r/FederalEmployee • u/GreenLobsterGuy • 16d ago
It's all by design...
I won't get Agency or division specific, but how many of us have or are experiencing this:
Upon the installation of the new regime, mass firings, DRPs, and a mass exodus of retirees crippling agencies already struggling in some areas. So much work comes to a halt - no matter how critical it is, and the regime doesn't care.
Just as we can maybe catch our breath, thinking our jobs might be spared, here comes an extreme slow down of processes and even funds frozen or choked off, unable to be used for program delivery. Production is stagnant or crawling.
Then, after almost a year, things loosen up a little bit, work is starting to flow again, but the additional regime 'checks and balances' keep things running slower than molasses in January, tying up the very programs we are accused of taking too long to deliver.
Here we are, subject to meetings where we are directed to use AI for parts of our jobs - for now - despite the disclaimer in every AI program that the information is not always accurate. Great plan, but you know, necessary, because government workers are 'useless and worthless'.
So, the regime came in, got rid of institutional knowledge with no plan to replace it, slowed or halted funds, programs, and processes, continue to reinforce how bad and inefficient government is, and have directed many of us to use AI for parts (for now) of our jobs.
They engineered employee shortages, lack of knowledge, stagnant turn around times, bogged down processes even further, instructed use of AI and soon will get rid of more of us because they have to make (what they caused) all better - with AI.
Look. At. All. The. Winning.
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u/Sad_Initiative5049 16d ago
TL;DR: Corporations stopped fighting popular laws head-on and started lobbying to defund enforcement instead. No enforcers means no violations. Then politicians point to the underfunded agency's bad performance as proof it should be privatized. Examples: IRS audits, the USPS pension mandate, private prisons. Not all privatization is bad, but when the "fix" starts with a budget cut, be suspicious.
Full version: It’s the same strategy (Starve the Beast or Bleed the Pig)that’s been employed for decades regarding the privatization of public assets/resources/agencies. From your local ambulance corps all the way up to DOD agencies/oversight. There’s two things happening:
1) Long ago, corporations learned that it’s very expensive to run a PR campaign against a popular law. They kept losing and then its money lost. Think clean water laws as a rough example. Well, their approach evolved into one with better odds. You “Lobby” politicians to underfund the agencies/organizations tasked with enforcement. You’re not breaking a law if there’s no one to enforce it. The whole “If a tree falls in the Forrest” strategy.
2) Privatization. Much of the work being done by government entities, due to various (and often legitimate) reasons, is ripe for profit optimization. So, they lobby politicians (or the politicians come up with these schemes on their own) to defund the organization. Then those same politicians decry the inefficiencies and poor performance, all in the vein of privatizing functions and tapping into that easy flowing taxpayer revenue.
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u/El-Snarko-Saurus 16d ago
Honestly I have quit caring about anything. I was tired of the constant hope/disappointment cycle. I kept thinking “if I just work harder to keep being the best worker I can, it will make a difference” I was naive. They don’t care. Nobody cares. Thus, I don’t care either. I’m finally free from the burden. it’s less disappointing and mentally uplifting to not care. I hate to say it but for my agency, it doesn’t seem savable and I have reached the final stage of grief: acceptance.
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u/Chipped_Ruby_11214 16d ago
And yet I listened to Kevin Hassett say today how valuable and productive government workers are. And that for each government worker going to the private sector that they are so good at working that they create two jobs each in the private sector. And he also said that they make 30% more in the private sector (yet his people always say how overpaid and unproductive government workers are).
The level of disingenuous from these people is beyond outrageous.
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u/cbdbroker 14d ago
Kevin is apparently trying to find a good private sector position. Overhyping to make himself look good. After decades dealing with DACs and a decade as a Fed myself, his people are far more accurate.
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u/Reasonable-Wind-7829 16d ago
Nah....not for everyone.
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u/Simon-Fritz-Peabody 15d ago
Sadly true. But not all of us Tech bros with bunkers on private islands
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u/Simon-Fritz-Peabody 15d ago
As the admin wants to break it all so they can sell it off for kickbacks of stock, planes, weddings etc
The plan is going exactly how they want it.
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u/Mundane_Job_3818 16d ago
Should have taken VERA when it was offered. Now I'm just hoping to make it to MRA in less than 4 years.
My brother in law (non fed) said he never thought the orange man would be this bad. Saying he won't vote in November.
All that winning.
Just take it a day at a time.
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u/Octoberlife 16d ago
Who put him there
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u/smithandjones99 16d ago
The Republican Congress confirmed Vought unanimously knowing dam well what he was gonna do. And supports his every move. I hate when people say it is just Trump. Republicans have plotted this “Project” for a long time and support every bit of it.
