This is false. Trump appears to equate teleworking with not showing up for work. But he often uses inflated numbers for how many federal workers work from home. The White House budget office reported in August that 54 percent of federal employees “worked fully on-site, as their jobs require them to be physically present during all working hours,” while just 10 percent worked only from their homes. Meanwhile the Congressional Budget Office reported in April that 22 percent of federal employees usually teleworked — compared to 25 percent of private sector employees.
There are 2 problems with this fact check.
First, the numbers Kessler gives do not undermine the assertion that there are hundreds of thousands who don't come into work. There are something like 2.1 million federal employees (if you leave out the military and the postal service). Even if we restrict ourselves to the 10% who work only from home, there are over 200,000. If you add in the people who telework most of the time, that's another 400,000+. Kessler makes it look as though his numbers are powerful, but they support Trump!
Second — and harder to notice — there's a quibble about the meaning of "not... showing up to work."
Trump is using the expression to mean not coming into the workplace. Kessler may want to argue for the industriousness of the workers: They're showing up to work at home! Fine, make your argument for respecting working from home. But don't use the "false" rating for this semantics disagreement. Clearly call attention to it for exactly what it is, and don't mix it up with those numbers you're bandying about. It has nothing to do with the numbers!By the way, I think it is mean and unwise of Trump to use the expression "not... showing up to work" to refer to employees who have been authorized (or sometimes forced) to work from home. I can see that he (and Musk) want to change the policy and believe the change is for the best. But let them make the argument for the superiority of presence in the workplace, and let them do it in a positive, encouraging manner. They are disrupting settled expectations of workers who have arranged their lives around not needing to commute. They shouldn't impugn these people. Presumably, some of them are bad employees, but some of the employees who come into the office are bad. Why the nastiness? Who does that help?
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121 comments:
Just stick with "without evidence," WaPo.
Leftist fact checkers are lying? No way!
I did consulting gigs in which I taught software packages to NY State workers. Not Fed workers, but I suspect in general the same. I’ve never ever met more entitled, lazy workers. They had union protection that overrode their boss. They were overpaid and unproductive and doing as little as possible to coast to retirement, since they could not be fired. Since the conditions are the same for Fed workers, I’d bet the same attitude and environment prevails. The work-at-home thing is undoubtedly a scam for most.
Kessler stopped be a fact checker many years ago. This is par for the course.
When you are paid by the word, the words don’t have to be smart.
"By the way, I think it is mean and unwise of Trump to use the expression "not... showing up to work" to refer to employees who have been authorized (or sometimes forced) to work from home. I can see that he (and Musk) want to change the policy and believe the change is for the best. But let them make the argument for the superiority of presence in the workplace, and let them do it in a positive, encouraging manner. They are disrupting settled expectations of workers who have arranged their lives around not needing to commute. They shouldn't impugn these people. Presumably, some of them are bad employees, but some of the employees who come into the office are bad. Why the nastiness? Who does that help?"
I completely agree with this. I think a far higher percentage of the at-home workforce are bad employees based on research conducted by both Rand and Goldman Sachs during covid, but it's counterproductive to overgeneralize. Bring them back, separate the wheat from chaff, and move on.
"Why the nastiness? Who does that help? " Why, it helps cultivate the notion that Trump is a disease, and everything that is associated with Trump needs to be disinfected and kept at a distance, just to be on the safe side. It's the same old virulent divisiveness that really resonates with about 15-20% of the electorate, according to the latest polls. They may have gone over the cliff, but the seats on the bus are still comfortable - so far.
I told my S.I.L. a couple of years ago that work-from-home would never last, there's simply no way to track performance and know who's focused without putting eyes on them, seeing workplace behaviors, seeing who really contributes. For-Profit industry seems to have come to this conclusion, too. Howz about Glenn? Where's he working from, these days?
I am sure all the miners work from home now. And every one of them reports that that they drill 1000 feet of blast hole per day.
Sorry for the typo, I am working from home and had to empty the dishwasher instead of proof reading.
Josephbleau said...
When you are paid by the word, the words don’t have to be smart
Much less true.
When have any of these 'fact checks' aimed at Republicans ever been more than a semantic disagreement?
working from home usually is inefficient and there are many workers who aren't working at all or are moonlighting when they're supposed to be working "from home".
Everyone knows that "working from home" means hardly working at all.
things:
ALL federal workers let go, referred to it as: Their "DREAM JOB"
ALL federal workers let go, said that they were "excellent" at their job
ALL federal workers let go, said that they were "underpaid"
finally..
ALL federal workers let go, are Crying that they'll never find another job..EVER!
If you add all this up, it doesn't add up.
They were hard working, and excellent at their underpaid job?
IF SO, they should be Happy to leave their "dream job"
WAIT? why was it a "dream job"?
Here's your standard: Go to your local DMV. Stand and watch for an hour how the employees there work, what they get done, how they operate. Go in the hour leading up to, or coming out of lunch time for a real bonus. Or any day after 3:30pm.
Now imagine how much work they'd get done working from home.
Now try to imagine how many of the 2.1 million federal employees are those really good ones, the productive ones that can get work done anywhere, any time. You have to figure about 1.5 million are just there getting paychecks. And of those, how much work do you think they get done while at home?
I don't even know what the quibble is. This is like trying to defend men in women's sports. It just makes zero sense. I don't care if Trump's numbers were exact or not. We know what he (and DOGE) is saying and showing. Exactly what we all felt was going on for years.
Our government is a massive jobs program. An overgrown, barely functioning ill being, in need of shaping up or passing away.
serious questions:
if you "work from home"..
can you watch TV and sit on the sofa while "working"??
can you "work from home" from the beach? the hair salon? the trout stream?
what, EXACTLY, does "working from home" consist of?
answering your cell phone, and replying to emails?
occasional zoom meetings?
for THAT matter, for a federal employee.. What does WORKING consist of?
Why the nastiness? For Trump and a lot of his supporters, the nastiness is the point. Owning the libs and all that.
In a mixed environment, the people working from home impose burdens and costs on the people in person. This was most visible to me when teaching in person was (idiotically) optional in Fall 20 and Spring 21.
