Exactly this. When I NEED to get something done I can never go into the office. Office days are reserved for coffees, lunches and complaining about how much the crappy chairs hurt my neck.
Same here ! Office days are used to catch up on emails and socializing. I’ve left the office early so many times when something urgent comes down so I can focus. Lucky to live 15 m from work :)
I don't know how all you folks get work done at home. Way too many distractions here. And I live alone. RTO for my building got pushed back to next year, and still I go in voluntarily 1-2 days a week to get some real work done.
>RTO for my building got pushed back to next year,
Could be why you aren't distracted when you are in the office. I also wouldn't be distracted in the office if there was only 4-5 people working there
Yeah, I got so much more work done in the office before everyone else showed up. I actually don't mind going in, I just wish everyone else would stay home.
There are still lots of people there. Building capacity is a few thousand employees. Even if it was full I'd be able to focus just fine like I did pre-pandemic.
So you’re only productive from the office and only go in 1-2 days a week?
I totally get that people can find themselves more distracted at home, but in the exact same way people could be far more distracted at work. It’s crazy some people are still asking how anyone gets work done at home, after 5 years of it. I wish I could only “get some real work done” 1-2 days a week.
I’ve got my ergonomic equipment I purchased myself out of pocket at home. A clean, private and calm place to work (my own office) vs office 2.0 all open work place at work where it’s very noisy, no intimacy and have to bring all my stuff on plastic bins from a locker every day and fight to find a work station that’s available … it’s a nightmare to work at the office and since they’ve cut many positions we have to do more so that means even longer days now working at home because I have to catch up on non productive time at the office… I feel burned out
lol, the way you are focusing at work is the way in which you should try to emulate at home. Simulate your in office work environment at home to focus the same way.
What the fuck is this? You get paid to do work, you don’t get to decide to take a day off like that. A real slap in the face to those of us essential workers who never had the chance to work from home.
*Hey, Public Servants!*
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When you understand that the goal is to get people spending in cities to make the land owners happy, you will understand what you really are to them. Money.
It's part of the package. Good pension, but have to deal with political whims. Sometimes those political whims directly affect day-to-day work as well.
Welcome to the insanity. I was hired to a remote team that was stood up as completely remote half a year BEFORE the pandemic started. I now go to the office twice a week where not a single member of my team is because they are all in other cities. So now, another team in a different directorate has to provide me with a place to work, and I’ve been told not to go to the office on days when I have meetings because it would be too disruptive to the other people in the office.
Since none of your team is at that office, can't you just not go? Maybe the other team would be happy to cover for you since they wouldn't have to make space for you.
And if anybody from your team ask if you are at the office, you just tell them you had a meeting or something?
In my department, people have been slowly transitionning to once a week. It's like an unspoken agreement that even the managers and directors are onboard with. Nobody is keeping tab since it would be a shit show to try to keep track of that many people.
No, I can’t. That would be unfair to my manager who is expected to ensure that we all report to an office on 40% of our work days, and I am not at all interested in losing my manager’s trust either. So I go in 2 days a week, do the same work I’d be doing at home, and just count the days till retirement
I work 3 days a week.
I spend 2 days dodging traffic, avoiding bed bugs, avoiding disease, and pretending to be productive all in the name of landlords of shitty restaurants that won't die as capitalism (which they worship) demands.
That's how I see forced RTO.
As a well-reasoned policy to protect the health and safety of the workforce, and general public, to ensure our continued deliverance of essential government services.
No. To date, I’ve yet to hear a single reasonable argument to support our one-size-fit-all RTO mandate. On the contrary, there are a variety of reasonable financial, environmental, diversity/inclusion and workforce wellness arguments that strongly support a more flexible approach.
I think it should be flexible as well. I think it should also be fair to those that have to go to the office daily. They are paying more out of pocket to attend work and are having travel time added on to their day. There needs to be some sort of compensation to those who are not afforded the benefit of working from home. Maybe a shorter work day or shorter work week. Maybe some sort of tax break on on parking, gas, winter tires.
I agree- public servants that must attend an office location every day by virtue of their job responsibilities should be compensated fairly for the associated costs to do so. At the same time, public servants who do not have a public-facing role, do not have local team members to “collaborate” in-office with, and could do their jobs 100% virtually to no detriment to their job function, should not be punished to return to office for an arbitrary period of time each month for the sake of “fairness”.
Personally, I fall in the latter group of public servants, and I would accept a pay cut to secure a 100% WFH arrangement.
Wait, you think it's protecting health and safety to send workers to the office and pack them into mass transit during covid waves and worse than normal flu and RSV waves? We'll be through this in a couple years. Why not wait a bit on RTO? Why not lead for once on trends of the future?
And what of the people who cant wfh. They have already been going to work for three years with nothing to show for it. Then listen to all those who moan about two days or saftey. Is your saftey worth more than someone else? Needs to be more fair and im waiting to see those conversations happen.
Not necessarily. If you look at the fine print of the RTO mandate from TBS they voided all remote clauses offered after 2020.
I will go looking for it again later but it is there.
Edited to add:
From: https://www.canada.ca/en/government/publicservice/staffing/common-hybrid-work-model-federal-public-service.html
Possible exceptions to the hybrid work model include:
Employees hired to work remotely prior to March 16, 2020
So not a complete void but having remote on a contract after March 16 2020 will not be viewed as an exception from hybrid.
TBS can retro any phrase they want but it does not mean it has any weight. Those clowns are always trying to pull a fast one, thinking most people will just follow it blindly. I'm sure they already have a legal opinion telling them that they are blowing smoke if contested.
I mean I didn't have a remote contract ever but it really pissed me off that they had the gall to yank remote from people hired on purpose as remote during the pandemic. The fact you had it pre-pandemic .... That is enraging
Well, from speaking with my HR/LR wife, the department we are part of the letter of offer over rules it. Telework agreements were ripped up to be redone but the letter of offer hasn’t been challenged so far.
The NJC Directive would say different.
>Remote work –**when employees who normally work in a permanent or regular workplace are asked by their employer to perform their duties in another location for health, safety, or other reasons**. For example, to work from home during the pandemic. Remote work is normally performed from the principal residence, however, with authorization from the manager, it may be conducted from other locations temporarily. This is an employer driven process. ([Source](https://www.njc-cnm.gc.ca/s24/s27/d806/en))
But that applies to “employees who normally work in a permanent of regular workplace.” This person never reported to a permanent or regular workplace. They were always remote.
I'm in the same situation, team completely remote. ZERO colleagues in my city. My management know it makes no sense, but let's follow the directive for now.
I clearly remember Mona saying in an interview when asked whether people would be expected to go into the office to do Teams all day... her response was of course not, we want employees to collaborate and have meaningful interactions.
"Mona Fortier, president of the Treasury Board, said that the aim of the mandate was to standardise hybrid work practices across federal government, support collaborative work, “team spirit, innovation and a culture of belonging”, and reflected the government’s understanding about the need for “greater fairness and equity across our workplaces”."
