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Opinion D.C.’s downtown is comatose. Here’s how to revive it. (due to Federal work from home)
Washington Post ^ | November 23, 2022 | By the Editorial Board

Posted on 12/04/2022 10:53:46 PM PST by dennisw

A key problem is federal employees are still largely at home. President Biden vowed in March that “the vast majority of federal workers will once again work in person.” Months later, it’s not even close to that. According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, nearly 40 percent said they work fully remotely or at home three or more days a week.

Another 17 percent say they are at home one or two days a week. The DowntownDC Business Improvement District’s tracking indicates fewer than a quarter of federal workers are back in the office. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has been imploring the White House to change this. Allowing each agency to set its own rules was a mistake. Mr. Biden needs to set a clear policy of at least three days a week on-site for all federal workers who aren’t already back more than that.

Opinion | It’s time for federal workers to return to the office

They are the linchpin for downtown. When they aren’t around, lawyers, consultants, lobbyists and other workers also see little reason to return. While many big marquee law and other firms that have long dominated downtown D.C. have policies stating their workers should be in the office three days a week, few are enforcing it.

The fallout is evident. Walking along K Street Northwest from 14th Street to 20th — prime real estate near the White House — reveals 21 retail spaces for rent and 10 office spaces for lease. At happy hour on a recent Friday, many bars along this stretch had plenty of available seats. This desolate scene would have been unimaginable a few years ago.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: homelesstilthere; junkiesstillthere; whyrevive
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1 posted on 12/04/2022 10:53:46 PM PST by dennisw
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To: dennisw

READ THE COMMENTS! A must! None of them want to work at the office anymore. They never want to physically report to the office again. In my book, this is one huge scam. Whereby working from home they are putting in an ineffectual 2 day work week.

Are they even monitored for actual daily computer time put in? Or is their overall production monitored? Doubtful


2 posted on 12/04/2022 10:58:13 PM PST by dennisw ("You don't have to like it. You just have to do it")
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To: dennisw

…and they’re doing almost half as much work as before!!


3 posted on 12/04/2022 11:11:06 PM PST by Dr. Pritchett
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To: dennisw; All

K Street desolated, wonderful. Actually the K Steet law and lobby firms people largely lived in their offices and many worked 60-70 hour weeks. The pace of life at a big law firm would make telecommuting pretty difficult.


4 posted on 12/05/2022 12:07:04 AM PST by robowombat
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To: dennisw

Washington’s a corrupt city in the process of becoming a democrat hellhole.

Why would anyone expect things to be different? They didn’t do squat when they ‘went in’ and now they’re doing less.

In the long run maybe it’s best - they’re not making things worse.

(oh, and this was posted a long time ago)


5 posted on 12/05/2022 12:13:05 AM PST by GOPJ (Has Biden had dinner with an anti-evangelical? Will Schumer condemn him if he has?)
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To: dennisw
They are working at "home" due to Devolution.

https://www.devolution.link/

6 posted on 12/05/2022 12:14:45 AM PST by C210N (Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.)
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To: dennisw

14th and K can always use a few more hos. Get back to work!


7 posted on 12/05/2022 12:15:17 AM PST by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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To: dennisw

Instead of goofing off in the office, they can have leisure time at home.


8 posted on 12/05/2022 12:53:00 AM PST by UnwashedPeasant (The pandemic we suffer from is not COVID. It is Marxist Democrat Leftism.)
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To: dennisw

You would think the Green New Deal types would be all for this, less cars on the road means less emissions in the air means cleaner air, what’s not to like about this


9 posted on 12/05/2022 1:23:24 AM PST by srmanuel (I)
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To: C210N

An Idaho band thought about that word and named their band DEVO.

https://i.imgur.com/BiXtd.png


10 posted on 12/05/2022 1:36:37 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (I stayed drug - free going on 63 years for this?)
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To: dennisw

All leftist cities can and should die. D.C. is just one of them.


11 posted on 12/05/2022 2:10:03 AM PST by joma89 (Buy weapons and ammo, folks, and have the will to use them.)
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To: dennisw

They could increase the amount of the public going there if it were not such a tyrannical place to visit.

