considered a headcount reduction approach, which checks out with new administrative direction.
Reducing government workers may make things worse, as if you don't have enough internal man power and expertise you often have to rely on external consultants, which often cost much more and have things take longer:
* https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better-...
if you think this will result in any significant head count reduction you are very mistaken… no one leaves government jobs once they get one and many people are there after taking a paycut coming from private sector. I work in federal government and have not heard a single person yet saying “well, shit, gotta get another job (in THIS market, emphasis mine).
Fully expect the trains/roads/commuter buses to be packed.
And by "optimized", I'm sure the corporate raider playbook of selling off real estate and then leasing it back will happen.
The title of that Office Space movie was so visionary.
Employers, government or not, still wield far too much power over the personal lives of employees. I think it is rather meaningless to try and understand why RTO is en vogue now.
Why is the discussion so rarely focused on the fact that your boss can demand that you uplift your life or else you're fired, immediately and with impunity, and what you have to say about it means absolutely nothing?
Maybe I am baffled by this because I live and work in Europe where the relationship is a bit better (though I am not sure for how much longer it will remain as such). Americans seem very content to allow this behavior as normal because, obviously, other employees (but not me, I am a great employee!) must serve their stakeholders better so we can gain every bit of efficiency and increase precious income in the economy.
> must serve their stakeholders better so we can gain every bit of efficiency and increase precious income in the economy.
The problem with this characterization is that Americans hold the same kind view for all relationships, not just work-related relationships. For example: Married someone who starts making your life miserable? Too bad. It is your fault for choosing to have a relationship with the wrong person, they will tell you. There is no will to extend special concessions to force the spouse to play nice there either. The public is content to let you grin and bear it or end the relationship.
I’m so confused by this comment.
Other than physical abuse, what entity do you think should be empowered to force a spouse to “play nice”?
Do other countries have government agencies that force wives to be nice to their husbands, or vice versa?
Consider me equally confused. What should be is what is. If it shouldn't be that way, it wouldn't be that way. What, exactly, is your question trying to ask?
Are you trying to ask me to invent hypotheticals of how things could be if there was some kind of parallel universe where Americans hold different relationship values? I can try to fumble around on that idea, even if it is a little silly.
A previous comment indicates that some people value autonomy in choosing where (as in physical location) to participate in a relationship, even if contrary to the desires of another party in the relationship, without reprisal. Perhaps we can work off that?
What does that mean in practice? Hard to say. I've never been to that parallel universe to truly understand it. But, perhaps, that means something like penalties for a party who chooses to leave a relationship if they are unhappy with how frequently another party is physically present in the relationship?
I'll admit I am too engrossed in the "American way" to go any deeper with that. It seems normal and expected to me that if any party wants to leave a relationship, it is their life to live and other parties should be accepting of their choice. Anything else is foreign to me. I can't offer much here as a result, but maybe someone from a different culture that sees relationships in a different light can chime in?
Well, I assumed that your critique of “American values” meant that you had some other model of values in mind that would be superior. I guess not?
You must have accidentally pressed the wrong reply button originally?
The only thing that might even begin to resemble a critique that I posted was pointing out that the idea that American relationship norms in the workplace are driven by some kind of quest for economic productivity doesn't work because the same relationship culture is found across all types of relationships in America, even those without economic concern. It is not exclusive to one type of relationship as the original commenter was under the impression of.
But that's akin to noting that 1+1 equals 2 in follow up to someone stating that 1+1 must equal 666. Call that a critique if you want, but I don't see how that could possibly leap into having "some other model" in mind? Consider me even more confused than before.
Having just started working again after a long run out-of-a-job (and an even longer run outside of the office), I couldn't tell you, either. My job so far only requires a handful of tasks that can't be done remotely (and that, frankly, could be replaced with access to a print center and a courier). Still, I'm required to make a commute that's minimum one hour, and approaches two for the method I can afford. My bosses have also taken offense at my "lateness" (8-8:30 arrival time, instead of 8 on the dot or earlier; sorry, the 6:45 bus hits traffic). Lots of downtime. Few complaints about my actual performance.