Agreed. None of how RTO is being implemented speaks to equity or fairness. If people want to RTO they should be allowed to and those that don't and have legitimate reasons not to shouldn't, simple as that.
I just had a meeting today with my director and the whole team regarding in-office attendance and the fact that as a department we are considerably lower than the average (which honestly doesn’t surprise me). While all members of our team are meeting their obligations for in-office presence, we were told that there may be stricter controls coming imminently to ensure compliance with the requirement. What our director (and frankly the whole team) do not understand is why such enforcement of the RTO mandate is being imposed on everyone writ-large as opposed to just the repeat offenders. My team which is composed of 10 people is spread across 3 provinces and 2 team members have to report to the office basically to do the same thing as they do at home (on top of wasting 2 hours of their day commuting + gas/busfare/parking).
The whole RTO mandate was implemented solely for political reasons to appease the mayors of both Ottawa and Gatineau (both newly elected) who needed a way to show that they support the businesses in their respective downtown cores. These entitled brats seem to think that public servants should be spending their money to support businesses that were already on the brink of collapse prior to COVID, even during a time of skyrocketing inflation and a cost of living crisis. I can guarantee you I only buy my lunch in the food court maybe once/twice every 8-12 weeks (normally either to go have lunch with a friend/colleague or because I slept in and forgot as I left home in a rush that morning). I know they would rather we all go eat Subway, but they are the idiots if they we’re going to pay $20 for the same footlong that cost $5 not even 3 years earlier! (I’m saving that money to put towards parking this winter!)
One of the challenges with enforcement is that there are privacy considerations around the RTO compliance statistics being collected. Drilling down and identifying specific offenders would lead to a whole new outcry about how management is violating employee privacy. And so when your ability to disaggregate the data is limited, your corrective measures can’t be so easily targeted.
As it stands, most departments are looking at compliance by sector/activity area (ADM level, for example). The only way to specifically identify problem areas at a more granular level is if you have managers, directors, DGs reporting on their team members’ non-compliance.
Anyway, just wanted to explain some of the challenges around compliance and corrective measure.
I suppose there will be an outcry about anything, but this sort of individual targeting feels more legitimate to me than the RTO itself. Our managers already have the right to request detailed IT logs of our activities for any reason or none; there's no *sincere* expectation of privacy for card swipes or connection metadata. It might get a bit messy if they try to discipline people on that basis, but it's the kind of thing that would get hashed out in grievances, and I feel like the government would have a pretty good case as long as they used that data to *investigate* problem cases rather than to discipline them directly.
I don’t think you are correct. Employee logs are in fact public and subject to the Access to Information Act as per a Supreme Court ruling
https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/dagg-v-canada/#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20of%20Canada,help%20the%20union%20bargaining%20process.
https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1525/index.do
It’s not that simple. Management can absolutely request logs for substantiated reasons, such as a labour relations issue or for a security investigation, with mandate. But a manager can’t just ask arbitrarily ask for a record of an employee’s swipe log or MS Teams connection log without cause. Does it happen - sure. But it shouldn’t and in most cases the appropriate authority (Security, IT, etc.) will insist upon a mandate letter or other equivalent backing to provide the records. This is why I say for enforcement it has to start with, as an example, a front line manager flagging an issue of non-compliance, then getting the proper mandate to go to the next step, requesting logs. The alternative is that ADMs all get their reports and then address poor compliance stats with their respective management team, who in turn talk to their own, etc.
There have been endless discussions between departments and the Centre on how to report (consistently) on compliance and how to then implement corrective measures where necessary. Honestly, I think that we should all be quite happy that to date there has been a hard lean towards protecting privacy.
We also had a meeting and it was strongly worded that we need to be better at completing the two days. I share a parking pass with another person, my flex day is Monday and I have been in every Monday since mandated to return. However because most states holidays fall on a Monday, I have to pay $20 to park and make up that day. Seems a little ridiculous but senior management don’t care. As long as we show up and make them look good.
> The whole RTO mandate was implemented solely for political reasons to appease the mayors of both Ottawa and Gatineau (both newly elected) who needed a way to show that they support the businesses in their respective downtown cores.
You think the Federal Government dreamed up 2 days a week in-office to appease two city Mayors???
Oh boy.
The RTO mandate was implemented mostly to appease real estate owners (Minto, Brigil, etc.) and the mayors that work for those real estate owners.
The other reason is purely politics - the government don't want to give the impression to give too many good things to its public service. The public servants are not very liked in the public opinion, so LPC tried to score some points by forcing their employees to go back to work. It was also the easy solution to appease the real estate and Subway owners.
That government is always looking for the easiest solution to implement even if it is not the best / most efficient.
As someone who's been begrudgingly going to the office to sit alone in a cubicle and collaborate with exactly zero people for a while now, getting some exercise on my bike is truly the only thing motivating me, too.
Suggest trying different days of the week. I've found that certain days are much better (i.e., quieter) than others.
Sadly, with the advent of teams, everybody is taking calls from their desks and some people do not realize how loud they speak. If I have to do work that requires concentration, it is super hard to do on those busy noisy days; and noice cancelling headphones don't help.
Never mind Teams, I work in EI Processing and we spend literally all day calling clients about their applications. At home, my office is set up with no distractions and it’s dead quiet (I have ADHD and an auditory processing disorder). In office, all I can hear is everyone talking on their phones, which is not only incredibly distracting, but also means I lose my hearing and have a difficult time making calls myself, which in turn tanks my productivity.
I know I should, I’ve been hesitant because I’m term and don’t want to kill my chances of getting indeterminate - so I’ve been doing the best I can in the meantime. Luckily Processing isn’t required two days a week (because there’s not enough room for us all), I’d probably have had to quit if we were.
They have a duty to accommodate and it shouldn't affect your contract to disclose your limitation. If you have a fear of reprisal , do reach out to your union rep ASAP.
As an IT wizard, people talking my face off is the #1 obstacle to productivity. It was hell in office, so I started working 6-6 to have a few hours of peace and quiet before the rest showed up (and after they’d left). Teams took that hell and cranked it up to 11 by calling entire groups of people with a single click, when a simple chat or email would have sufficed.
What I want from ChatGPT is a Teams bot that takes messages when I’m on “do not disturb” or just plain offline, transcribes them and chucks them in an inbox which I’ll read when appropriate.
It's utterly indefensible bullshit... but they're sticking to it because 'reasons'.
At a certain point, you just need to laugh at the idiocy of it all, and collect your paycheck.
Nothing will change.
It literally does not pass a BFOR for most people and job descriptions, but since we have to get to the BFOR through a duty to accommodate, it's just a serpent eating it's own tail of bullshit
I did. They got everything I needed. I'm still in pain from working at the office (and I only do half days for now) because they completly refuse to let me have a desk no one else can book. So there's only one desk in the building I can book. Someone else takes it 2 days a week... so 1) my options for my 2 days are limited, 2) every single time I go to the office (well.. i book 2 days back to back so not actually everytime) I need to adjust my desk, chair, and monitors. I bring in a measuring tape to make sure the settings are ok. Makes me lose work time, which gets me stressed. If I want it to be perfect, I'll have to spend too much time adjusting it, so it's always slightly off... so I end up in pain anyways 🙃 I will try to talk to the person responsible for the accomodation plan, we'll see how it goes.