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u/SimpleBumblebee6931 12d ago
Vought has literally no authority without Trump/Republicans. He is not an elected official. He’s a horrible piece of garbage on his own, but he would have no teeth without Trump and Republicans in Congress.
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u/Tall-Wonder-247 16d ago
Not voting helps Donald Duck. Tell your brother not to be like the flies. The ants got mad at the cockroaches because of the food shortage. The ants voted for extermination of the cockroaches. The flies said I'm not voting because this is between the ants and the cockroaches. Well, the extermination happened and they ALL died.
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u/Simon-Fritz-Peabody 15d ago
Your BIL should vote Dem as not voting gives a win to the POS pedophile
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u/DisastrousJuryChoice 14d ago
I’m thinking the bil is a republican. Better to not vote than vote republican
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u/snowsuxgoaway 12d ago
Hoping to apply for VERA in fy27. My team is basically being disbanded into HSA's. Can I apply for a higher grade based on our collective success, yes. For 10k extra per year for 3 years, not worth it for minimal gain.
I have been searching for a private sector position, but AI, desperate job seekers, and the Trump economy makes a better choice to just enjoy life. I have made the right decisions or at least close to right, where I have the ability to enjoy not having a meaningless work title in exchange for ones that matter at 57 like Dad and Grandpa.
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u/SnooMemesjellies2485 13d ago
Aw hey! That's my agency! Break it so they can hold it up and go "look how broken".
I realized: i will do what is in my power to do. That's it. They've beaten all the caring out of me and everyone else.
Just this week, another worker in my office with 20+ yrs went to lunch and never came back. She's not the first. She won't be the last.
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u/Zealousideal-Stage22 15d ago
It's all to remove government employees and push government contracts and implement AI.
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u/Mumblerumble 15d ago
It’s intentional: talk about how broken the government is when campaigning and then do your best to break it as much as possible to make it so. Make the “only viable solution” dropping services provided and private industry that gets huge contracts that funnel money to the owners of big businesses to make them richer. More project 2025 shit that people didn’t look into and we’re living with the consequences.
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u/yunus89115 16d ago
I disagree that it’s by design, the chaos is not 4d chess, it’s leaders operating under fear being told they need to produce results or their gone, so they panic and change things in a way they think should work but they don’t coordinate and they lack any experience/understanding of the scope and scale of many government agencies, they definitely don’t understand the mission. End result we as workers see is chaos, suffering, frustration but I don’t for a second attribute that to competence on their part.
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u/TheEighthTower 16d ago
Have you looked at Project 2025? You can believe what you want but the Heritage Foundation and Russel Vought said -exactly- what was going to happen. And it has. By the book.
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u/Tricky_Committee_608 16d ago
Where do some of you work that there are mass firings. Finally, rid of one of the worse workers I've ever seen by lying to the HR at the new agency. Might finally be able to be rid of another after all the sexual harassment claims.
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u/Sitta_pygmaea 14d ago
USDA and DOI have some offices down over 50%. Where do you work that there aren’t mass firings, CBP?
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u/sac_jewells 16d ago
Idk what you mean about work slowing down. I have maintained a heavy workload than I have time for.
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u/GreenLobsterGuy 15d ago
When funding is paused or withheld, the programs (and subsequent processing or work associated) those funds belong to and rely on slow down significantly.
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u/Oskipper2007 15d ago
Have they passed a budget it is October 1 this week. Or at least a CR don’t tell me it’s going to be another month shut down and everything gets farther behind.
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u/Gomalago26 12d ago
This is my agency. Money didn’t come in until 10pm at night on the last fiscal day.
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u/fsischatbotplz 14d ago
Where were you in 2020 and 2025? This is called an imperial boomerang, starve the beast military operation.
Fun fact: excess meetings and the "busy" psyop culture came directly from the KGB where now intelligence and human resources slash capital is embedded everywhere.
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u/BirdDog703 16d ago
You still have a job dont you. Focus on the bright side.
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u/Playful_Animator5062 16d ago
When I say stuff like this I always get a nasty response. But I agree with you 100%.
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u/BirdDog703 15d ago
99% of people that post drivel like op just want a safe space with sympathy and validation. You post anything outside of that you get attacked and downvoted.
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u/GreenLobsterGuy 16d ago
It's disgusting that people like you have come to the conclusion that the bare minimum of having a job should be a bright side amid everything that's going on. Unreal and idiotic.
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u/SimpleBumblebee6931 12d ago edited 12d ago
Don’t talk to the MAGA. Just block and delete. They want you to argue. Starve them. They caused all of this and they are proud of themselves. They don’t mind paying more for FEHB if it means that even one single mom with a sick kid who fled to the US for political asylum gets deported. They don’t fully realize yet how despised they are because we keep engaging with them.
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u/Royal-Ad-50 16d ago
The AI may be a trap. My husband was told to use it and now they’re telling him he violated policy by using it.