Federal workers have expressed a range of emotions after receiving an email from the Trump administration on Tuesday with a “deferred resignation” offer for employees who do not wish to return to the office full time, a move aimed at downsizing the federal government. If an employee accepts the offer of resigning by next week, they will receive pay and benefits through September. But one part of the email from the Office of Personnel Management has federal workers in a pickle—there is no guarantee if they choose to stay that their jobs will be safe anyway.
Suffice it to say, most aren’t taking it well, according to Politico.
“It was the batshit craziest email I’ve ever read,” said an EPA employee. That person was one of a dozen federal employees interviewed by POLITICO’s E&E News for this story who were granted anonymity to speak freely about internal agency operations..
The Trump email, sent broadly to federal employees Tuesday night, offered workers the chance to receive pay and benefits through Sept. 30 if they decide to resign their posts by Feb. 6. They were instructed to reply to the email account “hr@opm.gov” with the word “Resign” if they wanted to accept the offer.
“These people have a history of shorting workers,” the EPA employee said. “There’s no way I’m sending ‘Resign’ to this jinky email address.”
‘Kicking and screaming’
Employees across the government were left scrambling Tuesday night to understand the offer and its possible implications for their futures and their careers.
At the Interior Department, “everyone is freaked out,” an Interior employee said.
That person is not planning to take the offer. “It’s too much of a gamble,” that person said, adding that the government “has no power to really do” what the administration is promising.
“It’s just a way to dismantle the government with false promises and without following the rules set up to protect democracy,” the Interior employee said. “They’re gonna have to take me out kicking and screaming.”
An employee at the National Science Foundation deleted the email as soon as they received it, they said. That person was worried that they might accidentally hit reply, and because the email already contained the word “resign,” they would inadvertently relinquish their job.
Some other government employees are saying, “I might as well do this,” out of concern for their jobs moving forward, the NSF employee said. But that person isn’t taking the resignation offer, they said. “I’m more angry now, and I’m not going to quit,” that employee said. “I don’t care what you throw at me.”
A second NSF employee said they’re considering taking the offer due to the uncertainty about their career. But that person finds the Trump offer “insulting” and confusing. “It isn’t clear what it means,” they said.
Energy Department staffers were skeptical of the offer, too.
“No one trusts it, and it’s just not happening,” said one DOE staffer, who dismissed it as a ploy. “No one I know is taking the bait here.”
A second DOE employee said, “I don’t trust the people who sent the offer, I don’t trust that they know or care whether this is even legal, and I deeply resent the attempt to intimidate people into making rash, probably irrevocable, choices.”
A staffer with Interior’s Bureau of Land Management said a government employee union that represents agency staff was advising members to be wary of the offer until they had more time to evaluate it. (E&E News by Politico)
The Trump administration expects roughly 10 percent of the federal workforce, or about 200,000 employees, to take the offer.
