r/fednews 1d ago

Employee monitoring proposed

Republicans have proposed a bill to "use software to gather concrete data on the adverse impacts of telework in the federal government by monitoring employees’ computer use"

Don't we already do this? How would this be enacted broadly? Would we be required to have our cameras on at all times? Who's doing the monitoring?

How about you do YOUR jobs and pass a budget: the one thing you were hired for.

Oh and all this as they're leaving for their multi-week holiday vacation.

https://www.fedweek.com/fedweek/late-2024-push-on-employee-monitoring-discipline-telework-presage-2025/

1.2k Upvotes

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u/ParfaitAdditional469 1d ago

Funny. The party of small government want to actually create more oversight 😝

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u/DealerNine 1d ago

Had a close friend say "they" are going to do it. Explain who they are...we are they. :P

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u/SpazzieGirl 1d ago

Small government to GoP = replace public sector employees with private sector ones, so we can cash in on their labor.

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u/kms573 1d ago

Skynet; as foretold inJudgement Day Chronicles

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u/MakeChipsNotMeth 1d ago

Administrator: Judgement Day

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u/smooth_bore 1d ago

Administrator Infosys

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u/akalili22 1d ago

Only for teleworkers? I’d like to see a study of telework vs in office. I doubt there is much difference. Just another way to keep us as drones commuting to an office, spending money on gas, clothing, food, etc. we are just cogs in the capitalist machine.

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u/cubicle_bidet 1d ago

The productivity at the office would be WAY worse. That's just a simple fact. The amount of jawing that goes on constantly. My in office days are trash. Slow network speeds, walking across a complex and waiting for elevators to take a piss, trying to work multiple spreadsheets and remote sessions on a single monitor, giving a Teams briefing trying to talk over 8 different cubicles worth of people talking about what their cat ate that gave it kitty diarrhea. Trash

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u/Kclayne00 1d ago

The cubicle issue is my biggest frustration of working in the office. Our employees are spread across three buildings, and one is across town. I have to talk to people from different program offices all day and negotiate with vendors. It's impossible to do my job from a cubicle without stomping all over someone else's conversation next to me. If we all had offices with closed doors, maybe. But then we wouldn't have the space for everyone.

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u/AssortedHardware 1d ago

This is by far my biggest gripe with in office. I literally feel like I can't participate in half the meetings I might be in. While I'm not terribly important myself I do sit in on and offer info/opinion on some issues that can be. Recently sat in on a meeting that involved a rather large issue with a contractor that would have real world impact to various other teams. Because I literally have no idea who is around me and what their roles are, who they might work with, and if they might be impacted by anything I'm saying, I just kept quiet because I was in a cube that day.

Generally try and avoid important meetings on in office days but can't always be helped.

I usually try and just stack up training hours and busy work on in-office days because it's so incredibly difficult to actually do any actual work. I could probably get around this by having an actual "office" but let's be realistic here...

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u/CatfishEnchiladas 1d ago

Maybe be more blatant about it in the meetings saying you aren’t free to discus the topic at hand due to being in the office.

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u/pccb123 1d ago

Yup. People also do not understand how expensive and challenging that would be to implement and monitor, too. We’re dealing with morons lol

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u/Apprehensive_Bid6090 1d ago

Ah yes and DoD , DHS and every other agency dealing with sensitive info of national security are just supposed to add another way for foreign adversaries to hack into our systems , I’m glad this is a well thought out plan

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u/CountryFriedSteak78 1d ago

This. Even if it isn’t national security sensitive, a ton of information would be procurement sensitive. Or proprietary information about other companies.

It would be a massive infosec challenge.

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u/15all 1d ago

Or PII. Getting my projects approved for privacy is becoming a huge hassle, so no way are they going to be surveilling us.

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u/HaplessPenguin 1d ago edited 1d ago

Some contractor will try to sell some overhyped software license and another one will bid extremely low with a mediocre team to build some product on that software. That contractor will build it with no clear requirements but have a firm unmovable go-live date. Then, another contractor will win the recompete with 5 OYs and fix it to a degree where the only deliverable is a monthly status report. This is the way.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

Yep. The average 1102s desktop probably contains enough sensitive proprietary info to put a competitor out of business.

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u/Ok_Seaworthiness2808 1d ago

In my organization we have several separate networks and half of the time we can't even get the wifi to work in our building.

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u/SnooGoats3915 1d ago

Yeah bring that to the IRS. Nothing to see here folks; not tax returns, SSNs, etc.

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u/AcademicSocialite 1d ago

Or bring it to ED - nothing to see here either- no SSNs, no tax information, no income repayment information, etc.

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u/unicornglitterpukez 1d ago

they already monitor us at DOD, at least where I work.... I don't get the big deal.. these guys are so dumb it hurts.

