I wish Elon would walk into the offices with a toilet seat around his head and scream out "this is what an asshole looks like!"
Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
201–210 of 380 posts
Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The US is now acting like the countries it loves to destabilize. Ironically, it's destabilising itself on its own.
That’s what the successful decades long Russian psyop would want you to believe. I’m not talking primarily about agent Krasnov allegation from a top Kazakh ex-spook (though that is an actual possibility), but about the well known Russian influence operations by financing what used to be extremists (both far-right and far-left) across the West.
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Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#203But why did the government keep offices that couldn't be used?
Might have had a long term lease
Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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JFYI federal government headcount of 2M people has stayed constant over last 100 years with ever increasing population and things to take care of. I wouldn't call that bloat, honestly. What has been growing a lot are mostly municipalities, which I guess boils down to more people helping disadvantaged kids in schools, which I guess is nice and more policing, which many are calling to shrink and replace with something…
Executive branch civilian employment was 700,000 in 1940.[1]
[1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/data-analysis-docu...
Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#205At least some of the issues in the headline are temporary inconveniences, some fixed within hours apparently:
> In one Department of Health and Human Services office, there was no Wi-Fi or full electricity in the first hours when people returned last week.
The broader issue is: what even is the point, if Trump has abandoned any pretence of seeking a balanced budget anyway?
Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, Russia is destabilizing the US and winning which is why I think we're acting like that. And it seems all of our military and counterintelligence capabilities can't stop it. Too much offense, not enough defense, it seems.
I'm not even sure it's true Russia is doing this. I think our elected officials might just be really stupid on their own.
Can’t be sure, but wow does all of the evidence point that way.
Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
An organization allegedly about reducing waste is creating it instead, by arbitrarily forcing a tight timeline and using heavy, specific, and inflexible top-down mandates that don’t let those closer to the work use the information they have (say, that their offices aren’t ready to work in). Spending freezes, blanket firing of tons of provisional workers (fun fact: the recently-promoted are also provisional, this does…
> An organization allegedly about reducing waste is creating it instead The point you missed in the parent comment was that this is temporary . I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but if the way we discover that government offices were sitting vacant for years (i.e. big waste) is by having people return to them and be unproductive for a few days (i.e. small waste), then the trade will be worth it. I doubt an…
I didn't miss the point. This waste could have been avoided, is the thing, and anyone who cared about running and knew how to run an organization well, might have. Such a person might even have guessed there were excellent reasons that the executive has not, previously, been run by one single person issuing surprising and very specific decrees that reach down to the lowest-level workers, across large swaths of it at once, and not done that.
> I don't have a strong opinion on the matter, but if the way we discover that government offices were sitting vacant for years (i.e. big waste) is by having people return to them and be unproductive for a few days (i.e. small waste), then the trade will be worth it.
This doesn't save anything. Now utilities and maintenance costs are higher. It's more spending. Leasing out or selling the buildings would have cut waste.
> I doubt anyone wants employees to be sitting in offices that aren't functional.
I don't know how many times and ways people involved in the admin have to say that their goal is to wreck the federal bureaucracy before people believe them.
Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#208> (...) returned to ethernet cords in piles around the floor, random wires sticking out of walls, and motion-sensor lights that weren’t working correctly I don't understand that part, maybe I'm missing something - what happened there? Why would the abandoned workplace not look exactly the same as they left it? Where did the ethernet cords appear from? Someone stole TVs from the walls?
So, this thing called Covid hit. It was a pandemic, and because it was infectious, a large push to work remotely was made (both in private and public businesses). When employers realized that work was being done despite not being in the office, they started to shutter their offices (ya know, to save money). I can't believe I have to explain to another adult why offices after Covid don't look the same.
What an insulting and willfully obtuse answer, that does not address any of these perfectly reasonable questions. When you leave your house on vacation, do you rip the cords out of the outlets and pile them on the floor, and dismount all the TVs?
Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#209[flagged]
Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s only a matter of time until they realize that they were the intended targets of the cuts, not accidental damage. I suspect that other scapegoats can be found to blame for their problems; as you say, their news sources will offer them all sorts of filters to deflect blame from the obvious source.
> I suspect that other scapegoats can be found to blame for their problems Woke, Biden, DEI, Obama, trans, Hillary, Soros, gays, illegals, fluoride. Take your pick.
You forgot vaccines, education, NATO, porn, the courts, Canada, women, and renewable energy.
My biggest mystery is how these people have the energy to hate so many things so deeply. It sounds exhausting.