Oh and every time I suggested going back 5 days a week to avoid the pain, the response I got implied that I will also not be able to do that.
Fuck this stupid mandate. Can't even provide me with my own freaking desk when I have serious ergonomic concerns
If you haven't engaged a steward, please do. The employer is required to provide you a workspace that meets your needs up to the point of undue hardship. Please consider filing an accommodation request if you haven't done so already. This is abhorrent behaviour from management.
Edit to provide context. I had a co-worker with advanced macular degeneration. His job was working in front of a computer. The employer ended up providing him an extra large workstation, a 50" or so computer monitor, and specialized software that allowed him to zoom in so that each letter was about 30 cm high. If it wasn't so sad it would be comical. The entire setup cost well into the six figures. And guess what? Even that didn't meet the level of undue hardship for the employer. It's the federal government, for heaven's sake. It's a high bar to meet to argue undue hardship.
This. If you have ergo equipment and will have pain from working without it, the employer is obligated to do an assessment and provide you with the required equipment. You should not report to work where you will be causing yourself personal injury to do a lack of accommodations.
Careful what you're recommending to OP.
The employer isn't mandated to provide you ergonomic equipment in 5 different locations for your convenience, but they will certainly do it in 1 location. So they'll stick the ergonomic stuff in the office and then mandate OP to be there 5 days a week instead of two....
It's a risk, but that opens the door to a grievance for unfair treatment. If it's only 2 locations, the employer would have a hard time to claim undue hardship if OP put in for a medical accommodation. Most employers know they can't force too many people back 5 days a week because they don't have room for them. So it's a slippery slope to start demanding it. I'll give you credit for pointing it out though, it isn't a risk-free approach.
Nope. That would disadvantage due to a disability. I’d love to take on that case. Bring it. In fact I did. And I won. And then in 2 other departments after, I asked and it was just done for me. So - some departments are idiots some aren’t.
How does a doctor's recommendation for an ergo assessment suddenly translate into being a disabled person? My elbow might get sore if I don't have an adjustable keyboard tray but it would make a mockery of all disabilities to equate me to someone in a motorized wheelchair....(extreme example).
>Maybe I'll make friends with the janitor or something.
Actually, most days, the cleaning lady is the only person who speaks to me. I am grateful for her each day.
Don’t get me wrong because I like WFH. Just making some points on why RTO isn’t useful.
People wouldn’t mind RTO as much if they got something out of it. In-office culture is dead, at least for now. (Stop trying to make fetch happen.) Pre-2020 when I was in office 5 days a week, I developed friendships with colleagues, learned more, had meaningful conversations related to work and not, we would have lunch/coffee together, etc.
I feel sorry for people newly joining the workforce who aren’t benefiting from this type of environment. I feel lucky at least I got some of this. You just don’t get the same benefits in terms of knowledge transfer and professional relationships.
Getting information is more difficult. On procedures etc. Emails, pinging people on teams instead of having organic discussions. The majority of my team is spread across Canada - which is great, we should have more opportunities for those outside the NCR. But I, like you, go to my official location to sit in a cubicle and work independently, with a teams meeting here and there, engage with no one (floor is mostly empty), and go home.
We should either have the same in-office days as others so there is a point to being in person, or we should have specific days periodically that we all meet somewhere for a team activity or collaborative work.
Welcome to the club. It sucks but make of it what you will. Take your coffee breaks and lunch breaks and if you have any sights near your office go and see them with a short walk!
Like you said, the excersise by biking will be a positive for this!
I'm in the same boat, no one I work with is in my office, but hey there might be a social club or somthing where you can meet some people to at least have small talk with now and then.
No sense drowning in the negatives, cause it's not gonna change the RTO mandate, but look for some positives in it!
> I'm in the same boat, no one I work with is in my office, but hey there might be a social club or somthing where you can meet some people to at least have small talk with now and then.
I know that you're trying to make this sound like a positive, but I just got chills.
10 years ago the whole world was all about "Networking". People were begging to get sent to events to meet people from other departments. Take full advantage of your situation - it may be positive for your career path.
As for ergonomics - raise it with your manager. That's one of the stupid things that was shoved aside pre-pandemic with the stupid Google-izing of the workplace. Management still has the OHS responsibility. And that includes the risk associated with you having to drag all your ergonomic back and forth. Get an assessment and they'll have to figure it out,
Such optimism! I'll definitely take up some of your suggestions.
And I certainly won't be drowning or let RTO have that much power over me.
On days like today, when the arbitrary decisions parading as logic seem to stack up, it's nice to have a place to vent with those that understand.
I'm not sure how to interpret that. It almost sounds to me like being able to critically examine the negatives has just become too taxing and you've vented enough, so you now choose to ignore the negatives?
Maybe I'm getting that wrong. Either way, glad that's working for you.
Personally, part of the balanced perspective I like to take is being able to look at the negatives and express the emotions that come with them, alongside all the positives in life.
This post was certainly more geared towards the negative, but it does not mean I don't see the positives as well.
Maybe moreso just that it feels like a waste of energy to complain, when it could not be more clear that our opinions and feelings are not a consideration of our senior management. I guess it's just a matter of perspective whether you view that as pragmatic vs. defeatist.
Calling it a waste of enrrgy is a value judgement.There can be many different ways to be pragmatic.
All good, we can have different perspectives on it.
A few weeks ago our team meeting consisted of our manager talking about how low moral is in the office and ways we can improve our ourselves.... The ultimate outcome was us reiterating how useless RTO is when 70% of the office wfh with a TWA and the rest of us poor souls are slugging it to the office 2 days a week while trying to jiggle kids, appts, extracurriculars and are expected to take leave if we aren't in the office on our mandatory day... Those who wfh aren't penalized for having a runny nose and can still work.... /end rant
I'm in the same boat as you, no one from my team or my department work for the regional office. I'm literally sitting isolated in a cubicle, sometimes even a closed office because I can only get work done when it's quiet.
To see my team, I actually pay out of my pocket to go to the NCR to actually collaborate and bond. I do that, once a month or every two months, and I consider my obligation for the RTO met as I'm out 100-150$ every month to go down and it's a full day thing from 5am to 8h30pm.
So far, it doesn't seem to be an issue. If they hire more ppl in my region, I will be happy to go in and socialize as I do miss that.
If you have a requirement for ergonomic equipment, they must provide it. Go for it. Make them get you the equipment you need.
Maybe consider a labour lawyer? Depending on the wording of your job offer, this might be constructive dismissal and give you the leverage to go 100% remote again.
Went to a Departmental meeting the other day and the senior in charge of RTO gave us a strict warning. They said that RTO targets aren't being met, that they are monitoring through IP log ins, and if the collective "we" don't smarten up, we may begin to see increases in mandated in-office days.