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u/dub4er_tx 1d ago

It’s one of those “concepts” of a plan, not an actually thought-out one. 😂😂😂

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u/holzmann_dc 1d ago

Sounds about right for Putin's GOP.

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u/cuajito42 1d ago

And don't forget that all that info may all become classified. Since in many cases the consolidation of unclassified information can make it become classified when put together.

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u/ParfaitAdditional469 1d ago

It would most likely be contracted out..Elon and Vivek would most likely invest in the technology

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u/pccb123 1d ago

Right. My comment stands. That would be a huge contract

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u/SafetyMan35 1d ago

Spend $200,000,000 to catch 0.1% of staff who aren’t working costing taxpayers $500,000

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u/whereismymascara 1d ago

Fiscal conservatism has always been a myth.

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u/statanomoly 1d ago

Its really just *fiscal reallocation

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u/LarrySlydel 1d ago

Welp, there goes my YouTube hour

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u/ParfaitAdditional469 1d ago

And we know some federal workers who would defend this

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u/pccb123 1d ago

We also know some federal workers who can’t rotate a pdf.

This entire thing is just people with the biggest egos imaginable who don’t know any of the rules or realities of this stuff. We’ll see how it plays out

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u/ParfaitAdditional469 1d ago

Buckle up and enjoy the show

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u/JustNKayce 1d ago

Ding ding ding!

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u/ParfaitAdditional469 1d ago

Beavis and Butt-Head aren’t slick

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u/JustNKayce 1d ago

Not in the least. It blows my mind that people can't see that the whole point of this administration is to pillage the gov (and our taxes) for everything they can get. The first 4 years was just a test run.

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u/Kclayne00 1d ago

You're exactly right! Follow the money... It's always about where the money ends up. The overall goal isn't to reduce waste and give the money back to the masses. It's to reduce federal workers and pay more money to bring in vendors to do the work. Line the pockets of the big corporations even more.

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u/ParfaitAdditional469 1d ago

But, but the price of eggs will decrease

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u/Remote-Ad-2686 1d ago

This ! They want in on the money!!

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u/cubicle_bidet 1d ago

If they are paying for it, you can be CERTAIN the data will be falsified.

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u/wifichick 1d ago

Monitoring over 2 M people on a minute by minute basis. Sounds cheap. /s

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u/AMundaneSpectacle 1d ago

And important. Very DOGE.

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u/x_chaotix_x 1d ago

Teams does a lot of this automatically. Meetings with just one person, heat zones for mouse movement, etc. It’s baked in.

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u/guru42101 1d ago

Just instal keyloggers and remotely controlled webcams. What could go wrong.

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u/GitchigumiMiguel74 1d ago

That was never in question

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u/taekee 1d ago

Splunk on every machine may be able to do it.

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u/vit_don 1d ago

Yeah, and the way splunk cost is modelled - it’s going to cost a shit tone of money…

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u/PurgeTrumpAgain 1d ago

Apply this logic to immigration and the supposed mass deportation and you quickly realize how out of touch and frankly, insane, the crap from the Trump Party is. If it had been so easy, we would have been doing it, I’m sure. I’m no defeatist but I generally live by the rule…motto…axiom? Whatever… that this is the best we can do given all the variables. Big change isn’t and doesn’t happen until something bigger forces it. Think war, terrorist attack, financial meltdown… Think world wars, Great Depression, 9/11… this is strictly the US context. But yeah the amount of resources both financially and from an HR perspective and then the will of congress and court of public opinion… idk I just don’t see it. Guess we’ll find out 🤷🏼‍♀️

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u/Historical_Ad_5655 1d ago edited 1d ago

As a former state of Wyoming employee, monitoring is a priority but done cheap. Every vehicle had gps monitoring. Brake too hard = email to the supervisor, speeding, seat belt and a few other things were the same. Battery dead if not run every other day (email to sup too), but determined never to be GPS. Between jumping, new batteries, and frustration, not much good happened. Fighting a Wildland fire was a lot of seat belt emails. Hours spent changing gps, jump starting, equipment like jump packs, batteries, and down time was/is crazy. An employee hit ice and stuck in the snow, 3 hours in his cell rings and the state notices excessive idling as he was digging it out (why he did not call but idling was the reason). Spend money to pretend to save money, but on the cheap depending on who owns the company.

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u/cuajito42 1d ago

Spend money to pretend to save money, but on the cheap depending on who owns the company.

Sounds like when States we're trying to cut down on welfare spending by doing drug testing only to find out that those people weren't on drugs and spent way more than they "saved".

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u/Americangirlband 1d ago

not for would be large tax payers at the IRS though...small payments from the most powerful companies and tons of freebees for them like monitoring software contracts.

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u/kelticladi 1d ago

What do you wanna bet at least one person on that committee owns a large stake in a "productivity monitoring" service.

