Trump, Musk and DOGE are cutting through the federal workforce like a scythe through wheat. Don't ask me to shed any tears for the laid-off feds, especially the scumbags at the FBI.
Former Federal Employee: 20% of the Workforce Does 80% of the Work, Almost Impossible to Get Fired
Personnel out of office working on their farms while being paid, driving drunk and bragging about it, napping in government vehicles, snoring at desks, not logging into their computers: https://substack.com/@tritorch/note/c-91693295
Hey Morgthorak! Thanks for the informative piece. As much as I’ve always loved you, I love you even more now because you have the integrity, humility and courage to admit you wrote unfairly about DOGE. Nobody can blame you for underestimating the likelihood of fulfillment of Presidential Promises. The batting average in that game is disgraceful. This turn of events does speak volumes about Trump and Musk.
Thanks so much, Maria, I appreciate the kind words. When you are wrong, you are wrong, and there is no shame in admitting it. Trump and Musk have worked wonders so far, in ways I never thought I'd see, and they absolutely deserve to be praised for it.
I came here to say the same thing. Admitting one has been wrong is quite rare today (or somewhat more so than in the past. We all struggle with it.) It is a great sign of virtue and humility. I respect you more for that. Thank you.
Now Congress has to make the defunding permanent. That's the part that is key. Judges cannot force money that is not appropriated. Congress could literally make one page bills: This department is dissolved and all applicable legislation repealed. All employees may transfer to an open job or receive 9 months severance and benefits.
As a union member, the fed union employees can get f*cked; bastards are exempt from the ACA hence the "gold-plated" benefits.
I'd be willing to go out on a limb and predict that Social Security and CMS may end up becoming suddenly solvent once all of the fraud and waste is tracked down. Nobody has crawled into the Medicare and Medicaid payment systems.
Great article. No sympathy from me. They all had a chance to opt-out and get eight months of salaries and medical coverage. They threw the dice and lost. Tough.
I was struck with shock and awe when the orange man actually began downsizing agencies.
presidential candidates have blathered on about planning to do that for my entire half century lifespan, but aside from slick willie I've never seen one actually try. he dumped like 300K leeches off the federal payroll, let's see how many trump can get rid of.
about 10 years ago, I told my boss if I worked ME when I ran a manufacturing plant I would fire me for not producing. She was flabbergasted and told me she was amazed at how much I got done. I got nothing of any value done.
On another day, when Obama issued a performance improvement EO (and she ADORED Obama), she told me when I started developing implementation plans that, "He'll be out of office before he can make me do that".
I work for the government, and I'd still fire me. And all these whiny, entitled children.
Note: I accept that I should, and should have, quit. but , at the end of the day, I'm not that far from them and decide not to walk away from all the goodies.
What a perfect example of what the average working class American feels about this subject. I will definitely be featuring this one soon.
As for me, I'm a big fan of working from home whenever practicable. Generally, productivity goes way UP, not down. The only reasons oligarchs like Musk and Bezos are forcing their employees to go back into the office are so they can have more CONTROL over their workers; profits have nothing to do with it. It's all about power.
Well, that, and the fact they stupidly invested in so much commercial real estate and they need to justify that expense. Anyone who says that working from home lowers productivity either doesn't know what they are talking about or is flat-out lying.
MAYBE it's different with federal workers. They are in a completely different PMC class than lowly county workers such as myself. I watched your video. I work from home three days a week, and I would NEVER be able to get away with what that woman described.
It's not like management has no monitoring tools and can't tell exactly how much work I do every day if they just bother to look. So maybe it's not a work-from-home problem with the Feds at all. Maybe it's just plain bad management. Wouldn't it surprise you if it wasn't?
Working from home is better for me as well, except in my case, because I don't have my supervisor trying to talk with me and hold useless meetings. I can actually focus on my work at home. The return to work nonsense is largely what you stated; these guys are heavily invested in CRE and they want control over employees. I am a big advocate for the hybrid model or fully remote. Either one is good if managed properly.
