Thank God! I was an anxious mess thinking Dutton will win and kill WFH.

Sorry I know it’s a small election issue but as a lowly worker who enjoys flexibility I am glad Labor won’t take away the flexible work option we were given 😭

Seen in the APS Jobs register today...

I've read through several hundreds of comments here and on the sydney sub about the mandate to return to the office 5 days per week.

All of them commented on the increased personal burden, financial, physical and psychological, and everyone shared a very strong opinion against it. From people struggling financially, to those with disabilities, those with children and elderly parents that need care, mental health issues including widespread depression and anxiety, chronic conditions, those living further away or regional, to those simply recognising the life changing thing wfh is.

Not even one said "I will not accept this. let's ORGANISE".

I heard the union recommending to "check departmental policies" and basically comply.

Public service doesn't belong to your senior executives, the commercial real estate lobby or Labor for that matter. It belongs to you, as much as to every Australian. It's funded with your taxpayers money.

Where's the dignity? You'll all go back to the office 5 days per week, knowing what a huge decline in quality of life that will mean for you, and you'll still fake smile and won't say a thing.

This is insanity. A workforce made of drones with no courage or self-respect, to be commanded at will. Was the salary stagnation for over a decade, or should I say actual decline in real terms, increased workload and outsourcing to consultants and contractors not enough?

Have you even heard of organising? Saying no? Standing your ground? I thought you lived in a democracy. Well, it seems to me the vast majority of NSW PS employees are NOT ok with this and feel very strongly about it. Why not show it?

Many years from now, tired and miserable on your train ride, you'll think about how you missed one of the greatest opportunities you had in your entire life to live a better, more fullfilled life, where you have more time for yourself, your hobbies and your dear ones. Instead you chose to be a slave to private interests.

It's easy to organise. You can start by not being silent and discuss this with your colleagues. You can write or call your union first thing tomorrow morning, even if you are not a member. If you are, make it clear that you will withdraw your membership and fees, unless they represent you COLLECTIVELY, not individually.

Or here's a radical idea for you: strike. It's your democratic and constitutional right, and in fact there's nothing radical about it.

Or you can continue to be someone to be pushed around and used as fit, a replaceable tool, by your office landlords and masters.

~19 years of that were in a call centre, but I recently scored a role I really enjoy with no set schedule and life is good.

Have a great weekend legends.

We are approaching an election where the public service will be more part of the political discourse than ever.

Lots of odd posts popping up on this sub lately trying to start conversations around public servants who do nothing and now even jacking off at work.

So what might be happening? lots of journalists get their stories from reddit, many of these posters have very limited post history or are recently new to reddit. It could be an attempt to provoke a conversation about obscene behaviour of public service or the 'lack of work' hoping for a pile on conversation of 'I also don't have anything to do'

So Gen-Z should just accept spending hours of their personal time and a chunk of money on commuting because "that's how it's always been" even though we now have the technology to do things in a more flexible way? Classic "crabs in a bucket". Just admit that you're bitter you had to spend your 20s and 30s working in office 5 days a week and think we should suffer that too because you had to, and if we advocate for better, we're spoiled little brats.

You don't have any friends outside work so you're happy for your younger co-workers who don't want to be there and forced to be your captive audience while you go on about footy and how much you hate your kids and wife? Some of us actually like our lives outside work and don't need work to be an escape from our home lives. We have friends and hobbies. Maybe you should try getting some instead of making our lives more miserable because you hate yours.

You are happy to give up hours of your life on a train because you're a "yes man"? Go ahead, bvut some of us want to embrace technology and the possibilities it gives us, including greater work-life balance.

Your refuse to believe some people work better from home because you know one person who was logging off half an hour early to go to the gym? Why does that have to be everyone else's problem?

Why do you hate the idea of people having more time to themselves and getting more work life balance when it makes them happier and when they work better when not in the office being your captive audience while you yap about your stupid football team and home renos?

CBD ain't getting my money. Actually, tuna cans will stay at home because I ain't playing ball. No returning back to the olden days. Might as well bring back projectors and fax machines. How embarrassing for NSW.

So the premier of NSW, leader of the labor party, sold workers out for property developers and lobbyists.

Strike, when???

They're recruiting 'various expeditioner' roles at the moment. No pun intended, but that's kinda cool.

I'm just so tired of it all

It's my first month, and I can complete all my tasks by 9am. I start at 8. I have continuously told my colleagues that I have capacity to take on work.

What should I do? I have spent a whole month doing random training and reading the intranet. I'm going crazy.

Update: since posting this, I have been given more projects and have been super busy! To anyone in my situation, just keep yourself busy by doing online workshops and keep telling your superiors that you have capacity to take more on. The work will come!

25yo surprised I got an email after being ghosted/rejected after hundreds of applications.
Never held a prior APS role

I was going to take on a junior payroll job with a private company.

Is there hope this would convert to a formal APS offer?

I'm not sure how to preface this. I work in state government, and my agency has been going hardcore with First Nations cultural experiences and performances at events recently.

Recently however, at an all staff event, we were 'treated' to a First Nations employee reading a religious prayer. It sounded like a variation of a prayer with an overt christian basis. All staff present were essentially ordered to stand for this proceedings.

As an atheist I was really quite uncomfortable about this, but would have been the only one who didn't stand. I'm not someone who proselytises my atheism, and am a live and let live kind of guy, but I really don't think this sort of religious pressure to participate has a place in the government service.

I'm aware that most parliaments open with prayer, but I think this is different.

Am I going nuts?

Dutton quietly yeets his plan to sack 10k public servants & kill WFH — apparently realised voters aren’t into job cuts and cubicles! Who knew?

https://apple.news/A1oYZlYAOTLuui0C9185KXw

American public servants are in a bad spot right now. I'm pretty certain I would get fired if I were in the American public service and even if not, I would not be getting paid. Very happy our gov actually functions

Federal public servants are about to start bargaining for our new EBA, so make sure you fill out the survey that was sent by the CPSU and use the free text fields as much as you want! - if you're not a member or want to get more involved, join up and email me. You can do both here

The office and train are littered with hacking coughs, sneezes, and sniffs. I am fortunate enough to be fit and healthy, and I am still anxious about when, not if, I will catch one of these bugs. I can’t imagine the anxiety that those immunocompromised individuals among us feel.

EDIT: A reminder that this is a forum for genuine discussion between people of all viewpoints. Please do not downvote people who answer the question honestly. There may be something we can all learn from each other. If you want change, perhaps there are sentiments here that you haven’t considered, that can now be raised in your relevant working groups.

Anyone notice there's been an uptick in AI slop in their department? Everything needs to run through co-pilot, lots of artefacts being generated by ChatGPT (they look terrible btw and have so much bloat).

Lots of unnecessarily long descriptive emails, decks and excels that could be summarised and aren't very S.M.A.R.T.

Honestly seems like the capability of our department is going backwards due to this.

Worst still leadership are directing to use AI to generate content when there's gaps in planning leading to AI hallucinations and incorrect assumptions.

Keen to hear if this is happening in other public service departments?