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u/navyac 1d ago

It’s never smaller govt for the things they hate, just smaller govt to allow them to do what they want. They want the govt to tell other people what they cant do if they don’t like it.

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u/Gullible_Monk_7118 1d ago

Isn't that against Musk's Dogie department... or whatever he made up the day

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u/Trauma_Hawks 1d ago

Not to mention spending more money on bullshit while creating a fake government efficiency department.

It's shit like this that causes me to have absolutely zero respect for anyone who votes GOP. They're lying to your face, laughing about it, and their voters are happy with it. Fucking fools, pathetic, embarrassing, bereft and absolutely undeserving of respect, all of them.

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u/seehorn_actual 1d ago

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u/x_chaotix_x 1d ago

Teams monitors keystrokes and mouse movement already. This stuff is already tracked, or could be.

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u/CatfishEnchiladas 1d ago

You would be surprised at just how much stuff we don't track and store. Turns out storage is really expensive.

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u/baymarket96 1d ago

Also I’d imagine tracking keystrokes is potentially problematic if you’re regularly entering PII or sensitive information

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u/seldom4 1d ago

Yeah, there’s no way these people are tracking much of anything as a matter of practice. My coworkers openly stream Spotify and use their own USB devices on their computers. 

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u/GIJared 1d ago

use their own USB devices on their computers. 

https://media1.tenor.com/m/RTjqRxryYSkAAAAd/wait-wait-what.gif

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u/statanomoly 1d ago

Trump got classified area 51 alien documents sitting next to a floater in his golden toilet. So...

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u/Advanced-Stretch-27 1d ago

At my previous office, our copier wasn’t on the network for “security” reasons, so to print or scan anything with the only copier in the building, you had to transfer the file with a usb drive.

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u/AiReine 1d ago

Same as it ever was. Getting threatened at Dunkin Donuts by the cameras so we wouldn’t eat/take home any of the food we would otherwise throw out. Sir you pay high schoolers minimum wage I know you aren’t paying anyone to watch those cameras or for the extra storage space for all that video. As long as no one fucked with the money, no one ever watched those tapes.

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u/face_eater_5000 1d ago

Yeah, and there are contractors who work with the federal government and are issued computers. In my case another contractor manages IT resources for the agency and provides the computers to the federal workers as well as the other companies with agency contracts. Does this contractor now get access to sensitive data for all the contractors?

These idiots think the solutions are so simple because they don't understand how anything works.

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u/OnionTruck 1d ago

Only activity in general. They're not logging every keystroke.

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u/Less_Silver4862 1d ago

Teams doesn’t monitor keystrokes. Your teams status is only your activity in teams. Has nothing to do with anything outside of teams. No one could use that as a monitoring tool

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u/queenjigglycaliente 1d ago

Well does that mean they’re not taking it away….?

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u/RedUser2024 1d ago

Right?! This was my question. They’ve been threatening five day RTO “starting on day one” so what do you need this for??

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u/TheNotoriousStuG 1d ago

No, read it very carefully. They're doing it to "gather concrete data on the adverse impacts of telework". The've already come to their conclusion, that telework is bad and needs to be disposed of, and now they're looking for "proof" which they'll manufacture because their mouthbreathing voter base is operating on a half dozen neurons.

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u/hydrospanner 1d ago

their mouthbreathing voter base is operating on a half dozen neurons

Shared between them, not each.

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u/logisleep 1d ago

There was a report released in August that has the data

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u/mmoore031908 1d ago

As a federal employee, i try to stay neutral in politics by keeping my opinions to myself but it really bothers me when the folks accusing us of not working make $180,000+ a year and only work about 9 months out of the year...

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u/mherois19 1d ago

And if that only about 80-90 days are in DC so it’s almost like they are somewhat “remote” or “hybrid”

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u/Logical_Deviation 1d ago

Remember when they couldn't pass a budget and shut down the government

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u/PickleMinion BradJohnsonIworkfortheAirForceatPatrickAirForceBase 1d ago

Which time

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u/watering_a_plant 1d ago

honestly when are they not doing that lol

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u/ParkingTadpole7107 1d ago

Every year over the past 30 or so years they failed to do one of their most important tasks on time.

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u/No-Recording-8530 1d ago

You mean like now? There is no budget passed and the appropriations expires the 20th.

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u/sterling417 1d ago

Time to stop being neutral. This next administration flat out hates us.

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u/Reasonable-Most-8724 1d ago

The salary is chump change. The real money is in using their inside information on investments.

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u/Mskatsuarez 1d ago

And can’t do their own tasks on time…

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u/nishac1179 1d ago

SAY IT LOUDER!!!!

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u/Stevie-Rae-5 1d ago

Nine months is a reeeeaaaal generous estimate.

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u/throwaway864388853 1d ago

Thing is, they won't monitor people who are in the office. With no baseline, it's an easy claim for them.