Oh yes. When we finally did go to a work from home schedule AFTER the pandemic(county governments can be incredibly slow), one of my supervisors retired shortly afterwards because she missed all of the socializing at the office.
Now we’re on a hybrid schedule, but they want to go back to full-time in the office. In fact, they announced they would be doing that and so many of their remaining employees, including myself, told them if they did that we’d resign that they reversed that decision within a week.
Man, it depends a lot on the person. I am like you, and I am way more productive in my profession working from home. Not only more productive but I had to put alarms to know when it is time to stop. If you really like working you may end up working all your awake hours when working from home. 14 hour days become possible when you don't have a commute.
But the reality is. I like working, I like the place where I work, I think I get a fair salary to the level of my abilities and efforts and I feel responsibility for the company that ultimatelly pay my bills. Not everybody is the same or feel the same, and frankly, my experience with most public sector workers is that they are all a bunch of entitled assholes that think we have a privilege of paying their salaries with our taxes.
Remote work should never be a right, is a privilege to be earned by those who prove they merit it.
I'm just an old pagan, but please don't compare Musk to the White Christ. It might just tempt Loki to mess with you. The trickster god likes the White Christ. He's one of the few others whose nice to him.
What we’re seeing is, to some extent, the Revenge of the Chumps. The people who did the right thing, paid their taxes, followed the rules and got f’d more often than Lily whatshername. And I’m one of them. I paid about $90k in Fed taxes last year, and for what? Corruption, theft, graft, progressive political action. I paid for it. Me, the chump.
Revenge is so sweet. Now that they’re targeting Ukraine grifters, I want to see hundreds of these people thrown into prison. I don’t want a $5000 check. I want revenge. I want a million layoffs. I want blood. Let the rain come down.
Yeah, I've witnessed this in a previous job working with the military and federal civilians. Extreme incompetence. We had a veteran that was hired to be a recruiter, and this guy was supposed to go to a local high school during the lunch period to talk to students. Myself and a coworker went out to where the government vehicles were, and this guy was sitting in the government truck eating his lunch. My coworker asked him what he was doing because he was supposed to be at the school, and this guy told us that he couldn't find the school and decided to come back and have lunch. Total bs. The guy is the worst recruiter that I ever worked with, and the numbers reflect it, yet this guy still has a job years later. I had other federal coworkers who would regularly show up at 9:30, 10:00, 10:30, or later in some cases, and then they would leave at 2:00pm or 3:00pm in the afternoon. They don't even work a full day. So, there is a lot of this across the board. These guys are all veterans who are either 90% or 100% disabled as well, but somehow they are completely capable of being hired for a full-time job that they are completely incapable of working. It really doesn't make sense except for the fact that they are milking the system. The veterans benefits system is something else that needs a total overhaul as well.
The thing I don't understand about DOGE is gutting out the park services, park rangers, and people in jobs like this. These jobs don't pay well, and typically these are out in rural areas or at national parks, where most of these jobs are not manned all that well. I think these types of jobs are a lot harder to fake than others, but that is just my opinion. The same thing goes with the nuclear energy people; it sounds like they laid off some important people over there.
Regardless, the US government needs a massive overhaul, especially the department of defense and the uniformed services. They really need to clean the house. Lets see what happens.
Former Federal Employee: 20% of the Workforce Does 80% of the Work, Almost Impossible to Get Fired
Personnel out of office working on their farms while being paid, driving drunk and bragging about it, napping in government vehicles, snoring at desks, not logging into their computers: https://substack.com/@tritorch/note/c-91693295
Thanks for sharing that video, BTW. I gave you a like and a restack. 👍🏻
Thanks buddy!
You are most welcome, I did a quick update and embedded the video in my article. Great addition so thanks again.
Nice! Not many have the skills to download videos from substack. I'm impressed, mate.
I got it from X. Just did a quick search and found it. Change the x.com domain to xcancel.com and you can then right-click it and download it.
Got it, thanks. What browser do you use?
