Posted on 01/22/2025 7:19:17 AM PST by RoosterRedux
President Donald Trump’s new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is issuing an order to all State Department personnel effectively ending COVID-era work-from-home guidelines and ordering them all back to work in person at the State Department.
The news of the order, obtained by Breitbart News exclusively ahead of its public release, is likely to cause shockwaves throughout the federal workforce but fulfills a major promise that Trump made that everyone needs to come back to work right away.
According to a USA Today story from after the election on how Trump and billionaire Elon Musk—who will chair the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—are aiming to bring the federal workforce back to work, there are still thousands and thousands of federal workers who do not show up to the office.
“The Office of Management and Budget reported in August that of 2.28 million federal workers, 46% were telework-eligible of which 10% were fully remote with no expectation to regularly go into the office,” the late November USA Today piece reads. “At 54%, more than half who could work from home worked fully on-site, according to the report which examined work habits in April and May.”
Now, with Rubio in as Secretary of State, that’s changing at Foggy Bottom as Rubio has ordered everyone back to work. Rubio was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Monday evening–the only Trump Cabinet official confirmed on Inauguration Day–and is clearly already throwing his weight around at the State Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
In the end, this will actually cost the taxpayer more money.
That will leave a mark.
Or seek employment elsewhere?
>> In the end, this will actually cost the taxpayer more money.
Spoken like a true FedGov droid...
The orgies end today. Well, the daytime ones, anyway. They’re still free have them after work.
Playtime is over kiddies
Yeah, right. Whatever. These fat lazy bastards need to be shown the door.
Twenty percent of federal employees are currently eligible for retirement.
There is now a hiring freeze.
You can do the math.
I don’t work for the government, but have been working at home for about 20 years. I think throwing all “work from home” people into the “slackers” bin is not good.
If people are unproductive...either at home or at the job site...they should be canned.
Cost more money??
As opposed to letting them, snort, work from home and spending God knows how much maintaining empty federal buildings?!
A) We’re paying through the nose for the bleeping empty buildings.
B) There are privacy and security issues when gov biz is done at home by masses of employees.
C) Productivity is a lot easier to measure, as well as boost, in the workplace.
And that last one especially applies to public sector workers.
In theory you are correct—but in practice firing someone from the federal government (particularly union members) is very difficult.
You need other tools in the toolkit—and details to very unpleasant locations has been proven a very successful tactic over the years.
That way they are freezing their tails off while legal action is pending—folks eligible for retirement usually will go for it in that circumstance.
Yeah absolutely will cost more money. Now there will be added maintenance and security for those buildings, upgrading to IT capabilities which certainly has not been done and transit subsidies which the government had not had to shell out for several years. Millions of dollars more.
I know everything seems like a great idea until you actually drill into what that idea requires.
I’ll tell you what. How about a compromise...
Rescind these two EOs...
https://www.flra.gov/50th_Anniversary_EO10988
And the public sector can work from home.
I’m a reasonable little devil, ain’t I?
Trump’s ulterior motive in acquiring Greenland might be to put up “Federal” office Quonset huts there, heated with whale blubber, as pre-retirement suites.
Yup. My company sold all of the real estate to a holding company. We lease/rent space as needed for a contract. When the contract is done, so is the use of the real estate. Poof! No ongoing expense. Contracts that employ remote staff never have to dip into the real estate costs. I have worked from my home office since 2001 exclusive of some contract time in San Diego behind spin-dial doors. I don't have a physical office on company premises.
See my replies #12 and #15.
>> If people are unproductive...either at home or at the job site...they should be canned.
That is true, and that can happen in private business.
That will NEVER. EVER. EVER. happen in federal government, where there is zero accountability for (or even measurement of) productivity.
Laura Ingram said something on her program that was intended to be an insult to Federal workers but unintentionally was a complement. She said they had been working at home for four years and nobody noticed.
That means they were actually doing their jobs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.