People "teaching" from home created communications problems because you could never just run into them in the hallway or poke your head in an office door. Replacing every interaction into 2 or 3 emails is not helpful.
They were also constantly having colleagues do trivial but time-consuming things--pick up mail, get something from the library, scan a physical copy of this form--that in-person people did for themselves. They were not aware of what an imposition this was because of course they only saw what THEY asked and didn't see that EVERYONE working from home had the same requests, which began to overwhelm the few overworked admins who were in person.
ALL small random interactions that keep an institution functioning--helping a student find a classroom or an office, locating a band-aid, or tissues, or a screwdriver to fix a broken pair of glasses, aiming a confused delivery person to the right building, watering plants, checking in on a student who seemed to be crying, etc.--were imposed upon the in-person people.
So when I heard people say "Oh, I'm MUCH more productive," all I could think was "because someone else is picking up a bunch of your work, jackass."
Because communication/organization problems scale exponentially, these kinds of problems are THE major issues for any entity larger than 10 people: face-to-face is just massively higher bandwidth than anything remote, and that makes communication / organization easier.
Trump lying? Always!
I learned last week that my oldest niece accepted the buyout offer to leave her federal job. She works at configuration management for software. She had many years of experience in configuration management in the private sector before going civil service. She said that her boss said she does the work of 5 people, which is likely true because almost no one else in the department was doing much of anything. There were three young women hired last December without any qualifications to do the job. She was directed to train one of them, but the woman just went to sleep on the job.
This mirrors my exposure to federal civil service employees during my last 12 years as a contractor, A few were competent, but I can count on one hand (and have 3 fingers left over) the number of top-notch civil service employees I encountered. Especially with remote work, most of them just logged into a Teams meeting, never said or contributed anything, and that was all they did. I have little patience for slugs. To get anything done, I had to work with other defense contractors. If you waited for a civil service person for information you needed to do your job, you'd never get anything accomplished. Fortunately, I'm retired now and don't have to put up with those slugs anymore.
"for THAT matter, for a federal employee.. What does WORKING consist of?"
That is actually the crux of the matter, although Trump and Musk have good reason to obfuscate it. Just how productive do you want the thieves at USAID and the IRS to be? Fire them all.
"Why the nastiness? Who does that help?"
It helps those who want to destroy the administrative state. Much easier if you can first convince the public that federal employees do not perform any useful work.
I dont remember leftwing Kessler ever factchecking Biden's speeches.
Someone upthread mentioned people not talking in meeting while online. Well, most people don't talk during meetings, either because they are letting their point man do the talking or the meeting is a waste of time.
My experience in Corporate America is the people who do the most talking, just love the sound of their own voice. Or they think talking at a meeting = productive work. Which is not the case.
Republicans used to complain that the federal bureaucracy was too concentrated in Washington DC and wanted to move more federal workers outside of DC, presumably to red states. Work-from-home arrangements give them the ability to do that at low cost. Many bureaucratic functions can readily be done in a WFH format - programming tasks, verifying documents, compiling data, permitting, etc. With DOGE closing so many federal buildings, this seems like a cost effective way to run the government. I don't really understand why Trump is against it.
My other experience is that in-person meetings are no more productive than online "Teams" meetings. We actually don't use "teams" but we have zoom. While online meetings allow people like Jeffrey toobin to pull their dicks out and whack off to the delight of their CNN female employees, its actually more productive than in person.
People are more willing to speak up, and also shut down the non-stop motormouths. This seems particularly true of the female employees. Probably because they don't feel intimidated.
"Why the nastiness?"
What nasty? I'm not seeing nasty, I'm not hearing nasty.
"Nasty". "Mean". Purely subjective descriptions that don't jibe with what I heard and saw.
He just speaks the Truth, and Party members think it's mean and nasty.
Because those are facts that the writer wants to keep in check.
"But don't use the "false" rating for this semantics disagreement. Clearly call attention to it for exactly what it is, and don't mix it up with those numbers you're bandying about."
Ann, Ann, Ann...
You're still expecting good faith argument from these people? After all these years and after all this evidence?
When it comes to attacking Trump, if it weren;t for bad faith, they'd have no faith at all.
In general, if you have a job interacting with data on the internet with some occassional discussions with your co-workers, you can do that from home just as well as in the office.
Talking white collar jobs here: The only time in office work is more productive is when you need to interact with your co-workers a lot. And if you're a boss worried your employees are goofing off. Many white collar jobs in Corproate America, and I assume Fed Gov, can be done at home. And were done at home during Covid.
Frankly, i think the cancellation of telework had little to do with productivity and more to do with driving out Federal workers. which seems to be the plan.
"When it comes to attacking Trump, if it weren;t for bad faith, they'd have no faith at all."
Yep. The WaPo/NYT/etc are leftwing organizations. Unpaid arms of the DNC. Notice that whenever they try to hire a non-leftist as an editor, all the employees get upset and some quit in disgust. Its not news - its propaganda.
For much of your dealings with the gov’ment, remember Will Rogers’ comment: “just be grateful that you’re not getting all the government that you’re paying for”.
Fucking pandemic.
Crappy fed workers is an old story. For example, a NASA research center chief of air operations once requested a hardcopy of a file from FAA. It arrived, weeks later, in the form of 100 printed sheets which had clearly been dropped on the floor, scooped randomly into a huge envelope, and mailed. Circa 1972.
My favorite quote of the day:
“We cannot have truth and wisdom without accommodating error and folly”
I pretty much believe the Covid "work from home" command taught the normally lazy & unproductive what they could get away with. Of course they don't want to return return to the workplace.
However, my nephew who's never had any interactions not forced, with anybody outside his family. He's pretty much a genius and got thru UT (Texas) with a degree in computer science. For years after that he was unemployed as he didn't want to interact, 10-15 years ago a high tech company in Seattle hired him in a work from home position. He just loved it, likely worked 10+ hours a day. He's still a hermit but pulling down close to, or above, six figure salary.
In an office, the lower prestige jobs are usually the ones that have to be done on-site. It was a big complaint during COVID, that some people could still manage quite well working remotely while all of the service people had to show up for work.