I watched the video, she's right. All of that is what Trump, Musk, and DOGE are trying to fix right now.
Best of luck to them! An organism must shake off the leaches and parasites in order to reach the pinnacle of health.
Hey Morgthorak! Thanks for the informative piece. As much as I’ve always loved you, I love you even more now because you have the integrity, humility and courage to admit you wrote unfairly about DOGE. Nobody can blame you for underestimating the likelihood of fulfillment of Presidential Promises. The batting average in that game is disgraceful. This turn of events does speak volumes about Trump and Musk.
Thanks so much, Maria, I appreciate the kind words. When you are wrong, you are wrong, and there is no shame in admitting it. Trump and Musk have worked wonders so far, in ways I never thought I'd see, and they absolutely deserve to be praised for it.
I came here to say the same thing. Admitting one has been wrong is quite rare today (or somewhat more so than in the past. We all struggle with it.) It is a great sign of virtue and humility. I respect you more for that. Thank you.
They should be learning to code.
And why the fuck are they getting EI??? They’re already being given a golden parachute of 8 months pay for more no-work!
Now Congress has to make the defunding permanent. That's the part that is key. Judges cannot force money that is not appropriated. Congress could literally make one page bills: This department is dissolved and all applicable legislation repealed. All employees may transfer to an open job or receive 9 months severance and benefits.
As a union member, the fed union employees can get f*cked; bastards are exempt from the ACA hence the "gold-plated" benefits.
Yes, get it through Congress if possible. Exactly right!
I'd be willing to go out on a limb and predict that Social Security and CMS may end up becoming suddenly solvent once all of the fraud and waste is tracked down. Nobody has crawled into the Medicare and Medicaid payment systems.
Absolutely! Once the fraud and waste is cut out, the programs people depend on will be stronger and more secure.
Great article. No sympathy from me. They all had a chance to opt-out and get eight months of salaries and medical coverage. They threw the dice and lost. Tough.
"The money would keep flowing to their accounts, and the rest of the country be damned!"
I think not. I think that they were completely unaware of/uninterested in the rest of the country--the REAL people.
Federal bureau of instigation lie entrap setup they have been scumbags my entire life their interrogation techniques are deplorable
There is a large contingent of federal employees who are cheering DOGE on, including DoD:
https://undergrounddesigns.substack.com/p/rage-is-all-the-rage
Good. The DoD is an boil that needs to be excised.
I was struck with shock and awe when the orange man actually began downsizing agencies.
presidential candidates have blathered on about planning to do that for my entire half century lifespan, but aside from slick willie I've never seen one actually try. he dumped like 300K leeches off the federal payroll, let's see how many trump can get rid of.
about 10 years ago, I told my boss if I worked ME when I ran a manufacturing plant I would fire me for not producing. She was flabbergasted and told me she was amazed at how much I got done. I got nothing of any value done.
On another day, when Obama issued a performance improvement EO (and she ADORED Obama), she told me when I started developing implementation plans that, "He'll be out of office before he can make me do that".
I work for the government, and I'd still fire me. And all these whiny, entitled children.
Note: I accept that I should, and should have, quit. but , at the end of the day, I'm not that far from them and decide not to walk away from all the goodies.
What a perfect example of what the average working class American feels about this subject. I will definitely be featuring this one soon.
As for me, I'm a big fan of working from home whenever practicable. Generally, productivity goes way UP, not down. The only reasons oligarchs like Musk and Bezos are forcing their employees to go back into the office are so they can have more CONTROL over their workers; profits have nothing to do with it. It's all about power.
Well, that, and the fact they stupidly invested in so much commercial real estate and they need to justify that expense. Anyone who says that working from home lowers productivity either doesn't know what they are talking about or is flat-out lying.
MAYBE it's different with federal workers. They are in a completely different PMC class than lowly county workers such as myself. I watched your video. I work from home three days a week, and I would NEVER be able to get away with what that woman described.
