Yes, there are lots of federal workers who have been sitting at home babysitting on the taxpayer dime since Covid started. There are also lots of folks like this, caught in the undertow.
Her job has changed, and she might have to move. Although she was competent, her job has changed. Does she think she was protected from this because she was a federal worker? This happens in the free market, too
Agree, but this is not how large companies, much less governments, typically operate when they're making moves like this. They give employees a reasonable amount of time to make decisions and are transparent about the options. This process appears designed to frighten and punish people.
I am sorry Alex but i don't know where you get that from- I have more than once had a company call in myself and a large number of employees and told "Sorry, downsizing" heres your 2 weeks notice" Good luck.
I see very little difference Alex. What is going on in the Federal gov't is downsizing. There are always stories that may seem unfair. And in most cases its the most recently hired that go first.
Moderation no longer seems reasonable to me after 4 years of the havoc we have just endured. I am not gleeful. The firehose of activity is overwhelming but DT understands, after all the (many unfair) 'obstacles' thrown in his path as '45, he must accomplish a lot in these first two years as '47 before midterms - on behalf of the American people who have experienced a MASSIVE amount of collateral damage in the last 4 years and want it to be exposed, turned around and stopped now.
Collateral damage has never been a fair or good thing in my estimation, so I offer nothing in its defense. That said, and with a sincere and specific apology to the writer of the email to Alex who is just one human being suffering from being caught in the crossfire as DT works to turn things around fast, I'm about to unleash a full rant on that very subject of collateral damage. Please brace yourself if you choose to read further:
Collateral damage didn't matter when Biden and his handlers unlawfully closed small businesses and totally DECIMATED America's middle class small business owners in favor of big box stores and liquor joints etc. remaining open that led to the LARGEST WEALTH TRANSFER FROM THE MIDDLE CLASS TO THE RICHEST OF THE RICH during covid. We're talking TENS OF THOUSANDS OF JOBS here while government bureaucrats got to stay home and collect THEIR paychecks.
Collateral damage didn't matter when working age Americans were force fed the ever changing lock step narrative the toxic injections for a gain of function created virus in Wuhan (funded via USAID) were SAFE AND EFFECTIVE when they weren't and everyone knew it but these injections became a mandated condition of employment in both the private sector and our military. TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE LOST JOBS UNFAIRLY THEN in both the private sector and our military and I don't recall any outcry of concern for that collateral damage.
Collateral damage didn't seem to matter either when reasonable doctors and scientists who had previously outstanding reputations asked reasonable questions or offered reasonable alternative therapies or ideas on how to handle the 'pandemic' were censored, cancelled, silenced and then LOST THEIR JOBS AND LICENSES.
Collateral damage didn't matter (in fact it was celebrated with GLEE which I recall first hand) when the unvaccinated were blamed shamed shunned and targeted by the President of the United States and main stream media AFTER it was clear the virtuously fully vaccinated were catching carrying and spreading covid.
Collateral damage has not been a concern at all in the last four years as far as I can see, which is quite specifically how we got to this 'gotta get it done NOW' situation taking place today.
In no particular order collateral damage has been perpetrated all over the place in the last four years with devastating impact on the lives of millions of Americans due to:
white supremacy being declared America's biggest problem
the pipeline being shut down on day 1 (jobs? seriously?)
the border was flung wide open and millions surged into America
BLM riots were fine (people died, small businesses burned to the ground)
the VP supported paying bail for the BLM riot criminals
Afghanistan debacle
DEI, critical race theory, transgender mutilation at taxpayer expense, men in women's sports and prisons, tots being read stories by hideous men in sexy women's clothing - all of this force fed everywhere, with the cancellation and vile censorship of anyone who even asked a reasonable question about any of these vile horrors
endless smug lying by our government and msm about everything all day everyday with no consequences or apologies - lies about a president who was an incapacitated, incompetent, condescending criminal and traitor to our country who took money from China and Ukraine under the cover of his son's international corrupt dealings and blatantly lied about his son's laptop while getting 52 top government security officials to lie along with him about it - with serious collateral damage heaped upon anyone who dared address or question the facts about any of this and NO consequences to the liars
defunding of police while the border was flung open causing our communities to be ravaged by crime, drugs, evil gangs terrorizing American citizens and overwhelmed education and social services - talk about collateral damage to the American people
people entering our country in droves illegally and being given free transportation to hotels along with phones and gift cards etc on the taxpayers dime
targeting parents at school board meetings, not criminals
paying off student debt (when we and our kids paid tens of thousands in education loans for their education loans) and yes I consider it collateral damage to me and my family that my taxes were used to pay for this robbery
I'll just stop there. It was absolutely all too much and Trump is now racing against time to turn things around and clean out the 98% far left wing bureaucrats imposing all this horror on the American public. Collateral damage? Yeah. It happens.
PS forgot to mention the 'collateral damage' to American children by the Department of Education!
Bravo 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 -- not even this site gave much, if any, voice to those losing their jobs/businesses/incomes during the Covid experimentation. It is a known that transitions occur in every change of administrations, state & federal.
True. The fact that she has only held this job for one year will not do her any favors in the area of retention, unfortunately, but if her job is deemed an essential part of the agency, she may be spared, or furloughed and brought back. It is difficult to gauge how these things will play out, as it is when a company merges with another. As a spouse of someone who has been in the employ of a large tech company for over 30 years, I can say that mergers create uncertain times for employees, most of whom are helpless to do anything about it. This was unfortunately bound to happen, and I would even go so far as to say virtually unavoidable considering the circumstances. She must either hang in there and ride it out as best she can, taking actions that she feels serve her interests for the future, or look for another job.
And, I have read somewhere else that it generally is very difficult to fire federal government employees who have been on the job for more than one year. This is why there is a big push right now to terminate those hired within the last year of Biden's administration (example: the estimated 1,100 employees hired by the EPA alone last year).
When I read her heartfelt letter, my first thought was that USCIS likely has lots of now-unused office space that we are paying for, and my 2nd thought was that they (USCIS) should never have hired this nice person to work remotely in the first place. I understand the arguments she makes about how her particular job performance can be audited remotely - i.e., she can't get away with a mouse-jiggler to pretend to be working. But how do I know that she's doing her job even-handedly, or conscientiously, when she is working remotely. Alex has been a victim of rebuffed FOIA requests, for example, as have many others who make FOIA requests for which bureaucrats don't want to comply, for political reasons. This is just one aspect of the issues here - how do I have any confidence in the adequacy of her supervision when it is never going to be done in person?
Having been on both sides of downsizing, it's not fun and usually comes swift and hard, welcome to the real world happens all the time. We are literally broke, upside down and this is no time for mercy and kindness. Maybe if we run it more like a business, we will have more success!
