Washington is shunning remote work, and we’re all losing | Hacker News Reader

Washington is shunning remote work, and we’re all losing

thehill.com

56 pointsthunderbong21 comments

The federal government certainly is not adopting remote work as much as they could, but this OpEd is a bit off base.

For starters, there are a lot more federal agencies embracing remote work since the pandemic. From the people in my network working as government employees or contractors, I'd say more than half have more remote work options that they had before, with some going fully remote. There are still stubborn leaders and organizations but remote work has made major inroads in the last few years.

The fact remains that some jobs can't go full remote as a function of security clearance requirements. It's laughable to say, "...so long as the employee has access to a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) in their location," as if SCIF's are readily available around the country, and that somehow it's easy to get a seat in one. If you work for one three letter agency, you can't just sign up for a hotdesk at another three letter agency's SCIF.

The market is shifting in the DC Metro where even cleared jobs are allowing some remote work, but it'll still take some time for organizations to change.

One problem is government buildings employ many other people like security, maintenance, repair, etc. People commuting into cities spend money at businesses within the city. It's easy for us to say remote work is better but it will come at the cost of many businesses failing (see: SF)

> People commuting into cities spend money at businesses within the city.

People working from home are spending money where they live. I do not think it is somehow superior when all business is concentrated in one place rather then scattered around.

Of course we are losing if developers and tech workers see Unions with suspicion. To win we need to unite. And until the meritocratic, individualistic ideology that prevails in technology is stopped, we cannot do that.

A rather refreshing take on the work from home topic.

When gas prices were at their peaks last summer I found it a little perplexing that the Biden administration wasn't advocating for more work from home policies, so that people didn't have to commute as much to get to the office. But they really can't advocate for it too much. There is a ton of money in commercial real estate and the commercial mortgage backed securities that have been spawned. End of the day, I think that is why we have the current atmosphere where "work from home bad" narratives are being pushed with such frequency and intensity.

They could've done so but there probably would've been backlash from the republicans "President says I shouldn't drive or drive 55". Deliberate crap like that.

The people in office have powerful constituents (donors) who run banks with large commercial office loan portfolios, or own large commercial real estate portfolios, or run big companies. None of these people wants "work from home" to continue, certainly not to the level it has been in the last couple of years.

But "republicans bad" is definitely the right explanation.

> There is a ton of money in commercial real estate and the commercial mortgage backed securities that have been spawned.

We’re not on the hook for contracts the genius CEOs sign.

Let capitalism capitalize on this opportunity to fail and fall on its face.

Wonder how federal tech jobs are these days. Feels like we don't hear from 18F much anymore.

Of course they're shunning remote work. How dare their cattle not provide as much milk now that they're consuming less gasoline and expensive team lunches?

It's astounding that the Federal Government alone, has over 2 million employees. That is the definition of a bloated bureaucracy.

> It’s astounding that the Federal Government alone, has over 2 million employees.

It’s actually over 4 million. (It's funny how the same people who like to call the US federal government bloated despite how small it is for the size of the country, are the ones who don't count the nearly half of the federal government that is uniformed military in that.)

> That is the definition of a bloated bureaucracy.

No, its not. Even when you count the much larger non-federal public workforce, the US has a quite small public workforce compared to other countries (globally, OECD, or pretty much any other meaningful group that it is part of.)

I intentionally left out the military. And I've actually never heard anybody try to make the argument that the US government is a highly efficient operation, so kudos to you for being the first.

But you shouldn't leave out the military. They are federal employees just as much as the others.

ok, we could/should easily cut half of them as well. Have you ever looked at how wasteful our military spending is?

By your numbers that would be less than 1 per 100 people.

Could you run a 1000 person company with less than 10 people in overhead positions? (CEO, HR, facilities, legal, security, etc).

Seems pretty efficient to me.

You just referred to the US Government as efficient. That's a bold statement.

It's not that bold. At its worst, the US government isn't any less efficient than most private companies.

The US Government is $30 Trillion (with T) dollars in debt because they literally can't spend less than they bring in.

Trying to compare that to any company is absurd.

I don't think so. Look at a whole bunch of SV companies, for instance.

Just another reminder that they’re only interested in climate change policies that give them more power.

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