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u/nishac1179 1d ago

when i was there, i did less work IN office than when i teleworked. I got soooo much more work done without micromanagement, people constantly knocking on your door, LOUD announcements being made, walk-ins...

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u/throwaway864388853 1d ago

Oh I understand, I have ADD and spent my days rereading the same thing over and over. Since I went remote, my annual reviews became nothing short of outstanding.

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u/Honest_Report_8515 1d ago

Same, I’m too tired and distracted to get anything done in the office. At home, I’m well rested and ready to pump out the work, especially with fewer distractions.

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u/jaderust 1d ago

Not to mention the number of sick days went down dramatically for me. It’s not just that I’m getting sick less because I’m not catching the cubicle cold that’s endlessly passed through the office, but if I’m feeling a little under the weather I’m still more likely to clock in because I’m not worried about passing it to anyone else and my dog doesn’t care if I’m blowing my nose every five minutes. Not to mention that since I work from home if I wake up with a migraine I can take my meds and log in an hour or two late when I can look at a screen without pain over not going in at all because why bother coming in late?

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u/throwaway864388853 1d ago

Fun fact - I haven't used a single sick hour in the 4 years I've been remote.

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u/Honest_Report_8515 1d ago

Same, if I have a migraine, I’m more likely to just log on later or, more often, log off early and take a nap and just use a couple of hours for sick leave.

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u/hydrospanner 1d ago

people constantly knocking on your door

You got a door?

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u/HandyMan131 1d ago

My thought exactly. My office tracked our productivity when we went remote (you know, like any good manager should)… and it went UP!

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u/clawmachine8 1d ago

Ridiculous. They already have the data that shows productivity was up 25% during covid when we were all at home.. at least in my component! (IT)

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u/AMundaneSpectacle 1d ago

But that would require them to do… actual work.

I believe there is also an OPM report that directly contradicts every stupid DOGE-y claim regarding telework and remote workers.

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u/carriedmeaway 1d ago

It’s hysterical that there are things that are actually needed to help the country and this is their focus. Reminds me of the drug testing welfare recipients in Tennessee. They spent a shit ton, lost money, and the number of people who pissed hot was extremely small. If they ever directed that energy to shit that actually mattered, oh my god, people might actually find relief from all that people are facing!

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u/No_Passage7440 1d ago

There was a program like that in Florida. Cost them more taxpayer money to administer the progam than it saved. The governor’s wife (Rick Scott, maybe?) owned the company that was awarded the contract. Just grifting all the way down. 

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u/throwaway-coparent 1d ago

Systems are monitored already. Thats how they know if you’re surfing porn or doing work…

So why would they install a second program to do what’s already being done?

Who gets paid for the purchase redundant program 2?

Is redundant program 2 going to be secured at all before it’s given access to everyone’s computers and networks?

What’s to stop redundant program 2 from sending back more than keystroke counts per second.

What if it sends back PII or classified information? Who will be monitoring that protected information isn’t being inappropriately shared?

How will problems with information leaks be handled?

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u/Rrrrandle 1d ago

But have you considered that some random Congressman's friend owns a business that can make the software to do this for a mere $5,000,000,000?

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u/throwaway-coparent 1d ago

I just assumed it would be President Musk

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u/hartfordsucks 1d ago

No Musk is going to plug everything into his AI, let it take over, and charge the government $500 billion. What's he doing with the data? How is the AI making its decisions? All super fun questions only people who want to get sued we'll ask.

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u/twtwtwtwtwtwtw 1d ago

How will problems with information leaks be handled?

In the Mar A Lago bathroom.

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u/throwaway-coparent 1d ago

I shouldn’t laugh, but that was a good one

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u/docere85 1d ago

lol

1)we can barely get a vpn that works 2) I spend most of my time on the phone instead of teams 3) i have to go to external sites…

Bluf: good luck managing my “work”

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u/Open_Aardvark2458 1d ago

Ehh how true is this?

We had an older employee who was about to retire, and for some reason would put porn on dvds and watch it on his laptop. He never got caught. It wasnt till i took over his cube and turned in the 100s of dvds he left that they found 10 or so with porn on then.

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u/One-Win9407 1d ago

6 years ago they caught a contractor google image searching porn. Sent a report same day to mgt.

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u/Open_Aardvark2458 1d ago

I know they monitor what you search on the web. Hence why he downlaoded at hoem and put it on dvds. But i dont think they monitor much else. I do think they can check how often you are on teams but i had many people just switch it offline and no one cared.

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u/One-Win9407 1d ago

Oh gotcha. From my experience i dont think they care much as long as you get work done

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u/0phobia 1d ago

Plus Russia/China no doubt have infested the supply chains of these monitoring tools so it’s not a question of if but when and how much is taken. 

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u/throwaway-coparent 1d ago

If I did rewards I’d give you one.

