Anonymous Federal Worker
Appearances
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I was working for the Department of Energy, and the 13th day before Valentine's Day, I had been following the news all day and reading that agencies were planning to let folks go, and I was very nervous. So I had my work phone on me after I signed off for the day, and I had been checking my email probably every 10 minutes.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
And I ended up falling asleep on the couch because I just couldn't, I wasn't ready for bed. I wasn't ready. I was distressed. So I heard my workstation sort of alarm. I had forgotten to turn off my speakers, which sounds kind of funny, but if I don't turn off my speakers, I can hear my laptop make an alarm in the other room. So I hear a message come in. It wakes me up.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
And I try to open up my email, and it's not loading. So then... I tried to sign into my laptop. It did not work. And so I tried again. Did not work. I shut down and restarted. It would not work. I was like, had an extremely tight chest. I was so shocked at the way it was playing out.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I was an enforcement attorney at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And I think it was 7.06 p.m. is when I got the email. saying that I had been fired.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I received an email telling me that I was terminated. And then I received another one telling me I was terminated again. And then I got an email saying all of those terminations were rescinded. And then I got two more emails telling me that I was terminated again. And so I was fired.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I just got home, got in my apartment, Ten minutes later, I got a notification that was just a copy and paste email that it looked like where my name and position was filled in, citing my performance as the reason for firing. They said, due to my poor performance.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I reached out to my supervisor, just let her know. I said, hey, I just got an email from the director saying that I was terminated. And she comes back and says, I'm so sorry. And then she's like, I got the same one. And so she had been terminated as well. But then this morning, she got up and is looking at her own email. And there's an email from our director saying, I got some new information.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Your name should not have been on that list. So you can ignore the termination email. You are not fired. People need to know what's actually happening. It's just chaos. It was just the fact that we think you're easier to fire. So we're going to go ahead and do it.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
You know, it felt like punitive and inhumane, if I may.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
It's just, you know, you feel gutted. Our president, our administration right now does not care. They could care less.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I feel kind of betrayed by the whole thing because there are processes and procedures for doing everything. And they're not being followed anymore.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
My sense when terms like draining the swamp were being thrown around before was that it was more directed at politicians and lobbyists and not like the actual work of the federal government.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I think I'd like to be really clear here and say that I would agree with the statement that there can sometimes be inefficiency in federal government processes. I don't think that that means that the way this administration is going about making changes is the way to do it.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I don't think mass reductions in force, I don't think fear and chaos and many other things that have been done by this administration is the way to improve inefficiency.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
First off, can you tell me how you'd like to be identified? Yeah, if I could just be anonymous, that would be best, I think.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
And why do you want to be anonymous? I'm afraid that I will be targeted.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Fear of retaliation. By the top of my chain of command. By the White House.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I work for USAID. For the Department of Veterans Affairs. Health and Human Services.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
For the US Army Corps of Engineers. I work to keep our ports and waterways safe and delivering for the public.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I love my job. Public service is important to me. I get to see every day the positive impacts that my job and my agency have. have on my community.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
My mom worked for the county and my dad worked for the state. You progress to working for the government because you're a citizen and that's the best thing that you can do. And so that's why I went there. It was probably my dream job.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I've I've been with my department for 15 years. 17 years. Two and a half years.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
The day after the inauguration, our director came on and started going through some of these executive orders. The first one mentioned was the cease and desist of all DEIA activities, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
The email that we got basically said, if you did report, you would not face any adverse consequences. But if you didn't report, you could face adverse consequences.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
To receive an email in the federal government essentially advocating for turning in your colleagues seems so Orwellian and McCarthyism-like. It was shocking.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
We were told to take our pronouns down. People are afraid to give a shout out about Black History Month or Women's History Month.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Things like gender-based violence or women's empowerment. Even Happy Lunar New Year. You know, it was like, oh gosh, should we not even be saying that?
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Fast forward, I don't know, a couple days later, And I got the fork in the road email.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
It came on January 28th. It came at different times, but we all got it in the evening. Mine came at about 10 p.m.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I read it on my work cell phone, and I called out to my fiancé just being like, fork in the road? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
The email makes it basically sound like if you don't take this opt-out, you could potentially lose your job in the future.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
When this email came, it felt like... You know, the horror film, the call is coming from inside the house. Like, it's my own leadership that is gunning for me.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Then a few days later, we received a frequently asked questions email regarding the fork in the road email.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
That email saying you have this great opportunity, you should take it. You work in a low productivity federal job and you should go to a high productivity private sector job.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I keep thinking, and I'll try and say this without crying. A couple of years ago, I was working for the federal government about 15 hours a day. I did that because I believed in the work. And so I can't describe how hurtful it is to receive an email saying that you should go from a less productive public space to go to a more productive private space and work there.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
It was so hurtful to receive that email, especially coming from a government email address.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
And just the presumption that I'm going to put this in front of you and you're going to jump at it. It insults the fact that we are there because we want to be there. We feel strongly about the mission of the agency.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
If anything, it's cemented my sense of resolve to stay in the job that I love, that provides for my family, that improves my community.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
The future of USAID, that's the U.S. Agency for International Development, is uncertain.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Once my friends of friends started saying, yeah, I'm at USAID, we have no idea how we're going to get our medicine next week because our health insurance is being cut off maybe. That was when it started to sink in like, oh, this could be coming for me.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
You know, especially in the wake of USAID being dismantled, it sort of feels like we're next on the chopping block.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I have been concerned about my job because I was a probationary employee, which just means that I was a newer hire.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
And being a probation employee, I was like, I know that it's, you know, I'm at a higher risk of losing my job, but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm going to keep coming to work every single day.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Essentially, a request came to put together a list of employees in their probationary period.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
My supervisor was called in on a very quick turn. They had like one hour where she and all the other, they call them the team directors, all of them come in together. And now they have a list of everybody who is a probation employee. And they have to write a justification to make decisions. Do you want to retain this person or no?
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
And then you have to write a justification for why you want to keep them. And they had 200 characters to write this justification up.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
And then on our team, it became really apparent that Doge was on the scene. We learned about people having interviews with folks that were not government employees, regardless of whether they were probation or not. I was nervous because I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I knew I was being evaluated for fit by this person who likely knows very little about how government functions.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
I entered the meeting, video on, and I saw this young man, one of the Doge lads. And it felt like I was going to a job interview with somebody I didn't like, and I would never work there. It just made me sick to my stomach. And all that's going through my mind is like, here I am, I'm going to be judged by somebody that's not quite half my age in a 15 minute call, like 15 minutes.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
And the hiring process took almost six months for me. So, you know, I went through a lot to get the job, but it seemed like I didn't have to go through much to lose it.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
Probationary employees do have rights. They cannot be fired without cause. And I know I'm not a low performer, so I started tracking every bit of work I did.
The Daily
Inside the Trump Purge: Federal Workers Tell Their Stories
The stress is starting to build, like jobs really not secure at this point. It's like contraction in my stomach and chest. I started to like not be able to eat or sleep.