When President Musk took over Twitter, he sent out an all-hands memo asking people to commit to Twitter or quit. (A lot of them quit.) Now he’s taken over the Office of Personnel Management, and a similar memo went out last night. The memo begins with four pillars, the first of which is Return to Office, and concludes with this regal phrasing:
If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce. At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.
If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program. This program begins effective January 28 and is available to all federal employees until February 6. If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason). The details of this separation plan can be found below.
Needless to say, this whole thing is a pile of shit that will probably never get anyone any severance. Last night some federal agencies sent out alerts telling employees not to respond to the email until the agency has clarification from the DoJ.
WIRED broke the story about Musk’s takeover yesterday, and it declined to print the names of a couple of staffers because they could be underage. (The WIRED story is behind a paywall.) In addition to the possible underage staffers, there are some other gems at OPM:
The new general counsel for OPM—the office issuing all those deranged memos—is Andrew Kloster, a self-described “raging misogynist” with a public history of racist comments and a temporary restraining order for domestic violence who most recently worked for Matt Gaetz.
www.pogo.org/investigatio…
— Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) January 28, 2025 at 9:23 PM
I had some relatives who were federal employees, and the one thing they knew thoroughly was their rights as federal employees. I’m sure some a few employees will be conned by this, but as some people on BlueSky pointed out last night, some of them are posting on a subreddit for federal employees that this action from Musk has made them more resolved to keep their jobs.
Steve M had a good post yesterday about this whole strategy by the Trumpists: basically, what they want is to make this year a “Year Zero” for the government, a kind of a start over. Musk apparently believes in zero-base budgeting, where every department has to justify its existence every year. He’s so used to doing whatever he feels like doing without consequences that he’s going to do the same with the federal government. The next step is not following the inevitable injunctions from federal courts. That’s where the real crisis will begin.
tam1MI
A bit OT, but mistermix took a lot of crap from some posters here for his opinion that the Dems need to start messaging as an opposition party. Turns out that he isn’t alone in that opinion. It’s rapidly going mainstream.
Craigie
Does President Musk have to justify his existence every year? If, why not? I have notes…
Steve LaBonne
We have a Federal employee in our family- while I will say whatever and come and get me motherfuckers, I will be careful and not give any info about the person or their employment. We are sure as hell worried.
Steve LaBonne
@tam1MI: I object not to the sentiment which is correct, but to the resolve of too many people not to notice all the opposition that is happening. “If the Democrats aren’t doing this particular thing I want them to do, they aren’t opposing” is some bullshit.
Eural Joiner
Still confused about the “minor” status – one has graduated from high school so at least 17 or 18 and the other is 21. Not minors. Why are they protecting their identities?
Belafon
I can’t link to it because work, but there’s a subreddit of government workers that have decide that this letter is the motivation they need to fight back. I found it on bsky early this morning.
LAC
@tam1MI: I do not think anyone is nailing MM to the cross, just questioning his opinion that it is not happening. Is that okay?
H.E.Wolf
Another recommendation from me for the Electoral-Vote blog, whose opening article today pointed out that this administration is getting pushback on many of its proposed actions.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Jan29-1.html
With that in mind, my current rule of thumb for any outrage de l’heure is “wait three days”.
Jeffg166
The felon’s second term will be all about stiffing as many people and countries as he can as fast as he can.
Jackie
Anyone watching the Brainworm confirmation shitshow? The gqp actually applauded him when he entered the room. I turned it off.
J. Arthur Crank
Christ, what an asshole!
I love the post title and the song that retroactively stole it many decades earlier.
Steve LaBonne
@H.E.Wolf: It cannot be overemphasized that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
clay
Sorry, this is bullcrap. I don’t care how old these people are, if they’re federal employees who are making decisions that impact millions of people, we deserve to know who they are.
Old Man Shadow
Assholes think our government is really their private corporation.
Steve LaBonne
@Old Man Shadow: They bought the CEO, after all.
Kay
Another misogynist. Surprise surprise. Conservatives raise terrible men.
Belafon
@H.E.Wolf: You must stay outraged the whole time. Wait three days to find out if it worked.
sixthdoctor
Called my representative (Kweisi Mfume) and talked to the person answering the call. I requested that Rep. Mfume make a public statement against the disgusting anti-trans Eos from Trump because I felt it’s important that our officials come out publicly and let transgender people and youth know that people in their government are fighting for them. Will do the the same for my senators later.