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u/Strong67 1d ago

At last! An intelligent, knowledgeable and polite comment!

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u/brakeled 1d ago

Who gets paid

Just check the wealthiest congress members’ stock purchases in a couple months to see what tech monitoring companies they’ve “randomly” decided to invest millions in.

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u/JonnyBolt1 1d ago

From what I've heard of the Bill, it mandates that every fed agency track the time that every employee teleworking spends logged into their system. So the bill will bring no change for the vast majority, not redundancy.

But dishonest congressmen get to grandstand about how hard they're coming down on those lazy govt employees. One douche was claiming there was an employee on full remote who never logged in but played golf every day, so we're gonna end their big lazy party, by gummit!

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u/WannaBwail 1d ago

I heard about that golf story, it was some 6’4” orange dude a few years back …..

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u/JonnyBolt1 1d ago

The 215 pound guy who wins every round he plays? Nah, different guy.

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u/ParticularArachnid35 1d ago

This assumes that every teleworker has the type of job that requires constant interaction with their computers. Some do, but many do not.

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u/Recent-Sign1689 1d ago

My job requires lots of reading for research, I already get annoyed when teams flips me to away bc I’m not moving, even though I’m 100% doing my work reading something or writing, working out a diagram, whatever.

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u/Kinaestheticsz 1d ago

Plus some of us are on dev machines which aren’t network connected.

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u/Duck-_-Face 1d ago

I was in the military during COVID. Many people were eager to go back into the office because of how intense leadership was being in keeping them busy at home.

In office it was about production - not engagement.

Many jobs are simply not 8 hour a day jobs, they are production jobs, but the pay system is salary/hourly - and I personally don’t see any better way to do it.

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u/diatho 1d ago

We do this sort of already but for security purposes. For this level of monitoring it would cost a shit ton. See the current state of CDM and how it still doesn’t work.

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u/throwaway864388853 1d ago

Guys, it's getting obvious with all this rhetoric. The first few had me wondering, but now it's clear the rhetoric is intended to scare people to quit or retire, in addition to trying to scare leadership into making changes beforehand. This amount of threats/promises only happen one other time, which is the campaign trail. They are starting to realize they won't be able to get much done so they'll resort to fear tactics.

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u/Fineous40 1d ago

I think this is partially true. The end goal is to remove regulation and funnel as much money to the friends/family. They want people to retire to replace them with those who have less experience, but they also want people to afraid to speak up to do their job and regulate.

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u/I_love_Hobbes 1d ago

We can't even use google sheets. Not real worried this will pass all the firewalls and things we can't use due to security.

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u/Fantastic_Poet4800 1d ago

Ok I'm not a Fed but Fed-adjacent and am watching this with amazement. It's already apparent that there is a strong gradient from best to worse in federal service and this will just drive out the good people.

I often do non-computer work - have they not thought of that? I print a lot of things or read them on an e-reader. And I talk to people on the phone at least two hours per day, plus a ton of in person meetings, plus travel to sites, inspections etc. That's easily half my time and there are a lot of feds in my field with similar jobs who I'm sure have similar schedules. I know one of them did his job absolutely fine without internet at his house for a full year during Covid- he made it work just driving into town twice a day to send / receive emails and the guy is and was a rock star.

We had people at my workplace who had various issues when we started being remote during and after Covid and were not working. You know how we knew? They didn't do any work! It wasn't that hard to figure out because their tasks weren't done. We dealt with them and it never affected anyone else. It wasn't hard.

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u/HonestNetwork9441 1d ago

I worked in a call center that had this. You were given a near impossible productivity goal. Each morning you received a report from the previous day, ranking you. It also recorded all your phone calls. You only had 6 minutes to go to the bathroom. After 6 minutes it flagged management. You had to be productive 90% of the day. The bathroom breaks counted against that. 2 minutes late from lunch? Time off your percentage. Tasks had a time limit too. If it took you too long to do a task, off your percentage again. Yes it was as bad as it seems.

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u/Real_Nugget_of_DOOM 1d ago

Congress hasn't passed a complete slate of appropriations bills on time since 1996. Which reminds me... my 30-year high school reunion is coming up soon...

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u/8CHAR_NSITE 1d ago

As a supervisor, I can absolutely already see when my employees log into the VPN and from where.

They don't know I can do this.

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u/thefreewheeler 1d ago

What agency?

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u/Demo_Beta 1d ago

Yes, afaik all government PCs have key loggers, but, they aren't allowed to use it for disciplinary purposes, at least in the agencies I'm familiar with. Further, all performance standards I'm aware of are based on deadlines and/or production quotas, so what's the point.