One would think that Democrats would check their privilege and show up to the office in support of the secretaries, janitors, and everyone else in the office who has to be physically present.
"The White House budget office reported in August... Meanwhile the Congressional Budget Office reported in April". OK, as long as we got a report!.
The Professor deploys the "Orange Man Mean" meme.
Perhaps this is a defensible perspective. But besides the regular Trumpian bombast that he's used for decades now, I wonder if there isn't also a recognition that cutting through the chaotic information marketplace requires attention-getting methodologies. Whatever else one may think of it, it seems to work.
Perhaps many of us might wish it were not so, but then again I wish people would call each other on the phone rather than texting. Call me Canute.
I may have missed the part where it was proven every worker claiming to work from home is actually working from home but I’m certain I know why I missed it…
…in Massachusetts a term was phrased for compensation going to someone who did not satisfy the definition of work in any rational sense- no-show job. These were rewards from politicians rewarded to allies for their loyalty.
People who work from home will always miss those accidental but important revelations that you get when BSing with your co-workers. You might get your own work done -- some people can work productively from home -- but you're not present, and probably un-noticed. You will not advance.
"Work-from-home arrangements give them the ability to do that at low cost....."
Except, no, and I apologize for the sarcasm to come. What I have learned, is that the Federal workers that moved out of the DC area on this COVID lark, retained their salary uplifts meant to cover the increased cost of living associated with DC. Wasn't that clever of them? And, following the rules to the letter, they come to work 1 day at the end of a month and 1 day at the beginning of the next month, and then can take 2 months away from the office, having abided by the rules. Wasn't that clever of them?
I also learned that the properties leased by the government cost the same when they're empty, and they've been so empty that the water stays in the pipes so long, it has a bacteria problem that now must be disinfected. What does it say about management when they put themselves in this kind of position, relinquishing control of what they manage, but still collecting pay & benefits while seeing their workforce do the same, this way? It makes me mad as h*ll, knowing that we're the chumps paying for it.
As to the question posed: "Why did the WaPo fact checker..." I would say it's because the utterance came from Trump's mouth, and WaPo can't admit something Trump says might have truth in it.
In the drilling business, I've seen entire exploration drilling campaigns get their start by an engineer having an incidental side chat with a geologist in the coffee bar.
One of the important dynamics of government work that anyone who has never had the opportunity to participate in would not assume is the incentives built into the system. When you are not paid by what you produce and how well you produce it, even the best of us will eventually be worn down by an incentive structure that is utterly indifferent to results, good or bad.
As someone who worked in California government as an appointee of the last two Republican governors, I was regularly amazed at the indifference that the party of government displayed to the actual, you know, way government works. I couldn't help but notice how much this was related to their cozy relationship with the powerful public sector unions.
Even now, as Gov. Newsom--channeling his inner Trump?--is calling state workers to return to the office four days a week (!), the unions are stamping their feet and opposing this common sense demand from the boss.
Sigh.
It's clear enough from this thread that return-to-office is just meant to be punitive.
"Employee performance can only be effectively monitored in-person; there is no way of tracking output or productivity otherwise."
"I met some federal employees decades ago and wasn't impressed; I'll bet they'd be worse at home."
"Miners can't work from home."
"DMV employees are " -- well, we're never actually told what the DMV employees were doing wrong.
"Every employee should have to share the burden of finding tissues for crying passers-by."
Just be honest. You don't like government workers for ideological reasons, and you like making them commute across town to stare into a different computer precisely because it's an unnecessary burden.
As an employee that learned to work anywhere I needed to be, whether it be at my assigned desk in an office, a customer's office, a conference room, mission control, or at home; I appreciate the push back on suggesting Trump and Musk should be arguing about the superiority of working in the office rather than disparaging people who do not work in an office. For most of my life, I worked harder when I wasn't in the office than I typically did at my desk in the office.
Also agree, Trump's number can be correct in the way he states it. Additional meaning can be derived that is both positive and negative for the coworker. On the negative, I know plenty who, whether they were in the office or at home, were not showing up to work.
This certainly not a new problem with federal and other government workers, even when they came to work in person. In 1969 my father died suddenly and my mom, me and four younger siblings became poor. On welfare programs, etc. That year I was 16 and was able to get a summer job at the federal Ammunition Supply agency at the Joliet Illinois Army arsenal facility. It was first taste of "government work" and resulting in me recommending it to any people I hired that didn't like to work hard, usually during the meeting where I fired them. The department i worked in was the printing/reproduction department. Employees were "on the clock" for the 8 hour day they were at the armory. However, that included a half hour break in the morning, a full hour for lunch and another half hour break in the afternoon. Six hours a day of actual "work" maximum and the pace of work was the lightest I've ever experienced. Plenty of employees to share their onerous duties. Later in life as a partner in a litigation firm, I had to let a young guy go because he was more interested in playing Stratomatic baseball than working on files. He took me advice and got hired by the county. I had a judge tell me that he was so ineffectual there that they put him in a make work job where he could do little harm. He lasted for 25 years, retired with a nice pension and benefits. I was still in the private practice of law. Low expectations of performance and low performance go hand in hand. Private industry cannot afford keeping low performing people in make work jobs. But, us taxpayers apparently can. Can't blame this on either party.
Obviously the fact check was meant to promote personal liberty and free trade.
During Covid, the government of France told me that they could not change my tax agent in their system. So, yes, some government jobs can lead to zero work. Even data entry was impossible in France.
"It's clear enough from this thread that return-to-office is just meant to be punitive. ..."
Really? If you recall, before COVID became a mandatory pass, many companies had already moved to 4-40's, i.e. 10 hour days, 4 days a week, with Fridays off. This took its toll on the efficiency of meetings, so quite a few companies went to 9-80's, with every other Friday off. The company I was working for had a program of 'work-life balance' they instituted, that allowed employees to arrange for a 'work from home' day. I used to sarcastically substitute the name of a local beach for 'home' because, as a manager of a multi-disciplinary operations team, you came to not expect much output when people were 'working from home'.
