It was only a matter of time.
President Trump ordered federal workers back to office full-time shortly after inauguration. Last week, San Francisco mayor Lurie ordered city workers back to office full-time. And just yesterday, California governor Newsom ordered state employees back to office full-time. The trifecta is complete. If your salary is paid for by tax-payers, work-home-home is no longer in your vocabulary.
There’s always the private sector, am I right?
As an employee of the State of California, Governor Newsom’s executive order applies to me. Good news for me, I’ve been in-office on a full-time basis since the beginning of 2021. Nothing is changing for me, except seeing more of my colleagues more often on campus.
I can already see HR scrambling to field the many calls from workers asking for an exemption. You need to telecommute because you’re taking care of a sick family member? Well, my mother has been officially disabled for over a decade. Perhaps I should move back home and garner some work-home-home days…
That would be absurd, right? It’s not up to the workplace to acquiesce to choices workers make outside of it. If special dispensation are made - in regards to telecommuting - for children or living far away from campus, then I can definitely make both of those things happen.
Those of us who are already full-time on campus five days a week may or may not be enjoying some schadenfreude at this new development. As far as I know, working-from-home is not written in our contract whatsoever. Therefore, if we really want to talk about fairness…
Welcome back to campus, colleagues!
This and that.