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More Federal Workers are Telecommuting
An anonymous reader writes "Boosting the ranks of federal employees who telework is a slow, sometimes painful process, despite numerous incentives and legislative edicts lobbed at U.S. agencies over the years. Take the situation at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which last month was ordered by a federal arbitration panel to allow its legal instrument examiners to telework on a pilot basis. ATF was against letting these specialists telework because it says the material they need to remove from agency offices in order to telework posed a security risk. The Federal Service Impasses Panel (FSIP) became involved at the request of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which successfully argued its case for allowing the examiners to telework on a pilot basis."
As this sbc article details, those left behind find it "less personally fulfilling to do their work".
So how exactly is this a good thing, unless you plan on having no office at all - which is not quite feasible.
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The Federal Service Impasses Panel?
Am I the only one here who thinks the existence of that agency is the real story?
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As an employee of the USCG, I am allowed to telecommute one day a week, every week on any regular 5-day work week. Any Ensign (O-series) and higher, 3rd class Petty Officer (E-series) and higher and all GS-7's and higher can do telecommuting, pending supervisory (permission is granted from supervisory GS-12's or GS-13's) and network security approval. Non-rates and the majority of contractors don't get assigned a security token, and therefore don't get the privilege. Now I can't speak for other Federal agencies of course...
Just because you get modded "insightful" on Slashdot doesn't mean you actually are in real life.
Of course feral workers telecommute, they make a mess in the corner!
Be Excellent To Each Other
[Erin Driscoll] "Jack, start prepping a team for an assault on the east wing. Edgar- where's Chloe? Find her and tell her to open a new socket in the server room as a new priority."
[Edgar Stiles] "Chloe's.. erm.. working from home today, Miss Driscoll..."
"He Who Dares Wins"
They are helping the environment by being unproductive at home, rather than going into the office to be unproductive.
...not the exception, at least for certain positions and personality types.
Telecommuters drive less, so there's less pollution and traffic. With the right people, telecommuting can enhance productivity and job satisfaction.
I feel strongly about this, having been a FT telecommuting programmer for the past 5+ years. I love working with hours of uninterrupted concentration. Whenever I do have to go into the office, I'm surrounded by distractions, especially from coworkers who bullshit incessantly.
YMMV of course. Certain jobs (customer contact, security, etc) may not qualify, and there are obviously people who do *better* in an office setting. For many cases, though, going into the office is more of a control/domination mechanism than having anything to do with actual "work."
They just want dumb asses in seats, which is probably why the feds are slow to adopt telework.
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
I already do Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms at home, often all at once. They could just hire me and boost their numbers accordingly.
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I can only hope (because I doubt that I can expect) that these telecommuting workers use encrypted datafiles, well-secured "work-only" home-office PCs, multi-factor authentication, non-wireless internet connections, etc. I'm sure any number of people would love to gain access to government data or databases.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I know you're trying to make a funny, but it's more accurate to say that the President lives in a house with an attached office building than to say he works from home. As for Crawford, the government spends millions not only making it usable as a "Western White House", but also making sure the President isn't assassinated whenever he goes there.
Then again, Jefferson did more work in Monticello than he did in the White House. He was perhaps the original telecommuter, not to mention the inventor of the swivel chair and the man primarily responsible for eliminating the stigma of tomatoes in America.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Every federal agency should have to periodically justify its existence and some should be abolished. An agency can be outdated or it's functions better done by another agency or the states. Unfortunately the federal government has become a jobs program.
"Telecommute" is a stupid word - the literal meaning of the word is completely at odds with the meaning of the word as it is used. Telecommute means to travel a long distance. Tele means far, commute means to travel, particularly to work. Hence telecommute means to travel a long distance to work. The roots are similar to television (literally far seeing) and telephone (lterally far hearing).
However, telecommuting - as the word is used - is the problem, not the solution. The problem is having to commute a long way to work. The solution is using technology to allow you to work from home, which is not what telecommute means at all. Obviously whoever coined the word thought "tele" sounded suitably technological, so decided to use that. A far better word for the solution would be "e-commuting" or something similar, even if it does involve the much overused "e-" prefix. At least that would make sense.
Stupid English language...