yesterday as i sat at home reflecting on one of my previous lives, chaos around me ensued. apparently opm (office of personnel management) decided to close the federal government at 2pm in order to get people off the roads by the evening so that dot or whomever could properly prepare for the supposed inclement weather.

cavin came home before lunch, so luckily he was not stuck in any jammed up metro situation. and from the time opm announced the early closure to about 6pm, from our balcony we watched all the feds (and others, i'm sure) leaving early, populating the streets with car after car, making the commute home hellish.

when i woke up this morning, i wondered if we really did get the predicted weather. it seems that the roads were icy (from news reports) and opm granted feds a 2 hour delay. what is a 2 hour delay? good question. i'm still trying to figure it out.

from opm's status website:

federal agencies in the washington, dc, area are open under a delayed arrival/unscheduled leave policy. employees should plan to arrive for work no more than 2 hours later than they would normally arrive, and employees who cannot report for work may take unscheduled leave.

this means...

• employees should plan their commutes so that they arrive for work no more than 2 hours later than they would normally arrive. employees who arrive for work more than 2 hours later than their normal arrival time will be charged annual leave or leave without pay for the additional period of absence from work.


• employees who cannot report for work may take unscheduled leave for their entire scheduled workday.


• emergency employees are expected to report for work on time.

hunh? i actually came in on time today, so does that mean i don't get the 2 hour credit and still need to work a full 8 hour day, while those that took 2 hours to get here (i.e. took the 2 hour delay) only have to work 6 hours?

if that is the case, it seems totally unfair. it's as if they are penalizing me for living close to work and getting here on time.

think about it this way. take two people, ann and bill. ann lives 10 minutes walking from work. bill lives an hour away and has to drive to work. say ann and bill both leave at the same time to get to work today. because of the weather, it takes ann 20 minutes to get to work while it takes bill 2 hours to get to work. following the rules, bill gets credit for the 2 hours of traveling, while ann more only gets 20 min of credit of traveling.

so at the end of the day, essentially ann has worked more hours (clocked more hours in the office) than bill, yet they are still each getting paid for the full day. does that seem fair to you?

what opm should do is give the 2 hour credit to everyone, regardless of how they use it. jj puts it nicely:

"I shouldn't have to work more hours today than someone else because I choose to live in the District and have Metro access. I think giving everyone two credit hours usable only today is a great idea. It rewards everyone who comes into work in crap weather, not just those who have a longer commute."

opm should also make it a bit clearer on the website about how the policy works. either way, i'm making it work to my advantage and shooting for a departure time of 3pm today (if i have the 2 hour credit or not): i planned on getting to work at 6:30am, but i took the 2 hour delay, thus causing me to get to work at 8:30am, thus, making my 8-hour day from 6:30am-3pm.

gotta love the government.

Labels: chaos, work