It's time to talk about the Pareto Principle, isn't it? The idea that 20% of your people do 80% of the work. There is real value to this. When you work in drilling operations, where people have to respond to a need, you quickly find out who contributes. The rig runs 24 hours a day. When they have a problem work stops, but the costs keep running, and it's a cardinal sin to have the rig shut down because you failed to plan or respond. Many a time we have early morning emergencies, medical evacuations, downhole problems.
No - it's not punitive. It's practical. Also, it's reasonable. Just because you're contactable online doesn't mean you're available.
Nancy Pelosi posted to X last night alleging that Republicans were going to run up a $4 trillion deficit this fiscal year. I read somewhere that they proposed RAISING the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, which is not the same at all.
And like clockwork, the Democrats continue to claim. without evidence, that Trump is going to end Medicare, Social Security, and sunny days too.
Of course it's OK when Democrats lie or exaggerate. The Glenn Kessler's of the world aren't paid to fact check Democrats.
Kessler has destroyed the reputations of all fact checkers.
Lots of people are driven by emotion: "Those damn lazy gubmitt workers", Y'know like the police, fireman, park rangers, food inspectors, etc.
Telework has one big advantage to society, it makes no sense to force someone to live in a crowded city or suburb and clog up the freeways going back and forth to work 10x a week, burning up gas, when they can work at home and consume no gasoline and cause zero pollution.
It allows people to spread out and stay at home.
And of course the last thing we want is to increase the happiness of those "damn lazy gubmitt" workers. Why they should be forced to hire baby sitters and drop their kids off at daycare or tell their senior parents to fend for themselves, because damn, we want those damn lazy gubmitt workers (Local and state excepted who make up 2/3 of Government workers) to suffer.
BTW, I notice a lot of these "Damn those Government workers" types are the same sort that want us to send bombs to Ukraine and Gaza to kill people. That's the sort of Government they like.
Elon HATES the idea of ANYONE working from home. I have a number of friends who previously worked for Twitter/X and he was relentless with the idea that someone could work from home. He didn't and doesn't trust anyone to do the right thing. So, hundreds of Twitter workers were fired simply for the fact that they did not comeback to work right away. Now he is focusing on the Federal workers, whom he and DJT don't trust. are some people taking advantage of it? Duh there will alway be people who take advantage of any situation. I regularily, in the '70's worked on Saturday, there was a whole crew of us who came in on Saturday because it was quiet (no customer calls) and spent half a day doing paperwork. We had a number of people who would come in at 8, clock in, say they were going to gt coffee, and then show up at 4 to clock themselves out.. they never did a lick of work and got payed overtime for it. Until one of us squealed and it stopped. And that was almost 50 years ago.
"“We cannot have truth and wisdom without accommodating error and folly”"
Actually, I think the opposite is true. We cannot have truth and wisdom by accommodating error and folly. Truth and wisdom requires we eliminate error and folly to the greatest extent possible. Otherwise, it isn't the truth nor is it wise.
"In the drilling business, I've seen entire exploration drilling campaigns get their start by an engineer having an incidental side chat with a geologist in the coffee bar."
And in the enterprise architecture and model based systems engineering that I did for the last 22 years of my career, many technical insights and modeling techniques resulted from discussion of topics with my coworkers. We had a collegial atmosphere that greatly advanced team knowledge and productivity.
"...Duh there will alway be people who take advantage of any situation. ...Until one of us squealed and it stopped.....
So - thanks for agreeing with us, finally, in spite of yourself.
Just be honest. You don't like government workers for ideological reasons, and you like making them commute across town to stare into a different computer precisely because it's an unnecessary burden.
This is the classic dodge to avert constructive government and perpetuate waste and corruption. Heard it for decades. The correct response is to imagine the efficient, productive and rewarding work environment we could have if we continue the archaeology of governments long gone and implement rebuilding of something new…
…and yet another reminder of the fatal flaw of work from home: you are not present to observe your superiors, gain knowledge, experience and insight from serendipitous interplay with your in office co-workers, and especially for new and/or young workers, you are not developing social skills to excel as a worker and advance your workplace…
Some random comments about RTO vs WFH:
- In the paper and ink days, I had a job that had to be done out on the street and in faraway places. But it still ran on paper reports and forms. Which put the worker bee in a constant bind between doing the work (away from the office) and reporting on the work (in the office). The bosses were in the office nearly all the time, with the secretaries who handled the paper and MF'd the worker bees who got the paper in late, or wrong, or late and wrong, etc. The bosses tended to take on the attitude of the secretaries to the worker bees. Unless of course they needed productivity, in which case they yelled at you and chased you out of the office when you were there trying to do your paper on time. The electronic workplace has ameliorated a lot of this.
- Random encounters: You can have random encounters in the electronic workplace. We do, here in this electronic play (?) place. Where else would you meet Lazlo, Titus, and the like? The job I described in the first block supra also depended on communicating with contacts in far-off places, usually by phone in the days before widespread email. These contacts and I would not hesitate to pick up the phone to ask or inform about something unusual that seemed sort of in the contact's or my bailiwick.
- There is the arm's-reach management syndrome, where if someone's not physically here right now, you forget about them, even if they are in the office today and every day. This can lead to ridiculous things like ring-around-the-office, phone tag, etc., when a simple text or email would at least start the conversation. That's not a drawback of office work; it's a shortcoming of managers who would have a hard time organizing things under any regime, even if their employees were homunculi literally in the boss's pocket.
- Flexible workday/workweek plans, whether in a physical or electronic office, are more disruptive than anything. They reduce the organization's 40-hour workweek to about 18 hours in the middle of the week when you have any hope of having most of your people available. They are especially disruptive if you have a single point of failure (the one person who does a given thing) on one of these schedules. Everyone has to plan around their off day or strangely early/late start/finish time. Multiply by all the SPOF's (e.g. if you have a vault lady, a guy who manages privileges, a maintenance manager, the one dude with access to a crucial database, etc), and the window where you can get anything complicated done contracts even more. And it sends the message to the whole workforce that we don't really care about getting the job done.
