Your 2024 Presidential Election Thread

[RackMaster]

I concur that self-interest always has and always will play a factor in Washington. That self interest may ultimately be good for the country or it can result in another taxpayer funded boondoggle. The line is fine and it only takes a slight breeze to fall on one side or the other.

As for remote work, do you think there’s a distinct difference in mindset between the average .gov worker and one from the private sector (non-union)?

Different government but same attitudes. Wife works remotely for Canuckistani government. Her coworkers are lazy pieces of shit. I've worked in office in the same government as a civilian and in uniform. My coworkers were lazy pieces of shit. Public Service attracts the same types of pieces of shit.

 

[Blizzard]

Work from home = cocktails poolside and a laptop

Haha. I wish it did.

 

[Blizzard]

Not really, human nature is human nature.

There are outliers, of course. The hardest-working person in my office is 100% remote. But would we as an organization still be better off if he was here with us every day? Yes.

I think the culture between .gov and private is very different and that breeds very different outcomes.

Sure, there are rockstars and slugs on both sides of the equation. However, private sector (again, non-union type jobs) is much more merit based. As a result, ROI is a greater focus. Innovation and performance are much higher across the board -- .gov is where innovation goes to die.

As a business, in order to make money -- that's the objective of all businesses -- I want to acquire and retain the best talent available for a given function.

Ex. I may a have team building widgets in NC. But, to build it, I need a designer and I know a great one is available in KS, but is unwilling to move to NC for reasons. I should still try to acquire that person. Now add, the NC widget is only one piece of a Mega-widget that's assembled in AZ. And the Mega-widget uses widgets from not only NC, but MI, OH, CA, and off-shore like India and elsewhere. In this scenario, which is not at all unique, every piece is part of a bigger puzzle. Ultimately, they all need to work together, does it matter where these teams are located when everything is decentralized? Not for high performing teams. This is especially true in service driven organizations like finance, insurance, banking, etc. That's the modern world.

Now, if we were still operating in a more centralized world, my view would be different and I'd agree the synergies to be gained with in person collaboration are significant. But, I'd also need to accept that I may not have the best talent and overall growth is probably limited.

The biggest evidence to support my position is multiple studies indicate productivity was stable or increased with remote work. As a result, the myths of cocktails by the pool doesn't quite hold up. Ex.
Surprising Working From Home Productivity Statistics (2024).

If a remote resource isn't performing, the issue is no different than one that's in the office.

 

[Locksteady]

I think the culture between .gov and private is very different and that breeds very different outcomes.

Sure, there are rockstars and slugs on both sides of the equation. However, private sector (again, non-union type jobs) is much more merit based. As a result, ROI is a greater focus. Innovation and performance are much higher across the board -- .gov is where innovation goes to die.

As a business, in order to make money -- that's the objective of all businesses -- I want to acquire and retain the best talent available for a given function.

Ex. I may a have team building widgets in NC. But, to build it, I need a designer and I know a great one is available in KS, but is unwilling to move to NC for reasons. I should still try to acquire that person. Now add, the NC widget is only one piece of a Mega-widget that's assembled in AZ. And the Mega-widget uses widgets from not only NC, but MI, OH, CA, and off-shore like India and elsewhere. In this scenario, which is not at all unique, every piece is part of a bigger puzzle. Ultimately, they all need to work together, does it matter where these teams are located when everything is decentralized? Not for high performing teams. This is especially true in service driven organizations like finance, insurance, banking, etc. That's the modern world.

Now, if we were still operating in a more centralized world, my view would be different and I'd agree the synergies to be gained with in person collaboration are significant. But, I'd also need to accept that I may not have the best talent and overall growth is probably limited.

The biggest evidence to support my position is multiple studies indicate productivity was stable or increased with remote work. As a result, the myths of cocktails by the pool doesn't quite hold up. Ex.
Surprising Working From Home Productivity Statistics (2024).

If a remote resource isn't performing, the issue is no different than one that's in the office.

Agree with everything but I know for a fact that poolside cocktails aren't a myth. I know of three personally who worked from beside a pool half the time during summer, and another who would show up to virtual meetings with the beach behind him. Since that was during the lockdowns and people hadn't been able to travel/do outdoor things as much from where they lived, he joked that he was spreading positivity and promised he would only show up to meetings porchside for the visual boost.

Nonetheless, his productivity didn't wane in the least and the other three have promoted just fine since then. I think there is an increasingly dated idea about professionalism that has some folks believing that means being in office, and I would say the argument for team morale can go both ways for in-person and remote work, depending on how much in-person interaction people prefer/tolerate. I'd argue for letting folks do what will keep them making the best aforementioned ROI and go from there.

