Comment by pfannkuchen
3 months ago
I thought the buyout offer went along with the cancellation of remote work. Like, if you are thinking about quitting because you don’t want to come in, here have an extra incentive to do that and take some time to find another job.
ATC already couldn’t work remotely. The only people who would take a deal like this would be people who were thinking about quitting or retiring anyway. I suspect ATC will not be substantially affected by people taking that deal.
> 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.
The offer was (or ended up being) a full buyout offer. The “offer” is probably genuine, but it’s not a clean offer, as many edge cases are unclear (e.g., can they terminate you if they accept the offer… currently there is nothing stopping them from doing that, how can someone of retirement age accept the offer and then retire, etc.).
Iirc, ATCs can accept the buy out if they so chose. I’m guessing most won’t, as the ATC deal is good to stick with until you retire.
Edit: Per the article, the status of the offer is unclear. It wasn’t cleared with the union before the letter was released, and it hasn’t been officially rescinded either (despite comments that it has from DoT).
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.
> 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.
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The other set of people who might take the deal are people who are concerned that the new administration will consider them "DEI hires"[1] and fire them later in the year. This is not an unreasonable fear given that the administration has already blamed the DC crash on "DEI" and pledged to root out "DEI" everywhere.
If you expect to be fired ~ in the fall, it is not unreasonable to be interested in the offer to keep getting paid from your federal job while you look for alternate employment.
1 - I am not going to get into who fits this category. The point is which employees might think they fit into this category.
Wait, why can't ATC work remotely? Serious question. They're looking at data on a screen and communicating via radio. Would the latency of any radio-digital relay be too high? Sure it's feeling like one step closer to Ender's game. But it could be possible in theory?
I'm an Air Traffic Controlling working at a "Center" (ARTCC). It's not the latency - it's that we have backups for the backups. I wish my house had the same level of redundancy my workplace does.
Edit: except for the asbestos. I'm glad my house doesn't have that. (IIRC they were all built in the 1960s.)
Hint: why do they work in a tower?
A lot of them don't. They work in nondescript windowless buildings controlling all the airspace that isn't right above an airport.
There have also been trials done with "virtual towers" at smaller airports, using a bunch of cameras and with controllers remotely monitoring them and communicating.
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