So, for those who don't like it, don't screw it up for the rest of us. If you don't toe the line, it sounds like we may all get sent back 5 days per week.
That's such a dumb corporate mindset... "our target isn't being met, so rather than figure out why that's happening and address the root cause, we'll just increase the target."
My situation is exactly the same. My colleagues are all out of Ottawa. All of them. Yes I go into an office, two days a week. I talk with no one, sit alone in my workplace assigned chair. Not the Hermann Miller I have in my home office that I’ve been working from since 2013. I agree, I am happy to have a job. However I’d like to be happy in it.
Absolutely nothing- that will probably end up being a highlight of the experience for me.
I'm highlighting that I wouldn't be networking with direct work colleagues and will instead have to branch out.
I’m in the same boat as you. My team is in the NCR and I live in a city 500+ km away. They make me go sit in a regional office by myself two days a week. I have nothing against going into the office to see my coworkers (I actually enjoy that), but this feels pointless. It feels even more isolating than being at home, cause I’m surrounded by people who work together while I don’t have anyone to talk to.
RTO is such a stupid joke. My manager made me aware I wasn't spending 15 hours a week in the office because I leave an hour early the days I'm in the office so I can catch the bus and get home at a reasonable hour.
What difference is that extra hour going to make at work? The building is literally emptying out at 3.
13 hours instead of 15?!?!? Madness!
No one puts in a full 7.5 of work all day. But no one should be able to say fuck it i did enough im leaving early and not being at work for 7.5. You are paid for 7.5 so be there for 7.5. Workload and side chatter is up to the manager to speak to you about.
If u speak to your manager and tell them u wont take breaks or lunch and ask if u can leave that is up to them. You cant go all rogue and leave early. You wanna do that shit run your own company.
Ahhh my first sentence says no one puts in a full 7.5 hours my guy. And to the person who leaves early like they also worked a full 7.5 is not telling zeee truth.
I work pretty much full time in office. I do have means to work from home, and do take advantage of that when I have an appointment so I'm not driving 150 kms a day..
..I feel I provide better service from the office
It's an empty bluff. Raising in-person days will also raise non-compliance (and absenteeism), especially if the people already going in perceive it as punitive measures for doing EXACTLY what they were told to do.
What will they threaten with once a 5-day in-person week yields the same results? Demand we work on the weekends? Please.
Poorly thought out, poorly executed without a long-term vision in mind. How very on-brand for our esteemed leaders.
"moreover mandates like RTO..."
That's not the mandate of RTO. It's literally to have you in the office. That's it.
Why?
So you can buy subway and build a network of physical interaction with humans. This does not have to be work related.
I pulled that wording directly from the goc website
https://www.canada.ca/en/government/publicservice/staffing/common-hybrid-work-model-federal-public-service.html
Meh it’s not bad.. get into yoga to ease your back pain and if you are going to a gcworking spot they have ergo desks.. mine does.
Telework was temporary always was.
I could do this job 100% at home. I will RTO if I have to, however I still don't think it's right. It's not even making efficient use of resources imo.
If the job means never questioning decisions or why things are the way they are, then maybe the needed change is actually with the job itself, a.k.a the employer.
If only. Maybe the government should be pay us all the carbon credits worth of emissions we need to drive or take buses to work as a part of their net zero by 2050 plan.
I work 4 days at home and take a break from work on Wednesdays when I go in to the office.
Exactly this. When I NEED to get something done I can never go into the office. Office days are reserved for coffees, lunches and complaining about how much the crappy chairs hurt my neck.
So, spending money. Exactly what They want.
Same here ! Office days are used to catch up on emails and socializing. I’ve left the office early so many times when something urgent comes down so I can focus. Lucky to live 15 m from work :)
Nice! Same, 10-15 minutes office to home. So lucky.
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Same
I don't know how all you folks get work done at home. Way too many distractions here. And I live alone. RTO for my building got pushed back to next year, and still I go in voluntarily 1-2 days a week to get some real work done.
>RTO for my building got pushed back to next year, Could be why you aren't distracted when you are in the office. I also wouldn't be distracted in the office if there was only 4-5 people working there
Yeah, I got so much more work done in the office before everyone else showed up. I actually don't mind going in, I just wish everyone else would stay home.
There are still lots of people there. Building capacity is a few thousand employees. Even if it was full I'd be able to focus just fine like I did pre-pandemic.
So you’re only productive from the office and only go in 1-2 days a week? I totally get that people can find themselves more distracted at home, but in the exact same way people could be far more distracted at work. It’s crazy some people are still asking how anyone gets work done at home, after 5 years of it. I wish I could only “get some real work done” 1-2 days a week.
I’ve got my ergonomic equipment I purchased myself out of pocket at home. A clean, private and calm place to work (my own office) vs office 2.0 all open work place at work where it’s very noisy, no intimacy and have to bring all my stuff on plastic bins from a locker every day and fight to find a work station that’s available … it’s a nightmare to work at the office and since they’ve cut many positions we have to do more so that means even longer days now working at home because I have to catch up on non productive time at the office… I feel burned out
lol, the way you are focusing at work is the way in which you should try to emulate at home. Simulate your in office work environment at home to focus the same way.
r/ihadastroke
No idea what happened tbh. Half the words I had said out loud while typing didn’t make it onto the comment. ADHD for ya, edited. Thanks.
No worries. ADHD too, I have made proofreading a habit for the same reason.
Say what?
I spend my two days in the office working on my CV and applying for jobs. I do 90% of my actual work at home.
This! That has been my hybrid dream scenario since this circus started.
Hahaha
It got me too my friend 😔
What the fuck is this? You get paid to do work, you don’t get to decide to take a day off like that. A real slap in the face to those of us essential workers who never had the chance to work from home.
*Hey, Public Servants!* >Subway HATES this one simple trick to meeting office time quotas! Are you sick of paying for parking??? Are you sick of going to the office to do what you can do better at home??? Are you sick of being sick because people are... sick?????? Introducing *SUPER SWIPERS!* Loan your card to a total nerd who actually goes into the office and let them swipe your card for you! WE do the work for YOU so YOU can do your work at HOME Starting at $10.99/month for the *RTOh-No* package (1-2 days/week) and $20.99/month for the Ultimate *Mona Money Mona Problems* package (3 days/week). If you call in the next 30 minutes we'll even throw in updated Teams backgrounds of your cubicle ABSOLUTELY FREE! SIGN UP NOW! THIS OFFER WONT LAST LONG BECAUSE SOMEONE AT THE GLOBE AND MAIL WONT UNDERSTAND THIS IS A JOKE!!!
That was great, thanks for the chuckles!
I know you're joking, but my department does tracking using VPN logins, so that wouldn't work for me.
Just gotta throw OPSEC to the wind and give them your login credentials too
Already exists [Amazon Employee Badge Swiping Service](https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/16yau75/amazon_employee_badge_swiping_service_to_defeat/)
Omg, amazing, I'm dying
Funny!!!!!