This job could be fully remote. I'm actually trying not to puzzle over the reasons it's not, because that would just make me more frustrated. But, gun-to-my-head: it's inertia. People heavily invested - sometimes literally, often overleveraged - in the status quo, and not especially inclined to be open-minded or rational about changing it. You saw that it took a global crisis where employers were suddenly caught on their back foot in order for remote to gain any sort of real foothold (same for rethinking transit policy, etc.). And then they've spent the following years trying to claw everything back. Incumbency is a helluva drug (and the withdrawal is killer).
When you took the job, did you know it was in office work and how long the commute was going to be?
I mean I get frustration if “I was remote, but my company RTO’d”. Not so sure I understand “I intentionally took a job in the office a hour away but I am disappointed because I could do the job from home” mentality.
When I took the job, I trusted my employers' word that the role's tasks required being in-person, against my own suspicions. That, combined with no other prospects, meant either I took the potentially raw deal or face destitution.
Now, I've had worse jobs, but that doesn't mean it's right that this one is arranged the way that it is. Not for me or for the business.
You're saying that no one has standing to criticize a deleterious deal after someone has taken it, and I have to reject that. It's the kind of attitude that excuses all kinds of exploitation because "you knew what you were getting into." In reality, you have people forced into definitively bad situations to avoid potentially worse ones, or ambiguity regarding the conditions that doesn't resolve itself until they're in the thick of it.
Go back to basics: if an employer is made aware that their work conditions are unreasonable, they should strive to make them reasonable, even if they have leeway not to because of a prior agreement. That's just an ethical reality. Such conscientiousness also engenders loyalty and trust; tapping the employment contract instead is why workers are happy to serve out their "term" and then quiet quit or actually quit.
>Americans seem very content
The election was still pretty close to 50/50. Trump received 49.8% of the popular vote. Harris at 48.3%. Better to say "Americans seem to marginally prefer to allow this behavior as normal..."
Even that would be a wrong conclusion. I'm not sure all people who voted for the current POTUS are happy with higher pricing of diabetes drugs, forced RTO and other nonsense. Maybe some do, but for sure not all.
I am not from the US, but I have a curious anecdote.
My friends that consistently vote for extreme right wing are, perhaps ironically, the ones that will suffer the most if they ever get on power.
Why do they vote for the extreme right wing, you may be wondering? Mostly out of spite. They really hate people on the left, who they see as smug.
I am sort of a centrist, so I can get along with people no matter their political views (and mostly because I don't put politics front snd center of life anyway).
I feel like unpacking that, "They're smug," sentiment might yield important insights. I don't know why and I don't know what those insights might be yet, but that's my gut feeling. I also feel like there might be some analogy to the phenomenon where people who say, "I only give people respect when I get it from them," actually mean, "I only give people basic dignity when they defer unconditionally to my judgment or will." Then again, maybe expectation is what's at the root of most suffering.
> I feel like unpacking that, "They're smug," sentiment might yield important insights.
I agree, but I never dug enough to get these answers. I just noticed the pattern of behavior.
I think that the progressive discourse since the turn of the millennium did get increasingly preachy, to the point where even I, who am sympathetic to many of their pleas, find them annoying quite often.
Another friend I have hypothesizes that what is generally seen as "left" during that time frame moved on from class struggle and economic inequality (which used to be major talking points in the 80s and 90s) to more soft social issues. As a result, some of the lower classes started to embrace ideas of those that blamed others for their misfortune (be it immigrants, gays, blacks, etc). I find that an interesting argument, but never took the time to more thoroughly inspect it.
I can't buy your friend's conclusion, because people have been blaming immigrants, [insert analague for gays here], blacks, etc. in America and beyond for at least 100 years.
That said, I think what I'm interested in picking at that word, "preachy". It's an inherently subjective sentiment, so what does it really mean, to this person or that one? Are they offended (or maybe angered, or maybe threatened, or maybe repulsed) by the message, or the way the message is conveyed, or real/imagined ramifications of the message, or...