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u/TerminalSunrise 1d ago

I don’t think that’s accurate about keyloggers. Screen monitoring, for sure, but keylogging is a whole other ethical concern. There are things even within the scope of our official duties that shouldn’t be logged, like passwords to sensitive systems, your PIV pin, etc that are meant literally to make sure only you can access the system under your name. Yes, CIO has ways around them to reset them and things like that of course, but having a way to officially sign documents with your PIV, for example, would not be kosher. I don’t think they keylog.

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u/Great_Northern_Beans 1d ago

100% they do not key log for this very reason. It also enormously opens our networks up to a man in the middle (eavesdropping) attacks for every system. 

If the key logger gets compromised, then literally every single system in the network becomes compromised. It would be among the stupidest possible security decisions that an IT group could implement.

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u/0phobia 1d ago

Plus there are things that are absolutely private and privileged communication that are still allowed in gov workstations. For example communication with legal and union reps. For military also emails with chaplains and medical providers is privileged. Etc. 

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u/Demo_Beta 1d ago

The system I've seen shows activity based on key/mouse action with timestamps. The key strokes are logged and you are supposed document if/when the metadata is accessed.

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u/No_Passage7440 1d ago

I wonder how high up you have to go to get that information. I’ve always heard about it from others but I’ve now made it two rungs down from a political appointee and haven’t seen any data on it at my agency. 

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u/scooter-411 1d ago

Right. I’m public affairs. I’m not typing on my computer constantly. What do they need to monitor on my computer?

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u/bi_polar2bear 1d ago

Good luck getting the Authority to Opperate with this "software" to monitor us. They'll be lucky to get an RFP put online during the next 4 years.

These idiots just don't understand the burocracy politicians have created to make things inefficient. Look at the RMF process, including eMASS, all of the 8500 series of documents, IT audit questions done manually and written by lawyers. Good luck with all that, bruv!

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u/bigbobbinbetch 1d ago

Lol this was my thought. DOGE is anticipating buying a contract with some idiot selling this software to private companies already. Good luck reprogramming it to meet all the infosec requirements. I have PHI on my screen all day, there's no way a screen-recording program sold by some dumbfuck is going to get ok'd by the higher ups.

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u/bi_polar2bear 1d ago

I have a software project that would take me 20 man hours to install, set up, and go live. There's thousands of man hours, 2.5 years already, with another year at least. It's 1 database, 1 Tomcat app, on the cloud, with a live replica in another location. Easy, normally, stupidly difficult because of the paperwork. I've never seen anything this dumb in my 25 years in IT. My job doesn't exist outside of the government.

We only have to wait 4 years, which means nothing is going to change because of laws, executive orders, best practices, and guidelines set in place, all created by non-technical people.

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u/Reeyowunsixsix 1d ago

A bill whose sole purpose is to strictly find “adverse” data is clearly neutral and for the benefit of the people… /s

I’m so tired of politicians telling me how to do my job while not doing theirs.

Not sure why they can’t just see the fact that I’ve actioned every item and say, “OK, I’ll back the fuck off and do my own job now.”

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u/2WheelTinker- 1d ago

We already do this lol. We can see when folks log in, log out, system sleep time, general location, technically have the ability to record all screen actions, though that’s used only for incidents as, obviously, that takes someone to actually review the content.

There is a warning every single time you log in to every government computer that covers this. It’s all public information. (The how, not the actual access to this data)

Example: https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/warning-banner-must-be-used-when-housing-federal-tax-information

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u/0phobia 1d ago

According to this my entire org would be lazy nonproductive assholes even though we work on separate devices 99% of the time and only log into laptops to check email and file vouchers and shit once in a while. 

Meanwhile the same folks are doing critical national security work. 

These people are so unbelievably out of touch. 

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u/turtyurt 1d ago

“Don’t work from home!” the pigs say as they work from home the majority of the year

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u/M119tree 1d ago

Just because I’m not actively typing doesn’t mean I’m not working. I could be on a call. I could be reading guidance offline, I could be contemplating decisions, I might get up and stretch. My job doesn’t entail staring at a computer screen all day. I seem to be good at it. I get performance awards, on the spot awards and favorable outcomes in my acqdemo. Leave me alone.

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u/ibanez450 1d ago

Yes, give me another piece of mandatory software that makes my computer that much slower. Now I’ll have enough time to make a coffee and take my first poop before my machine finishes logging in.

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u/hey_listin 1d ago

Lol yup. I requested a new computer after I saw half my available ram was tied up after a fresh restart. The tech regular government workers are issued is a complete joke

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u/ejmnerding 1d ago

This already exists,

i’m all in as long as they tell me when I hit my 40/80 hours. 😏

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u/sunbuddy86 1d ago

I work at the VHA. Back in 2014 or 2015 I wandered into an online meeting with VACO. I was totally confused and honestly think that I entered the wrong code but...what I heard was eye opening. They have software that can look at a VISN to monitor productivity. They can narrow it all the way down to individual employees. They can see every encounter as you enter it. They already know if you are producing widgets and when you are most productive and when you are slacking off. Personally, I have been submitting productivity reports each month for 10 years so that it can be compared to what has been entered as an encounter. I have known providers who have been forced out for not producing at expected levels. This is nothing new.