Acknowledged to the representative that there’s a LOT going on but we’ll have to juggle our plates in the air, and appreciated their time.
David Collier-Brown
I wouldn’t trust a scheme to have you leave now and be paid in the future. It’s all too easy to get a person to accept a change … and then fire them.
The normal case is to be paid in exchange for your resignation. It’s not always called that, but that’s what it is.
If you’re considering letting them buy you out, get the money up front.
JaneE
@Eural Joiner: Not all HS graduates are 18. I graduated from college at 19. A minority to be sure, but still a good number.
Steve LaBonne
@David Collier-Brown: From what I have read this scheme is totally illegal and there is no money for making these illegal payments.
suzanne
What isn’t clear to me is if you’re actually expected to work remotely during that time — “regardless of your daily workload” — or if you’re just kept on the books but not really doing anything.
I don’t know why anyone would take this deal unless they’re close to leaving anyway. And don’t take it on faith! Wait until the check clears….. because it will not!
The Red Pen
My intrepid spouse works on a military base as a contractor. The chaos (starting with Hegseth and now this) is pretty severe.
In her little corner of the Federal empire, the civilian employees (the ones affected by the memo) don’t even have seats. They are currently renovating the building and a lot of offices are shut down. They were going to do this years ago, but Trump snatched their funding for The Wall. Now when they’re finally able to get rid of the asbestos and mold, the civilians are being ordered to show up to an office which doesn’t have room for them. My wife only goes in when she needs to access the classified network (aka SIPRNet) and there are a limited number of desks where there are SIPRNet-connected PCs so people are asked to be efficient and only use them as necessary.
I mean, we knew that these people don’t know how anything actually works, but this is more than any of us expected. Ironically, one of the agencies in my spouse’s building is Air Mobility Command which runs the jets Trump is using to deliver shackled deportees, so his fuckups may end up disrupting his other fuckups which is actually kind of funny.
JaneE
If a function is mandated by law, how does zero-based affect it? Efficiency has always been expected if not achieved.
ron
@Belafon: Here is the link to the fednews subreddit – https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/comments/1icj3wc/this_non_buyout_really_seems_to_have_backfired/
John S.
I’m sure glad that I didn’t vote for President Musk.
bobbo1
Trump wants to be like the guy who takes the car apart and puts it back together again, but where the car is the government, and taking it apart means smashing it into tiny bits.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
This.
AM in NC
Senator Tillis’s Raleigh office staffer sounded very happy for my call this morning, not even kidding – I read her the riot act about this OPM asshat and also Hegseth and she sounded like she wanted to have things to pass to Tillis to push back on this garbage. Maybe it’s just BS, but I don’t think their office is happy with the pushback he’s getting OR the things Trump is making him have to do, so let’s keep it up.
As much “let’s see you two fight” as we can gin up between these evil people the better.
Chief Oshkosh
@David Collier-Brown:
Good advice in general for other situations, but not with these guys. And note that even if you get the money first, the feds can take it back (with tax penalties!) if they determine later that THEY made a mistake.
There is no way I would “take the deal” from any of these people. They have no idea what they’re doing and all of it could get reversed, not honored, or clawed back. Again, with you, personally, holding the bag.
Edited for slightly more clarity.
ron
@David Collier-Brown: this isn’t what the press is erroneously describing as a buyout. The deal is you can continue to work from home if you agree to quit by the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. So you will still have to work to get paid, except you can continue to do it from home instead of wasting 2 hours a day in traffic to hop on Teams and have meetings with people that also wasted 2 hours a day in traffic to go to an office in some other part of the country or world.
princess leia
@Jackie:
Do you think he is setting himself up as the next Trump? That is kind of culty, if you ask me.
Nelle
Wasn’t it Pol Pot who wanted to go back to the beginning, or a Year Zero?
ExPatExDem
The OPM e-mail is a deceitful attempt to trick Federal employees into resigning. It’s not a buyout. It doesn’t actually offer anything. And it promises pay through September, knowing full well that Federal jobs are only funded through March 14 under the current CR.
When the CR ends, they’ll yank the rug from under anyone foolish enough to have offered their “deferred resignation”.
