Is it that bad that fed employees are being asked to document five things they accomplished last week? I know a lot of people are pretty angry about it, but if you ask me, I think that's an easy ask in return for getting to keep my job. Is it humiliating? Yes. But if that's what was asked of me, I could put together 'five things' very easily ...couldn’t you?. Still cracking up thinking of how Trump said "I think there was a lot of genius in sending it" (the DOGE email).

It's also who is asking that is the problem. It's a shadowy non-governmental group that seems to have infiltrated the government in very unclear (maybe illegal) ways so what gives that group the right to ask and threaten your job if you don't answer?

First: the e-mail acct this is being sent out from should automatically be reported by all Feds as a phishing attempt (because that is what is is). The immediate trigger for that action is there is no entity in the Federal Govt entitled “HR”.

Second: the request is not coming from their chain of command, so is not being made through proper channels.

Third: the timing. According to the recent EO, Feds are no longer allowed to work remote or telework. The email was sent on a Saturday/Sunday when the majority of Feds are not working. It gives one workday for a response with no instructions for those not scheduled to work on Monday. Checking their e-mail and/or responding while out of the office for any reason is now in conflict with the EO.

It’s a trap. It’s a waste of taxpayer money (one conservative calculation totaled ~$8M spent to respond, nothing included yet to have anyone actual read the responses). It is yet another attempt by a non-Federal employee to attack civil servants.

Please detail why you think this is a valid, effective, legal way to improve efficiency and reduce spending.

And people are worried / unclear about HOW to answer. While it may be “an easy ask” for those of us in client services who can spew fancy BS all day every day, it is not easy for many and in fact it becomes terrifying when your job could depend on what you write in this easy ask.

This admin is deplorable (but we saw that coming).

Imagine one day out of the blue your boss tells a 19 y/o intern to write a poorly worded email that says “name 5 things you did last week or you’ll be fired.” You’ve been working six years, you love your job and perform well, but now with 0 guidance as to what is a “good” answer you’re about to put in writing 5 bullets about what you did on a random week that is up for judgement by a 19 year old who has never worked anywhere.

If this guys intern likes your answer, you survive the latest round of layoffs, but you watch your colleagues get let go from their jobs and you take on their work. Some of them may hold phds or masters degrees in fields you don’t, specific to their work. But it doesn’t matter, you must take on their portfolio.

If said intern for some reason doesn’t like what you wrote (maybe you included one of those new “bad” words), then your entire career is gone in a moment. Imagine having your child’s tuition payment on the line, a mortgage payment, imagine being someone’s primary caretaker and now your both at risk. And what was the reason? You literally have no idea why other than “waste.”

That’s the problem. If this happened at your employer, you would be furious. They’re not solving for waste, in fact we don’t know why some people are allowed to stay and others go. There’s no transparency, direction other than a general culture of “move fast and break things.” But to what end? We don’t know. Just break things?

I have a top five for my staff; in that, here are the top five things I need to have happen, here is how I measure if it’s happening, let’s talk about it at our check ins if there are issues or ways we can improve it.
So, yeah, my staff could do it BUT I know what it is they do and value it; which is a really important distinction.

Ok Elon…

Musk is eliminating the departments that were investigating his companies. Don’t be distracted. See big picture.
They cut those departments, he gets bigger contracts, no oversight. Now they can privatize all the departments and guess who cashes in!

I keep playing with the thought that all of these employees refuse to respond and they ALL get fired at once. Then what?

Also it’s a security risk, concatenating everyone’s chain of command and what they’re working on… it poses a national security risk big time