Federal Government Employees Reach Out

This is an update on the information I'm receiving from federal government employees across agencies.

Yesterday, I put up a post on Bluesky asking any and all federal government employees to reach out to me via DM if they had anything they wanted to share regarding the transition to the new administration.

The response has been overwhelming, and I’m still going through everything I received, but I wanted to summarize some patterns I’m seeing from government workers concerned about their jobs and well-being.

As many of you know, I worked at the Department of Veterans Affairs for over a decade and was chased out after my Mueller, She Wrote podcast was investigated by my agency during Trump’s first term - so this is an issue that’s personal to me - aside from the objectively destructive nature of the cache of executive orders and memos that have gone out to the federal workforce over the past few days.

First, the DEIA Memo threatening federal employees with retribution if they do not inform on their coworkers and colleagues has everyone on edge. I asked people yesterday, both on The Daily Beans podcast and on Bluesky, to flood the inbox with fake reports in an effort to render it useless. I don’t know if this is working, and OPM might be rejecting emails from outside the government, but I thought it was worth a shot anyhow.

But the overwhelming feeling inside the government is confusion and fear - likely the goal of these orders.

The second memo I received a lot of screenshots of is the OPM memo rescinding telework and remote work for people without a reasonable accommodation for a disability. The patterns of emails and reports I’m receiving indicate that many who work remotely or have telework agreements have not yet been instructed to return to the office. The majority of those who haven’t had their remote/telework rescinded don’t have an office to return to, so I imagine department heads are seeking clarification for where to put these workers.

Though the OPM memo rescinding remote/telework claims that there are tons of empty government offices, the people who have reached out to me by and large refute that claim saying their physical offices have no room for them, or that they never had a physical office in the first place.

I’ve also been inundated with workers informing me that they’ve all been scheduled for town halls or all-hands meetings and huddles in their respective departments, and many have sent audio of those meetings. In one case, someone sent me a town hall link that was published by the agency, but the DEIA portion of the meeting had been muted.

I’m also getting a lot of workers sending me screenshots of emails to halt all social media activity, and orders to remove all pronouns from employee profiles and email signatures. I can’t tell if these orders are an effort to protect their employees, or just an order.

Another common theme are workers who are probationary. As discussed in our podcast yesterday, there are roughly 220K federal workers who are in their probationary period, and 25% or so work at the VA due to a recent hiring spree of nurses to care for our Veterans.

I’m also hearing from people who had been offered a job with a start date in the future that have had their offers rescinded due to the hiring freeze put in place by the administration.

But something present in every single message I’ve received is confusion, anger, and fear. These folks have dedicated their lives, or recently decided to dedicate their careers to public service. And in that spirit, they are not only worried for themselves and their families, but for the Americans they serve. They are selfless citizens - the helpers Mr Rogers told us to look for - and they need our help.

I will continue to amplify their voices - with anonymity - because it’s important that we understand what’s happening. Thank you to all who reached out and will continue to reach out.

~AG