Your options to visit:

Public transportation with rowdy teens and pot smoking on the train, or

Drive and be unable to park and pick up a few automated traffic tickets along the way.


12 posted on 12/05/2022 2:38:50 AM PST by fruser1
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To: UnwashedPeasant

“Instead of goofing off in the office, they can have leisure time at home.”

Peloton! There is a high ranking UK minister who refuses to go to the office. She openly says she exercises on her Peloton during “work hours”

Peloton-riding civil servant is blamed as 80% of her staff WFH
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10052745
Oct 02, 2021 · At a tech conference last month, Ms Healey spoke of how she could put in extra miles on her Peloton exercise bike – which costs upwards of £1,350 – while working from home.....

Sarah Healey said she prefers working from home as it gives more time to ride exercise bike
Her Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport staff apparently following suit
Insider says politicians ‘lucky’ if 20 per cent of DCMS civil servants are in office


13 posted on 12/05/2022 2:58:33 AM PST by dennisw ("You don't have to like it. You just have to do it")
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To: fruser1

This “work from home” is finally the last nail in the coffin of those cities which were truly obsolete; whereas before they could attach populations of urban gibsmedats to taxpaying hosts, now the hosts themselves have no reason to stay.


14 posted on 12/05/2022 3:52:06 AM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
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To: C210N
Solution?

Fire 1/2 of them tomorrow.

It's TIME to DownSize DC!

Restore the Constitution!Size DC!

15 posted on 12/05/2022 5:31:43 AM PST by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: dennisw

It sounds like they are saying, the office workers have supported all manner of small businesses, restaurants, bars, etc. But with so many working from home, the office workers aren’t in the city going out to lunch, going to bars, or going shopping in the city.

I’m sure that Washington and other cities, look to workers being back in the office, as an economic development plan.


16 posted on 12/05/2022 6:51:17 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: dennisw

Tell them they’ll only be paid for two hours of work and see how their attitude changes.


17 posted on 12/05/2022 8:02:32 AM PST by jmacusa (Liberals. Too stupid to be idiots. )
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To: dennisw

I think its far more than just work from home. My daughter, a government consultant is getting married next year. I told her that I was not going to the DC area for any reason. I don’t trust it. I don’t support it. If she wants me at her wedding it can’t be there. So she is holding it in another city a thousand miles away. I know lots of people like me. I don’t need to ever go to DC again. I would not be safe there. My cell phone is not safe there.

DC is no longer a safe space for any conservative. We are the ones who would go to memorials and national museums. We cared about the country. We supported the military. Now I don’t. So I would never go to a place that attacks January 6th victims. I don’t support our government. I don’t even support our Olympic teams or other national sports teams. Its all a sham. Its over. DC has no more virtue than Moscow or Beijing. Work from home is the least of their problems.


18 posted on 12/05/2022 11:45:15 AM PST by poinq
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To: dennisw
A key problem is federal employees are still largely at home. President Biden vowed in March that “the vast majority of federal workers will once again work in person.” Months later, it’s not even close to that. According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, nearly 40 percent said they work fully remotely or at home three or more days a week.

This strikes me as horse dookey. The entire Commerce Department was called back in. That included my section of the NOS in Silver Spring, Maryland, where I worked on a contract. I was teleworking fine in that position when I moved to Florida, and I subsequently lost my job when I indicated I did not want to commute 900 miles or move back to Maryland.

Fortunately, I'm getting another job in the same department which will mercifully be remote after I spend a relatively brief time in-office. So I will be remoting in across over 900 miles and one time zone boundary (from Pensacola) once again.

19 posted on 12/05/2022 11:49:57 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (FBI out of Florida!)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

If the PTB would bother making the city safer for actual humans, more people would be willing to go back to the office. I’m sure more than a few miss some of the camaraderie and company, but no way are they going into a veritable sh*thole, especially when they can commute from the bedroom to the home office.


20 posted on 12/05/2022 11:53:11 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (FBI out of Florida!)
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