When I was much younger I got hired to be a cook in a steakhouse. 2 weeks later we are told at closing time the restaurant is closing the location and we are required to break down the equipment if we want our last paycheck. I was hired knowing the location was closing. No warning, no mercy, no severance. Guess what, got another job.
I know of several instances where companies relocated and employees were given the option of moving with the company or taking a severance package. This is no different. When the administration changes every 4-8 years, the incoming admin cannot he held to honor any promises made by the outgoing one. That is how we got into this situation. I feel for her, but life unfortunately is unfair at times and we have to make and/or accept change. I hope she is able to find employment elsewhere.
No Alex, the reality for many people is just like this. You like to think corporations are nicer, but they are not.
The local Sam's Club closed a couple of years ago here. Employees showed up for work to find the building chained and locked. That is the reality of life.
I don't not like her, but also don't feel sorry for her.
I have lost jobs.
I run a business. I cannot afford to pay everyone a severance or make sure they have a soft landing if something happens and the business needs to close. That is reality.
Americans think they have all these 'guarantees,' but who is going to pay for those guarantees?
Likely she got the same payout offer. 8 MONTHS severance is more than most companies would ever consider giving.
Life sucks quite frequently. Ya just learn to roll with the punches.
And so what if she was hired specifically for that job.....things change. Are we, the TAXPAYERS who pay her salary, supposed to keep paying her when that job is no longer required or doesn't fit into the plan?
She says she did not get the payout offer because her agency was exempt. With that said, she is SOL. Her job requirements have changed. Was she guaranteed a job for life? I you want to call me unfeeling, so be it.
To me it seems like it is something of a forced downsizing - come in and work like everyone else or go somewhere else. Is it fair? I don't see where she was guaranteed a job for life or even any set period. She seems competent so no doubt can find something else if needed.
Yes, times like this in life are not fair, and we never had a guarantee that life would be fair. As one of my kids' teachers used to say, 'the fair is where you find the ferris wheel and cotton candy."
Alex, if she was hired remotely, her duty station is her house. The RTO mandate would not apply for her. That having been said, many of these federal workers have benefits (fringe, schedule, and actual) that most of us in the private sector do not. Her "mid five-figure" salary, combined with the lack of expenses of a daily commute, professional clothing/cleaning, etc. make that a viable option. Many of us don't get that flexibility. A big part of this is that the government was never ready for the private sector bulldozer that is now running them over. We who live in the land where things are actually produced have been dealing with this for years. Life isn't fair, and doesn't really owe you anything other than a good swift kick in the ass.
All that having been said, this is something that many people don't seem to realize (both on the right and left). Trump is an effect, not a cause. Years of mismanagement, and crazy policies are what gave rise to someone like Donald Trump. He didn't choose this movement, the movement chose him.
My cousin just went through an onerous private sector downsizing event at his company, and got fired, and then re-hired a couple of days later. His small pharma company, for which he was in the sales group in the western U.S., was told to downsize by "x" people, because the company was over budget for the prior year by about $9 million. He was told he was in the group of "x" people to be let go, and his boss in the sales group was being demoted into my cousin's position. I was perplexed by this move. Didn't the company have back office employees that could take the brunt of this downsizing? Why would this company choose to fire the people that were the "rain makers" in the sales group, in order to "right-size" the company - on the theory that you should cut your sales force only as a last resort (and, yes, my cousin was a good rain-maker)? But my cousin's initial firing was as others have described above - he was told to suck it up; you're out. By some miracle, cooler heads prevailed a few days later, and his former boss was allowed to hire my cousin back.
If she is only making mid-5 figures. I would quit....
It looks like they are just giving employees reason to quit...instead of firing them or laying them off. The latter option is more expensive. That is what companies do.
I am in tech and this happens all of the time since I have been in it for over 2 decades - getting worse too. You’re lucky to get a week of pay these days for every year when they decide to kick you to the curb.
My son went to work and the company decided to sell so half the sales force was laid off with 2 weeks severance. The rest of the remaining sales force will get a reduction in commissions. To think this doesn't happen every day in the real world is rediculous.
Okay, and how many millions of Americans have been suffering at the hands of a predatory and rapacious government?
We have been messed up for years now and correcting the mess will hurt some, but benefit more. Will you then post on those who benefit and are uplifted as we start gaining back some freedom and removing the government from our pockets?
Even in this case, is she just doing what’s she told/following guidelines, which may actually be denying people access to information they should have but our corrupt government makes difficult to obtain? How would you not understand that being a potential problem considering what happened to you?
Anyone who has worked for a corporation knows they are ruthless and soulless. They will kick you down the stairs when they feel it is profitable to do so. I worked for a "non-profit" corporation for years (non-profit because the $$ went to the salaries of the bigwigs rather than to shareholders). The older employees were well aware that we would be shown the door and replaced with younger, cheaper people if we were not unionized. I have been a fan of unions ever since.
A good friend of mine was laid off last fall when her entire department was eliminated by the company. They received 2 months of severance pay but they received no advanced notice.
No they don't. I have been in IT for over 45 years and am now retired. No -- companies act exactly like this. First rumors, then all of a sudden on a Friday they escort people out of the building...with severance maybe....but with the promise of an unemployment check. Union positions were a little different. They were handled slower and with more recourse. But no Alex....this is what happens 99% of the time.
She will get another job, she will get fired or laid off again, we all did.....save your money invest in the S&P.....she was talented enough to do her job well....and get that job. She has tools....
This happened to me twice in an IT job. I know how scared she is it is but this is reality in the corporate world. The government should have never gotten this big and unfortunately there will be a lot of heartbreaking stories.
Especially when the last administration went bat-s.it crazy hiring! Think about the tears we would’ve had if the extra 80,000 IRS agents would’ve been hired. Sheesh.
So true about investing in the stock market for retirement. It's the only thing that gives you "job security", because you can always say "no" to the employer if things go sideways. Sadly, not many people do that even in the private sector, and in the federal government they probably all count on the pension starting @55 anyway! I wonder what the unfunded liabilities are for the federal government and if that's the reason the drastic downsizing is necessary.
Alex, I was “downsized” many times in my career. Each time I was blindsided. Those affected were called into a room, told the division was being shut down, walked to their office to box their stuff and escorted out of the building with a crappy severance agreement.
I would say that if a company was bankrupt - or spending $4 trillion more per year than their revenues - they would indeed be operating like this. They would have to look for ways to turn the ship around. Inflating the debt away is one option, default is a second, and cutting waste and spending is a third. #2 is off the table and that leaves #1 or #3. #1 is unpalatable to everyone, leaving #3.
Always enjoy your writing even if I only agree about 90% of the time. lol
I'm sorry Alex, but this happens in lots of other companies too. My wife, who recently retired, was the head of human resources for one of the largest grocery/retailer companies in the US.