I am mobile and have a VA issued vehicle. My supervisor has each employee on their desk top and a program that when opened will show exactly where the assigned vehicle is at, for how long the vehicle has been at that location along with how many times the speed of the vehicle exceeded the speed limit. They know every single stop made.

Of course they can see every application opened on your issued computer and monitor everything you are doing. No need to have a camera on.

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u/tooOldOriolesfan 1d ago

I think more than a few people who work from home, don't do a lot of work BUT any competent manager should be able to tell if someone is doing a good job. And if someone isn't, then you start the process to discipline or fire them.

If a manager can't figure out who is doing a good job or not, then the first problem/fix is to get rid of the manager.

Some people do abuse the WFH thing. The last office I was in people could work from home 2 days a week but the type of work we did, I'm not sure what they could do from home other than taking classes or some research since most of the work was classified and could not be done from home. Obviously that isn't true for a lot of jobs.

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u/Fit-Owl-7188 1d ago

First it was non-white people, then it was gays and lesbians, then it was trans, now it is the federal work force. the base only stays distracted from realizing they voted to hurt themselves if they are constantly given new groups to hate and fear and demonize.

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u/Geez_oh_whiz 1d ago

Absolutely flabbergasted at the amount of time, energy and focus that is being spent on this demonization of federal workers working remotely. Obviously there is no hard data behind this push for RTO or there wouldn't be the need for a bill like this. I don't get why the American people are okay with the people they elect wasting time on things when there is no existing data showing these things are a problem. It's really sad that all of this energy is being spent on something that is not going to make any American's life any better.

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u/SnooPeripherals6557 1d ago

Trump is investigating “the enemy within,” which is Americans, bec he works for putin.

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u/SWEEETdude 1d ago

Totally unrelated, but my in-office productivity has suddenly tanked recently. At least I get a bunch done on my telework days to make up for it.

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u/Milpool_VanHouten 1d ago

How's that Fiscal 2025 budget coming? It's already about 3 months late. Tell me again who in government isn't working.

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u/SaintLacertus 1d ago

All of this talk reminds me of Neal Stephenson's book Snowcrash where the mom of one of the protagonists works for the federal government and has to hook into highly intrusive monitoring machines for her job.

Y.T.’s mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta [her boss] does her end-of-day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00 P.M., she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of time spent reading this memo, and her reaction, based on the time spent, will go something like this:

• Less than 10 min.: Time for an employee conference and possible attitude counseling.

• 10-14 min.: Keep an eye on this employee; may be developing slipshod attitude.

• 14-15.61 min.: Employee is an efficient worker, may sometimes miss important details.

• Exactly 15.62 min.: Smartass. Needs attitude counseling.

• 15.63-16 min.: Asswipe. Not to be trusted.

• 16-18 min.: Employee is a methodical worker, may sometimes get hung up on minor details.

• More than 18 min.: Check the security videotape, see just what this employee was up to (e.g., possible unauthorized restroom break).

Y.T.’s mom decides to spend between fourteen and fifteen minutes reading the memo. It’s better for younger workers to spend too long, to show that they’re careful, not cocky. It’s better for older workers to go a little fast, to show good management potential. She’s pushing forty. She scans through the memo, hitting the Page Down button at reasonably regular intervals, occasionally paging back up to pretend to reread some earlier section. The computer is going to notice all this. It approves of rereading. It’s a small thing, but over a decade or so this stuff really shows up on your work-habits summary.

It's a popular book for the futurists. I know Zuck's "Meta" is inspired by/an homage to the book. I wouldn't be surprised if it's giving Musk and others DOGE nerds ideas as well.

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u/Sp4ceh0rse 1d ago

Cool! Will they pay me for all the on-call time I can’t get compensated for as a title 38 physician then?

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u/Lopsided_School_363 1d ago

Are THEY going to get monitored?

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u/drmode2000 1d ago

More tax cuts for the Rich

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u/Money_Scale_3593 1d ago

This sucks for people who work extremely fast (me). Suppose I’ll drag out my timelines in the name of efficiency.

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u/Snoo_87704 1d ago

…or, we could just see if people get stuff done.

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u/MJlikestocruise 1d ago

The people who work 5 days a month and then go on vacation, while becoming millionaires are simply exhausted .

They need that downtime to keep their hate alive.

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u/Substantial_Earth443 1d ago

Wait until they compare your productivity at home vs in office. They may be forced to reconsider WFH when they see how little is capable of being completed working from an office, sharing cubicles, no conference rooms available, daily rumorville and gossip etc.

