Having spent my post-college working career in the private sector I have no sympathy.... ZERO. Everyone who works by with and through anything funded by our tax dollars needs to be on notice.

If you get canned that's too bad. Maybe you'll get re-hired when you can prove whatever it was you were allegedly doing is important.

This was the cheesy email federal workers got on Sat wanting 5 bullets:

From: HR <hr@opm.gov>
Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2025 4:00 PM
Subject: What did you do last week?
Importance: High



Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.

Please do not send any classified information, links, or attachments.

Deadline is this Monday at 11:59pmEST. <end>


No letterhead, no indorsement, no reprecussions. I've got better emails from Nigeria saying I was going to be paid millions if I follow instructions!

Did you answer?

No

They are doing great work, I think? We'll see what the results are after some time. Trump is letting Elon do his pandering for him this go around through the DOGE refund/stimulus talks, the "answer the email or you quit talk", etc. He hasn't been tweeting/X'ing from the chitter at 2:AM this go around which is great because it has kept some heat off of him. He can stay more focused on the task at hand rather than arguing on social media. I fully expect things to get better and better as time passes. He's got 4 yrs to right the ship and Hopefully win over enough of the enemy that JD can win and continue to improve.

As a business owner myself with employees, I have to adhere to a lot of rules when it comes to terminating folks. There has to be records of reprimands, documented Employee expectations (Company Handbook), etc. And don't start the "At will talk", wrongful termination still applies in TV lawyer and judges eyes.
I hope Trump is not setting us up to pay $$$$$$$$$'s in wrongful termination suits.

This right here ^^^^^^^^

This is what people don't want understand. They all know it. They just want to keep it rolling.

Out here in the real world... the Easy jobs don't pay well and always carry the risk of being cut. If you fit this category and work for the Government I have ZERO sympathy. ZERO.

"Learn to Code"

I'm a federal employee for the Dept of the Navy. From those who saw my mudboat build thread, my background and skill set is slightly different than most of the other federal employees I work with, especially within the command I work in. I had a career as a pipe welder and machinists, then a lic capt in the work boat industry offshore before finding my was to the fed government. Started as a contractor and my job was eventually created as a DOD billet, I applied and got it. I've run my welding business on the side, working nights and weekends when I can, and still trying to be availble and engaged as a father and husband.

I refused to take the last administrations medical advice and would not take the covid vaccine. I was pressured hard by my command to take it, and then to at least seek a religious exemption. My reasons for not wanting to take it were not based on my faith, so I refused. Had to sign several memorandum for the record that I would be removed from civil service and fired. I faced the fire and took my chances. Had enough welding work to go out on my own. As everyone knows they ended up caving. I lost so much respect for the chain of command, leadership and the medical community, I've basicly lived with one foot out the door since then.

I did not receive the email, and have received numerous emails since, saying NOT to respond. Since I didn't get it, I just took it upon myself to send an email to the hr.opm.gov address giving them a brief break down of what I did and exactly how much time I wasted in a given 40 hr week doing completely meaningless bureaucratic admin nonsense. I didn't pull any punches and told them if it's actualy read by a human and they want more to reach out. I'll be glad to talk. These agencies were tasked by the dept. Of gov efficiency to list what they got done, and in response they spent millions of dollars in salaries of man hours directing people how not to respond. Even the classification argument they used for us, we take various mandatory trainings every year on classification and deal with emails all day every day with various classification markings, if the employees are not able to respond to such a simple inquiry without disclosing classified info, there is a problem in and of itself with employees who should be disaplined.

What's sad is, the probationary new hires are not the problem, and even the employees who will get let go with RIFs are mostly not the issue. When they start the RIFs, there is a whole procedure where tenure plays a big part. The GS 14 and 15s who have been there for 40 years and the biggest problems and they are going to be the hardest to get rid of. Even some of them, there are some incredibly dedicated and hardworking people, the problem is they work hard and tirelessly feeding the bureaucratic machine which in the end just prevents the real work from getting done, but that concept is lost on them. The whole system is broken.

Cheesy? It came from hr@opm.gov, what other letterhead/endorsement do you need? Looks like a pretty simple email that could be responded to in less than 5 minutes, I know the concept of simple is hard for the govt bureaucracy to understand. I have to enter detailed time tracking for everything I do, it's a sad state of affairs when govt employees whine about this.

I think its illegal to spend government money on something it's not budgeted for. In other words, if they have an HR budget as part of their total budget, and you cut the HR expenditures, they can't spend those $ on something else. If I remember governmental accounting properly. It was NOT a class I enjoyed!!

I think there is a whole lot of "I don't like being told what to do" / "I don't trust the motive behind this" / "I don't like change" - one or all of those. I have seen push back on about it from folks on both sides of the political aisle. In some cases I think the departments are doing their jobs and there are already reports being done at regular intervals and there is no need for a response when the department will have those answers anyway.

But, truth be told, if every supervisor up the chain of command was doing their jobs, this whole thing wouldn't even be an issue in my opinion. Those that were not bringing enough to the table to justify being paid should have been cut loose prior to this email anyway.

As for reduction in force, that is another issue and tenure shouldn't override productivity. If everything else is equal but time on the job, then tenure should carry some weight.

Many aren’t whining, we’re doing what our coc is saying to do. First off, we don’t work for OPM. This request is similar to having your neighbor come over and nibshit into your business. It’s the point of the matter, not the simple response.

You know who you do work for though??

Doesn’t seem they are cutting VA benefits. Read a little, or not.

https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-dismisses-more-than-1000-employees/

VA is no exception to needing to be more efficient. It's a critical Military benefit and shouldn't be burdened with dead weight. Resources appear to be going where they need to be now. Good news.

Quote from the article above: There are currently more than 43,000 probationary employees across the department, the vast majority of whom are exempt from today’s personnel actions because they serve in mission-critical positions – primarily those supporting benefits and services for VA beneficiaries – or are covered under a collective bargaining agreement.

Note the wording highlighted in red. No problem with the "mission critical positions or those supporting benefits or services for VA beneficiaries" being fully exempt, but that last part rubs me the wrong way. I read the way that last section is worded to mean that there are most likely numerous unneeded positions that they would love to eliminate but can do nothing about eliminating because they are "union members". It's well past time for all unions to be sent to the wayside. They were needed in the past but in today's environment do nothing but prohibit streamlining processes and procedures and hinder production improvements and waste elimination by handcuffing management. There is certainly no place for a union in the US govt.