There were people who had been hired remotely, then after a season, had to move to the head quarters city or resign.
My wife felt bad for the people in these situations, but it's life.
Are there jobs that can be done at home? Of course. Is there also an overcorrecting right now, yes- but it's needed.
Lastly, I'm having a hard time believing her part that she was a Trump supporter in 2016, but not now. It's a little to convenient to fit her narrative. My bs detector was going off during that part.
I agree. She's full of crap that she voted for Trump in 2016 but not in 2024, ESPECIALLY when she uses the faux excuse of both choices would result in her figurative "death". If she liked what Trump campaigned on in 2016, then she should have LOVED what he campaigned on in 2024. And then there's THIS non-sequitur from the esteemed "veteran": "A woman helicopter pilot shouldn't be vilified strictly because of her biological sex." Where the HELL did that doozy line come from???? I smell a USAID troll. Well, maybe not USAID as that's been cancelled, LOL. DOD, perhaps?
I agree that it's strange that she describes voting for Harris or Trump would be like "death". The election was a clear choice of voting for an activist agenda or voting for policy that prioritizes citizens. There was no comparison. I've never felt that electing Trump was going back to "1950s" or "prom culture", whatever that is. Why were agencies hiring remote workers when there are government buildings taxpayers pay for that are practically empty? What a waste.
I'm an electrical engineer who has been through plenty of layoffs. They come in two kinds:
(1) "Downsizing", where it's an opportunity to get rid of unproductive employees without facing wrongful termination lawsuits ("your position was eliminated" as opposed to "you are being fired for gross incompetence"). Those weren't fun days, but they were definitely a net positive. (I was never laid off in one of those.)
(2) Your entire division is shut down. Those are sudden, and no, there's no time to make decisions. You're escorted to your desk so you can collect any personal belongings, then escorted to the door. Generally there's a severance package. *Sometimes* you are given the opportunity to interview for other jobs within the company, which usually are in another state.
My big concern is what happens when ALL federal employees are given an attractive buyout option: the good, competent workers are the ones who can get a job in the private sector, so they do. And that leaves mostly incompetent and/or lazy workers - the exact ones you'd like to get rid of.
I feel for this woman who is basically about to be laid off, but "welcome to the real world". She'll have to find another job. If she's as productive as she says, she'll land on her feet. The US desperately needs hard workers.
You don’t know many big companies then. I’ve worked nearly my entire adult life for two of THE BIGGEST tech companies on the planet while also being a USAF Reserve officer. Between my work associates we have worked at: Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook/Meta, Salesforce, and Amazon. ALL OF THEM DO THIS. For my civilian jobs I can tell you that THIS IS EXACTLY HOW they operate. My team and I often joke with dark humor, that the first thing we do for work each day is check if we can sign in. Just recently, an entire team was told to get off fully remote by finding a role elsewhere in the company or go bye-bye. I have no idea where you’ve come up with your conception of how big companies work with regard to layoffs/reorgs but in my experience, you couldn’t be more mistaken.
Again, you seem attuned to attack the very people who you have benefited from.
A couple of things here. I work for a large private corporation in the pharmaceutical space. I too was hired with 100% flexible work from home rules. Those rules were changed on me within one year. Not 100% in the office, but 50% with a requirement to be in the office on certain days. My commute is one hour each way, sometimes more.
We have, or had, 22,000 employees globally. Last year, McKinsey walked in and told senior management to lay off 1,900 people. No rhyme or reason, but the company is doing it. I survived this round but no guarantees past 2025.
I have been working for 35 years and I can tell your correspondent that slash and burn is not just common but typical in the private sector. And we’re making a profit. We’re also not hostile to the shareholders.
Losing a job is never fun, whether you deserve it or not. Very few of the 1,900 my current employers are cutting deserve it, but they’re getting cut anyway. That’s the way it is.
be careful to save when you edit using the three little dots - I think I lost my very long rant I posted today and edited by not saving or something - I can't see it anywhere here and there's no way I can recreate it ugh
This is not true. You might get a 30 day notice or a 2 week notice. There is not always severance. She took a risk on a job and it did not work out. I can't tell you how many jobs I have had in my 55 years of working. There are no guarantees. The Biden administration did her dirty not the republicans. I know how employees where I contracted squawked when they were ordered to return to work. Before Covid they worked hybrid, 2 days in the office 3 at home. And the still complained. I told my manager if you make enough stink they must just well switch it up to 3 in office or even 4 days in office. Be grateful for what you have. Who knows when they start moving agencies out of DC she may luck out. But this is how it is NOW. The Covid bullshit is over.
It wasn’t transparent when I was downsized. And no one cried for me. My severance was a pittance and I was cut off from corporate systems immediately. Oh and I lost my benefits.
So I cried and picked myself up and found another job.
Kind of like my brother-in-law, who was a firefighter captain, with 30 years experience, who spent a year doing his job with Covid hanging around, and once the vaxx was demanded, refused it & lost his job…with no severance & losing a retirement fund and benefits, with kids who were in school, hoping some day for college. They scrapped life together & he now drives a semi-truck, working in a farming community…doing what he has to do…not commiserating that he has to get up & dressed in the morning to show up at work. I’m not sympathetic, sorry.
Companies who are firing people don’t give them time to process it. An employee gives notice but an employer doesn’t. The opposite, in fact - it’s usually late on Friday or first thing on Monday so they can’t make mayhem, or they’re escorted out. I’m sorry anyone has lost their job in the general sense but welcome to the real world - how many have lost their jobs since Covid? How many every day? Why should an employee in the govt be any different than the rest of us?
Disagree. They don’t have much time. 130 days or maybe 2 years max and they need to show something for it. Short term pain long term gain. Elon learned a lot from twitter and I think the same will happen here.
Working with a somewhat large insurance company for well over 2 decades, quite successfully I will add and the company made the executive decision to stop doing business in the state I lived in(NY). They gave us 2 weeks to move out of their offices and no options to transfer to other states, where I was licensed as well. It’s business, it happens and they don’t have to play nicey nice. 🤷♂️
"But if it saves just one job"....hmmm....where have we heard that before?.....
This individual wouldn't be shocked if they had a job in the real world. I'm shocked they're surprised by this.
It's called "at-will" employment. Having a job these days is volunteer work in a formal transaction between the employee and the employer. Both have risk. Right or wrong that's just how it is...and it ain't ever going back to the "old" days.
Seems as though this individual did a not so good job at calculating risk.
Dell computers is also cancelling remote jobs - just like Amazon, Tesla, Apple and a lot of folks since Covid is over. We kind of are back to the old days.
