A return-to-the-office policy arrives in about two week. From feds I’ve spoken to, you’re either resigned to this, or welcome it. Everyone feels certain it will come.

In part, people’s perceptions of where to work is generational. I over-generalize, but the “older” generations — still-working Baby Boomers and the Generation X people, those up to age 59 or so — remain used to traditional office attendance. That group, at least the earlier part of it, tends to be old school. Many of the Trump appointees are Generation Xers. Pam Bondi for Justice is 59. Marco Rubio for State is 53, Russ Vought for OMB director is 48.

President-elect Trump also mixed some solid oldsters in his administration brew. Boomer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services clocks in at 70, Doug Burgum for Interior at 68.

In the private sector, you see return-to-the-office busting out all over. I looked at Dell as an example. Who in their career hasn’t touched a Dell device? I interviewed Michael Dell a couple of times in the 1990s. He struck me as a cordial but totally businesslike man. He’s 59.

Dell Technologies, the company, according to a Forbes report, has instituted a 39 days per quarter in the office policy. Three days a week, that is. People who work remotely don’t have to go in at all. But, and this is a big “but,” remote workers won’t be offered promotions or different jobs while working for Dell.

For why people should be around, views differ. When looking at the federal telework, skeptics think they see too much potential for goofing off or operating unaccountably. Others think effective collaboration and learning require people to work together, under one acoustic tile ceiling.

Most studies of telework seem designed to prove the bias of who’s doing the study. Maybe people are more productive, maybe not. Maybe collaboration suffers, maybe it’s better. Maybe it helps work-life balance, maybe it wrecks it.

In truth, the unlimited combinations of individuals and work requirements make generalizations impossible. Besides, telework established itself in the federal government by practice and statute well before the pandemic. Maybe the new administration can approach its telework policy simply. Roll practice back to what was in place February 2020, the month before the pandemic. That would give a rational point to rethink telework, if necessary.

I spoke the other day to a senior executive at a cabinet department. He’s awaiting his new politically-appointed boss. He said that, relative to 2017, the Trump so-called landing teams seem more organized and thorough. Trump himself has pledged to fire employees who don’t return to work full time at their federal offices.

About Generation X. Just as telework generalizations fall apart, so do generalizations about a population of 65 million people. The Gen Xer I spoke to is concerned that the younger people will hit the road if they face a harsh return-to-office policy. He and others also worry that the junior employees don’t know what they don’t know. They miss out on a lot of learning that comes from the frequent and casual interaction with people at the office, the modeling of experienced and sometimes charismatic senior people. For that matter, working close by other people can imprint behaviors and habits to avoid. The sardines at home, with your cat licking the tin, don’t go over at the cube farm.

This is why designated-collaboration days, Zoom confabs and other forced workarounds don’t get at the heart of the debate. The ineffable value of people being together is the spontaneous interaction and all that it produces.

My mind houses a thousand snippets of memory of the elders I worked for very early in my career, things that affect how I do things and react now that I’ve reached the threshhold of 70 myself. Maybe that’s why Dell put its new policy in place. Michael Dell famously started his PC business in his University of Texas dorm room. Today he’s a private jet billionaire and among the more enduring tech execs. Someone early in their career might think, maybe that guy and the people around him know a thing or two — things you can’t learn teleworking.

I suspect many feds avoid a return-to-the-office because of commuting. In so many metropolitan areas, roads are clogged. Public transportation can prove unreliable when most critically needed, like when it snows. However you go, the costs mount, both psychic and financial. The only answer is figuring out how to make the benefits outweigh the hassle.

State Department shout-out, and a suggestion.

A word on customer experience.

I was about to excoriate the State Department’s online passport renewal system. My wife and I both had passports expiring the same time. An international trip is coming up in the fall.

The online process worked fine until we hit the photo upload. We took picture after picture with our smart phones. Made them match to a “T” what the site called for. The online application wouldn’t accept any of them. I groused and swore, having once been a professional photographer.

My wife schlepped to CVS, where a bored employee took a dreadful picture with the world’s oldest digital camera. I consoled her by saying only machines actually look at the photos nowadays as if the face was a fingerprint. Anyway, she uploaded her picture emailed from CVS, and voila, application complete. State promised a 6-8 week turnaround.

A week later, I shlepped to CVS, and completed my application a few days later. Same promise of a 6-8 week turnaround.

Still another week later, a stiff envelope from the State Department arrived in the mail. My crisp new passport, applied for 10 days after my wife’s, arrived not only before hers, but a scant seven or eight days after I’d completed the application.

Lessons learned:

1. Exceed customer expectation and you’ll always get a smile.
2. Fix that darn photo routine.

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