I’ve been seeing numerous anecdotes online that people who accepted the buyout offer are being fired, and told it’s not a mistake, they are definitively being laid off.
I don’t care to search back, but I called out that the buyout offers were in excess of what is legally permitted. This administration doesn’t care about the law, but I figured once the courts settled matters, people accepting the buyout would be screwed.
Time to fully recognize that the Washington Post and New York Times have failed and move on to alternative media sources.
I think the big flaw in Elmo’s strategy is that he expects there to be a critical mass of people that will work with near the intensity he perceives himself working at (…and that they’ll work cheap).
He’s implied, if not outright said, in several contexts that he expects his excellent workers to be willing to put in 80-hour weeks consistently.
Hell, if you have a team that is willing to do that, and is able to achieve excellence (as he expects them to) while doing that… that would be something.
The thing is…while there are some people who can pull it off, staffing a large company, much less a federal bureaucracy, with such folks is difficult, if not unrealistic.
A predecessor of my current employer was sort of like that – there was a cadre of us who were thriving as workaholics, all hands on deck, doing whatever we had to to fix this mess our leaership team had acquired. And for the couple of years that we went on like that, in clean-up mode…it was exhilarating and (to me) actually kind of fun.
But mistakes were made along the way, some of them expensive. I’ve had some interesting chats with more-recent colleagues in risk management, and with the perspective I gained from a risk management role, I cringe at the lack of controls we had in those days, several of which would have prevented some of those expensive mistakes.
I am uncertain that that company would have been ready or as attractive an acquisition target as it was when my current company was ready to do an acquisition, had that the old “all hands on deck, do whatever it takes…” days been constrained by the controls/oversight we have today.
And our bureaucracy today isn’t as bad as I’ve seen in past lives, and the current company is relatively nimble in its own right. But things that were being done in a week in the old environment would have taken a month in the new (although the results of the new environment are objectively much better than the acceptance of “it works well enough, and we’ll fix any bugs as we go along” from the old).
This rambling isn’t intended to be an apology for DOGE. It’s just been a bit fascinating (if somewhat cringe-y) to watch DOGE work given that experience from my past.
One reason people choose to work for SpaceX or Tesla despite the low salary and long hours is the stock grant.
Dunno what will convince people to work 80 hour weeks at the Fed, I guess he’ll need to give them some favors or open the doors to corruption.
Federal employees don’t get stock options and the possibility of becoming millionaires off them like people working for tech firms do. Bonuses and profit sharing are also pretty rare working for government compared to the private sector.
Its mostly just the DB pension that is attractive.
Thats another cost that Musk is probably targeting (the more experienced people on “probation” stop accruing their DB pension)
Do US feds get a DB pension. I thought they had the thrift savings plan which I think is more of a defined contribution plan. Could be wrong though…
Thats a different one.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/17/faa-spacex-musk-layoffs-safety/
I see no conflict of interest here!
It’s cool, the White House says that if Elon has a conflict of interest, he’ll remove himself from it (which is paradoxically a conflict of interest).
So fraud is the new WMDs, so hot right now.
It’s insulting to fire people who’s performance reviews say that they’re excelling in their jobs and their managers are saying they’re one of their best hires ever for poor performance
https://x.com/bethpratt/status/1891605414355030269?t=qWTF3nT27hkdt6nhYzyltw&s=19
This is part of the plan first set up by Reagan.
In almost all cases everyone is the loser except those that own the privatized solutions.
If you’re interested, check out the Farming sub-Reddit. Loads of small farmers in there trying to figure out what is going on. Many were awarded grants or loans for things like soil conservation, those checks have been cancelled. One farmer says the folks from the USDA he works with locally are in shambles. Several were fired, the rest are now told to go back to the office rather than WFH, but the office lease was cancelled so they don’t have an office to go to. But are still being told to do so or be fired.
Just chaos, lots and lots of small farmers are being very badly damaged. Farming is already a little shaky in terms of finances, this could wreck many farms.
Feels like farmers support for Brexit vs the reality here.
Food contamination outbreaks are sure to increase as they just fired the people that look into that.