That aside I am enjoying Alex's heel turn and his brand new anti-Trump blog. I am not 100% sure I will renew, but it feels a lot like when the ugly wrestlers come out and taunt the crowd, and they all get stirred up to support the babyface.
Agreed, and it may have nothing to do with the quality of her work and I don't believe at all it would have to do with her gender. But something needs to be done and there are innocent victims in everything, such as the taxpayer have been innocent victims for how many decades now on huge government waste and abuse.
The masses are hyperventilating and jumping to the absolute farthest conclusion that everyone will be shit-canned regardless without any kind of deeper dive into their position or their importance for a functional government. I don't believe that's happening and if her job is able to be done effectively via remote access and she has the metrics to prove that I don't think this "slash and burn" that everybody's crying about will affect her.
Both Trump and Musk did not get where they are in the business world by just arbitrarily firing everyone.
This reeks of "IF WE CAN SAVE JUST ONE CHILD" it's worth it to rob the entire country. I'm sorry she's losing her job, she can commiserate with the thousands of Keystone Pipeline workers that suddenly lost their jobs on day one of Biden's reign of terror.
There is a competent worker shortage in this country. I'm sorry the real world sucks, apply for unemployment benefits, or as old Joe said, learn to code.
Sorry, but I was threatened with jail time and closure of my business for not requiring customers to wear masks. I feel very little pity. 75% of government is a waste. Slash and burn is the only way to get it done.
" A woman helicopter pilot shouldn't be vilified strictly because of her biological sex." No one is vilifying her because of her sex. When you have DIE policies, you do not know whether that was a factor in her hiring. It is divisive, corrosive and evil. It hurts her and everyone else who is qualified.
I have said this many times... DEI is hurting those it purports to help most. Every woman, every minority, deserves to be viewed with suspicion in their careers. An awful position to be in when you're qualified and have worked hard but here we are.
Whose fault is it that the woman pilot was vilified? Democrats. They employed DEI policy in every government agency. DEI makes everyone question if minorities are qualified for the job or are there because of merit.
As a woman, I would pray never to be pushed beyond my abilities (because I was a woman) in a life or death situation in congested airspace with inadequate ATC support. That’s insane and US passengers demand answers, wherever that leads.
I'm not sure I'd hire someone who seemed oblivious to the change in the zeitgeist. Return to work has been the writing on the wall for a couple of years.
Certainly someone evaluating a remote position should've done a much better risk analysis.
The trees are being shaken. This won’t be perfect, but you have to start somewhere…sure, good people will be caught up in the process, but does anyone really have 100% job security? I don’t.
There is no such thing as 100% job security. Good comment. It is long overdue that the federal government employees' tree is shaken. Something much better for her may be around the corner.
The huge Federal Government has been created over a century and expanded far beyond the constitutional limits. There are few chances to restore liberty to the country based on what the Founders designed. This is one.
Yeah, that's a bummer. I wonder if she was as concerned for the tens of thousands of people that were fired from their jobs during the prior administration for not taking an experimental injection? Probably not.
New administration. New rules. Just because you have a government job doesn't mean that you are entitled to it for life. Also, is she one of the people that releases the documents with the entire thing basically redacted? lol.
I'm sure if she's competent she can find something closer to home. Remember, its the last four years that were an abberation, and this is just returning us to normal working conditions. Biden should have started this process at least two years ago if he wanted these workers to have a "soft landing".
I've never thought all WFH gov't employee are grifters, but we need broad reductions in bureaucracy, a major RIF and we can't take months and months to do it. Unfortunately, some very qualified people will be impacted.
I couldn’t care less Alex. For far too long, the hard-working taxpayers have been sh*t on without any regard whatsoever. These are dire times. The National Debt keeps climbing and yet we still spend more than we can take in. Chaos is good. For those of us in the private sector, chaos often is part of change. Accept it and pull up your Big Boy Pants and stop crying me a river. For once, we are surprisingly seeing measures carried out that legions of us wanted and voted for last November. Thank f*cking God!
If you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs. I sympathize with those good people who are caught in the cross-hairs, I really do. But do federal employees have more job security and protection than regular folks like me? A regular worker can lose their job at any moment. It sucks, but it's reality. We have to start somewhere, and it won't be perfect, but hopefully closer to perfection than what we currently have.
Yes, it's called at-will employment, and there are very few protections from it. Our country's finances are in dire straights so unfortunately we have to be brutal in restoring some fiscal responsibility and sustainability to it. Do not shoot the messenger (DOGE and Trump too). They're doing the dirty work that should have been done long ago but no-one ever wanted to be the "bad guy".
The federal government has become an inefficient, bloated machine, and any serious effort to shrink it was always going to be drastic. No politician has had the will to take on this challenge—except Trump. He was elected to do it, and he’s delivering.
Yes, some workers are caught in the fallout, but the reality is that the government cannot continue operating this way. Reform was never going to be painless.
This happens all the time in the private sector, so it is what it is. I think we have to shrink the federal workforce and I think it's fair to say it's time to come back to work in the office. This is life. It's not always easy.
“Choosing between lethal injection and hanging.” Really?? Sounds to me like she harbors some animosity, confusion and bitterness. Tell her to reach out to her superiors and see if there is some wiggle room for her”predicament.”
Her job has changed, and she might have to move. Although she was competent, her job has changed. Does she think she was protected from this because she was a federal worker? This happens in the free market, too
Agree, but this is not how large companies, much less governments, typically operate when they're making moves like this. They give employees a reasonable amount of time to make decisions and are transparent about the options. This process appears designed to frighten and punish people.
I am sorry Alex but i don't know where you get that from- I have more than once had a company call in myself and a large number of employees and told "Sorry, downsizing" heres your 2 weeks notice" Good luck.
She's not being downsized, she's being told to move from a job for which she was hired remotely.
I see very little difference Alex. What is going on in the Federal gov't is downsizing. There are always stories that may seem unfair. And in most cases its the most recently hired that go first.
Spot on. At my work they call it “right-sizing” or “restructuring.” It’s all the same to those impacted.
LIFO (last in first out) accounting principle
Moderation no longer seems reasonable to me after 4 years of the havoc we have just endured. I am not gleeful. The firehose of activity is overwhelming but DT understands, after all the (many unfair) 'obstacles' thrown in his path as '45, he must accomplish a lot in these first two years as '47 before midterms - on behalf of the American people who have experienced a MASSIVE amount of collateral damage in the last 4 years and want it to be exposed, turned around and stopped now.