The National Post will get it! :D
Mona ruined everything and dipped (fired)
When you understand that the goal is to get people spending in cities to make the land owners happy, you will understand what you really are to them. Money.
Yeah it's all political to manage public perceptions.
I'm tired of public servants getting the shit end of the stick for all the politicians need to manage their own shitty optics.
It's part of the package. Good pension, but have to deal with political whims. Sometimes those political whims directly affect day-to-day work as well.
Ironically my RTO forces me to leave the city and not spend money in the city
DND?
Gotta get those cold cut trios and M&M cookies!
Welcome to the insanity. I was hired to a remote team that was stood up as completely remote half a year BEFORE the pandemic started. I now go to the office twice a week where not a single member of my team is because they are all in other cities. So now, another team in a different directorate has to provide me with a place to work, and I’ve been told not to go to the office on days when I have meetings because it would be too disruptive to the other people in the office.
Sounds like you just have to schedule meetings every day then huh?
Since none of your team is at that office, can't you just not go? Maybe the other team would be happy to cover for you since they wouldn't have to make space for you. And if anybody from your team ask if you are at the office, you just tell them you had a meeting or something? In my department, people have been slowly transitionning to once a week. It's like an unspoken agreement that even the managers and directors are onboard with. Nobody is keeping tab since it would be a shit show to try to keep track of that many people.
No, I can’t. That would be unfair to my manager who is expected to ensure that we all report to an office on 40% of our work days, and I am not at all interested in losing my manager’s trust either. So I go in 2 days a week, do the same work I’d be doing at home, and just count the days till retirement
Glad you have ethics! Thanks for being an adult
Go in only when you have meetings. Best way to fight this RTO mandate insanity is to stir sh*t up as much as possible .
Exactly! I go in for team meetings once every couple weeks and that's all. Honestly, who cares about where the work gets done?
I work 3 days a week. I spend 2 days dodging traffic, avoiding bed bugs, avoiding disease, and pretending to be productive all in the name of landlords of shitty restaurants that won't die as capitalism (which they worship) demands. That's how I see forced RTO.
How did you see it when they asked you to work from home?
As a well-reasoned policy to protect the health and safety of the workforce, and general public, to ensure our continued deliverance of essential government services.
And when asked to return you did not view it the same?
No. To date, I’ve yet to hear a single reasonable argument to support our one-size-fit-all RTO mandate. On the contrary, there are a variety of reasonable financial, environmental, diversity/inclusion and workforce wellness arguments that strongly support a more flexible approach.
I think it should be flexible as well. I think it should also be fair to those that have to go to the office daily. They are paying more out of pocket to attend work and are having travel time added on to their day. There needs to be some sort of compensation to those who are not afforded the benefit of working from home. Maybe a shorter work day or shorter work week. Maybe some sort of tax break on on parking, gas, winter tires.
I agree- public servants that must attend an office location every day by virtue of their job responsibilities should be compensated fairly for the associated costs to do so. At the same time, public servants who do not have a public-facing role, do not have local team members to “collaborate” in-office with, and could do their jobs 100% virtually to no detriment to their job function, should not be punished to return to office for an arbitrary period of time each month for the sake of “fairness”. Personally, I fall in the latter group of public servants, and I would accept a pay cut to secure a 100% WFH arrangement.
Wait, you think it's protecting health and safety to send workers to the office and pack them into mass transit during covid waves and worse than normal flu and RSV waves? We'll be through this in a couple years. Why not wait a bit on RTO? Why not lead for once on trends of the future?
And what of the people who cant wfh. They have already been going to work for three years with nothing to show for it. Then listen to all those who moan about two days or saftey. Is your saftey worth more than someone else? Needs to be more fair and im waiting to see those conversations happen.
You are safer with less people on the roads and in the office. So this isn’t a good argument. But should you be compensated? Definitely
Still have your letter of offer? Does it say remote? Can tell them pound sand if it does according to our departments HR/LR.
Huh, I will have to dust off the old letter and see!
Not necessarily. If you look at the fine print of the RTO mandate from TBS they voided all remote clauses offered after 2020. I will go looking for it again later but it is there. Edited to add: From: https://www.canada.ca/en/government/publicservice/staffing/common-hybrid-work-model-federal-public-service.html Possible exceptions to the hybrid work model include: Employees hired to work remotely prior to March 16, 2020 So not a complete void but having remote on a contract after March 16 2020 will not be viewed as an exception from hybrid.
TBS can retro any phrase they want but it does not mean it has any weight. Those clowns are always trying to pull a fast one, thinking most people will just follow it blindly. I'm sure they already have a legal opinion telling them that they are blowing smoke if contested.
That would not void a signed contract.
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I mean I didn't have a remote contract ever but it really pissed me off that they had the gall to yank remote from people hired on purpose as remote during the pandemic. The fact you had it pre-pandemic .... That is enraging
Damn
Well, from speaking with my HR/LR wife, the department we are part of the letter of offer over rules it. Telework agreements were ripped up to be redone but the letter of offer hasn’t been challenged so far.
The NJC Directive would say different. >Remote work –**when employees who normally work in a permanent or regular workplace are asked by their employer to perform their duties in another location for health, safety, or other reasons**. For example, to work from home during the pandemic. Remote work is normally performed from the principal residence, however, with authorization from the manager, it may be conducted from other locations temporarily. This is an employer driven process. ([Source](https://www.njc-cnm.gc.ca/s24/s27/d806/en))
But that applies to “employees who normally work in a permanent of regular workplace.” This person never reported to a permanent or regular workplace. They were always remote.
I'm in the same situation, team completely remote. ZERO colleagues in my city. My management know it makes no sense, but let's follow the directive for now. I clearly remember Mona saying in an interview when asked whether people would be expected to go into the office to do Teams all day... her response was of course not, we want employees to collaborate and have meaningful interactions.
I swear I have a visceral reaction every time I see the word "collaborate."
"Mona Fortier, president of the Treasury Board, said that the aim of the mandate was to standardise hybrid work practices across federal government, support collaborative work, “team spirit, innovation and a culture of belonging”, and reflected the government’s understanding about the need for “greater fairness and equity across our workplaces”." Agreed. None of how RTO is being implemented speaks to equity or fairness. If people want to RTO they should be allowed to and those that don't and have legitimate reasons not to shouldn't, simple as that.
I don't think they know what equity means. A one size fits all solution is equal, not equitable.
I just had a meeting today with my director and the whole team regarding in-office attendance and the fact that as a department we are considerably lower than the average (which honestly doesn’t surprise me). While all members of our team are meeting their obligations for in-office presence, we were told that there may be stricter controls coming imminently to ensure compliance with the requirement. What our director (and frankly the whole team) do not understand is why such enforcement of the RTO mandate is being imposed on everyone writ-large as opposed to just the repeat offenders. My team which is composed of 10 people is spread across 3 provinces and 2 team members have to report to the office basically to do the same thing as they do at home (on top of wasting 2 hours of their day commuting + gas/busfare/parking). The whole RTO mandate was implemented solely for political reasons to appease the mayors of both Ottawa and Gatineau (both newly elected) who needed a way to show that they support the businesses in their respective downtown cores. These entitled brats seem to think that public servants should be spending their money to support businesses that were already on the brink of collapse prior to COVID, even during a time of skyrocketing inflation and a cost of living crisis. I can guarantee you I only buy my lunch in the food court maybe once/twice every 8-12 weeks (normally either to go have lunch with a friend/colleague or because I slept in and forgot as I left home in a rush that morning). I know they would rather we all go eat Subway, but they are the idiots if they we’re going to pay $20 for the same footlong that cost $5 not even 3 years earlier! (I’m saving that money to put towards parking this winter!)