Old School
From Wired:
If they work for the government, I’m not sure how they can remain anonymous.
West of the Rockies
I strongly suspect we will see constant overreach by Trump and his moronic minions, followed by lengthy court review, tanking favorability ratings for Republicans, more and more Democratic victories in special elections, and a blue wave in ’26.
Right now, Republicans are trying to be the Outer Limits intro voice warning Americans, “There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission…
It’s gonna get weird.
John S.
@West of the Rockies:
I don’t know how we break this cycle, but we have to find a way to convince voters to get off the sidelines before the catastrophe happens — not afterwards.
scav
@tam1MI: As if what is “mainstream”, especially if being reported as “mainstream” has any inevitable connection to being right, let alone singularly correct. Two, if you’re worried about counting points and keeping score in an internet argle-bargle, you’ve not got your eye on the actual ball.
Steve LaBonne
@West of the Rockies: When we are tempted to panic we should remember that THEY are desperate. Trump understands nothing, but the minions understand full well that they almost certainly have only 2 years to carry out their revolution. People in a big hurry tend to make a lot of mistakes.
Geminid
@The Red Pen: I read there were some anxious hours in Northeast Syria over the freeze. The US is paying costs there for a prison holding 10,000 ISIS fighters and for a nearby camp where over 30,000 of their famiy members live. They can’t just shut that operation down at the whim of a politician.
But, they got word before too long that this funding would continue.
House Democrats are holding an “emergency” meeting at 1 p.m. today to work out their strategy for combating the freeze. This morning’s Politico Playbook described the the strategy as “three pronged”: through the appropriations process, litigation and communications.
I expect Hakeem Jeffries will hold a press conference afterwards. Presumably, he’ll lay out the first two parts and kick off the third. This might be worth watching.
H.E.Wolf
@Steve LaBonne: It cannot be overemphasized that this is a marathon, not a sprint.
Thank you for echoing the point I made. I agree with you: it bears repeating!
Steve LaBonne
@John S.: The swing voters who decide close elections tend to be purely reactive, so that’s a tall order.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@ExPatExDem:
When the CR ends, they’ll yank the rug from under anyone foolish enough to have offered their “deferred resignation”.
This is one of those times where Fed managers, particularly at the SES level, can slow-roll things. People with no Federal experience who opine along these lines don’t know wtf they’re talking about when it comes to the nuances of buyouts, payments, etc., in terms of how the Federal gubmint operates.
It seems what’s happening today is that those people (because despite some union communication and presence writ large in the Federal gubmint, most of us never heard ‘boo’ from either of the unions in all the years we worked) are cautioning employees into not doing anything until they get more clarification, develop better rules, etc. Basically, they’re being bureaucratic about it in the best possible way as to ‘protect’ their employees.
I found both working first for DoD then DoT, they actually were, as a rule, concerned about ‘protecting’ employees to the extent they could. This is one of those times where they can put their power of “slowing things down” into action whereas a lot of the time, they can’t.
I’ve said this repeatedly, in 2 years, Hair Furor will have a relatively new set of SESes in place (there’s always a big turnover at that level when the other party takes over) and once that happens, watch out…unless we retake the House.
Kelly
I was worried that the Trumpist crew would use their experience from their earlier infestation to more effectively pillage. Maybe they are. It kinda looks like a substantial number of career feds are using their experience from the previous infestation to resist.
Eunicecycle
@Steve LaBonne: I have 3 federal employees in my immediate family and they are angry. One of them said the communications are very unprofessional. The subreddits are on fire!
nevsky42
The repeat use of “dignity/dignified” is the tell. And I would accuse them of using AI to write it except when you run a draft through ChatGPT you usually get back a copy without redundancies.
Steve LaBonne
@Eunicecycle: Good. Defiance>>>despair. I wish them Godspeed.
Shalimar
@Jackie: The anti-vax cultists are even more intense about their religion than the MAGA cultists.
LAC
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/tim-kaine-warns-federal-employees-against-taking-trumps-buyout-offer-do-not-be-fooled/
H.E.Wolf
Hee hee. Good one!
That said, I’m less of a Belafon, and more of a Bartleby: as in, I prefer not to. :)
John S.
