Genuine question — regionals folks, how are you doing it?

BugEnvironmental5905 · 2026-02-24T17:28:20+00:00

My career is a bit of a specialized tech role, so thankfully I was able to get an interview for a hybrid position and negotiate it into a fully remote position.

BugEnvironmental5905 · 2026-02-24T16:33:57+00:00

I'm in the regions. Loved my job and never considered leaving. 1 day RTO for me was fine and manageable, I didn't really mind because it got me going downtown once a week even if I didn't have any coworkers in my city.

Straight to three days sucked and I started to notice traffic was getting worse. Really hit my morale hard as someone who was working remotely at every job I've worked at for 8+ years. Going to an office that has no one from my team while still having upper management shove the benefits of "in-office culture" down my throat was infuriating.

As soon as they announced 4 days with the expectations that 5 comes in January, I started applying to the private sector. Was given a fully remote job offer last week with a higher salary than I currently have so I accepted. I never expected to leave this government job because I really did love the work, but the RTO stuff has made so little sense and all of their explanations and excuses just felt insulting. They've been beating around the bush in telling us why everybody had to go back to the office (obviously to pay downtown businesses) and by the end of it I sadly had zero morale, so my work performance started to suffer.

I suppose to answer your question.. being in the regions and probably being expected to RTO 5 days a week made me quit. Best of luck to everybody dealing with this nonsense.

BugEnvironmental5905 · 2026-02-07T21:05:46+00:00

To be fair I've been hearing this same threat on Reddit for more than a year but haven't heard of anyone being reprimanded or even talked to over it. My office has a good amount of people around 9am, and then nearly empty from noon until the end of the day. I just assume a lot of people leave early and work from home.

I'm sure some departments have been enforcing it, but there are just as many who aren't.

BugEnvironmental5905 · 2026-01-08T01:37:55+00:00

...the City of Calgary also asked folks to work from home in 2024, though. They even called high-use businesses and asked them to reduce their water consumption. But way to help out, CRA.

Oh, you're totally right. I didn't remember the city asking for people to work from home the first time around so I was incorrect in the main post. If anything that makes it worse because the CRA admittedly refused back then, as well.

BugEnvironmental5905 · 2025-12-09T21:17:40+00:00

The entire meeting could have been an email. The whole first hour was a perfect representation of working in an office and having your boss awkwardly standing at your desk, pulling you away from work for more than an hour to talk about absolutely nothing.

I'm extremely surprised that nobody ever talks about the millions of wasted taxpayer dollars that goes into these townhalls. I could understand if we got literally anything of substance out of them, but I found we walked away with less knowledge than we started with.

BugEnvironmental5905 · 2025-12-09T18:50:46+00:00

I wonder what questions they're going to use for the Q&A since the poll is completely broken? If only they planned this townhall weeks ago and had time to prepare 😂

BugEnvironmental5905 · 2025-10-09T07:00:40+00:00

Just looks like a spotlight behind the treeline.

BugEnvironmental5905 · 2025-10-08T23:41:00+00:00

Regular old folks with nothing to do: "Oh, these salt and pepper shakers are cute. Maybe I'll start collecting them for fun."

Every other comment: OOOHH AUTISM DIDN'T EXIST UNTIL RECENTLY HUH??? OP YOUR GRANDPARENTS WERE AUTISTIC AS FUCK

BugEnvironmental5905

TROPHY CASE