- The best model is probably a small, salaried workforce of professionals who are always on call, but also trusted to do their work without extensive supervision, and know they can be fired if they don't live up to that expectation. Not all jobs can fit this paradigm (e.g. we have a commenter here who runs/ran boilers that require an on-site person 24/7), but a lot can. This is the Silicon Valley paradigm that Musk and Vivek grew up in. Heck, it's even the campaign/WH staff paradigm that every politician knows well. Vivek came right out during the campaign and said RTO would be a tool for forcing out mass quantities of the federal workforce; perhaps Musk and Trump see it as a first step towards a salaried agile force.
JSM
Working in the office is a better environment for collaboration. These public employees should find that appealing, as it also facilitates conspiracy, which has been found to be in their wheelhouse.
"Why the nastiness? Who does that help?"
Yeah, because they're always so nice to him (and anyone right of center).
I worked for the federal government in the DoD in the late 1980s at a shipyard involved in servicing/overhaul of the nuclear submarine fleet of the USN.
It was an absolute shit show.
Typical scenario:
Painting is needed on the bulkhead of the reactor entry compartment.
I, a radcon (radiation control) tech, show up at 10am to take radiation level readings. Painters are supposed to meet me there but they are no show.
I wait. And wait.
Painters show up at 2pm. Painters say there is a box in the way. Because the box is more than 40lbs the painter’s union prohibit the painters (or me) from moving the obstruction. The riggers must be called in.
It takes 3 weeks to schedule the riggers.
The riggers arrive but they have the wrong equipment at hand to move the 40lb+ obstruction.
Start over…
This was how it went every day, of every week, of every month…
Something that would take an hour in the private sector would take months to accomplish at the shipyard.
And this was in the 1980s at a submarine facility during the height of the Cold War.
Transfer that to today and working from home? The mind boggles.
“The best model is probably a small, salaried workforce of professionals who are always on call, but also trusted to do their work without extensive supervision, and know they can be fired if they don't live up to that expectation.”
That describes my employment situation for the last 13 of a 45 year career. I appreciated earning trust and a reputation for getting the job (managing product development/evaluation/ approval teams) done and bettering the deliverable due date.
I think the type of work one does also impacts the WFH approach.
WRT the DMV: My experience for the past few decades has been with the east side Madison branch. So far they've always been friendly and efficient.
Only partisan hacks and midwits "fact check" rhetoric.
There are indeed some government employees who do actual work for a living. These are the rare ones where "government worker" isn't an oxymoron. Most government employees don't fall into the same category as air traffic controllers, federal firefighters, and the like. Most are glorified office workers.
In my 40+ years of experience in the military and as a defense contractor, most of my interactions with government employees was not a positive experience. For example, on a large project, it's common to have contractors from multiple companies working on it. We usually were not allowed to contract someone from another company directly. Instead, we had to send a request for information to our government representative, who in turn requested it from the other company, and then returned the answer to us. This could get quite time consuming. Over many years of experience, I noticed a pattern for government responsiveness based on the month of the year.
January - just back from the holidays, plus MLK Day. Responsiveness is low.
February - other than Presidents' Day, it wasn't too bad.
March - spring breaks, which vary by school districts even in the same location. Responsiveness is poor.
April - Responsiveness isn't too bad.
May - things are OK until Memorial Day, which leads to...
June, July, & August - forget about it. People are on vacation.
September - last month of the fiscal year. Responsiveness is poor.
October - first month of the new fiscal year. Responsiveness is poor, but with continuing resolutions, this can happen multiple times per year.
November - first few weeks are OK, then
Thanksgiving to New Years - forget about getting any response. Between the holidays and government employees burning off "use it or lose it" vacation time, little gets accomplished.
Edw said...
"This was how it went every day, of every week, of every month…
Something that would take an hour in the private sector would take months to accomplish at the shipyard. "
There seem to be Two Basic Types of People in this country
Type 1: think our Government is run By Losers, For Losers
Type 2: Government Employees
I Suppose there is a Type 3: Stupid people that think Government is doing a great job.. But i think those could be better described as: FORMER Government Employees
You do have to wonder what Kessler thinks he's accomplishing. Does he really imagine that there is some poor soul, somewhere in America, so isolated or indifferent that he has not already formed an opinion as to Trump's veracity? And little Glenn is going to open his eyes for him?
I guess that as long as Bezos keeps paying him, Kessler will keep doing what Bezos pays him to do. I'm guessing he works from home.
If you think the average unsupervised work done from home comes anywhere near an honest workday on site, you'd make a great mark for a scam and likely have been. Imagine being on a strict diet while setting up a buffet with nobody watching.
BTW, I worked in the finance department for a DOD contractor in the early 90s. We'd often end up working on Saturday, especially at months end when budgets/reports needed to be updated and issued. Why? Because our boss insisted on having numerous time-wasting meetings "coordinating" and "communicating" with each other and other departments. WE were also attending meeting that Finance didn't need to be at, because our boss wanted to "show the flag" or "Make sure finance departments voice was heard". LOL.
Why? If Orange Man for, then we b against.
It's that simple.
I'm just glad I'm on the MAGA side of things. I'd be suicidal if I had to defend what is being uncovered, but then I have a conscience.
"if you think the average unsupervised work done from home comes anywhere near an honest workday on site, you'd make a great mark for a scam and likely have been."
You're projecting your own dishonesty onto other people. People who think others are always trying to "rip them off" are usually thieves themselves.
During Covid my subordinates worked from home and so did I. My boss gave me "milestones" and expected me to achieve them. I did the same to my employees. No problems had by anyone.
Commonly heard, on Wednesdays, in the hallways of government office buildings, "Have a nice weekend!"
Althouse said: "By the way, I think it is mean and unwise of Trump to use the expression "not... showing up to work" to refer to employees who have been authorized (or sometimes forced) to work from home."
------------------
Where's the civility bullshit tag when you need it?
Trump is using the expression to mean not coming into the workplace
Where is your quote for this?? And on what basis would a reasonable person infer that this is what Trump meant? He clearly intended to leave the impression that people are not doing their jobs at all - that's the supposed justification for firing them.