Collateral damage has never been a fair or good thing in my estimation, so I offer nothing in its defense. That said, and with a sincere and specific apology to the writer of the email to Alex who is just one human being suffering from being caught in the crossfire as DT works to turn things around fast, I'm about to unleash a full rant on that very subject of collateral damage. Please brace yourself if you choose to read further:
Collateral damage didn't matter when Biden and his handlers unlawfully closed small businesses and totally DECIMATED America's middle class small business owners in favor of big box stores and liquor joints etc. remaining open that led to the LARGEST WEALTH TRANSFER FROM THE MIDDLE CLASS TO THE RICHEST OF THE RICH during covid. We're talking TENS OF THOUSANDS OF JOBS here while government bureaucrats got to stay home and collect THEIR paychecks.
Collateral damage didn't matter when working age Americans were force fed the ever changing lock step narrative the toxic injections for a gain of function created virus in Wuhan (funded via USAID) were SAFE AND EFFECTIVE when they weren't and everyone knew it but these injections became a mandated condition of employment in both the private sector and our military. TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE LOST JOBS UNFAIRLY THEN in both the private sector and our military and I don't recall any outcry of concern for that collateral damage.
Collateral damage didn't seem to matter either when reasonable doctors and scientists who had previously outstanding reputations asked reasonable questions or offered reasonable alternative therapies or ideas on how to handle the 'pandemic' were censored, cancelled, silenced and then LOST THEIR JOBS AND LICENSES.
Collateral damage didn't matter (in fact it was celebrated with GLEE which I recall first hand) when the unvaccinated were blamed shamed shunned and targeted by the President of the United States and main stream media AFTER it was clear the virtuously fully vaccinated were catching carrying and spreading covid.
Collateral damage has not been a concern at all in the last four years as far as I can see, which is quite specifically how we got to this 'gotta get it done NOW' situation taking place today.
In no particular order collateral damage has been perpetrated all over the place in the last four years with devastating impact on the lives of millions of Americans due to:
white supremacy being declared America's biggest problem
the pipeline being shut down on day 1 (jobs? seriously?)
the border was flung wide open and millions surged into America
BLM riots were fine (people died, small businesses burned to the ground)
the VP supported paying bail for the BLM riot criminals
Afghanistan debacle
DEI, critical race theory, transgender mutilation at taxpayer expense, men in women's sports and prisons, tots being read stories by hideous men in sexy women's clothing - all of this force fed everywhere, with the cancellation and vile censorship of anyone who even asked a reasonable question about any of these vile horrors
endless smug lying by our government and msm about everything all day everyday with no consequences or apologies - lies about a president who was an incapacitated, incompetent, condescending criminal and traitor to our country who took money from China and Ukraine under the cover of his son's international corrupt dealings and blatantly lied about his son's laptop while getting 52 top government security officials to lie along with him about it - with serious collateral damage heaped upon anyone who dared address or question the facts about any of this and NO consequences to the liars
defunding of police while the border was flung open causing our communities to be ravaged by crime, drugs, evil gangs terrorizing American citizens and overwhelmed education and social services - talk about collateral damage to the American people
people entering our country in droves illegally and being given free transportation to hotels along with phones and gift cards etc on the taxpayers dime
targeting parents at school board meetings, not criminals
paying off student debt (when we and our kids paid tens of thousands in education loans for their education loans) and yes I consider it collateral damage to me and my family that my taxes were used to pay for this robbery
I'll just stop there. It was absolutely all too much and Trump is now racing against time to turn things around and clean out the 98% far left wing bureaucrats imposing all this horror on the American public. Collateral damage? Yeah. It happens.
PS forgot to mention the 'collateral damage' to American children by the Department of Education!
Excellent KFH, excellent.
Bravo 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 -- not even this site gave much, if any, voice to those losing their jobs/businesses/incomes during the Covid experimentation. It is a known that transitions occur in every change of administrations, state & federal.
True. The fact that she has only held this job for one year will not do her any favors in the area of retention, unfortunately, but if her job is deemed an essential part of the agency, she may be spared, or furloughed and brought back. It is difficult to gauge how these things will play out, as it is when a company merges with another. As a spouse of someone who has been in the employ of a large tech company for over 30 years, I can say that mergers create uncertain times for employees, most of whom are helpless to do anything about it. This was unfortunately bound to happen, and I would even go so far as to say virtually unavoidable considering the circumstances. She must either hang in there and ride it out as best she can, taking actions that she feels serve her interests for the future, or look for another job.
And, I have read somewhere else that it generally is very difficult to fire federal government employees who have been on the job for more than one year. This is why there is a big push right now to terminate those hired within the last year of Biden's administration (example: the estimated 1,100 employees hired by the EPA alone last year).
When I read her heartfelt letter, my first thought was that USCIS likely has lots of now-unused office space that we are paying for, and my 2nd thought was that they (USCIS) should never have hired this nice person to work remotely in the first place. I understand the arguments she makes about how her particular job performance can be audited remotely - i.e., she can't get away with a mouse-jiggler to pretend to be working. But how do I know that she's doing her job even-handedly, or conscientiously, when she is working remotely. Alex has been a victim of rebuffed FOIA requests, for example, as have many others who make FOIA requests for which bureaucrats don't want to comply, for political reasons. This is just one aspect of the issues here - how do I have any confidence in the adequacy of her supervision when it is never going to be done in person?
Having been on both sides of downsizing, it's not fun and usually comes swift and hard, welcome to the real world happens all the time. We are literally broke, upside down and this is no time for mercy and kindness. Maybe if we run it more like a business, we will have more success!
When I was much younger I got hired to be a cook in a steakhouse. 2 weeks later we are told at closing time the restaurant is closing the location and we are required to break down the equipment if we want our last paycheck. I was hired knowing the location was closing. No warning, no mercy, no severance. Guess what, got another job.
Lifelong government workers don't have as much of a sense of reality as people in the private sector.
I know of several instances where companies relocated and employees were given the option of moving with the company or taking a severance package. This is no different. When the administration changes every 4-8 years, the incoming admin cannot he held to honor any promises made by the outgoing one. That is how we got into this situation. I feel for her, but life unfortunately is unfair at times and we have to make and/or accept change. I hope she is able to find employment elsewhere.
I get the feeling that people in government jobs believe they will have the job for life.
And the pension too
No Alex, the reality for many people is just like this. You like to think corporations are nicer, but they are not.
The local Sam's Club closed a couple of years ago here. Employees showed up for work to find the building chained and locked. That is the reality of life.
I don't not like her, but also don't feel sorry for her.
I have lost jobs.
I run a business. I cannot afford to pay everyone a severance or make sure they have a soft landing if something happens and the business needs to close. That is reality.
Americans think they have all these 'guarantees,' but who is going to pay for those guarantees?
Likely she got the same payout offer. 8 MONTHS severance is more than most companies would ever consider giving.
Life sucks quite frequently. Ya just learn to roll with the punches.
And so what if she was hired specifically for that job.....things change. Are we, the TAXPAYERS who pay her salary, supposed to keep paying her when that job is no longer required or doesn't fit into the plan?