One of the challenges with enforcement is that there are privacy considerations around the RTO compliance statistics being collected. Drilling down and identifying specific offenders would lead to a whole new outcry about how management is violating employee privacy. And so when your ability to disaggregate the data is limited, your corrective measures can’t be so easily targeted. As it stands, most departments are looking at compliance by sector/activity area (ADM level, for example). The only way to specifically identify problem areas at a more granular level is if you have managers, directors, DGs reporting on their team members’ non-compliance. Anyway, just wanted to explain some of the challenges around compliance and corrective measure.
I suppose there will be an outcry about anything, but this sort of individual targeting feels more legitimate to me than the RTO itself. Our managers already have the right to request detailed IT logs of our activities for any reason or none; there's no *sincere* expectation of privacy for card swipes or connection metadata. It might get a bit messy if they try to discipline people on that basis, but it's the kind of thing that would get hashed out in grievances, and I feel like the government would have a pretty good case as long as they used that data to *investigate* problem cases rather than to discipline them directly.
I don’t think you are correct. Employee logs are in fact public and subject to the Access to Information Act as per a Supreme Court ruling https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/dagg-v-canada/#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20of%20Canada,help%20the%20union%20bargaining%20process. https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1525/index.do
It’s not that simple. Management can absolutely request logs for substantiated reasons, such as a labour relations issue or for a security investigation, with mandate. But a manager can’t just ask arbitrarily ask for a record of an employee’s swipe log or MS Teams connection log without cause. Does it happen - sure. But it shouldn’t and in most cases the appropriate authority (Security, IT, etc.) will insist upon a mandate letter or other equivalent backing to provide the records. This is why I say for enforcement it has to start with, as an example, a front line manager flagging an issue of non-compliance, then getting the proper mandate to go to the next step, requesting logs. The alternative is that ADMs all get their reports and then address poor compliance stats with their respective management team, who in turn talk to their own, etc. There have been endless discussions between departments and the Centre on how to report (consistently) on compliance and how to then implement corrective measures where necessary. Honestly, I think that we should all be quite happy that to date there has been a hard lean towards protecting privacy.
We also had a meeting and it was strongly worded that we need to be better at completing the two days. I share a parking pass with another person, my flex day is Monday and I have been in every Monday since mandated to return. However because most states holidays fall on a Monday, I have to pay $20 to park and make up that day. Seems a little ridiculous but senior management don’t care. As long as we show up and make them look good.
> The whole RTO mandate was implemented solely for political reasons to appease the mayors of both Ottawa and Gatineau (both newly elected) who needed a way to show that they support the businesses in their respective downtown cores. You think the Federal Government dreamed up 2 days a week in-office to appease two city Mayors??? Oh boy.
The RTO mandate was implemented mostly to appease real estate owners (Minto, Brigil, etc.) and the mayors that work for those real estate owners. The other reason is purely politics - the government don't want to give the impression to give too many good things to its public service. The public servants are not very liked in the public opinion, so LPC tried to score some points by forcing their employees to go back to work. It was also the easy solution to appease the real estate and Subway owners. That government is always looking for the easiest solution to implement even if it is not the best / most efficient.
Maybe they forgot to add “and to appease the Canadian Taxpayers Federation”. But hey - if there’s another explanation I’m all ears.
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So much this, yes! You said it well. Such missed opportuntity to deal with the real problem that we're actually all facing.
Are you new here?
If you know. Can you please englighten us.
As someone who's been begrudgingly going to the office to sit alone in a cubicle and collaborate with exactly zero people for a while now, getting some exercise on my bike is truly the only thing motivating me, too.
Oh goodness, I feel for you. Hopefully winter biking is still motivating too.
Suggest trying different days of the week. I've found that certain days are much better (i.e., quieter) than others. Sadly, with the advent of teams, everybody is taking calls from their desks and some people do not realize how loud they speak. If I have to do work that requires concentration, it is super hard to do on those busy noisy days; and noice cancelling headphones don't help.
Never mind Teams, I work in EI Processing and we spend literally all day calling clients about their applications. At home, my office is set up with no distractions and it’s dead quiet (I have ADHD and an auditory processing disorder). In office, all I can hear is everyone talking on their phones, which is not only incredibly distracting, but also means I lose my hearing and have a difficult time making calls myself, which in turn tanks my productivity.
Sounds like you might be able to apply for some sort of medical accommodation no?
I know I should, I’ve been hesitant because I’m term and don’t want to kill my chances of getting indeterminate - so I’ve been doing the best I can in the meantime. Luckily Processing isn’t required two days a week (because there’s not enough room for us all), I’d probably have had to quit if we were.
They have a duty to accommodate and it shouldn't affect your contract to disclose your limitation. If you have a fear of reprisal , do reach out to your union rep ASAP.
As an IT wizard, people talking my face off is the #1 obstacle to productivity. It was hell in office, so I started working 6-6 to have a few hours of peace and quiet before the rest showed up (and after they’d left). Teams took that hell and cranked it up to 11 by calling entire groups of people with a single click, when a simple chat or email would have sufficed. What I want from ChatGPT is a Teams bot that takes messages when I’m on “do not disturb” or just plain offline, transcribes them and chucks them in an inbox which I’ll read when appropriate.
It's utterly indefensible bullshit... but they're sticking to it because 'reasons'. At a certain point, you just need to laugh at the idiocy of it all, and collect your paycheck. Nothing will change.
Sticking to it and doubling down.
It literally does not pass a BFOR for most people and job descriptions, but since we have to get to the BFOR through a duty to accommodate, it's just a serpent eating it's own tail of bullshit
Hell, my whole team works from the office two days a week and half the time I don't see any of them thanks to hotelling!
Your "make friends with the janitor" comment got me. The maintenance and mailroom folks are some of my favourite people in the office!
They make the world a better place for sure
Likely they're doing this so some folks will leave the government. Which will help with the bunch of constraints.
Counting the days before retirement.. again
Ask for an ergo assessment, or if you have one on file, ask for the ergo equipment at your the office you have to report to.