 

[Marauder06]

I think the culture between .gov and private is very different and that breeds very different outcomes.

Sure, there are rockstars and slugs on both sides of the equation. However, private sector (again, non-union type jobs) is much more merit based. As a result, ROI is a greater focus. Innovation and performance are much higher across the board -- .gov is where innovation goes to die.

As a business, in order to make money -- that's the objective of all businesses -- I want to acquire and retain the best talent available for a given function.

Ex. I may a have team building widgets in NC. But, to build it, I need a designer and I know a great one is available in KS, but is unwilling to move to NC for reasons. I should still try to acquire that person. Now add, the NC widget is only one piece of a Mega-widget that's assembled in AZ. And the Mega-widget uses widgets from not only NC, but MI, OH, CA, and off-shore like India and elsewhere. In this scenario, which is not at all unique, every piece is part of a bigger puzzle. Ultimately, they all need to work together, does it matter where these teams are located when everything is decentralized? Not for high performing teams. This is especially true in service driven organizations like finance, insurance, banking, etc. That's the modern world.

Now, if we were still operating in a more centralized world, my view would be different and I'd agree the synergies to be gained with in person collaboration are significant. But, I'd also need to accept that I may not have the best talent and overall growth is probably limited.

The biggest evidence to support my position is multiple studies indicate productivity was stable or increased with remote work. As a result, the myths of cocktails by the pool doesn't quite hold up. Ex.
Surprising Working From Home Productivity Statistics (2024).

If a remote resource isn't performing, the issue is no different than one that's in the office.

I agree to some extent about private vs. public work, but the principal/agent problem persists. A guy earning minimum wage in the private sector is probably not going to work that much harder, especially unsupervised, than a .gov employee.

I took a glance at the study you posted (thank you), it appears to rely on self-reporting from employees. I wonder if a study that asked employers if their remote workers were more productive would return the same results.

 

[Blizzard]

Agree with everything but I know for a fact that poolside cocktails aren't a myth. I know of three personally who worked from beside a pool half the time during summer, and another who would show up to virtual meetings with the beach behind him. Since that was during the lockdowns and people hadn't been able to travel/do outdoor things as much from where they lived, he joked that he was spreading positivity and promised he would only show up to meetings porchside for the visual boost.

Nonetheless, his productivity didn't wane in the least and the other three have promoted just fine since then. I think there is an increasingly dated idea about professionalism that has some folks believing that means being in office, and I would say the argument for team morale can go both ways for in-person and remote work, depending on how much in-person interaction people prefer/tolerate. I'd argue for letting folks do what will keep them making the best aforementioned ROI and go from there.

I agree that, like many things, the answer is probably specific to the individual.

Some type of hybrid arrangement is probably best for most and that seems to be the direction a lot of companies are headed. The fact that a lot of the push for return to office is really CRE driven is also not lost on me.

I've heard about a lot of companies taking measures to lure employees back with events, in office lunches, happy hours, etc.

The issue is those "gimmicks" generally only appeal to a small percentage of employees, usually younger ones without families. Now, anecdotally, I'm admittedly somewhat of a curmudgeon when it comes to these things. Not because I don't like my co-workers, but because I prefer to spend my time with the people of my choosing, who I don't see as often as I'd like, as opposed to a "forced relationship". As a result, those events are not a "perk" to someone like me. Such concepts seem like archaic carry over ideas from the .com era where you had this cult like corporate culture like Google, etc.

 

[DA SWO]

Sorry, one more comment on this issue and then I'm going to let the dust settle a bit before I have anything else to say on this topic.

I viewed the comments about this situation on Mr. Hegseth's post about this on X, which of course was a mistake since the comments section in any social media is where reasonable discourse goes to die.

I appreciate the desire to find out how this happened, but the attacks on West Point's PAO, whom I knew slightly when I was on active duty and worked with on several occasions, is wrong for several reasons. I didn't know her well and probably wouldn't recognize her, nor her me, on the street. But AFAIK she did a tough job well and I never had any reason to believe that she was some kind of hardcore leftist or TDS lunatic or any of the other things people are assuming about her right now. All of that name-calling (and antisemitism) thrown her way are improper and unhelpful.

Also, guys, SHE'S THE PAO. I sincerely doubt that she was fact-checking peoples' admissions records herself. She probably received a press inquiry, which is her job, she approached Admissions, someone in admissions told her (for whatever reason) they didn't have a record of him even applying, told her that, and she responded to the press with that info, WHICH IS HER JOB (and repeat). If all she did was her job, IMO she's blameless in all of this.

As far as the privacy act thing goes, I don't know what the rules are but I'm OK with the public knowing who was accepted to, or even applied for, public institutions. No grades, no disciplinary reports, nothing like that, but whether or not they got in, and/or attended? Yeah I think that's appropriate.

