Free Republic

Joe Biden allowed remote work dominate the civil service for so long, a cafeteria in the Department of the Interior remained shutdown years after the pandemic ended. Similarly, the department of housing and urban development resembles 'a taxpayer-funded Spirit Halloween' that looks almost like no one has been inside since Biden took office. The Interior was one of many departments that did not require employees to return under the Biden administration and a photo taken Thursday shows it as a complete ghost town, according to Fox News Digital. 'You have federal workers showing up to protest President Trump's plan to...

During an animated town hall meeting on Wednesday, the 68-year-old was questioned on the petition which has garnered roughly 950 signatures. In a recording reviewed by Reuters, Dimon said: 'Don’t waste time on it. I don’t care how many people sign that f****** petition.' Employees at the largest bank in the country have been complaining on internal message boards and chats about losing their hybrid working arrangements. Dimon demanded more efficiency and stressed that employees have a choice on whether they continue to work at JPMorgan. He told them not to be mad at him about the rolling back of...

Washington — President-elect Donald Trump said Monday that his new administration will challenge a deal reached between the Social Security Administration and its union that would allow employees to continue teleworking into 2029. During remarks at his South Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, Trump blamed the Biden administration for what he said was a "terrible" and "ridiculous" agreement that would allow tens of thousands of federal workers to continue working from home several days a week. The president-elect said "it was like a gift to a union, and we're going to obviously be in court to stop it." He said federal workers...

The clash over working from home is expected to be one of the major battles for the incoming Trump administration. The nation's biggest federal union is pushing back against claims by President-elect Donald Trump's supporters over teleworking for civil servants. The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 800,000 federal and Washington city workers, said assertions that staffers are abusing work-from-home flexibility are serving as cover for Republican lawmakers to try to tear down the government. The clash over telework is expected to be one of the major battles for the incoming Trump administration as conservatives push for the civil...

Working from home remains an overwhelmingly popular option for people across the world, with new research finding the vast majority (83%) saying they felt more productive in hybrid/remote settings rather than in-office or on site.A survey from Zoom focusing on knowledge workers seemingly confirmed many companies back the trend of post-Covid remote working to continue, with 50% of leaders saying they have introduced more flexible working styles over the last two years, and 82% plan to carry this on into the future.And despite the distance, hybrid workers even report that they are feeling more connected to their teams and managers,...

Imagine a life where you reclaim your time, working hard yet stress-free in your own space. At home, you can meditate or exercise without the hassle of commuting, enjoy great coffee whenever you like and have healthy lunches and snacks at your fingertips. No more dealing with uncomfortable office temperatures or poor lighting. The stress of a corporate open office setup fades away, and you no longer wake up before dawn to sit in traffic for hours, nor do you spend your evenings stuck in the same gridlock. Expensive, unsatisfying lunches and fake office niceties have become things of the...

Executives spent the better part of three years enticing, coaxing, cajoling, asking, and then finally demanding their employees return to the office. White-collar employees wanted the flexibility to work remotely, while companies decided coming to the office was non-negotiable, and lax suggestions to return to the office eventually became clear directives—even threats. In the latest example of the latter, Bank of America recently sent “letters of education” to workers who repeatedly skipped out on the office, warning them that a failure to come in within the next two weeks could lead to “further disciplinary action.” For as much as some...

Thanks to The Federal Reserve, office property values have gone crazy despite rising vacancy rates. US office space vacancies (white line) have soared since 2008 as The Fed’s massive monetary expansion (blue and green line) has not helped. But Fed monetary expansion DID help drive office prices! At least until 2022, when office space values began to fall. Notice that office values are falling as The Fed withdraws monetary stimulus. During the regional bank failures in March, we directed our readership to focus on the next potential crisis: “CRE Nuke Goes Off With Small Banks Accounting For 70% Of Commercial...

Office attendance is slumping again and bosses have a warning: We are a worse company when you stay home. In buildings across 10 major U.S. cities, office occupancy has fallen back below 50% for the past three weeks, according to Kastle Systems, which tracks security swipes into offices. The drop comes despite new return-to-office mandates that affect more than 600,000 workers and counting.Hundreds of Wall Street Journal readers—many of them bosses and team leaders—responded to our story on the workers who say “it’s not my responsibility” to save the office economy. These bosses say employees who insist they are more...

