Imagine a federal workplace where everyone got bonuses, unless the bosses filled out paperwork explaining why they weren’t deserved. Or where everyone was considered to be eligible for telework unless it could be shown why the position didn’t fit the rules. Or where you automatically get a dessert with every meal in the cafeteria, and had to get a refund if you didn’t want it.

Now guess which one has a shot at happening first.

Two bills currently in Congress would “require that all federal workers be considered eligible for telework unless the agency shows they are ineligible.”

OPM Director John Berry recently informed a House subcommittee he had asked his “staff to go back and work with our lawyers, if we can do that,” said Berry. “Flip the presumption, so that I wonder if through regulation we can say that everybody is presumed to be eligible for telework rather than having to be designated for telework. And that way agencies could designate employees who wouldn’t be eligible for telework. In other words, kind of flip it around from what it is now.”

Now for that dessert idea…

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