And even if this assertion were not dishonest - as it is - the rest of your argument is speciousness on stilts. Working from home IS "coming into work." Their home is their workplace.
I think it is mean and unwise of Trump to use the expression "not... showing up to work" to refer to employees who have been authorized (or sometimes forced) to work from home
It is not merely "mean and unwise," it is an outright fraudulent lie. At best, it is confabulation, Trump's addled brain just making things up as he goes along, as he does frequently.
Yeah. I took it to mean just showing up for work even if you log in from home or some other place. I used to do my CAD work from home because there were no distractions.
This sort of fact checking is how they inflated the database of Trump's lies last time around. And if he repeats this line, they'll count it as another lie.
Aggie said...
"I used to sarcastically substitute the name of a local beach for 'home' because, as a manager of a multi-disciplinary operations team, you came to not expect much output when people were 'working from home'."
Not to quibble too much but rather provide my own anecdote. We had similar working arrangements with my employer, that is until Hurricane Harvey. Harvey flooded our office building forcing an immediate requirement to work from home for our Houston office. Later, Covid would do the same for offices across the globe. In both cases, the immediate data showed work output from employees increased during the next quarter. In fact, when Covid hit and our group leadership was panicking; it was our Americas leadership pulling them off the walls and letting them know it would be ok, and it was.
Post Covid, and really mostly for the "Net Zero" initiatives, the company implemented a 60/40 work environment, which technically meant 60% in the office and 40% at home. They also cancelled the 9/80 program and went to 5 day work weeks.
Later the CEO claimed 60/40 meant 3 days in the office, which was a problem. Because 60% in terms of "net zero" environment" reductions meant 60% less emissions from the office. This became reducing actual office space by 60%, which the company implemented. While 3 days out of a 5 day work week seems like 60%, it isn't when you mean the entire workforce. Because unless you control exactly what 3 days each individual works, then there will be days when far more people will be in the office. Turns out for our company, Tuesday is a popular day with nearly 100% of the workforce coming in on that day, followed by Wednesday, and far less than 60% showing up on Mondays and Fridays. Desks have become a premium on Tuesday, with some not getting a desk to work.
bagoh20 said...
"If you think the average unsupervised work done from home comes anywhere near an honest workday on site, you'd make a great mark for a scam and likely have been."
True.
bagoh20 said...
If you think the average unsupervised work done from home comes anywhere near an honest workday on site, you'd make a great mark for a scam and likely have been. Imagine being on a strict diet while setting up a buffet with nobody watching.
Some people can work from home and be productive.
Other people need constant supervision.
I would confidently say that people who work for the government skew heavily towards the unproductive and lazy side. People who want to work from home also probably skew that way.
For me the days where I get out of bed and walk straight downstairs and log into the workspace are much more productive than the days I spend an hour or so preparing food and driving to work.
I do drive into work and it is usually to hunt someone down to interrogate them about their documentation. That is impossible to do remotely.
“But let them make the argument for the superiority of presence in the workplace, and let them do it in a positive, encouraging manner.”
Sometimes a kick in the butt can be positive and encouraging. Depends on the circumstances.
This just in: Eric Swalwell(D) says he is only going to bang 10's.... and his wife is not a 10.
oh yes.
I know there are a lot of people here who think "work from home is for lazy bums!" and "you can't get ahead unless you're in office gossiping at the water cooler!" but I have plenty of experience to illustrate that the first is outright false, and the second only works for certain poeple.
For years, I had a cycle of employment, where it would take me several months to find work, and when I started that work, I'd be excited and work hard, but gradually I'd burn out, lose productivity, and eventually be let go. (I could tell that a couple of places really liked me, despite this, because they wouldn't let me go until the company itself hit financial issues.)
As a software engineer, I have worked both at home and in the office -- and I have been as productive as I could be, whether at home or in the office! -- but I was as burned out as I could be both in-office and at home, too.
As for gossip, it's just as easy to do in a Zoom meeting (whether formal or "virtual happy hour") as it is in person -- and for someone like me, it wouldn't matter anyway, because it turns out that I can't read social ques, regardless.
I only fully came to understand this just a year ago, but I am autistic, and I have ADHD, which is why I easily burn out, and am so easily distracted, yet I can hyperfocus on what interests me (typically something rather impractical, but hey). I'm still in the process of trying to go from here, but I'm fairly certain I can't do anything "traditional", so I am exploring non-traditional options. I can't say I'm succeeding, but I also can't say that I've exhausted all my therapy options yet, either. (I'm still waiting for a report on my assessment I had a couple of months ago, before I can even try ADHD medication -- which may be a miracle for me, or it may make me psychotic and even less productive, because medicine like this is a crap shoot!)
The up-shot of all this is that I really doubt all those workers who are doing nothing would be doing something if they were in the office, especially since we're talking about federal workers here, and I doubt that anyone who's productive as a federal worker (as much as the work environment can tolerate productivity, at least) would be any less productive at home.
I've heard of veterans who, due to PTSD, just sit at their computers in their federal job and doom scroll all day, and everyone accepts it, because he has served his country -- and I've heard of people who do nothing working for a company in the private sector, but saved the company in a time of crisis, so no one wants to fire the guy -- but for those of us who are sincerely disabled to the point of being unable to work (and I may even be one of them!) I cannot help but wonder if it would just be better to stop the charade, and just encourage that individual to get disability payments instead.
But that's its own can of worms, to be sure!
RCOCEAN II said...
"if you think the average unsupervised work done from home comes anywhere near an honest workday on site, you'd make a great mark for a scam and likely have been."
You're projecting your own dishonesty onto other people. People who think others are always trying to "rip them off" are usually thieves themselves.
Most people's internal motivations are skewed heavily towards personal gratification and personal needs. Really that is everyone.
The external motivations like group acceptance and respect of peers are much more easily reinforced in person.
Most people are not capable of being productive remotely and very few are more productive at home. There is a lot of temptation and distraction around especially if your kids are homeschooling.
It takes about 10 minutes on Gemini to determine that Doge's approach has no chance of delivering even 15% of the savings Musk is citing. It's important to get started on reducing the cost of the Federal Government, but very strange to me to start with such wildly unrealistic claims.