In the aftermath of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the 16th biggest bank in the country, many are left wondering what went wrong. Both current and former employees have stated that the bank’s support of remote work is a contributing factor. Axios reports that current and former employees of Silicon Valley bank have mentioned the bank’s support of remote work as a contributing factor to its recent collapse. SVB stood out in the banking sector for its commitment to remote work. “If our time working remotely has taught us anything, it’s that we can trust our employees to...

The House of Representatives is expected Wednesday to pass legislation requiring hundreds of thousands of federal workers to return to federal offices and shutter many of the telework arrangements permitted amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the measure is unlikely to be passed into law, the proposal raises new debate over whether telework by public employees is squandering taxpayer money or is preventing a shortfall of the civil servants needed to operate the sweeping U.S. government. Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said services at the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration and Department of...

Snip: Remote government by Zoom might be the best way to break this monoculture. If all the official proceedings of the legislature were conducted virtually, this would keep the officials in the states that they represent. Not only would they be more aware of the situation in their home states (since they’d no longer spend much of the year far away), they would be more accessible to their constituents. Regular physical contact with the people who elected for them would increase the accountability of officials as they serve out their terms. This would also impede the formation of close friendships...

The beating heart of the Pittsburgh region is the Golden Triangle, and people are its lifeblood. For the sake of the social and economic health of Downtown, and of the entire city and region, employers in the urban core should encourage as many workers as possible to return to the office, at least a few days each week. It’s not just about maximizing the number of warm bodies in office chairs: More workers mean more lunches and happy hours, more shopping and catering, more cycling and transit riding, more haircuts and shoe shines. In other words, more people mean more...

General Motors pushed back the start of a return-to-office plan after facing fierce resistance from employees over its handling of the rollout. The Detroit-based auto giant rankled corporate employees by announcing in a memo last Friday afternoon that they would be required to work onsite at least three days per week beginning later this year. But GM executives reversed course in an update to staffers on Tuesday – saying the plan won’t be implemented until the first quarter of next year at the earliest. The company also apologized for the manner in which employees learned of the change. “We acknowledge...

Labor Day marks the line in the corporate sand. Many company leaders say the end-of-summer holiday represents the best chance to finally lean on workers to return to the office this year. After months of encouraging white-collar employees to return, or attempting to coax them back with free pizza, warm cookies and catered lunches, many executives now say they feel emboldened to take a tougher stance. No longer can workers merely come to the office if they so choose; this fall, executives say, attendance is expected and the office resisters will be put on notice. Employers including Apple Inc., Prudential...

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs will lift all COVID protocols that have kept some workers away as it pushes all employees to return to the office five days a week after Labor Day, The Post has learned. In a memo sent Tuesday obtained by The Post, Goldman Sachs told workers it will no longer require vaccines, COVID testing or masks — a signal it won’t accept excuses for employees who claimed COVID as a reason for working from home. “There is significantly less risk of severe illness,” the memo stated. “In line with [the CDC’s] updated protocols, if you have...

Today, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit challenging an Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) requirement that day care providers obtain a college degree before taking care of kids. Ilumi Sanchez, a D.C. day care provider who has cared for dozens of children since 1995, challenged the requirement in 2018, along with a parent and another provider. Their lawsuit, in which they are represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ), alleged that the college-degree requirement imposed huge costs on day care workers without teaching them anything useful about caring for...

I noticed the shoes first. That I was wearing them. Real shoes, the leather kind, with laces. After a year and a half, I was finally returning to the office, and that meant giving up the puffer slippers and slides that had sustained me for so long. Real shoes, I quickly remembered, are terrible. Likewise pants. Likewise getting to work, and being at work. Whew. That was summer 2021. I’ve since acclimated to the office once again: I don the uniform; I make the commute; I pour the coffee; I do my job; and then I go back home. There...

To Jonathan Pruiett, it just didn't make sense. A geospatial analyst who updates Google maps for a living, Pruiett had been called back to his company's offices in Bothell, Washington, five days a week, starting June 6. Like many on his team, Pruiett had only worked remotely, having started the job in the pandemic. He'd adapted well to it, finding efficiencies such as multitasking during virtual meetings, using the time to process data. And yet, now he was being told to report to office. Anyone who failed to report within three days of the return date would be processed as...

Outspoken Elon Musk has doubled down on his new work-from-home ultimatum sent to Tesla staff Tuesday, sending out a second email to say 'if you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.' 'Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,' Musk, 50, wrote in a second email sent to staff just hours after the first, which was leaked and reported by Teslarati. The message, shared by Twitter user @SamNissim, bears the subject line 'To be super clear' and was sent to an email list labeled 'Everyone' at 10:51 pm....