It's not like management has no monitoring tools and can't tell exactly how much work I do every day if they just bother to look. So maybe it's not a work-from-home problem with the Feds at all. Maybe it's just plain bad management. Wouldn't it surprise you if it wasn't?
Working from home is better for me as well, except in my case, because I don't have my supervisor trying to talk with me and hold useless meetings. I can actually focus on my work at home. The return to work nonsense is largely what you stated; these guys are heavily invested in CRE and they want control over employees. I am a big advocate for the hybrid model or fully remote. Either one is good if managed properly.
Oh yes. When we finally did go to a work from home schedule AFTER the pandemic(county governments can be incredibly slow), one of my supervisors retired shortly afterwards because she missed all of the socializing at the office.
Now we’re on a hybrid schedule, but they want to go back to full-time in the office. In fact, they announced they would be doing that and so many of their remaining employees, including myself, told them if they did that we’d resign that they reversed that decision within a week.
That’s warp speed for county government.
Man, it depends a lot on the person. I am like you, and I am way more productive in my profession working from home. Not only more productive but I had to put alarms to know when it is time to stop. If you really like working you may end up working all your awake hours when working from home. 14 hour days become possible when you don't have a commute.
But the reality is. I like working, I like the place where I work, I think I get a fair salary to the level of my abilities and efforts and I feel responsibility for the company that ultimatelly pay my bills. Not everybody is the same or feel the same, and frankly, my experience with most public sector workers is that they are all a bunch of entitled assholes that think we have a privilege of paying their salaries with our taxes.
Remote work should never be a right, is a privilege to be earned by those who prove they merit it.
Watching the Federal departments implode when Doge shows up is like watchinig Zombies implode when Christ shows up.
I'm just an old pagan, but please don't compare Musk to the White Christ. It might just tempt Loki to mess with you. The trickster god likes the White Christ. He's one of the few others whose nice to him.
What we’re seeing is, to some extent, the Revenge of the Chumps. The people who did the right thing, paid their taxes, followed the rules and got f’d more often than Lily whatshername. And I’m one of them. I paid about $90k in Fed taxes last year, and for what? Corruption, theft, graft, progressive political action. I paid for it. Me, the chump.
Revenge is so sweet. Now that they’re targeting Ukraine grifters, I want to see hundreds of these people thrown into prison. I don’t want a $5000 check. I want revenge. I want a million layoffs. I want blood. Let the rain come down.
Yeah, I've witnessed this in a previous job working with the military and federal civilians. Extreme incompetence. We had a veteran that was hired to be a recruiter, and this guy was supposed to go to a local high school during the lunch period to talk to students. Myself and a coworker went out to where the government vehicles were, and this guy was sitting in the government truck eating his lunch. My coworker asked him what he was doing because he was supposed to be at the school, and this guy told us that he couldn't find the school and decided to come back and have lunch. Total bs. The guy is the worst recruiter that I ever worked with, and the numbers reflect it, yet this guy still has a job years later. I had other federal coworkers who would regularly show up at 9:30, 10:00, 10:30, or later in some cases, and then they would leave at 2:00pm or 3:00pm in the afternoon. They don't even work a full day. So, there is a lot of this across the board. These guys are all veterans who are either 90% or 100% disabled as well, but somehow they are completely capable of being hired for a full-time job that they are completely incapable of working. It really doesn't make sense except for the fact that they are milking the system. The veterans benefits system is something else that needs a total overhaul as well.
The thing I don't understand about DOGE is gutting out the park services, park rangers, and people in jobs like this. These jobs don't pay well, and typically these are out in rural areas or at national parks, where most of these jobs are not manned all that well. I think these types of jobs are a lot harder to fake than others, but that is just my opinion. The same thing goes with the nuclear energy people; it sounds like they laid off some important people over there.
Regardless, the US government needs a massive overhaul, especially the department of defense and the uniformed services. They really need to clean the house. Lets see what happens.
DOGE is doing great stuff, now it’s up to Congress to cut spending for good (well, at least until Dems get back in power…).