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by maxehmookau 512 days ago
Disappointing, but hardly surprising at this point.

The idea that productivity will be improved by increased "supervision" is hilarious. It will cause the higher performers to start looking elsewhere; but perhaps that is the aim.

4 comments

Pretty sure that is the aim.
Lower performers (maybe even average performers) actually work better if the boss physically present. I wonder if it will all even out because of the ratio of high performers in the federal government.
Are you writing this from experience? If so, is this from experience as a boss, as a low (maybe even average) performer, or a high performer? How do you know that your statement is true?
Not OP. But we all have different motivating factors each with their own level of efficacy.

As someone with ADHD (and who knows what else), I've found it very helpful to have some sort of colleague or peer or "boss"-type supervision or nudging, and I say this as a "high performer" if we want to use that term. This kind of motivation is almost non-existent in a WFH context as check ins and other such regular interactions are very high-pressure.

My point is that one cannot make blanket statements about "low performers performing better under supervision". I say this as someone who prefers to work from an office at least 4 days a week.

You're right, each of us have differing motivations. That doesn't give anyone license to promote their own point of view and tar everyone else with the same brush.

This comment isn't intended as an opinion on RTO, but one of the things that's helped me with ADHD has been to go for frequent walks after short bursts of work – I've actually thrived at remote work for that reason. We've all had to learn our own techniques to get our brains to cooperate with our goals.
I second the parent comment. It describes me almost perfectly.
I think that performance optimization is not a one size fits all thing. Much of performance has to do with if you are the right fit for a specific environment. Some low performers can become high performers if they are in the right place and vice versa. By narrowing the environment you make it worse overall.
High performance isn't just about quantity.

Even a 1_000_000_000 monkeys will never realistically write so much as a limerick.

I don't think I've ever worked a white collar job where a couple of low performance people equaled the output of a single high performing employee.
They literally stated as much: "“Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome"
“High performance” people don’t take quiet jobs like that because it’s a sink.

They take jobs like that to stay well, well away from toxic, imperialist crap like the band you see gathered behind Trump in his inauguration photos…

I wish more sensible Americans would see this as the start of a new expansionist initiative that it all is and act accordingly.

Edit: all you who slander humanities reading so much should really spend much more time in history and philosophy beyond the first chapters of “how awesome was Rome you guys”

> band you see gathered behind Trump

I really like traditional American band music. It's inspiring and uplifting.

Right. Nice to see the smartest minds of America back at their best…