@Steve LaBonne:
I don’t think it’s just the swing voters that are the problem. We have loads of registered Democrats that aren’t voting.
Steve LaBonne
@John S.: That’s an easier target I think because the enemy there is often complacency. I think Trump is doing a good job of destroying that.
H.E.Wolf
Ask A Manager has posted a Q&A, and an extensive list of support and information resources for federal workers.
https://www.askamanager.org/2025/01/questions-from-federal-workers-who-are-currently-under-attack.html
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Old School:
Well, well, well, there’s good ole Peter Theil again. Never mentioned is his financial hand in electing many (D) mayors, for example, he was a major contributor to our Great White Dope of a Mayor’s campaign here in Denver.
Never trust a (D) that accepts money from somebody like Theil or helps promote the techbro agenda in all it’s manifestations.
peter
I worked for the federal government for 32 years, retiring at the end of 2023. I’ve talked to several of my former co-workers who still work at the agency I retired from. The anxiety this Musk/Trump “fork in the road” bullshit causes is serious and widespread. At my agency about 25% of the staff work remotely full-time, many living in remote locations, with kids in school, parents to care for, spouses/partners with jobs in the remote locations, etc. I guess they’re all expendable for someone like Musk.
Of course no one should believe a word of the assurances offered in the OPM memo. But we were imagining the effect of everyone getting together and accepting this generous offer. Call their bluff. See what the prospect of the entire eligible federal workforce leaving their stations on September 30 looks like. You like chaos? Try that, motherfuckers.
Belafon
@Steve LaBonne: I have a family member who is a federal employee who voted for this chaos and assumes it won’t happen to them.
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: Just like my Republican former coworkers and the shit Ohio Republicans periodically pull on public employees. Sadly there’s no cure for stupid.
John S.
@Steve LaBonne:
That’s the target audience I was referring to. Swing voters are weathervanes who blow in the wind, so it’s not worth the effort unless we can control the weather.
The Thin Black Duke
@John S.: The sleepwalkers wake up call is just around the corner.
Dave
@peter: Everyone who isn’t Musk is expendable to Musk. The dude knows very little and like many people who know very little the thought of practicing a little epistemic humility has never crossed his mind.
Cathie from Canada
The really stupid thing is this: when conservative Canadian provincial governments have repeatedly done this type of thing over the years, Canadians realized that it is mostly the good civil servants who take the buyout, because they can get other jobs. The less competent ones stay. So ultimately the taxpayers lose.
Lapassionara
I think we have had a thread with helpful hints for calling our representatives. I want to call my far-right ninny to complain about the WHO, CDC, NIH, etc. issues. We have bird flu on the loose, and this is NOT the time to get cute with public health.
Does anyone remember that thread (or did I imagine it)? Thanks in advance.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@peter:
They are. He fired Teslas entire SuperCharger team last year, only to rehire some later. Gigantic clusterfuck and all too typical of how Musk operates.
My agency was bleeding edge when it came to remote work as we “remoted” a large chunk starting in 2014. These people have been working from home for 10 years now and it’s unclear what’ll happen to them.
Hell, they were originally “sent home” because the nature of their job was traveling to other offices, or state DOTs, Metro Planning Orgs, etc., and the savings on office space was significant. Moreover, it made recruiting much easier and promotion opportunities opened up as people with experience were no longer “forced to move” in order to sometimes “move up the chain”.
Basically, we saw the benefits of remote work far before anybody else did and why we as an agency managed far better when we sent everybody home in March of 2020.
Plus, one thing that most people don’t realize, is that at least in DOT, we were in the midst of a massive hiring binge in 2023 as part of the two spending bills. We were enlarging office space needs again even while adopting and implementing a 3-day-at-home/2-day-in-the-office hybrid model.
With everybody “coming back in”, it’ll take at least 2 years to physically make that happen. If we take back the House, that’s top dead in it’s tracks just like it did when the Bushies were trying to outsource everything back in the Aughts. When Dems retook the House, that shit stopped getting funded in a nanosecond.
JML
This OPM letter is clearly part of the Project 2025 insanity where they believe that there’s an active conspiracy by federal employees to sabotage republican efforts to enact policy (the Deep State conspiracy nonsense). They want people to quit so they can clean house and put in more loyalists who a) won’t know enough to say no, b) will be dependent on Der Leader and his ilk and will say yes, and c) who the hell knows?!?!
it’s definitely a scam and I hope no one competent in the federal government falls for the resignation scam. A friend of mine from FEMA (who has been there for over 20 years now) sent me a copy this morning. it’s wild.