Net of unemployment benefits paid to fired workers and litigation costs of cancelled contracts DOGE costs much more than the savings.
We are more likely to get a $5000 tax increase than a $5000 check from DOGE.
The truly ironic thing about this whole conversation is that the New Manager is unsure how healthy his area of responsibility is, how well it is actually functioning.
So the first thing a New Manager does is to start taking steps to understand this, and as the old saying goes, 'you can't manage what you don't measure'. Making people show up for work so that you can turn an unknown-unknown into a known-unknown is the easiest of first steps in many, toward making improvements and fulfilling a campaign promise. Washington Worker's reaction: Instant meltdown. Maybe they don't like seeing any of that.
Of course there are workflows that are easily managed from home, and people mature enough to do that. Not all, or even most, though. There are long & strong arguments for collaborative workflows to be managed in a corporate setting, too. Both camps have points, but the biggest point is: Who loves Bad Management? Nobody, that's who - unless they're playing games, for other reasons.
If all those federal workers are doing such a bang-up job working from home, why were so many freaked out when they were asked to make a list of what they did last week? Seems like that would be a simple task for anybody who's actually working hard.
Unless Kessler can personally attest to the number of federal employees showing up for work, his opinion doesn't mean shit.
Why the nastiness? For Trump and a lot of his supporters, the nastiness is the point. Owning the libs and all that.
We're nasty? Maybe you should try killing him again.
Mark said: "Working from home IS "coming into work." Their home is their workplace."
************
Such fatuity. What would you call the place those people worked BEFORE they were sent home during COVID?
The nasty democratics couldn't bring themselves to stand for a little black kid with cancer. Or a father gunned down by a political assassins bullet.
The nasty corrupt lying democrats - used BS and Hillary to smear Trump as a Russian agent. Total BS.
and on and on... lawfare, Maddow, Joy Reid calls Trump a Nazi every day. Nancy Pelosi ripped up Trump's speech. and on and on... and on...
complain about nastiness - oh dedicated leftist? I guess you are blind to the nastiness that lives on team corruptocrat.
Much easier if you can first convince the public that federal employees do not perform any useful work.
Those of us who've actually dealt with federal employees don't need convincing.
Kaka asserts without evidence: "It takes about 10 minutes on Gemini to determine that Doge's approach has no chance of delivering even 15% of the savings Musk is citing. "
***************
Oh really? How about providing us with Gemini's reasoning? And how about telling us why you think AI-savvy Elon Musk is titling at windmills?
“ He didn't and doesn't trust anyone to do the right thing. So, hundreds of Twitter workers were fired simply for the fact that they did not comeback to work right away.”
Poor dears. But more realistically, Musk divided Twitter employees into Productive and Overhead. Coders were, mostly, Productive and essential. Most Everyone else was let go, since their cost didn’t benefit the bottom line of the company. Many of these were the censors.
So, yes, they may have been fired for not showing up for work. But no, that probably wasn’t the real reason. It is highly likely that they and their job cost more than they brought into the company in income. Companies that have too many employees like that ultimately go out of business.
Trump’s claim is true. In 2022, an internal HHS report showed that 20-30% of the department was not working. You have to log in via VPN to check your email, etc. This is already a documented issue in the federal government.
https://functionalgovernment.org/internal-hhs-report-shows-20-30-of-workforce-may-not-have-been-working/
Here is an additional report across all departments
https://functionalgovernment.org/leave-report-is-telework-enabling-fraud/
I've heard of veterans who, due to PTSD, just sit at their computers in their federal job and doom scroll all day, and everyone accepts it, because he has served his country
I've heard of veterans who went from boot camp to 4 years in the quartermaster's depot at Fort Leonard Wood and claimed PTSD disability because a snake got into their sleeping bag during training.
Why did the WaPo Fact Checker call it "false" to say — as Trump did — "We have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up to work"?
The question answers itself between the hyphens.
I can see that he (and Musk) want to change the policy and believe the change is for the best. But let them make the argument for the superiority of presence in the workplace, and let them do it in a positive, encouraging manner.
Article II
Section 1
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
He's their boss. They can do it his way, or they can quit.
Trump made the argument to HIS boss, that would be us voters. He won.
That means he gets to do it his way.
rump said, “We inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe.” This wasn’t true.
Trump said, “We’re going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody’s ever seen. Plants are opening up all over the place.” That wasn’t true.
Trump said, towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, were “destroyed” by immigrants. That wasn’t true.
Trump said, in reference to Europe and aid to Ukraine, “[W]e’ve spent perhaps $350 billion, and they’ve spent $100 billion.” That wasn’t true.
Trump said, “For the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction.” That wasn’t true.
Trump said, in reference to Biden-era inflation, rates were the worst “perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure.” They are sure and that wasn’t true.
Trump said the Biden administration imposed an “electric vehicle mandate.” That wasn’t true.
Trump said, “I’ve stopped all government censorship.” That wasn’t true.
Trump said, “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119.” Don’t believe it, because that wasn’t true.
Trump said the Biden administration “closed more than 100 power plants.” That wasn’t true.
Trump said, “The presidential election of Nov. 5 was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades.” That wasn’t true.
Trump said that his first term economic agenda produced “the most successful economy in the history of our country.” That wasn’t true
This isnt rocket science and jumping up and clapping like seals after each lie is an amazing sight. My goodness Madge doesnt anyone do their homework anymore? There were so many lies it was hard to track em all down. The new right wing russian sympathizers,Russia is the bad guy, Yup Ronnie RAY GUNS flippin in the box
.
victoria said...
He didn't and doesn't trust anyone to do the right thing. So, hundreds of Twitter workers were fired simply for the fact that they did not comeback to work right away.
No, they were fired for refusing to do what the boss ordered, while being at will employees.
Now he is focusing on the Federal workers, whom he and DJT don't trust.
And rightly so
Greg @4:46pm… YES, that’s it broken down to basics.