I just don't want to take this feeling for granted without really understanding what it is, you know? Anything like it is rooted both in reality and our interior lives, even when the two are at odds; teasing out how much goes into which is a part of that process of understanding.
> I can't buy your friend's conclusion, because people have been blaming immigrants, [insert analague for gays here], blacks, etc. in America and beyond for at least 100 years.
Well, as I said, I am not from the US. This blatantly discriminatory discourse was a lot less fashionable back in the day. Not that there was no discrimination, but the political discourse was not as contaminated by it.
> That said, I think what I'm interested in picking at that word, "preachy". It's an inherently subjective sentiment, so what does it really mean
Of course it is subjective. A lot of things in politics are subjective, related to feelings, abstract ideas, concepts.
And I am the first party that used the word "preachy" to describe my perception to more progressive discourse. This word implies an excessive appeal to morality, which used to be a hallmark of reactionary discourse when I was young - homosexuality, videogames, heavy metal, Dungeons & Dragons, et cetera and so forth was rallied against for being evil, moraly abject, satanic, and ao on.
From the turn of the millennium, more or less when progressive discourse shifted from socioeconomic concerns to more purely social issues, the talking points adopted the same tone. You don't fully support affirmative action? You are racist. You don't fully support abortion? You hate women. You like action movies that feature a strong male figure? You are misogynistic. It's all very tiresome.
> You don't fully support affirmative action? You are racist. You don't fully support abortion? You hate women. You like action movies that feature a strong male figure? You are misogynistic.
It's everywhere, this thinking in sides with no ground in between. Someone says something which in their mind it is in support of cause A, so if you contradict them -- even ask them a honest question they can't answer -- you are undermining their effort to support A, therefore you must be anti-A. If you're not in camp A, you're in camp B.
"My friends that consistently vote for extreme right wing are, perhaps ironically, the ones that will suffer the most if they ever get on power."
This is a very common - and very self-serving - trope: the poor dummies who vote against their economic interests.
Haven't you and I voted for taxes ? Possibly progressive taxes ? Possibly even progressive taxes whose sole purpose was wealth redistribution ?
I have voted for things like that and they are absolutely counter to my own economic interests.
Shouldn't we expect participants in a democracy to consider more than simple economic benefits when casting votes ?
If your own decisions are complex and nuanced why would you assume that's not the case for others ?
> This is a very common - and very self-serving - trope: the poor dummies who vote against their economic interests.
I did not call them poor dummies, and I never said anything about economic interests. Are you projecting your own perceived prejudices on me?
> Haven't you and I voted for taxes ? Possibly progressive taxes ? Possibly even progressive taxes whose sole purpose was wealth redistribution ?
> I have voted for things like that and they are absolutely counter to my own economic interests.
Except those things are not counter to my economic interests? I certainly wouldn't suffer with less economic inequality.
> Shouldn't we expect participants in a democracy to consider more than simple economic benefits when casting votes ?
Absolutely. I just mentioned that my friends that vote for the extreme right wing do so out of spite. They put their spite and anger above other interests. That is nuanced on its own right.
> If your own decisions are complex and nuanced why would you assume that's not the case for others ?
Once again you are assuming that I consider my own voting decisions somehow superior - or "complex and nuanced" as you put it. What implies that I consider them to be simpletons.
Except my original reply had no such connotations. I am not a giant my friend, I am just a windmill.
> Why do they vote for the extreme right wing, you may be wondering? Mostly out of spite. They really hate people on the left, who they see as smug.
People would rather bear illness (themselves, family) and even die than let the 'wrong people' get some assistance (which would also help themselves):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_of_Whiteness
That's interesting, I didn't know od this book. But it is similar to the anecdote I was pointing to.
They would rather vote for politicians that will increase economic inequality by benefitting the upper classes with tax breaks and dismantle every semblance of a safety net for the general population, just because they really hate the people on the left.