Idiot Musk believing in “zero-based budgeting” says a lot about him. As someone who used to do budget for the feds for a living (and has managed private and public budgets elsewhere as well) I can tell you zero-based budgeting is a useless exercise, a buzzword bit of nonsense that creates work rather than value when you do it by it’s directives…which most people will ignore, knowing that no one is going to make you show your work on the very basics of building your budget. It’s just a fancy word for “budget review” in the dumbest possible way.
people zero-base their budget when they’re a start-up. After that, anyone who doesn’t use the previous year’s budget as a road map/template for calculating your budget for the next year is simply re-doing work. you always need a starting point, and entering every possible input without reference to the previous year is a) stupid, b) a massive amount of work, and c) more likely to lead you to be wrong.
Quinerly
Anybody else watching the RFK, Jr hearings?
Quite the tongue bath by Sen Ron Johnson, as expected.
Republican Cassidy (R LA) came out swinging. Tough questions. Tripped up Kennedy on some basics of HHS.
Whitehouse was good.
Cortez-Masto was fabulous.
Tim C.
@Steve LaBonne: THIS! Come on, yes, some of the leadership in congress isn’t doing enough sure. But massive protests with attending violence from agent provocateurs isn’t the only way to fight. Chicago educating it’s population, construction workers who are planning to have everyone run in all directions, regardless of immigration status when “La Migra” show up.
Stop whining and fight Nazis people!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Quinerly:
I’m guessing he’ll still vote to confirm:
https://www.newsweek.com/bill-cassidy-robert-f-kennedy-jr-donald-trump-2022818
In some ways, we’ve become Soviet Russia in terms of the old ‘Kremlinology’: examining the smallest utterance or posting to glean how the powers-that-be were gonna go on something.
Belafon
@peter: Unless the populace shows up with pitchforks, people like Trump and Musk believe they would escape any effects of a collapse of society.
Quinerly
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
No doubt about Tillis, though. His tongue bath rivals Ron J’s. Tillis using his time to talk about being PTA pres when his daughter was in high school.
RFK, Jr blaming having US having the highest Covid death rate on Biden.
Sanders up with his questions. He’s rather subdued. Warren was on fire.
Bupalos
@David Collier-Brown: I don’t even understand why it’s even being called severance or buyout. Seems to me the letter just says effectively “you can continue to work and get paid as you have for several months in violation of our new in-person inanity. If you promise to quit in September.
It doesn’t seem to me to be saying you can quit now and get paid.
Baud
@Quinerly:
Good. People were nervous about him.
Baud
@Bupalos:
I’m going to go with “they lie like we breathe.”
Geminid
@Quinerly: I think I read that Sen. Cassidy chairs the another committee that will question RFK Jr tomorrow.
JaySinWA
This looks a lot like the kind of people that the “geniuses” of the Bush admin sent to run Iraq. Idealogues with no practical experience. They were many literally young republicans fresh out of indoctrination. Causing disasters by single mindedness.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dave:
Everyone who isn’t Musk is a non-player character to Musk.
I.e. not actually a real person at all. It’s a role gaming/video gaming term for a background character that typically interacts with the player through simple and repetitive actions, such as saying the same sentence each time the player approaches the NPC.
ETtheLibrarian
OPM wouldn’t have the staff to process the paperwork if 5% decided to leave much less 10%. They effed up the all government blanket email (which was clearly in prep for this “buy-out”) so there is no way the gang who can’t shoot straight has thought all of this out much less decide in a week deadline and the headache. Does this even apply to the legislative and judicial branch?
tam1MI
I’m keeping my fingers crossed that he won’t pull the, “I’ll ask tough questions in the confirmation hearings then vote for the asshole anyway” move the Vichy Dems were notorious for back in the day.
John S.
@Quinerly:
Maggie Hassan just threw RFKJ a lead anchor on abortion.
Matt McIrvin
@peter: I think that for the Project 2025 people creating this anxiety is really the goal, not a means to an end. They just want to hurt people and federal workers are definitely a class of people they want to hurt.