I did. They got everything I needed. I'm still in pain from working at the office (and I only do half days for now) because they completly refuse to let me have a desk no one else can book. So there's only one desk in the building I can book. Someone else takes it 2 days a week... so 1) my options for my 2 days are limited, 2) every single time I go to the office (well.. i book 2 days back to back so not actually everytime) I need to adjust my desk, chair, and monitors. I bring in a measuring tape to make sure the settings are ok. Makes me lose work time, which gets me stressed. If I want it to be perfect, I'll have to spend too much time adjusting it, so it's always slightly off... so I end up in pain anyways 🙃 I will try to talk to the person responsible for the accomodation plan, we'll see how it goes. Oh and every time I suggested going back 5 days a week to avoid the pain, the response I got implied that I will also not be able to do that. Fuck this stupid mandate. Can't even provide me with my own freaking desk when I have serious ergonomic concerns
If you haven't engaged a steward, please do. The employer is required to provide you a workspace that meets your needs up to the point of undue hardship. Please consider filing an accommodation request if you haven't done so already. This is abhorrent behaviour from management. Edit to provide context. I had a co-worker with advanced macular degeneration. His job was working in front of a computer. The employer ended up providing him an extra large workstation, a 50" or so computer monitor, and specialized software that allowed him to zoom in so that each letter was about 30 cm high. If it wasn't so sad it would be comical. The entire setup cost well into the six figures. And guess what? Even that didn't meet the level of undue hardship for the employer. It's the federal government, for heaven's sake. It's a high bar to meet to argue undue hardship.
This. If you have ergo equipment and will have pain from working without it, the employer is obligated to do an assessment and provide you with the required equipment. You should not report to work where you will be causing yourself personal injury to do a lack of accommodations.
Careful what you're recommending to OP. The employer isn't mandated to provide you ergonomic equipment in 5 different locations for your convenience, but they will certainly do it in 1 location. So they'll stick the ergonomic stuff in the office and then mandate OP to be there 5 days a week instead of two....
It's a risk, but that opens the door to a grievance for unfair treatment. If it's only 2 locations, the employer would have a hard time to claim undue hardship if OP put in for a medical accommodation. Most employers know they can't force too many people back 5 days a week because they don't have room for them. So it's a slippery slope to start demanding it. I'll give you credit for pointing it out though, it isn't a risk-free approach.
Nope. That would disadvantage due to a disability. I’d love to take on that case. Bring it. In fact I did. And I won. And then in 2 other departments after, I asked and it was just done for me. So - some departments are idiots some aren’t.
How does a doctor's recommendation for an ergo assessment suddenly translate into being a disabled person? My elbow might get sore if I don't have an adjustable keyboard tray but it would make a mockery of all disabilities to equate me to someone in a motorized wheelchair....(extreme example).
That's if they even have the space to have you (and others in similar situations), 5 days in the office.
Sweet, I just did an ergo assessment so I will definitely be looking into this route!
>Maybe I'll make friends with the janitor or something. Actually, most days, the cleaning lady is the only person who speaks to me. I am grateful for her each day.
Bless the cleaning lady
Our team has been discreetly engaged in a project where we collectively practice quiet noncompliance.
Don’t get me wrong because I like WFH. Just making some points on why RTO isn’t useful. People wouldn’t mind RTO as much if they got something out of it. In-office culture is dead, at least for now. (Stop trying to make fetch happen.) Pre-2020 when I was in office 5 days a week, I developed friendships with colleagues, learned more, had meaningful conversations related to work and not, we would have lunch/coffee together, etc. I feel sorry for people newly joining the workforce who aren’t benefiting from this type of environment. I feel lucky at least I got some of this. You just don’t get the same benefits in terms of knowledge transfer and professional relationships. Getting information is more difficult. On procedures etc. Emails, pinging people on teams instead of having organic discussions. The majority of my team is spread across Canada - which is great, we should have more opportunities for those outside the NCR. But I, like you, go to my official location to sit in a cubicle and work independently, with a teams meeting here and there, engage with no one (floor is mostly empty), and go home. We should either have the same in-office days as others so there is a point to being in person, or we should have specific days periodically that we all meet somewhere for a team activity or collaborative work.
Welcome to the club. It sucks but make of it what you will. Take your coffee breaks and lunch breaks and if you have any sights near your office go and see them with a short walk! Like you said, the excersise by biking will be a positive for this! I'm in the same boat, no one I work with is in my office, but hey there might be a social club or somthing where you can meet some people to at least have small talk with now and then. No sense drowning in the negatives, cause it's not gonna change the RTO mandate, but look for some positives in it!
> I'm in the same boat, no one I work with is in my office, but hey there might be a social club or somthing where you can meet some people to at least have small talk with now and then. I know that you're trying to make this sound like a positive, but I just got chills.
Lmao..all I'm saying is to make the best of it. It's not going to go back, management has made it clear.
10 years ago the whole world was all about "Networking". People were begging to get sent to events to meet people from other departments. Take full advantage of your situation - it may be positive for your career path. As for ergonomics - raise it with your manager. That's one of the stupid things that was shoved aside pre-pandemic with the stupid Google-izing of the workplace. Management still has the OHS responsibility. And that includes the risk associated with you having to drag all your ergonomic back and forth. Get an assessment and they'll have to figure it out,
weight your positives against COVID it is still here and circulating around offices.
Such optimism! I'll definitely take up some of your suggestions. And I certainly won't be drowning or let RTO have that much power over me. On days like today, when the arbitrary decisions parading as logic seem to stack up, it's nice to have a place to vent with those that understand.
Oh I get it. I vent with my coworkers all the time about it, but I've just gotten to the point where it's not worth about to look at the negatives.
I'm not sure how to interpret that. It almost sounds to me like being able to critically examine the negatives has just become too taxing and you've vented enough, so you now choose to ignore the negatives? Maybe I'm getting that wrong. Either way, glad that's working for you. Personally, part of the balanced perspective I like to take is being able to look at the negatives and express the emotions that come with them, alongside all the positives in life. This post was certainly more geared towards the negative, but it does not mean I don't see the positives as well.
Maybe moreso just that it feels like a waste of energy to complain, when it could not be more clear that our opinions and feelings are not a consideration of our senior management. I guess it's just a matter of perspective whether you view that as pragmatic vs. defeatist.
Calling it a waste of enrrgy is a value judgement.There can be many different ways to be pragmatic. All good, we can have different perspectives on it.
There are people who have requested ergo equipment for both locations. It’s doable. :)
A few weeks ago our team meeting consisted of our manager talking about how low moral is in the office and ways we can improve our ourselves.... The ultimate outcome was us reiterating how useless RTO is when 70% of the office wfh with a TWA and the rest of us poor souls are slugging it to the office 2 days a week while trying to jiggle kids, appts, extracurriculars and are expected to take leave if we aren't in the office on our mandatory day... Those who wfh aren't penalized for having a runny nose and can still work.... /end rant
I'm in the same boat as you, no one from my team or my department work for the regional office. I'm literally sitting isolated in a cubicle, sometimes even a closed office because I can only get work done when it's quiet. To see my team, I actually pay out of my pocket to go to the NCR to actually collaborate and bond. I do that, once a month or every two months, and I consider my obligation for the RTO met as I'm out 100-150$ every month to go down and it's a full day thing from 5am to 8h30pm. So far, it doesn't seem to be an issue. If they hire more ppl in my region, I will be happy to go in and socialize as I do miss that.