I perceive this because whenver their extreme right has any victory (and I say this in the broader sense, for example, if the leftist government gas to withdraw a proposal because it was successfully blocked) they don't celebrate that the proposal that was withdrawn was bad, they celebrate that those assholes in the left got pwned.
The left and the right have routinely ignored “rural White America”. Trump at least pays lip service to them. Of course all of his policies actively hurt them. But as long as he can stir up discontentment and use the religious right, he is good.
I’m not saying that’s the reason he won this time. It’s entirely the fault of the DNC and them doing the real life version of “Weekend at Bernie’s” with Biden.
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You can't post like this here and I've banned the account.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
And this is the reason that Democrats will continue losing - especially the Senate where Wyoming gets the same number of senators as California.
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You can see 18F frantically making policy updates on https://github.com/18F/handbook/commits/main/
The "remove remote-first language" is shaping reality just in front of our eyes.
This is a huge step backwards for employees rights and I hope the next presidents reverts this incompetent decision.
Wow, I can't decide whether it's hilarious or creepy to see "update conduct-and-norms.md" from a government body.
perhaps "Delete pages/general-information-and-resources/psychological-safety.md" will inspire a less ambiguous response
this link is totally throttled as of now cool! ive never seen github do that
Interesting that it's throttled in Safari for me but not Chrome.
Feds have a hard time hiring under current hiring requirements and resources, so this is just going to restrict that further.
Sounds inefficient.
I work closely with federal employees and I have not seen that. The benefits are some of the best in the world. With near-guaranteed pay raises, cost of living adjustments, discount public transit, and countless other pensions and perks, it's not easy to get a federal job. I have friends who have been trying for years to get hired but it has been very competitive for them.
Gov job in tech is like any other job, the best employees who can work together successfully to solve problems is best optimized over a wide area (spatially). There are other benefits of strong employee rights and stability in work, ability to transfer to other departments a pretty simple process (which opens the type of work you can do while still being employed so much easier), and good health/retirement packages. These are motivators for people to want to stay with the Gov when already hired in, but to new and existing talent that have more options, the lack of remote and/or telework can be make or break. If we actually want a Gov that can perform, because people do that work and thus would want good people, we should be not artificially constraining ourselves on how to achieve that goal.
The civilian government agencies spent 248B on contract services in 2023 [1]. Not all of that was professional services, but I expect that we will see an increase in that number as more services are contracted out and a decrease in direct government workforce; a government contractor can still work remotely.
[1] https://files.gao.gov/multimedia/Federal_Government_Contract...
The mindset for acquisition is typically anything not core to an agency's mission should be bought on the open market at the lowest price technically acceptable. This tends to select against small businesses who can provide stellar services but can't just cut rates willy nilly for extended delivery time periods.
In effect, government contracting is a large jobs program.
Government often goes too far. You should outsource not things that are not your core values, but things you cannot trust someone else to do. Maintenance often needs to be something you do in house because you cannot trust someone else to take care of it. That someone in house will of course outsource the labor (toilet clogged once - the in house person uses a plunger - if that toilet clogs often they call a plumber to fix what is wrong), but you need someone in house to decide if you need to hire the labor in the first place, otherwise you end up paying a plumber to replace a toilet that works fine but got too much put into it one time.
Not to mention the friction that getting a contractor who barely knows your jurisdiction does, or the contract and fiscal bureaucracy involved.
Not to mention the best health insurance in the US, which is very important as workers age.
You can buy the same on healthcare.gov. And if you retire early, you can plan it so your income stays below the ACA subsidy limits and the premiums go down to near zero.
Although, you will need to pay extra for concierge care/direct primary care either way to see a doctor in a timely manner.
I’ve worked at 10 jobs and 7 of those were after the ACA became effective. Out of those latter 7, I’ve worked for companies with 60 employees to the second largest employer in the US. The ACA has set an acceptable minimal of how bad private insurance can be.
> The benefits are some of the best in the world. With near-guaranteed pay raises, cost of living adjustments, discount public transit, and countless other pensions and perks,
This also describes working at Amazon, minus the pension. The real difference is really just the pension.
Name checks out.