Personal anecdote only: My limited experience with work at home employees, 3 instances (2 sales 1 engineer), is that work output continues as normal at the start with some minor adjustments within the business but begins to degrade over time. All three of my experiences wound up in termination, and an end to the experiment. Loss of constant personal communication was a real problem besides the decreased workflow.
“they never did a lick of work and got payed overtime for it. Until one of us squealed and it stopped. And that was almost 50 years ago.”
Cop said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge
And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
"And rightly so"
From NBC News:
“KEEP SHOUTING THE TRUTH, KEEP RINGING THE BELL: It’s working!” read a post last week. “I just got a mass email from my agency branch ‘reminding’ us not to talk to the media, listing several regulations that state we’re not to talk to the media. They wouldn’t have sent that if the media wasn’t getting FLOODED with federal workers reporting the truth, reporting what is REALLY going on. It’s affecting them.”
If your boss tells you to not talk to the media and you take it as a challenge and go ahead and do it anyway, you deserve to get your ass fired. Bunch of self-entitled fuckers, they are. They should all be sacked.
There is a multi-month return-to-work schedule. Some who've been fully remote are not required to return until the Summer. Some agencies converted to remote work long before COVID, per Obama efficiency and eco initiatives.
Why are autos being exempted from tariffs if tariffs don’t raise consumer prices?
And we’re supposed to believe this guy is some sort of master negotiator. I didn’t realize that the ‘art of the deal’ involved immediately backtracking. This fiasco is going pretty much exactly as everyone outside the Trump administration expected it to go.
Just making it up as they go along.
There is no strategy. There's not even a concept of a strategy.
I worked for the feds for 6 years before I went to law school. If you honestly think all government workers are dynamic producers whether they work from home or the office, you are an idiot. If you honestly think all government workers are deadbeats looking to avoid work whether they work from home or the office, you are an idiot. Some are on one extreme or the other but most government workers work hard to do what they are assigned to do. That's not the real issue, though. The ones who object to going back to the office are often the ones on the extreme deadbeat side.
If you don't want to work from an office when your employer demands it, quit. Just quit. See how that works out for you. If you think you can tell your private business employer where and when you will work, see how that works out for you. This all is nothing but pure bullshit.
Supreme Court Rejects Trump Bid to Delay Foreign-Aid Payouts. A 5-4 court declines to suspend a lower-court order to resume nearly $2 billion in funding ~ WSJ
So the case was (in simplified form): The government contracted people to perform a service. The people performed the service, and satisfied the terms of the contract.
The government said after the fact that they would not pay. A case was taken that argued that they should uphold basic contract law and pay.
How do four justices really justify siding with the government on this?
It's telling that the quote from one of the four government backers is about "judicial hubris" and "taxpayers money" rather any point of law. Surely it doesn't matter how arrogant a judge is or whether the contracts were value for money.
Four justices for absolutism! One more appointment and we will have rule by the judicially corrupt.
So the case was (in simplified form): The government contracted people to perform a service. The people performed the service, and satisfied the terms of the contract.
Lie.
The case is this:
Trump issued an EO on Jan 20 putting almost every single USAID on pause. The EO said they'd pay for all work actually done before the EO was released, but nothing after that.
The corrupt judge ordered that the new President wasn't allowed to actually be the President, he had to carry out "Biden's" policies rather than his.
And that the Trump Admin has to pay every single claimed expenditure, without doing any checks for fraud, or to confirm that work was actually done.
As usual Kakistocracy has everything exactly backwards, and the 5 were voting for judicial dictatorship, while the 4 would voting for actual Constitutional gov't
This sort of stuff is why I check the Althouse blog often, although apparently late to the party today. I punched a time-clock for thirty years, so I have that perspective.
I would prefer the rule of law to survive by more than 5-4. But I'm getting used to disappointment.
Discussion of VA services has to begin, not with federal employees, but with some 90,000 contracts let to companies and individuals amounting to $67 billion. VA facililities often combine hospitals, veteran living facilities and cemeteries but these are manned by employees.
In this century, GOP policy wonks have advocated cutting out VA hospitals and authorizing the vets to use local hospitals and doctors but NIMBY congressional reps have successfully shut that move down.
Unfortunately, any change at VA requires analysis of individual circumstances by locality but all DOGE does is to look for large groups of people to fire without judging employee merit. Sadly the fake agency making these moves is all about destroying government services that have been in place by simply removing the service providers. Promises were made to vets for service to the country and we simply cannot walk from these obligations.
Greg the Traitor: If you did work under contract and completed the work, don't you expect payment and wouldn't you go to court to collect the amount due?
Trump cannot undue the work done nor can he deny payment. Strangely, four justices thought he could.
Trump cannot undue the work done nor can he deny payment. Strangely, four justices thought he could.
The government also has a right to perform due diligence and deny payment if they determine that the work was not performed in accordance with the contract. Having been someone who had to look at and approve invoices from the prime, the can be esoteric as heck.
But if payment is delayed inappropriately or the contractor disputes the government finding, they already have a remedy in place to pursue that avenue... and it is not what we are seeing here. Either way, why isn't the new administration being allowed time for a due diligence review prior to accepting the invoices and releasing the funds? What is the rush? That question is rhetorical.
What is missing from the discussion on the court case regarding unfreezing foreign aid is that the plaintiffs in the case are owed hundreds of millions of dollars for work performed prior to the inauguration and the stop work orders that halted USAID programs. These payments should never have been held up. It is a blatant violation of the contracts and grant agreements and pushing many if not all of USAID's main contractors and NGOs toward bankruptcy. The government is liable to pay basic costs (salaries, vendors, etc.) to contractors and NGOs during the stop work orders and has not done so. As a result, some of the most trusted development partners of the government have had to resort to mass furloughs without pay and lay offs. The government now claims they do not have the staff to process these payments -- staff they put on administrative leave and could easily call back. This leaves their employees and subcontractors struggling to pay their own bills. If the government wishes to end foreign aid, there is a legal way to do so. But they have chosen a grand gesture and illegal actions. As for the wisdom of decimating soft power, there is none. Americans can only hope Congress eventually realizes this, even if the administration is content to give to countries it has called "malign influences."
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