Baud
@tam1MI:
We’ll find out soon enough.
IIRC, Benrie and Fetterman were the other two undeclared senators.
Matt McIrvin
@Sister Golden Bear: And calling whole classes of real people “NPCs” has been the hip memey way to dehumanize them among fascist Gamergate types for a decade now.
Matt McIrvin
@JML: Newt Gingrich has been talking about eliminating the civil service and returning to the pre-Chester Alan Arthur spoils system for decades. And he’s always framed it as preventing wreckers and badthinkers from “burrowing” into the state.
Matt McIrvin
@JML: “zero-basing” is like the libertarian notion that every law should have a sunset provision, so you get tied-up just re-passing the bans on murder and robbery every few years and it’s not possible to have more than a very simple system of laws.
Quinerly
@Baud:
Not here to throw barbs. I honestly think he could have been better. And, I am a Whitehouse fan.
I have believed he was always a no vote. But I do not like the way he has handled this. He should have been more forceful last week. He should have left no doubt. Dems had to waste energy on calling, etc him.
Cantwell up. She’s good.
Quinerly
Wyden asking for a second round for all senators. Denied. Wyden will get a second round. Says he will divide up his second round time with other Dems who want more time.
My senator….Sen Lujan up.
K-Mo
@Bupalos: Correct. It is a weirdly imbecilic negotiating ploy offered by summer camp counselors who have played out fantasies in their minds. . . Go in the room make a lot of noise, raise some vague specter of future harm and then put an offer on the table that has so little value as to be considered nothing.
Ruckus
@bobbo1:
Also he is a complete and utter failure.
Which means he destroys everything he’s even near, let alone touches.
JML
@Matt McIrvin: pretty much. we’re a complex government and society, and the idea that you can just do this shit on the back of a napkin is insane. And you can’t just turn back the clock to “when it was simpler” because today you decided that’s what you want. The US has 340 million people. it’s not your brother-in-law’s asphalt driveway business.
Betty
@The Red Pen: That will be the theme of this Administration.
Quinerly
@John S.:
I actually missed part of her questions. Just read about her questions on his views on abortion.
Another tongue bath by Kansas Sen Marshall.
Ruckus
@West of the Rockies:
It’s gonna get weird.
gonna?
It’s already weird.
It likely will get far weirder.
I imagine that this can be fixed but it won’t be like flicking a light switch. There are too many people that think the federal government was broken long ago and that blowing it up and starting over with an 80 yr old infant in charge is a really good idea.
Wilson Heath
@JML: isn’t this department-by-department zero-basing concept also one of that moron Eddie Lampert(?) who killed Sears Roebuck?
Idiots who don’t understand government or even the concept of a business organization running them into the ground.
Miss Bianca
@The Red Pen:
We can only hope.
Betty
@Quinerly: A physician who knows better – unless he really is that ignorant about federal health agencies.
cmorenc
@AM in NC: I would be lots more inclined to be persuaded that Tillis is come to his senses due to pushback if he had provided the critical vote against rather than for Hegeseth as Sec of Defense, given that NC has three huge and important military bases – Ft Liberty (Bragg) Army base in Fayetteville, Camp LeJeune in Jacksonville (marines) and Seymour Johnson in Goldsboro (AF).
lowtechcyclist
Well, of course not! The letter says nothing about severance. It’s still a pile of shit, just not that way.
The deal it proposes is this: they resign effective September 30, they get paid until their resignation becomes effective, and they don’t get called back in to the office.
But the missing guarantee is about whether and to what extent they’ll be expected to work from home between now and 9/30. In fact, the resignation letter that one would sign says, in part:
That sure sounds to me like a commitment to keep working to the extent they want you to do so. So there’s no severance, there’s no promise of a paycheck for twiddling your thumbs for eight months.
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road…
Tim C.
@princess leia: I’m sure he sees himself that way, and there are paralells. He has the same “Asshole Charisma” that Trump has, so who knows.
cmorenc
@Steve LaBonne: Yep – they make up their mind at the gas pump or meat counter at the grocery store by looking at the price tag.
Glory b
@tam1MI: It was already there, but instead if a bunch of individual Dems yelling intl mics, Jeffries wants some strategy.