Up through this year a relatively large benefit of being a federal employee is that you're not nearly as susceptible to job loss as your private sector peers. Most new administrations promise to shake a bunch up but don't actually cut jobs in any meaningful way.
This administration may be different, of course, if it delivers what it promised.
Oh no, no, the REAL benefit is the JOB PROTECTION. As a federal employee, once you've made it out of your probationary period (6mo - 1 year) it is nearly impossible to be fired. There are no PIP's in the government.
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Sounds like an intentional reduction of fed headcount, via enforced RTO and reduced hiring.
And sounds like intentional dismantling of government and government institutions. Also, cost of living for folks that stay will likely go up considerably with having to pay for commuting...
There's a hiring freeze anyway. The whole point of RTO is to push people to quit. That was outright stated in the announcement.
That’s the point.
I predict getting a government job is going to become increasingly popular as the private sector will be much much faster in eliminating positions using AI.
I wonder if they’ll also start paying a market price for skilled labor.
Fully loaded, government wages aren't as bad as they seem on on paper. Price out an annuity from an insurance company with payouts equal to a government pension. The quote might be above $2M.
If you contribute the max to a 401k for 30 years you should have around 2 million (and don't put everything into stupid investments, which many 401ks make hard). But that is $20k/year that doesn't go into your wallet. Of course inflation needs to factor in - 30 years ago your max contribute was about half of today ($9,240.00 vs $23,500.00) and so your expected result would have been more like 1 million. But if you contributed the max for all those 30 years you are probably close to 2 million. If you start today for 30 years you should be quite a bit more than 2 million - but how much I cannot predict. I'm assuming above that you get an employer match which most do.
The above assumes you have a 401k. Those plans are more available than any previous retirement option (other than social security which nearly everyone has and is mandatory). However even though 401k is available to more people than previous workplace retirement plans, there are still large numbers who don't get a 401k (someone who can have one but chooses not to is also an issue).
The above is US centric. Many people reading this don't live in the US and so have completely different options that I have no idea about.
If you don’t mind working for the same employer for 30 years, living wherever they tell you to live. Hard pass.
They do for every filled job.
But wasn't DOGE created to eliminate some of those jobs? In which case, the question becomes: Will supply be willing to show up for the market price, which may soon become zero or even negative?
Gotta give it to DOGE, which already eliminated Co-founder/CO-CEO and its top lawyer. They seem to be walking the talk. But I'd consider it totally serious if Musk's position is eliminated in before his kids move to next grade mainly due to not meeting targets or missing 5 days a week at work mandate.
Yes, but the plot twist is that they can and likely will ship in more H1Bs than ever to push down the market price for skilled labor.
Sadly not, the pay scales can’t be changed without congressional approval.
But that pension is nice.
Doesn’t compete with compound interest on lower initial salaries. But it’s a sweet mid career backup if you’ve already messed things up.
Pensions compete with self-directed retirement in the same way that a salary competes with founding your own business: they take all the risk and all the mental effort and give you something you can (mostly) rely on without any added effort, in exchange for a smaller return than is technically possible if you took the risk and planning effort yourself.
Some people would definitely be better off managing their own retirement, but just due to the way these things work my bet is about half of all people (the left of the bell curve) would be better off with a pension.
Pensions are also risky when you’re young because so much of their value depends on the final salary. Leave a job young without those promotions and 5 years of service can mean almost nothing 30+ years later in retirement.
Where you sit on that bell curve isn’t obvious at age 20, but it’s much clearer at age 40. Benefiting people who have already messed things up and swap.
Thus that single binary choice after college is likely suboptimal.
When my dad started work in the 1970s he only had a pension which he - like most his age - didn't bother participating in. He latter got old enough to realize that he should save (probably when a new job offered a 401k with match) and regretted it so much he looked things up. Turns out that if he joined until that company laid him off he would get $0.75/month from the pension once he turned 65. In short a stupid investment. Those who were older like you say did much better.
there is one big advantage of a pension: you cannot outlive them. If you die at 65 (as my dad did) bad luck, but if you live to 109 you still get that income to live on.