Welcome to reality sister.
She says she did not get the payout offer because her agency was exempt. With that said, she is SOL. Her job requirements have changed. Was she guaranteed a job for life? I you want to call me unfeeling, so be it.
To me it seems like it is something of a forced downsizing - come in and work like everyone else or go somewhere else. Is it fair? I don't see where she was guaranteed a job for life or even any set period. She seems competent so no doubt can find something else if needed.
Yes, times like this in life are not fair, and we never had a guarantee that life would be fair. As one of my kids' teachers used to say, 'the fair is where you find the ferris wheel and cotton candy."
Oh, I'm gonna remember that definition of "fair" and tell it my grandson!!
Alex, if she was hired remotely, her duty station is her house. The RTO mandate would not apply for her. That having been said, many of these federal workers have benefits (fringe, schedule, and actual) that most of us in the private sector do not. Her "mid five-figure" salary, combined with the lack of expenses of a daily commute, professional clothing/cleaning, etc. make that a viable option. Many of us don't get that flexibility. A big part of this is that the government was never ready for the private sector bulldozer that is now running them over. We who live in the land where things are actually produced have been dealing with this for years. Life isn't fair, and doesn't really owe you anything other than a good swift kick in the ass.
All that having been said, this is something that many people don't seem to realize (both on the right and left). Trump is an effect, not a cause. Years of mismanagement, and crazy policies are what gave rise to someone like Donald Trump. He didn't choose this movement, the movement chose him.
My cousin just went through an onerous private sector downsizing event at his company, and got fired, and then re-hired a couple of days later. His small pharma company, for which he was in the sales group in the western U.S., was told to downsize by "x" people, because the company was over budget for the prior year by about $9 million. He was told he was in the group of "x" people to be let go, and his boss in the sales group was being demoted into my cousin's position. I was perplexed by this move. Didn't the company have back office employees that could take the brunt of this downsizing? Why would this company choose to fire the people that were the "rain makers" in the sales group, in order to "right-size" the company - on the theory that you should cut your sales force only as a last resort (and, yes, my cousin was a good rain-maker)? But my cousin's initial firing was as others have described above - he was told to suck it up; you're out. By some miracle, cooler heads prevailed a few days later, and his former boss was allowed to hire my cousin back.
Oops...sorry. That is different....
If she is only making mid-5 figures. I would quit....
It looks like they are just giving employees reason to quit...instead of firing them or laying them off. The latter option is more expensive. That is what companies do.
Yes and that remote job no longer exists
Big deal! It's a new boss. You are being ridiculous.
She also has the option to resign and collect 8 months wages and benefits.
We out here in the real (non-governmental) world rarely have that option.
I am in tech and this happens all of the time since I have been in it for over 2 decades - getting worse too. You’re lucky to get a week of pay these days for every year when they decide to kick you to the curb.
My son went to work and the company decided to sell so half the sales force was laid off with 2 weeks severance. The rest of the remaining sales force will get a reduction in commissions. To think this doesn't happen every day in the real world is rediculous.
But if it saves just one job.....
LOL
Okay, and how many millions of Americans have been suffering at the hands of a predatory and rapacious government?
We have been messed up for years now and correcting the mess will hurt some, but benefit more. Will you then post on those who benefit and are uplifted as we start gaining back some freedom and removing the government from our pockets?
Even in this case, is she just doing what’s she told/following guidelines, which may actually be denying people access to information they should have but our corrupt government makes difficult to obtain? How would you not understand that being a potential problem considering what happened to you?
Anyone who has worked for a corporation knows they are ruthless and soulless. They will kick you down the stairs when they feel it is profitable to do so. I worked for a "non-profit" corporation for years (non-profit because the $$ went to the salaries of the bigwigs rather than to shareholders). The older employees were well aware that we would be shown the door and replaced with younger, cheaper people if we were not unionized. I have been a fan of unions ever since.
Agree with you. It happened to me too.
A good friend of mine was laid off last fall when her entire department was eliminated by the company. They received 2 months of severance pay but they received no advanced notice.
Yes
No they don't. I have been in IT for over 45 years and am now retired. No -- companies act exactly like this. First rumors, then all of a sudden on a Friday they escort people out of the building...with severance maybe....but with the promise of an unemployment check. Union positions were a little different. They were handled slower and with more recourse. But no Alex....this is what happens 99% of the time.
She will get another job, she will get fired or laid off again, we all did.....save your money invest in the S&P.....she was talented enough to do her job well....and get that job. She has tools....
This happened to me twice in an IT job. I know how scared she is it is but this is reality in the corporate world. The government should have never gotten this big and unfortunately there will be a lot of heartbreaking stories.
Especially when the last administration went bat-s.it crazy hiring! Think about the tears we would’ve had if the extra 80,000 IRS agents would’ve been hired. Sheesh.
You are 1,000 percent correct.
So true about investing in the stock market for retirement. It's the only thing that gives you "job security", because you can always say "no" to the employer if things go sideways. Sadly, not many people do that even in the private sector, and in the federal government they probably all count on the pension starting @55 anyway! I wonder what the unfunded liabilities are for the federal government and if that's the reason the drastic downsizing is necessary.
I worked for Disney Online/Go.com when their e-commerce failed and we were let go with nothing. I lost my $27 an hour job at the age of 22.
The escort out the door by security is the final kick in the pants!
Sorry I have been downsized and age discriminated against. This is the real world if they are good worker and competent they will find another gig.
I was an employee with Arthur Andersen just before it died in 2002. I don't know of anyone there who didn't land on their feet somewhere else.
Alex, I was “downsized” many times in my career. Each time I was blindsided. Those affected were called into a room, told the division was being shut down, walked to their office to box their stuff and escorted out of the building with a crappy severance agreement.
I would say that if a company was bankrupt - or spending $4 trillion more per year than their revenues - they would indeed be operating like this. They would have to look for ways to turn the ship around. Inflating the debt away is one option, default is a second, and cutting waste and spending is a third. #2 is off the table and that leaves #1 or #3. #1 is unpalatable to everyone, leaving #3.
Always enjoy your writing even if I only agree about 90% of the time. lol
I'm sorry Alex, but this happens in lots of other companies too. My wife, who recently retired, was the head of human resources for one of the largest grocery/retailer companies in the US.
There were people who had been hired remotely, then after a season, had to move to the head quarters city or resign.
My wife felt bad for the people in these situations, but it's life.
Are there jobs that can be done at home? Of course. Is there also an overcorrecting right now, yes- but it's needed.
Lastly, I'm having a hard time believing her part that she was a Trump supporter in 2016, but not now. It's a little to convenient to fit her narrative. My bs detector was going off during that part.
