The Trump Presidency 2.0

The way I read the DoD guidance, commands can request/make ETPs. My immediate supervisor is remote (and arguably the hardest-working person in our shop) and I think he's going to be fine.

IT is one area where I think remote work can make sense. Our S6 guess work one floor down from me, and almost anytime I need something I message them on Teams, they respond right away, and then remote-in to my laptop and solve whatever it is that I've dorked up.

But other shops... when I was trying to come into this job, the people responsible for getting me onboarded and paid weren't responding to my emails so after a couple of days I went to their on-post office "Oh you're looking for <that person>? She works remotely." Well yeah, she might be remote, but she's not working. At least not on the things I need her to work on. "Sorry, no one here can help with that." WTF.

Everyone in that office should have been in that office.
 
In the 90's Army Guard guys getting anything beyond MOSQ was almost unheard of. The Ranger qualified O's I knew either picked up the school while on AD or were in a hold status at Benning and the NGB liaison yelled some version of "who wants to start on Monday." In the 90's, the 53rd BDE's Ranger qualified CGO's were mostly Guard bums. No pre-Ranger back then, a lot were just handed orders following IOBC or something similar. We struggled to find slots for our SOT-A's.

Fuck Bill Clinton and his peace dividend.

In the Marine reserves in the 90s we (Marines and corpsmen) could slots for airborne and ranger. It was infrequent, but it happened.

Can no one here take a joke?

I got it. But then again, I can read ;)
 
Just spent an hour trying to get an appointment for windshield repairs.
All three individuals I had talk to were remote.
Talking to #3 was like talking on HF, talk, listen to the echo, then another short talk.

Remote only works if comms are good.

Funny reading about non-existent office space; yet papers were saying the Government is paying rent on empty buildings in DC.
I wonder who owns those buildings?
 
Wow. There is was BIG money in the DEI grift.

Department of Veterans Affairs places 60 DEI employees on leave with salaries totaling more than $8M



More than $14M. And that's just one agency.

"One of the employees had a salary of over $220,000 per year, according to the VA."

That's the average annual salary of a 'SES-2' which is essentially the civilian version of a 2-Star General.

So the VA is quick to say "hey, fuck right off Staff Sergeant Snuffy, we aren't going to pay for your bad back" but they have NO problem paying an SES-2 so that we can all be preached at about how gender is a spectrum

I feel like there is probably a metric shit ton of non-supervisory-GS14's in the pile of bullshit as well.

The legion of denigrate pedos and mentally ill jackasses on the left side of the political spectrum have surely butt fucked us all much deeper and waaay harder than many of us will ever know.
 
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also only works if the employees and their management are good.
HR and I were discussing how remote works...because I'm fully remote from everyone now. My boss was fully remote. She works at a satellite office but has been WFH for a few months for a variety of reasons.

Remote only works when the leader has significant capacity to manage their personnel. Yes, you 100% need to babysit a significant majority of the adult working population. Mind, that the office is a crutch for a lot of bad leaders. And many of them can't manage people well in the office either.
 
President Trump pulling out all the stops to reduce the federal workforce.

Eight months worth of severance pay, even.

From CNBC link:

The Trump administration is offering millions of federal workers the option to accept buyouts through a government-wide “deferred resignation” program if they resign by Feb. 6.

Those who accept the offer will receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30, according to a draft email obtained Tuesday by NBC News.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/28/trump-buyouts-federal-workers.html
 
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Anyone receive the Fork in the Road email?
Somebody I know mentioned it, and then sent me a link to the guidance OPM pushed out like an hour ago.

If I'm reading it right, if you're in a fireable position and resign by February 6th, you'll go on paid administrative leave for the next 8 months before peacing out in late September.

It also said they're leaving it up to the agencies to decide whether or not they'll place any restrictions on deferrers getting outside employment while on paid leave. :sneaky:

Here's the link:
https://www.chcoc.gov/content/guidance-regarding-deferred-resignation-program
 
HR and I were discussing how remote works...because I'm fully remote from everyone now. My boss was fully remote. She works at a satellite office but has been WFH for a few months for a variety of reasons.

Remote only works when the leader has significant capacity to manage their personnel. Yes, you 100% need to babysit a significant majority of the adult working population. Mind, that the office is a crutch for a lot of bad leaders. And many of them can't manage people well in the office either.
My company was 100% remote. We were structured as a Results Only Work Environment ( Results-Only Work Environment | Encyclopedia.com ). I refused to pay for office space for an IT consulting business. The biggest problem we had was finding people for technical positions that were capable of working from home without a set schedule. These were very senior technical people (Architect level) with a minimum of 15 years hands-on experience in their discipline and a proven record of success. The type of people you would think would be self-starters and focused on their tasks.

I went through an average of 8 people (not interviews, actual hires) to find one that made it past their first commitment... Literally all they had to do was to complete their tasks when they said they would have them done. But they just couldn't seem to make it happen. There were too many people that needed the structure of daily office hours.
 
Somebody I know mentioned it, and then sent me a link to the guidance OPM pushed out like an hour ago.

If I'm reading it right, if you're in a fireable position and resign by February 6th, you'll go on paid administrative leave for the next 8 months before peacing out in late September.

It also said they're leaving it up to the agencies to decide whether or not they'll place any restrictions on deferrers getting outside employment while on paid leave. :sneaky:

Here's the link:
https://www.chcoc.gov/content/guidance-regarding-deferred-resignation-program
Time to double-dip! Contracting isn't employment. Take the leave and find a contract job.
 
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