Assuming the entity paying the pension has the cash. Not a problem for the federal government, obviously, but for other governments, and especially non government entities, running out of cash is a possibility.
Another risk is not having it be sufficiently inflation adjusted. An investment in SP500, however, would protect you from declines in the currency’s purchasing power.
Most pensions since the 1970s or prehaps before are government insured in the us. But my family has stories of the relative who worked for a company for decades the company sent bankrupt when he was 60 and the pension was invested in the now worthless company stock.
the above is why I tend to oppose employee owned conpanies. Too much risk for the common man to have so much net worth in their job.
Even insured, they constantly require bailouts by federal Congress because PBGC can’t handle the load, depending on the political influence of the group being bailed out.
Auto manufacturing, teamsters, coal miners, etc. Only question is how much pull your group has in Congress.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/24/business/coal-miner-pensi...
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/politics/biden-union-pension-...
The biggest pension (and IRA/401k) bailout, however, is the implicit backstop the US provides the public equity markets. Might as well cut out the middleman and own the inflation protected asset yourself rather than accept a defined benefit in someone else’s control.
International market price.
Well, at least now we have RTO firmly associated with the gesture the head of DOGE made on his speech a couple of days ago.
How long before MAGA starts calling WFH “woke,” I wonder?
How long? That was happening from the beginning, they have to direct their hate to new terms to keep it fresh, but generally, anything different to how they did it in the 1950s must be eliminated
You mean his Nazi salute?
No idea why you got downvoted. Has somebody around here not seen it?
Yeah, I meant his Nazi salute.
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It's very clear you meant this as a joke here, but we will see a constant stream of people claiming that the image we saw was caused by light reflecting on a weather balloon or something.
Does playing golf all day count RTO? Or does the president himself not have to return to the office?
We're still waiting guidance as to whether this applies just to remote work or if it includes telework. (A few years ago, we were told that the difference was remote workers worked completely remote; but, teleworkers have a cubicle or office.) The Executive Order says "remote work arrangements"; but, it then says. "require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis" Most of our personnel telework one, sometimes two, days per week. We do have a couple of remote workers, who are military spouses and they're wondering if that falls under the possible exemptions.
Hmm, "duty stations" adds a lot of wiggle room when that can be located anywhere.
There will be no exceptions. Trump, Musk et al don't understand compromise.
We'll see. The Executive Order allows for exemptions, "provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary." The big question is what criteria shall be used for those exemptions.
As someone who cares about government efficiency, I hope it’ll service as an escape hatch to help agencies avoid the worst impacts of this policy. But I’m sure it’ll be a a way to reward political appointees with perks that career civil servants don’t get.
This will be interesting to see how this plays out in DC. Gridlock traffic? Will Metro ridership will go back to pre-Covid levels? I am skeptical this will be nothing more than a hybrid work arrangement for most people.
Simultaneously they also want to sell a bunch of federal real estate - I support that, but it seems like there's an inherent contradiction there.
People assume effective bureaucracy is small bureaucracy but ultimately the size and effectiveness aren't correlated - you're just creating queues if it's too small.
Word on the street (although there are a lot of words on the street, so take it for what you will) is that the decision was made based a report that many workers would quit over it. Even ignoring that, it is hard to imagine that some wouldn't quit over it. Coupled with the hiring freeze, there is no apparent contradiction.
It is not like the Presidential team has been shy about letting it be known that these jobs are on the chopping block anyway. If people will leave by their own accord then it is a lot easier than forcing them out.
there's no contradiction at all - the purpose of this is to make most of the structure of the State less effective and to let your friends clean up by buying property at low prices.
people need to adjust their world view, the transition to kleptocracy has already happened. we are in the afterwards now.
It’s one of the oldest financial tricks in the book to sell your commercial real estate to a private company for a quick buck and then lease it back. It’s what many of the private equity companies do.
I suspect under the current administration they will sell the buildings to their cronies.
Generally, "small" isn't meant to denote how many worker bees are doing actual work.
