Zero Hedge:
Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,
The White House on Tuesday said that 1 million federal employees responded to a mass email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) asking them to list five things they had accomplished in the past week.
“We’ve had more than one million workers who have chosen to participate. … I actually participated in it myself. It took me about a minute and a half,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in response to a reporter’s question about the OPM email deadline, describing what was asked in the email as something “very simple” that can be accomplished in a few minutes.
Leavitt confirmed that the email was an idea from Elon Musk and that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which he leads, helped OPM craft the email. She also said that federal workers need to respond to this email unless told otherwise by their agency heads. more here
So that’s about 1/2 the federal workforce; I guess the other half effectively resigned. Winning!
President Trump will have the record from Truman yet (1.2 mil)
Why not just cut waste by departments or number of personnel? There’s no need for this side-show routine. Trump and Musk need to dial it back a bit.
I admire a guy like Musk but if I got a snarky email like that I’d tell them to pound sand.
@Jason
Fairly standard to have to reply to an email like that in white collar jobs.
Refusing usually got you on the short list for layoffs, or minimal raise if any.
If anything they need to push harder.
The more people screech about something the higher likelihood of finding fraud, or corruption.
This is essentially saying ” I am not a robot” by responding, proving you’re real employee …
Jason,
The #1 reason for the email was to root out the “people” who were getting paid that were never employed or never existed. They found in their investigation that there were many (I think I read “thousands”) of these fake employees.
The reasoning behind the email is that, if they don’t exist, “they” won’t respond to an email.
Yes, this was a very quick and efficient way to just identify who was real, and who is working the absolute minimum that they see the email – particularly assuming their boss would make sure they knew. I don’t think DOGE cares as much about the content of each email, at least for now, just wanted the response.
If I were a dedicated employee, then I would be excited to share what I accomplished. And even if I were Peter from Office Space, answering like he did to the two Bobs, I think that right now DOGE would appreciate the candor, and would counter as the Bobs did with a merit-based compensation.
I do everything I can to thwart Trump at least five times a day.
I’m not buying it folks. Verifying you are an acutal employee can be accomplished by something more neutral than “What did you accomplish this week?”.
HW: I understand evaluating individual employee accomplishments for annual raises, etc. This is being done under the guise of mass evaluation of cuts based on government waste. Someone should just have the stones to make the decision to make the cuts without the theatrics.
Jason – The “theatrics” are for the normies. Not everyone is aware of the BS that has been going on for 5+ decades in the Federal gov.
It also exposes any fake employees rather quickly. Think of it like a probe.
Now you see where the least responses are coming from and run a script to see when the “employee” last logged onto the network. All part of a process.
The “theatrics” are great because it exposes judges, politicians, and others that are complicit.
Besides what else is there this entertaining to watch?
HW: Still not buying it. The theatrics are going to backfire. There is a saying in sports for when you get to the big game; the World Series, Superbowl, the Stanley Cup, whatever; “Act like you’ve been there”. Musk and Trump are not doing that. They are acting like they are still on the campaign trail. TRUMP WON THE ELECTION. It’s OK if a guy like Musk just goes to work on this thing. Does he really need to waive a chainsaw around? Send out a email asking the employees to tell stories about how awesome they are so they can keep thier jobs? That really works. Is he going to recommend only the best ass kissers get to stay? No, the only reason for these antics is for HIM to show HE is accomplishing something. I want the cust, they just need to dial it back.
You either respond or you don’t. You are either with me or you are not. Respond, I’m with you, dis, I’m against you.
If I were a govt employee working with legitimately classified programs, tasks, and data, it would be illegal for me to respond to that email in the manner requested.
What to do, what to do?
Cry me a river. I have to account for all of my time, every day.
Jason: It’s called keeping campaign promises which Trump, unlike career politicians, seems to think is important.
Jason, just think of it like a brush hog on a gone-feral field.
It’s just cleaning out the obvious easy stuff without having to examine each and every plant. It would never get done.
There is still a lot of trimming and grooming to do, you just cut out the dead wood first. Many more will be trimmed if deemed non essential. This is only the start.
If something was tossed aside that should be kept, It’ll be put back.
@Uncle Al
1. Worked 2 hours on classified project HR-65148
2. Worked 12 hours on classified project FU-777
3. Worked 16 hours on toe jam
… and so on
It is a simple task that doesn’t require breaking any laws or revealing classified information
Musk shoulda just sent out a CAPTCHA image.
“check all the squares with bicycles”
A response would be nice.
Proving that yer not a robot is even nicer!
Also add –
[] I am not a robot
Don’t give a shit if you “buy it” or not. New boss isn’t like the old boss.
@Jason – 2 things:
As Musk himself explained in yesterday’s cabinet meeting (and as others here have explained), the emails are a “pulse check”. The bar was about as low as one could make it. As Musk put it, “Do you have a pulse and two neurons?”
Not sure why you think the emails were snarky or somehow offensive to the employees. In every job I’ve ever held — and I’ve been self-employed for decades — I’ve kept a daily log of project tasks I’ve planned, and what I’ve accomplished toward those. I’ve never had a client who never asked me how I was doing on such and such project, and I bet you haven’t either. Actually, such reporting keeps everyone highly focused and can quickly identify problems and flawed priorities (critical path, etc.).
Being touchy about reporting project status would be a yuge indicator of either poor performance or stealing time doing personal stuff.
The 2nd thing is that, given the antiquity and highly-hackable technology being used to track employees, there is a very high probability that there are thousands — maybe tens or even hundreds of thousands — of “employees” who don’t even exist or who have died or retired, and someone is still collecting a paycheck for them. See the millions on SS who are in their systems who are fraudulent.
I don’t think you’ll generate much sympathy for federal employees being asked the simple question of whether they exist or, if they do, what their job is. Certainly not from the tax payer who is struggling to buy a carton of eggs.
…I pray Trump has a sure-fire plan to de-unionize the federal workforce.