Like all workers, federal employees need to get back to the office

Increased traffic? Time away from family? Higher gas and food bills? Quality of life?

Never covered. Just reams of text about poor landlords.

> Tell that to the taxpayers who are footing the bill for empty floor space and the costs of maintenance, as the GAO emphasizes.

So close those offices. Why are you wasting my tax dollars?

> Tell it to the small businesses that are suffering, whose tax payments fund city services.

It's not my duty as a taxpayer to subsidize these small businesses.

> Tell that to the taxpayers who are footing the bill for empty floor space and the costs of maintenance, as the GAO emphasizes.

Hey, that's me! I'm going to pay a ridiculous amount in taxes regardless, and they'll only keep increasing. The least you can do is let government workers do their jobs from the comfort of their own homes.

I am in the enviable position of being able to afford to take a huge pay cut and go work for the US Digital Service. I would actually love to-I think good government needs good tech, and I believe in the ability of USDS to make (however small) an impact on peoples' lives and interactions with the federal government. However, I am _not_ going to move to DC to do so.

It seems like USDS would be an ideal candidate to allow a bunch of remote employees, and yet they don't, because...reasons.

Maybe we need an actual WFH union, whose purpose will encompass everyone who wants to join and will push for an employee choice on whether they want to be remote.

I am extra pissy today about it, because our manager has suddenly also 'decided' its time to crack the whip.

Startups have incredible precedent post-covid to not waste early capital on of all things... office space.

I used to be in the office camp, but you'd have to hold a gun to my head to waste 1/3 of my day sitting in traffic to sit in a desk to doodle on a computer somewhere else other than my home office.

That said, government employees in any form are stooges and the lowest of the bottom of the bucket. They're barely capable of doing their jobs in an office. (just renewed my passport)