It's meant to denote a small number of fifedoms introducing their own rules, forms, processes, approvals, etc into the process.
I find this American style of leadership fascinating. It is certainly easier than the Dutch style of endless meetings and giving everyone a say.
I hope they have enough office space ready for this RTO.
Amazon did not and had to delay RTO and even some start dates for new hires.
Disappointing, but hardly surprising at this point.
The idea that productivity will be improved by increased "supervision" is hilarious. It will cause the higher performers to start looking elsewhere; but perhaps that is the aim.
Pretty sure that is the aim.
Lower performers (maybe even average performers) actually work better if the boss physically present. I wonder if it will all even out because of the ratio of high performers in the federal government.
Are you writing this from experience? If so, is this from experience as a boss, as a low (maybe even average) performer, or a high performer? How do you know that your statement is true?
Not OP. But we all have different motivating factors each with their own level of efficacy.
As someone with ADHD (and who knows what else), I've found it very helpful to have some sort of colleague or peer or "boss"-type supervision or nudging, and I say this as a "high performer" if we want to use that term. This kind of motivation is almost non-existent in a WFH context as check ins and other such regular interactions are very high-pressure.
My point is that one cannot make blanket statements about "low performers performing better under supervision". I say this as someone who prefers to work from an office at least 4 days a week.
You're right, each of us have differing motivations. That doesn't give anyone license to promote their own point of view and tar everyone else with the same brush.
This comment isn't intended as an opinion on RTO, but one of the things that's helped me with ADHD has been to go for frequent walks after short bursts of work – I've actually thrived at remote work for that reason. We've all had to learn our own techniques to get our brains to cooperate with our goals.
I second the parent comment. It describes me almost perfectly.
I think that performance optimization is not a one size fits all thing. Much of performance has to do with if you are the right fit for a specific environment. Some low performers can become high performers if they are in the right place and vice versa. By narrowing the environment you make it worse overall.
High performance isn't just about quantity.
Even a 1_000_000_000 monkeys will never realistically write so much as a limerick.
I don't think I've ever worked a white collar job where a couple of low performance people equaled the output of a single high performing employee.
They literally stated as much: "“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome"
“High performance” people don’t take quiet jobs like that because it’s a sink.
They take jobs like that to stay well, well away from toxic, imperialist crap like the band you see gathered behind Trump in his inauguration photos…
I wish more sensible Americans would see this as the start of a new expansionist initiative that it all is and act accordingly.
Edit: all you who slander humanities reading so much should really spend much more time in history and philosophy beyond the first chapters of “how awesome was Rome you guys”
> band you see gathered behind Trump
I really like traditional American band music. It's inspiring and uplifting.
Right. Nice to see the smartest minds of America back at their best…
It's amazing that in our lifetimes we got to witness both the creation of the internet and the destruction of America.
Attacking clean energy, defunding medical research, mass purging federal workers. The Trump administration has done more to harm Americans in a few days than Al-Qaeda, the Soviets, Iran or China could have hoped to do in years.
My condolences to everyone affected by this and my thanks to everyone working to maintain a functioning society through this time.
With all the BS the new administration is coming up with, I guess the federal government lose anyone competent that is not a very loyal Trump supporter.
Maybe that's the point.
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The cost of dealing with remote employees who are not contributing as they should falls on the agencies. That's not insignificant. By requiring everyone to return, that cost is eliminated (or at least much less). IMO, in-person, on-site that cost is much less and the problems are easier to spot early and deal with before they get worse or become more widespread (more and more workers start slacking off).
And people don’t goof off in the office?
> IMO, in-person, on-site that cost is much less and the problems are easier to spot early and deal with before they get worse
Yeah that's an opinion alright.
I expect it's mostly shared by managers who are unable or unwilling to really think through the question of how they can monitor their employees' productivity.
If you need to visibly see someone working to measure where their productivity is versus your expectations, you're probably not a very good manager and you don't have a great handle on what your people are doing.
The agencies pass it on to the taxpayers.