Totally tapped out on empathy

For the past year, more or less, I've been listening to a co-worker whine about how miserable that co-worker is slaving away at the journal.  Lots of unhappiness about the behavior and/or attitudes of other staff, lots of unhappiness about our team lead and our supervisors, lots of muttering about being unappreciated. 

Naif that I am, I asked if this person had considered changing jobs, moving on (and possibly up) to something that might prove more congenial.  After all, USAJobs seems to have ads for writer-editors on a daily basis.  My co-worker is single, has no attachments in Atlanta, so if a change is desired, the entire country is a possibility, and, depending on the agency one lateraled to, it might even be possible to get moving expenses paid. 

Well, no, was the answer to the entire country -- didn't want to go through the expense and hassle of moving, wanted to stay in Atlanta until retirement.  Having moved myself more times than I care to think about, I wasn't particularly sympathetic to this line of reasoning, but it was understandable.  Once you're past 50, packing and moving gets old, especially if you've only got the memory of one or two moves behind you (after you've loaded and unloaded a U-Haul a dozen times or more, it's not that big a deal).  So how about trying to move into a slightly different job series right here at Large Nameless Agency, maybe slide on over to Health Communications Specialist (GS-1001) from Writer-Editor (GS-1082)?  Naturally, there was a string of reasons why that wasn't an option either. 

This month a job as a writer-editor came up that would have been a natural lateral -- duties would be almost identical, about the only differences would be the co-workers (a group that has a reputation for being really nice) and the teleworking policy (fully supported; about the only time people come in to the office is for an occasional staff meeting).  So did my co-worker take advantage of this opportunity to escape our dysfunctional environment and apply for a transfer?

You guessed it.  No. 

Every so often I try to come up with arguments to use on management to persuade them to let me telework.  Do you think they'd buy "I'll get more done if I'm not within earshot of that annoying whine?"