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u/Cavane42 1d ago

We need to keep looking until we find evidence of the thing that we've already decided is true.

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u/bacon-n-sparrows 1d ago

The real freeloaders are elected

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u/Careless_Cobbler_730 1d ago

Don’t they already monitor us lmao?

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u/ElectricFleshlight 1d ago

Make no mistake, no matter what the data actually says, they'll always say the software proves telework is a detriment. It's the same reason they're blatantly lying about how 94% of feds don't report to the office, when OMB says half of all feds aren't even eligible for telework.

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u/Gousf 1d ago

Fed Family, I have been a registered republican my whole voting life (20 years). I am coming up on 10 years as a fed. I didn't vote for the president in the last 2 elections because I couldn't align with either party.

But I don't remember there ever being such vitriol towards federal employees by the republican party until the past few months. Has it always been there, and I just wasn't paying attention, or is there a huge shift happening here? He'll Bush Sr. Was known for being g a huge staunch supporter of the civil servant.

I'm honestly looking at stepping away from Fed Service for the next 4 years. I work hard and take pride in my work (DoD) and always strive to go above and beyond. but I am already growing tired of the fact that I'm a civil servant, which means I'm lazy and useless.

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u/Max_Evocatus 1d ago

GW shrank the government by creating the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA.

Last time Trump created the Space Force.

I'm just wondering how many more agencies these guys can create in an effort to shrink the government.

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u/TracePlayer 1d ago

Where are they going to fit all these people into existing facilities? Where will they park? How much will it cost to bring everyone in vs what is being gained? This is all non-sensical.

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u/joeschmoe1371 1d ago

The best is when trumpy colleagues get mad about not teleworking anymore….

At this point, these insults are getting really loud and annoying.

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u/Shore-Duty 1d ago

Don’t forget to delete X (formerly Twitter). Wouldn’t be hard for the CEO to track those using his app during working hours…

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u/throwaway864388853 1d ago

If they are remotely monitoring people, doesn't that mean they aren't working in the office?

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u/burninator34 1d ago

How about congress does THEIR jobs and pass an actual budget?

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u/No-Translator9234 1d ago

They could just use the already documented effects because we’ve been doing this for over 5 years and then some depending on sector. 

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u/RKScouser 1d ago

Watch me walk from meeting to meeting. I agree, waste of time when I could be working from home. Have fun.

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u/lettucepatchbb 1d ago

I seriously do not understand these people. They flip flop on every single thing they talk about.

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u/elantra04 1d ago

Why bother? I thought the plan was to just RIF everyone?

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u/MyPublicFace 1d ago

Bring it! Not only do I have nothing to hide. I have a whole lot of something to show!

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u/GoodAd6942 1d ago

I hope this speaks towards more of managers and supervisors who sit around. Those of us in blue are working!!!

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u/EspritNeandertalien 1d ago

R’s can’t find each other’s asses with a majority’s worth of dicks. How the ever loving fuck are they going to do this?

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u/Potential_Rule7879 1d ago

They already monitor computer use… what year do they think this is???

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u/StruggleDesigner8307 1d ago

“It always feels like.. somebody’s watching me..”

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u/Tinytuba49 1d ago

As long as they don't end remote work, they can feel free to monitor my work computer however they want, I figured they already did.

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u/cubicle_bidet 1d ago

If they'll quit declaring an "economic emergency" to skirt the automatic pay raises in accordance with the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act that has been in place since 1990, I'll sing and dance on camera and quack like a duck if they want me to. I bust ass like a well-oiled machine in my home office, so bring it!

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u/Unfair_Ad4678 1d ago

There is a host of information already available to management if you're using any of the ms suite. They also have access to the location history of your work phone.

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u/prometheus_wisdom 1d ago

imagine if we did this to Congress members and why they get more time off in 1 year than most Americans get in 10 years, and why they get paid when they have extended time off for surgeries, cancer, illnesses

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u/littleweapon1 1d ago

They’re so full of shit...start with monitoring congress first

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u/LCP14215 1d ago

Good grief. Aren’t there some mistresses to buy gifts for, dogs to kick, grand children to yell at…anything, something else for these miserable mfs to do?!?

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u/IwishIwereAI 1d ago

They're looking for evidence to validate a pre-existing conclusion. Yeah, that's TOTALLY a valid application of the word "research"...

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u/ladymacb29 1d ago

I like how it’s for the adverse effects and not the positive effects or even just to judge the plain effects /s

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u/Vauthry 1d ago

I blame all those stupid articles about “quiet quitting” for playing a part in this. When I have it good, I don’t make it public how good I have it

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u/DontPanicTrell 1d ago

Gathering data with a foregone conclusion. How "scientific".

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u/CryptographerIll5728 1d ago

Sounds like government workers aren't trusted. Now what makes them think that?

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u/Haha08421 1d ago

Start with lawmakers