I agree. She's full of crap that she voted for Trump in 2016 but not in 2024, ESPECIALLY when she uses the faux excuse of both choices would result in her figurative "death". If she liked what Trump campaigned on in 2016, then she should have LOVED what he campaigned on in 2024. And then there's THIS non-sequitur from the esteemed "veteran": "A woman helicopter pilot shouldn't be vilified strictly because of her biological sex." Where the HELL did that doozy line come from???? I smell a USAID troll. Well, maybe not USAID as that's been cancelled, LOL. DOD, perhaps?
I agree that it's strange that she describes voting for Harris or Trump would be like "death". The election was a clear choice of voting for an activist agenda or voting for policy that prioritizes citizens. There was no comparison. I've never felt that electing Trump was going back to "1950s" or "prom culture", whatever that is. Why were agencies hiring remote workers when there are government buildings taxpayers pay for that are practically empty? What a waste.
Bingo!
Exactly!
I'm an electrical engineer who has been through plenty of layoffs. They come in two kinds:
(1) "Downsizing", where it's an opportunity to get rid of unproductive employees without facing wrongful termination lawsuits ("your position was eliminated" as opposed to "you are being fired for gross incompetence"). Those weren't fun days, but they were definitely a net positive. (I was never laid off in one of those.)
(2) Your entire division is shut down. Those are sudden, and no, there's no time to make decisions. You're escorted to your desk so you can collect any personal belongings, then escorted to the door. Generally there's a severance package. *Sometimes* you are given the opportunity to interview for other jobs within the company, which usually are in another state.
My big concern is what happens when ALL federal employees are given an attractive buyout option: the good, competent workers are the ones who can get a job in the private sector, so they do. And that leaves mostly incompetent and/or lazy workers - the exact ones you'd like to get rid of.
I feel for this woman who is basically about to be laid off, but "welcome to the real world". She'll have to find another job. If she's as productive as she says, she'll land on her feet. The US desperately needs hard workers.
You don’t know many big companies then. I’ve worked nearly my entire adult life for two of THE BIGGEST tech companies on the planet while also being a USAF Reserve officer. Between my work associates we have worked at: Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Facebook/Meta, Salesforce, and Amazon. ALL OF THEM DO THIS. For my civilian jobs I can tell you that THIS IS EXACTLY HOW they operate. My team and I often joke with dark humor, that the first thing we do for work each day is check if we can sign in. Just recently, an entire team was told to get off fully remote by finding a role elsewhere in the company or go bye-bye. I have no idea where you’ve come up with your conception of how big companies work with regard to layoffs/reorgs but in my experience, you couldn’t be more mistaken.
Again, you seem attuned to attack the very people who you have benefited from.
Alex, 8 months IS a reasonable amount of time, wouldn't you agree?
And certainly more than 99% of the entire workforce gets!
More than the average person would ever get in the private sector!
Apparently you haven't worked for a large company recently. You are 100% wrong.
Hi Alex,
A couple of things here. I work for a large private corporation in the pharmaceutical space. I too was hired with 100% flexible work from home rules. Those rules were changed on me within one year. Not 100% in the office, but 50% with a requirement to be in the office on certain days. My commute is one hour each way, sometimes more.
We have, or had, 22,000 employees globally. Last year, McKinsey walked in and told senior management to lay off 1,900 people. No rhyme or reason, but the company is doing it. I survived this round but no guarantees past 2025.
I have been working for 35 years and I can tell your correspondent that slash and burn is not just common but typical in the private sector. And we’re making a profit. We’re also not hostile to the shareholders.
Losing a job is never fun, whether you deserve it or not. Very few of the 1,900 my current employers are cutting deserve it, but they’re getting cut anyway. That’s the way it is.
You're very wrong here. I can confirm what Mike is saying beings I've owned multiple companies in the last 25 years.
There's a reason you fire on Fridays. There's also a lesson every single business owner learns the first time...or they don't get a second chance:
If you think you need to cut, you're already late. And whenever you decide to cut; cut DEEP and HARD.
Now I can't like either. What is going on?
be careful to save when you edit using the three little dots - I think I lost my very long rant I posted today and edited by not saving or something - I can't see it anywhere here and there's no way I can recreate it ugh
You can edit by tapping the three little dots to the upper right of your comment if you do it quickly.
This is not true. You might get a 30 day notice or a 2 week notice. There is not always severance. She took a risk on a job and it did not work out. I can't tell you how many jobs I have had in my 55 years of working. There are no guarantees. The Biden administration did her dirty not the republicans. I know how employees where I contracted squawked when they were ordered to return to work. Before Covid they worked hybrid, 2 days in the office 3 at home. And the still complained. I told my manager if you make enough stink they must just well switch it up to 3 in office or even 4 days in office. Be grateful for what you have. Who knows when they start moving agencies out of DC she may luck out. But this is how it is NOW. The Covid bullshit is over.
It wasn’t transparent when I was downsized. And no one cried for me. My severance was a pittance and I was cut off from corporate systems immediately. Oh and I lost my benefits.
So I cried and picked myself up and found another job.
Kind of like my brother-in-law, who was a firefighter captain, with 30 years experience, who spent a year doing his job with Covid hanging around, and once the vaxx was demanded, refused it & lost his job…with no severance & losing a retirement fund and benefits, with kids who were in school, hoping some day for college. They scrapped life together & he now drives a semi-truck, working in a farming community…doing what he has to do…not commiserating that he has to get up & dressed in the morning to show up at work. I’m not sympathetic, sorry.
Companies who are firing people don’t give them time to process it. An employee gives notice but an employer doesn’t. The opposite, in fact - it’s usually late on Friday or first thing on Monday so they can’t make mayhem, or they’re escorted out. I’m sorry anyone has lost their job in the general sense but welcome to the real world - how many have lost their jobs since Covid? How many every day? Why should an employee in the govt be any different than the rest of us?
Disagree. They don’t have much time. 130 days or maybe 2 years max and they need to show something for it. Short term pain long term gain. Elon learned a lot from twitter and I think the same will happen here.
Working with a somewhat large insurance company for well over 2 decades, quite successfully I will add and the company made the executive decision to stop doing business in the state I lived in(NY). They gave us 2 weeks to move out of their offices and no options to transfer to other states, where I was licensed as well. It’s business, it happens and they don’t have to play nicey nice. 🤷♂️
"But if it saves just one job"....hmmm....where have we heard that before?.....
This individual wouldn't be shocked if they had a job in the real world. I'm shocked they're surprised by this.
It's called "at-will" employment. Having a job these days is volunteer work in a formal transaction between the employee and the employer. Both have risk. Right or wrong that's just how it is...and it ain't ever going back to the "old" days.
Seems as though this individual did a not so good job at calculating risk.
