The Story of DOGE, as Told by Federal Workers

Musk said he wanted to reduce the federal workforce. What was the right size, exactly? As lean as possible. Whole agencies have been emptied because tens of thousands of federal employees have been subjected to strength reductions, called RIF. Some of these actions were disputed in court, but the Supreme Court recently judged that the Trump administration could continue its proposals to potentially dismiss federal workers.

“The moment everything The day they came for a respected career deputy. Someone who embodied integrity and competence. His “crime”? Have the courage to challenge the reckless plans of Doge. One afternoon, he came back from lunch to find security waiting from his office. No explanation, no warning – just a quiet escort of the building while the amazed colleagues were looking at. Dedicated years of service have reduced to public humiliation. »» – Department of Labor Employees

“I knew what The powers in place were not legal. So, either they were incompetent and did not know that it was illegal, or they knew it was illegal and got on. Which one is more frightening? —The CDC employee

“What stands out For me, it is how disorganized and non -professional GSA (Rif) reduces (Rif). The staff were invited to return the government’s identity documents as soon as possible. We lost access to Google Drive immediately and the agency put resources on our rif there. We were prevented from sending emails to non-GSA addresses. Even trying to send an email to career documents at your private email address has become a huge problem. »» —GSA employee

“When the consumer The financial protection office was first emptied, a person left his blazer in the office and could not return to the building to obtain it. It was the only blazer they had: they were mowed, apply for jobs and had nothing to bring to interviews because of this. »» —The CFPB employee

On February 14, tens of thousands of federal workers lost their jobs, in an event that would become known to those affected as the Valentine’s Day. Other workers were told that they were going to receive letters of dismissal imminently – only to wait until the days without new.

“My fiancée and I had just returned from dinner. We are preparing to go to bed. I decide that I will just disconnect from social media and my email. I’m just going to deactivate … I saw that I had an unread message. I was dismissed at 11:00 p.m., 11:30 p.m. [My fiancée] Look at me and she sees my behavior change. [She says,] “It was email, right?” “” —Fired Federal Aviation Administration Specialist in aeronautical information

“It was Valentine’s Day Day and my partner planned a romantic dinner for us that I ate in a catatonic state, in my tracksuit pants, covered with tears. »» —The CDC employee

On February 22, in another echo of his Twitter takeover, Musk warned that the whole federal workforce was to write an email explaining what they had done the previous week.

“It was so much humiliating to have to prove, ostensibly to Elon Musk – someone not in my chain of command or even an employee of the government – which I was doing. Not only is it not their business what I was doing (it is not my supervisor), but they would not even understand anything I put it anyway because it is far too technical. I put reading receipts during my first submission, and after I did not make you crazy, it had been read after two subsequent submissions, I just stopped sending them. It made me if crazy that not only are they passive-active insinuating, I do nothing, but they waste tons of time of federal workers (and taxpayers’ money) by doing this exercise and they do not even open the emails. Exasperating.” – Department of the Defense Employee

“”[Employees were responding with] Email in different languages… answer the constitution and (for someone who comes back from maternity leave) by responding with things such as: “ breastfeeding a newborn for the number of hours, changed the number of layers with a z-de-flow, managed the contributions of the stakeholders of my parents-in-law on the best ways to cook a child. ” —VA IT worker

“I laughed hardly [at Musk’s email]. It’s so ridiculous … it’s either [that or] Be crazy 24/7 (which some of my compatriots have decided to do), and I no longer have energy. »» —Contraire of FAA air traffic