Deachman: I asked public servants how they felt about going back to the office

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I’m no professional pollster, nor even much of an amateur one. How else to explain me standing outside the Tunney’s Pasture LRT station on Wednesday morning, holding a Bristol board sign that asked “How excited RU4 3days in the office?” To persuade people to answer, I was offering public service employees each a Big Chewy Nerds candy they could use to cast their vote into one of three plastic snack containers labelled “Yay!,” “Grr!” and “Meh.”

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Despite the absence of any real scientific rigour, I was surprised to discover that nine people, or nearly half of the 22 respondents, chose “Meh” — suggesting that many employees simply don’t care one way or another, despite what sometimes seems a never-ending tug-of-war between the Treasury Board and the federal unions.

“My feeling is that resources would be better spent by selling off real estate and having people work from home, generally,” said Meh-voter Thomas Anderson. “I think we’re well set up in a computer environment. Working on Teams in an office doesn’t really work. But I’ll go where my employer tells me to go.”

Another ambivalent worker, Steve Partridge, whose commute from Orléans eats about two hours out of his day, says that working on MS Teams with colleagues from across the country works just as well from home as it would from the office. A 32-year veteran of the public service, he misses the days when the on-site experience was a team situation, when you could just walk into someone’s office and talk with them.

“Today, you don’t see people like you used to. It’s a sign of the times, I guess, but meh. I’m not totally unhappy, but I’ve got to adjust to it. It’s a different world now, and I don’t think you can go back to the way it was.”

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A third Meh voter, who declined to give his name — public servants are often very shy about that sort of thing —  was similarly critical of the current work situation, comparing it to “hoteling.”

“You come in to the office or are randomly assigned an office. You’re not sitting together as teams like before. I just go in hoping for an unbroken chair.” Even if his colleagues are in the same building, he added, they’ll hold meetings virtually because (a) they don’t know where everyone else is, and (b) meeting rooms are difficult to book.

To be clear, the 22 people who “voted” in my candy poll represent less than one one-hundredth of one per cent of the roughly 282,000 employees mandated by the Treasury Board to be in the office at least three days a week, giving the poll a margin of error as wide as the prairie sky.

In addition to the nine Meh voters, nine voted Grr! and four chose Yay! None of the latter group was willing to share their name, with one woman citing the unpopularity of that position as the reason.

“I love my team,” she said. “I love working with them. I love seeing them. But I don’t want to give my name because I know they wouldn’t be happy with my answer.”

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Another of the anonymous Yay!s conceded that the back-to-the-office mandate hasn’t been a smooth one. “There are still issues to resolve that maybe weren’t anticipated when we were working two days a week,” she said. “I’m hearing a lot about parking problems.”

Other public servants pointed to the disorganized rollout, including one who offered only her first name: Shirley, an Indigenous Services Canada employee who showed up for work at the Jeanne Mance building on Wednesday, only to be told to go back home (to Kanata, a one-hour transit ride) because the three floors assigned to her department were full.

“They should have rolled this out in July,” she said. “Now, with school starting, it’s chaos. They didn’t plan it properly. No one has their own office space, so every single day is an adjustment.”

Not surprisingly, Shirley voted “Grr!”

Eunnara Cho works in a lab at Tunney’s, and so she’s at the office five days a week. But she, too, sided with the Grr!s. “Our building doesn’t have the capacity to support staff coming back five days a week because they’ve taken away a lot of the amenities,” she said.

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“There’s no cafeteria and no plans to bring it back. They’re bringing back the vending machines and are very proud of that. But it’s unfortunate that some people have to drive and pay $10 for parking every day, just to spend time at their desk and take calls online. That makes no sense. And OC Transpo isn’t helping by reducing bus service.”

Many of the respondents also cited long commutes, difficulties in finding childcare and the frustration of what they believe is a one-size-fits-all solution that doesn’t fit all. One woman who voted Meh saw the advantage of three days in the office for those who, like her, are new to the job and can benefit from face-to-face discussions with their colleagues and manager. “But if you’re a seasoned worker and know what you’re doing, then two days should be enough,” she said.

Another anonymous Meh voter chose to remain optimistic. “Before the pandemic, we were in the office five days a week,” she said. “Now we’re in three, which is still better. I don’t know that it’s necessarily clear and transparent why they’re making these decisions, but it’s still a perk to be able to work two days a week from home. It’s certainly more convenient; it’s a 45-minute-to-one-hour commute each way, from Barrhaven.

“But lots of people don’t have the option to work from home at all.”

Now that’s a refreshing glass-half-full attitude. Or at least, given the two days not in the office, 40 per cent full.

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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