Dell computers is also cancelling remote jobs - just like Amazon, Tesla, Apple and a lot of folks since Covid is over. We kind of are back to the old days.
That aside I am enjoying Alex's heel turn and his brand new anti-Trump blog. I am not 100% sure I will renew, but it feels a lot like when the ugly wrestlers come out and taunt the crowd, and they all get stirred up to support the babyface.
Now I can like again.
Agreed, and it may have nothing to do with the quality of her work and I don't believe at all it would have to do with her gender. But something needs to be done and there are innocent victims in everything, such as the taxpayer have been innocent victims for how many decades now on huge government waste and abuse.
The masses are hyperventilating and jumping to the absolute farthest conclusion that everyone will be shit-canned regardless without any kind of deeper dive into their position or their importance for a functional government. I don't believe that's happening and if her job is able to be done effectively via remote access and she has the metrics to prove that I don't think this "slash and burn" that everybody's crying about will affect her.
Both Trump and Musk did not get where they are in the business world by just arbitrarily firing everyone.
This reeks of "IF WE CAN SAVE JUST ONE CHILD" it's worth it to rob the entire country. I'm sorry she's losing her job, she can commiserate with the thousands of Keystone Pipeline workers that suddenly lost their jobs on day one of Biden's reign of terror.
There is a competent worker shortage in this country. I'm sorry the real world sucks, apply for unemployment benefits, or as old Joe said, learn to code.
Learn to code. 👍
Sorry, but I was threatened with jail time and closure of my business for not requiring customers to wear masks. I feel very little pity. 75% of government is a waste. Slash and burn is the only way to get it done.
Some small businesses closed for good because they could not afford to jump through the covid regulation hoops that the Biden Administration enacted.
" A woman helicopter pilot shouldn't be vilified strictly because of her biological sex." No one is vilifying her because of her sex. When you have DIE policies, you do not know whether that was a factor in her hiring. It is divisive, corrosive and evil. It hurts her and everyone else who is qualified.
@True- yeah. That line about the pilot was out of left field to me.
Considering she is involved in the death of 66 other people I think we can double check every other aspect of her life and career .
@Patricia- agreed. Was just in a strange place in the email.
Absolutely!!! We have just enough info to “think” something is even more tragic than a mishap in the air with comments like this popping up.
No, it showed her membership in the Resistance.
So was the line about a "prom."
I have said this many times... DEI is hurting those it purports to help most. Every woman, every minority, deserves to be viewed with suspicion in their careers. An awful position to be in when you're qualified and have worked hard but here we are.
Whose fault is it that the woman pilot was vilified? Democrats. They employed DEI policy in every government agency. DEI makes everyone question if minorities are qualified for the job or are there because of merit.
As a woman, I would pray never to be pushed beyond my abilities (because I was a woman) in a life or death situation in congested airspace with inadequate ATC support. That’s insane and US passengers demand answers, wherever that leads.
"But the right's slash and burn mentality is simply going to lead to the next backlash."
The only backlash will come from federal workers, 90% of whom vote Dem anyway. Hate to tell you this, but ordinary taxpayers are rejoicing!
Every diwnsizing has innocent victims. You dont think this is a common dynamic in the private sector?
It happened to me multiple times with zero notice and a crappy severance.
I'm not sure I'd hire someone who seemed oblivious to the change in the zeitgeist. Return to work has been the writing on the wall for a couple of years.
Certainly someone evaluating a remote position should've done a much better risk analysis.
The trees are being shaken. This won’t be perfect, but you have to start somewhere…sure, good people will be caught up in the process, but does anyone really have 100% job security? I don’t.
There is no such thing as 100% job security. Good comment. It is long overdue that the federal government employees' tree is shaken. Something much better for her may be around the corner.
The huge Federal Government has been created over a century and expanded far beyond the constitutional limits. There are few chances to restore liberty to the country based on what the Founders designed. This is one.
Yeah, that's a bummer. I wonder if she was as concerned for the tens of thousands of people that were fired from their jobs during the prior administration for not taking an experimental injection? Probably not.
New administration. New rules. Just because you have a government job doesn't mean that you are entitled to it for life. Also, is she one of the people that releases the documents with the entire thing basically redacted? lol.
I'm sure if she's competent she can find something closer to home. Remember, its the last four years that were an abberation, and this is just returning us to normal working conditions. Biden should have started this process at least two years ago if he wanted these workers to have a "soft landing".
Many lost jobs on Biden's first day due to his war on fossil fuels also.
👏🏻Exactly!
I've never thought all WFH gov't employee are grifters, but we need broad reductions in bureaucracy, a major RIF and we can't take months and months to do it. Unfortunately, some very qualified people will be impacted.
I couldn’t care less Alex. For far too long, the hard-working taxpayers have been sh*t on without any regard whatsoever. These are dire times. The National Debt keeps climbing and yet we still spend more than we can take in. Chaos is good. For those of us in the private sector, chaos often is part of change. Accept it and pull up your Big Boy Pants and stop crying me a river. For once, we are surprisingly seeing measures carried out that legions of us wanted and voted for last November. Thank f*cking God!
Beautiful post. I would just point out the two cuss words don’t support your position. Calmer is better. Go Musk! Go DJT!!
No argument from this Alpha Male poster. 😎
If you wanna make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs. I sympathize with those good people who are caught in the cross-hairs, I really do. But do federal employees have more job security and protection than regular folks like me? A regular worker can lose their job at any moment. It sucks, but it's reality. We have to start somewhere, and it won't be perfect, but hopefully closer to perfection than what we currently have.
Yes, it's called at-will employment, and there are very few protections from it. Our country's finances are in dire straights so unfortunately we have to be brutal in restoring some fiscal responsibility and sustainability to it. Do not shoot the messenger (DOGE and Trump too). They're doing the dirty work that should have been done long ago but no-one ever wanted to be the "bad guy".
The federal government has become an inefficient, bloated machine, and any serious effort to shrink it was always going to be drastic. No politician has had the will to take on this challenge—except Trump. He was elected to do it, and he’s delivering.
Yes, some workers are caught in the fallout, but the reality is that the government cannot continue operating this way. Reform was never going to be painless.
This happens all the time in the private sector, so it is what it is. I think we have to shrink the federal workforce and I think it's fair to say it's time to come back to work in the office. This is life. It's not always easy.
“Choosing between lethal injection and hanging.” Really?? Sounds to me like she harbors some animosity, confusion and bitterness. Tell her to reach out to her superiors and see if there is some wiggle room for her”predicament.”
If she didn't vote for Trump, she was part of the problem.
@James- sounds like she didn't vote at all so she really IS partof the problem and with no room to complain.
If she loses her federal job, I will not grieve. She is slow-witted.