Still, this was a big screwup; an unnecessary own-goal. If West Point is going to share info like this, it needs to be 100% right. And it needs to be 100% right all the time.

Did she clear the release with her supervisor? I would hope so.
Likewise, I would hope her boss asked who she coordinated with.

How far back do the records go? and who searched them?

 

[ThunderHorse]

I work remotely, I am one of if not the most productive person in my company. Yet, I have high standards and I'm not a girl that smiles. I hold people accountable. Guess who's a director and who is a senior manager? Productivity has very little to do with folks station at work unless you are THE BOSS. I should probably start doing poolside cocktails from my backyard though.

 

[AWP]

Telework productivity is about discipline, integrity, and management. You control the first two, the last is something that should exist no matter if you're in the office or not. Clear direction, clear goals, clear deadlines.

 

[TLDR20]

My wife works for a Fortune 500 company. They are pushing for a return to the office. She is much more productive at home. While at the office people are constantly “dropping in” which negatively affects her ability to work without distractions. They have been pushing for a 4 day in person work week with a hybrid day WFH. She is adamantly against it, not because she is lazy, she is highly productive with exceptional impact, but because she wants to be more productive.

When she works at the office she cedes control of her schedule to the whims of anyone walking by. When you are a busy executive or manager that is not a recipe for success, and turns 8 hour days into 10 hour days and 10’s into 12’s.

 

[DA SWO]

My wife was probably the exception. She felt her clients got better service by doing face to face interviews.
Did she process more when working remotely? yes. But making sure Soldiers got better service was her goal.

 

[RackMaster]

My wife works for a Fortune 500 company. They are pushing for a return to the office. She is much more productive at home. While at the office people are constantly “dropping in” which negatively affects her ability to work without distractions. They have been pushing for a 4 day in person work week with a hybrid day WFH. She is adamantly against it, not because she is lazy, she is highly productive with exceptional impact, but because she wants to be more productive.

When she works at the office she cedes control of her schedule to the whims of anyone walking by. When you are a busy executive or manager that is not a recipe for success, and turns 8 hour days into 10 hour days and 10’s into 12’s.

That's easily solved by enforcing a "by appointment" policy.

 

[MIkeH92467]

I agree to some extent about private vs. public work, but the principal/agent problem persists. A guy earning minimum wage in the private sector is probably not going to work that much harder, especially unsupervised, than a .gov employee.

I took a glance at the study you posted (thank you), it appears to rely on self-reporting from employees. I wonder if a study that asked employers if their remote workers were more productive would return the same results.

As they always add to such studies: "More research is needed"... There is an elephant in the room when it comes to this issue: do employers know how to measure productivity? The fact that there is such disagreement over the issue leads me to believe that the "traditional" ways of measuring productivity are not adequate, or at least incomplete. If I were a top level executive trying to sort out the situation (not happening, just sayin') I would want to figure out exactly what I want my organization to accomplish and how to objectively (or at least somewhat objectively) measure whether those goals are being achieved and whether the organization's ability to meet those goals is impacted, positively or negatively, by allowing people to work remotely. Mostly all I hear from large organization execs is some sort of vague anecdotal pronouncement about the "synergies" achieved by people working in close proximity. (That brings to mind what happens when you put too many rats in too small of a space...sorry I digress.) When it comes to manageming people, that great philosopher Pete Rose said "Some people you gotta pat on the butt, some people you gotta kick in the butt and some people you just leave alone." I would add that the real art of management lies in knowing which people fit into which category.

 

[AWP]

Weird, it's almost like there's a happy medium between telework and in-office hours. Strange, the sort of thing management could understand if it was involved, which makes one consider the selection process for those positions.

 

[TLDR20]

That's easily solved by enforcing a "by appointment" policy.

That is easily said (I’ve said it), but not easily executed.

 

[Blizzard]

My wife was probably the exception. She felt her clients got better service by doing face to face interviews.
Did she process more when working remotely? yes. But making sure Soldiers got better service was her goal.

I wholeheartedly agree there are some jobs that require or, at least, are very conducive to being in person. Those include obvious jobs in manufacturing, but many customer-facing jobs as well. It really depends on the job and the industry.

 

[Gunz]

I can’t wait to read even more fascinating posts about working remotely vs going to the office.

 

[Gunz]

Next up in the rotation: 9mm vs 45 acp

 

[The Quartermaster]

Next up in the rotation: 9mm vs 45 acp

No, leave that autism out of here please.

 

[AWP]

I can’t wait to read even more fascinating posts about working remotely vs going to the office.

We have discussions about cannibalism on the forum and this causes you some concern?

Okay.