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> I thought the buyout offer went along with the cancellation of remote work. Your sentiment is a result of their incredibly vague first attempt at messaging.

• pfannkuchen 2y ago
  Sorry to be unclear, I didn’t mean that only people transitioning from remote to in person can take the buyout. I meant that that is what the deal seemed to be targeting based on the timing, like a release valve for people who would be angry about switching back to in person.
  • csa 2y ago
    > I meant that that is what the deal seemed to be targeting based on the timing, like a release valve for people who would be angry about switching back to in person. That’s a reasonable take. I don’t think anyone involved is actually on the same page about targeting or intent. It’s a complete shit show. I have many fed gov friends, and I’m getting some incredible insider takes. Interestingly, I think that the idea of reducing the federal work force size has a lot of supporters from both sides of the aisle, but this implementation has been haphazard (at best). A “good” implementation would remove a lot of “build headcount” positions while also adding/filling positions that are still lacking. ATCs and contracting (to name two) fall under the latter.
    • runako 2y ago
      > but this implementation has been haphazard (at best). Also, this doesn't save us any money at all. Congress allocates money and in many cases specifies employment levels. But like the OMB memo says -- taxpayers still have to spend the money for these employees whether they do any work or not. The reason they are doing this haphazard mess is that their positions are not popular and therefore cannot pass in Congress.
      • csa 2y ago
        > Also, this doesn't save us any money at all. Congress allocates money and in many cases specifies employment levels. Hmmm… this is short-term correct (at a minimum), but may not be correct long term. Time will tell. Yes, the money for current jobs has been allocated/budgeted for the fiscal year, and the folks who resign will actually be paid for not working until the end of the fiscal year. This is standard buyout stuff, and the government does this every year on a smaller scale, usually targeting high-paid, low productivity employees who are eligible to retire. That said, what happens next fiscal year? The speculation is that the default will be that the positions vacated will basically be lost — as in, the slot/allocation will no longer exist and will not get funded. I imagine exceptions will exist, but this will create a noticeable reduction in the federal workforce if it ends up this way. Said another way, paying 8 months for no work is cheaper than paying for 5-10 years of unneeded/inefficient work (at least that’s the theory). > The reason they are doing this haphazard mess is that their positions are not popular and therefore cannot pass in Congress. As I mentioned above, I think there is broad support on both sides for cutting and/or right-sizing the federal workforce. Anyone who has worked in or with the federal government knows about instances of gratuitous headcount growth and substantial underemployment in some areas. There exist grifters who maybe put in 10 hours a week on average of very mediocre work for a salary that they absolutely could not earn outside of the government. These same people also know about areas of the government that are grossly understaffed, seemingly in perpetuity (ATCs, contracting, etc.) and/or extremely underpaid (e.g., anything in tech). I think it would be trivially easy to get broad support in Congress to implement changes that fix these problems, but that fix doesn’t start with a hastily written “fork you” all-hands e-mail. All that said, all of this gratuitous motion is basically a drop in the bucket compared to modest and reasonable changes that could be made in social security, Medicare/medicaid, and/or defense spending.