It’s like a Greek tragedy, sadly there are too few Greeks and too many geeks involved.
Reading this stuff you would think it’s describing the pitiful state of some Third World country in the middle of a Civil War or the Ukranian battlefield, not government workers who having lost an election now have to go back to working in office buildings.
Federal workers describe dire conditions as they return to office, including BYO toilet paper and bringing garbage home – The Independent
Rats, card tables and BYO toilet paper: Inside federal workers’ return to office – USA Today
‘Wi-Fi Keeps Going Down’: Donald Trump’s Return-to-Office Mandate Is Going Terribly – Wired
The WiFi keeps going down. How are they even still alive?
Biden promised that federal workers would have to go back to work. But he lied or perhaps forgot about it 5 minutes later. In reality, his administration needed the backing of government worker unions. And since no one actually prepared for the dreadful day when they would have to go back to an office, they’re all eating rats off card tables while scrounging for toilet paper… and the WiFi keeps going down!
That and the whole workplace is useless anyway.
One effect of all this, many federal employees tell WIRED, is that they are traveling long distances to spend all of their time in virtual meetings.
“I don’t directly work with anyone in the office that I am going into,” one employee at the Department of Housing and Urban Development tells WIRED. “So I show up and sit on [Microsoft] Teams calls.”
A Treasury employee says they spend most of their time at the office on video calls as well, “because of people working at other sites … and that’s hard when working from a cubicle. I definitely get less done because of the distractions.”
Honestly, any job that mostly involves virtual meetings is debatably a job.
All of these complaints really raise more questions.
At a DOD building, one employee says, the influx of people now working from the office has made simply accessing the facility a daily struggle for them.
“We are on a secure military facility with only a few access points,” the employee tells WIRED. “There are not enough gate guards to open multiple access points so the traffic backs up onto the highway.”
Whatever they do requires them to be in a secure military facility… and they were working from home?
Anyway it’s like the Bataan death march especially if you identify as queer.
Some federal employees say the return-to-office mandates are having a negative impact on their health.
One employee at the SSA, who identifies as queer and uses they/he pronouns, is also disabled and suffers from chronic pain and mobility issues. Still, they were left with no option but to make the long journey from their home to the office once the return-to-office mandate was enforced.
“With no car, I am walking a mile to the train, and from the station to the office on concrete and metal, limping along, using elevators when I can,” they say, adding, “While I can ask for Reasonable Accommodations, our DEI offices were gutted, so despite being directed to apply through the proper channels, there’s no one there to process them.” In the weeks since they’ve returned to the office, nothing has improved.
Maybe they should do something else. Like work in the media.
A lot of office environments are dumb and poorly managed and implemented. Government jobs are generally more so. A lot of these people may not really need to be in the office or work for the government. And once in an office, they probably don’t have much to do except check in with people above and below them at which they have meetings to discuss how little toilet paper they have.
The great toilet paper shortage can be solved. Equipment and supplies can be brought in, but the larger question is how many of these people and positions are really needed for anything?