Kayla Rudbek
@clay: and they are OVER 18 years old so not even underage. If they are federal employees who aren’t part of the intelligence community, their names should be public record.
Lobo
@Kay: As I said before, the party of rape.
WereBear
@Ruckus: Oh, we’ve BEEN in Bat Country.
Just re-read the classic, Hell’s Angels and my goodness, that is long-ago history now.
Glory b
@LAC: As I’ve said, MM is never wrong, he can only be wronged.
Quiltingfool
@H.E.Wolf: I started reading Election.com several months ago on your recommendation. It’s pretty good. They are evenhanded in their assessments, I think. They don’t sugarcoat.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendation and I think people here might like the coverage they provide. Plus you can learn some history there, too!
lowtechcyclist
@suzanne:
It’ll actually be ~17 checks, since they’ll continue to be on the payroll until September 30. (And may still be expected to work during that time.)
That’s the big difference between this plan and severance, where as I’ve always understood it, you resign in exchange for one lump sum which you get at the time you stop working. Here, they get nothing except the possibility of light work, or none at all, for the next eight months. But no guarantee there.
WereBear
@lowtechcyclist: It’s not enough to submit.
You also have to give something up, make a sacrifice, or be humiliated.
The Red Pen
@Geminid: OMG, yeah… the suspension of foreign aid.
I’m sure there are a thousand stories that have yet to come out.
If Trump just focused his ineptitude on doomed fiascos like “deporting all the illegals,” then he might get away with it, but these wild moves are going to hit his base and maybe (gods willing) wake them the fuck up.
Glory b
@Geminid: In response to the “They aren’t doing anything!!!” committee.
I don’t understand why MM and others think running around in front of cameras with their hair on fire is more constructive than planning a long term response mechanism.
lowtechcyclist
@Nelle:
Yes, it was.
Later on, the term was also used to describe what Shrub & Co. were attempting to do in Iraq.
lowtechcyclist
@WereBear:
I’m not sure I understand how this is a reply to anything I said.
lowtechcyclist
@John S.:
That’s something that can actually be measured. Voter rolls, party registration (in those states that have it), and which elections people have voted in are all public information. Everything except who you actually voted for.
IIRC, parties have to pay to access that information. But the thing is, it’s there. It would be possible to get the turnout rates, by state, of persons registered D, R, Independent, or third parties.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
‘They’ who? The word ‘severance’ isn’t anywhere in the stuff from OPM about this. Looks to me like MSM sloppiness; my WAG is they expected it to be a buyout similar to previous buyouts, and wrote it up that way without really reading the documents.
lowtechcyclist
@JML:
And Congress has passed decades’ worth of laws that give tasks that the Executive Branch is required by those laws to carry out. If we went back to a spoils system, each new Administration’s personnel would spend the first few years just figuring out what those laws were, and what really needed to be done to comply with them. Which would mean that these laws would only occasionally be complied with.
I worked for the government for 25 years. As the Presidency went from Clinton to Dubya to Obama to Cheetolini to Biden, we kept doing the same work because the same laws (aside from modest amendments here and there) dictated the work we were to do. Laws were followed without any interruptions (except for government shutdowns), because we have a professional civil service. (That’s ‘were.’)
David Anderson
I’ve said this elsewhere — but the federal government is the largest employer of PhDs in the country. The most common reason a PhD is completed is a combination of spite and rage. We’re used to dealing with bosses issuing unclear directives and mutually contradictory options. This is the valley of doom in the year after comps….
Also have to remember that PhDs make up an unnaturally high percentage of hyper endurance competitors (https://www.wired.com/2016/09/gives-many-hard-scientists-hard-core-endurance-runners/ ) We like getting into our own head and grinding through the suck.
WereBear
@lowtechcyclist: I must have messed up. Meant to reference how the people are losing their job, but have spurious choices offered. Like “chair or firing squad?”
Phein64
@lowtechcyclist: I’m a Fed within a DoD organization. The word we are getting this afternoon is that if you resign, you will have to be reinstated in order to apply for retirement.
So, you would lose your job and your retirement. Hard to see who would benefit from this, other than temps or probationers who are going to get fired soon no matter what they do.
Paul in KY
@Eural Joiner: He probably has 12 year olds working for him. Kids that age can be exceptionally cruel at times. That probably is a pre-requisite for the job.