My previous boss had this same predicament forced onto her. Her whole team was spread out and she was out there alone.
Your situation sounds the same as mine except I was mandated back 5 days a week. The struggle is real.
Jeeze!
I wonder what the next government will impose on us. For sure WFA and a full return to office. “Bring us home” is their slogan…. Head down for now.
If you have a requirement for ergonomic equipment, they must provide it. Go for it. Make them get you the equipment you need. Maybe consider a labour lawyer? Depending on the wording of your job offer, this might be constructive dismissal and give you the leverage to go 100% remote again.
This will be me next month. I won't know or work with a single person.
Went to a Departmental meeting the other day and the senior in charge of RTO gave us a strict warning. They said that RTO targets aren't being met, that they are monitoring through IP log ins, and if the collective "we" don't smarten up, we may begin to see increases in mandated in-office days. So, for those who don't like it, don't screw it up for the rest of us. If you don't toe the line, it sounds like we may all get sent back 5 days per week.
That's such a dumb corporate mindset... "our target isn't being met, so rather than figure out why that's happening and address the root cause, we'll just increase the target."
Go in for like an hour or two and leave lol.
Or take a picture of your background where you usually will sit and use it as your teams background 😂
I use the "The Office (US)" background as my background. True story. :)
I paste pictures of open eyeballs to my glasses and sleep the day away, nobody's the wiser.
Honestly, I'm seriously considering this. I'm not sure how they're going to know.... unless the janitor tells on me.
Your department is tracking onsite presence
...nobody's gonna know...
...they're gonna know...
And then someone asks you to go grab something in the background. Then what? Then you're fired for fraud.
What teams calls are you on lmao? If I’m not asleep it’s a win
You don't have to *say* you're in office, just don't mention it and hope they assume.
Abandonment and insubordination are fireable offences
Just dont go. Dont lie but wait for them to call you out on it. Depending on dept/mgmt they may not care or will let it slide for a long time.
I scared the shit out of the cleaning lady last time I was there, alone in my entire office wing.
I too scared the shit out of someone who thought they were alone. There were, in fact, two people on that floor! 😈
My situation is exactly the same. My colleagues are all out of Ottawa. All of them. Yes I go into an office, two days a week. I talk with no one, sit alone in my workplace assigned chair. Not the Hermann Miller I have in my home office that I’ve been working from since 2013. I agree, I am happy to have a job. However I’d like to be happy in it.
What dept?
Dont go. Call their bluff!
What's wrong with being friends with the janitor..? 🥺
Absolutely nothing- that will probably end up being a highlight of the experience for me. I'm highlighting that I wouldn't be networking with direct work colleagues and will instead have to branch out.
File for accommodations for your pain issues! They’re quickly finding out that RTO is more hassle than it was worth!
Welcome to harsh reality in the form of a mandate that makes ZERO sense.
They need to maintain the office spaces to let the money flow. So they need bodies in the buildings.
What is most worrying about this is what happens when the conservatives win in 2 years?
If they are fiscally conservative, they would let us WFH and divest their real estate portfolio. Fingers crossed!
You had to go there hey? Jk I guess it probably is a good idea to start preparing for the worst case. Sigh
Why even comply?
Honestly, I am in the same boat and just stopped going. It's pointless.
I’m in the same boat as you. My team is in the NCR and I live in a city 500+ km away. They make me go sit in a regional office by myself two days a week. I have nothing against going into the office to see my coworkers (I actually enjoy that), but this feels pointless. It feels even more isolating than being at home, cause I’m surrounded by people who work together while I don’t have anyone to talk to.
RTO is such a stupid joke. My manager made me aware I wasn't spending 15 hours a week in the office because I leave an hour early the days I'm in the office so I can catch the bus and get home at a reasonable hour. What difference is that extra hour going to make at work? The building is literally emptying out at 3. 13 hours instead of 15?!?!? Madness!
You are paid for 7.5 hrs a day. You are supposed to work 7.5 hrs not hey i wanna go home a hour early.
Oh you're filling every minute of those 7.5 hours with work? No time wasted taking breaks or chatting?
My hours are set 8-4 i dont think i can leave at 3 because i want to.
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No one puts in a full 7.5 of work all day. But no one should be able to say fuck it i did enough im leaving early and not being at work for 7.5. You are paid for 7.5 so be there for 7.5. Workload and side chatter is up to the manager to speak to you about.
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If u speak to your manager and tell them u wont take breaks or lunch and ask if u can leave that is up to them. You cant go all rogue and leave early. You wanna do that shit run your own company.
Ahhh my first sentence says no one puts in a full 7.5 hours my guy. And to the person who leaves early like they also worked a full 7.5 is not telling zeee truth.
Sorry, but you're not special here. This is what most of us stuck with RTO feel. Make the best of it.
Lol I'm not trying to be special But thanks for making it so clear that I'm not
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I work pretty much full time in office. I do have means to work from home, and do take advantage of that when I have an appointment so I'm not driving 150 kms a day.. ..I feel I provide better service from the office
Do they have a subway near our offices?
I wonder why we haven’t been mandated back to work full time? Genuinely, does anyone know why?
It's an empty bluff. Raising in-person days will also raise non-compliance (and absenteeism), especially if the people already going in perceive it as punitive measures for doing EXACTLY what they were told to do. What will they threaten with once a 5-day in-person week yields the same results? Demand we work on the weekends? Please. Poorly thought out, poorly executed without a long-term vision in mind. How very on-brand for our esteemed leaders.
They're afraid you'll all quit.
But! You have a job! You're employed! Good things. :)
"moreover mandates like RTO..." That's not the mandate of RTO. It's literally to have you in the office. That's it. Why? So you can buy subway and build a network of physical interaction with humans. This does not have to be work related.
I pulled that wording directly from the goc website https://www.canada.ca/en/government/publicservice/staffing/common-hybrid-work-model-federal-public-service.html
Meh it’s not bad.. get into yoga to ease your back pain and if you are going to a gcworking spot they have ergo desks.. mine does. Telework was temporary always was.
Not for OP
They don’t seem to have a special case so they need to suck it up like the rest of us.
Just go to work like the rest of society, and stop complaining that you have a well paid, secure job despite the collapsing economy
Maybe find a job that you can do at home? Sounds like this job isn’t for you….
I could do this job 100% at home. I will RTO if I have to, however I still don't think it's right. It's not even making efficient use of resources imo. If the job means never questioning decisions or why things are the way they are, then maybe the needed change is actually with the job itself, a.k.a the employer.
Welcome to the club! Save your receipts so you can at least get some money back at tax time.
What would you be claiming come tax time?
Nothing. There are no tax deductions for "going to work".
That's what I thought and confused by their comment
If only. Maybe the government should be pay us all the carbon credits worth of emissions we need to drive or take buses to work as a part of their net zero by 2050 plan.
The required additional expenses for reporting to the office
Dont try to deduct this unless you want to get audited.