By “Thomas,” a career civil servant of an Executive Branch agency.
Charles Dickens was writing about a different setting, but I found it to be true for my life as a federal employee in 2025:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
I began to sense a change in the air the day after the 2024 general election. Already there was a stillness I observed from simply walking through Washington the night of Nov. 5, blocks from Kamala Harris’s election watch party-turned-wake, as Donald Trump’s electoral momentum carried him through the battleground states to the presidency. In winning back the White House, Donald Trump defied history and multiple attempts to take him down. The significance of the result likely weighed differently among my colleagues in government, who I joined for an early morning meeting to temporarily focus our minds away from confusion about our future. To their credit, our supervisors, mindful of some tense feelings, started discussing a nonpartisan expectation of shifting agency priorities come Inauguration Day, and reiterated their support for us and for our work. The team ultimately was most concerned about being able to continue to work to avoid disrupting our customers. That disruption, however, would pale in comparison to what unfolded in the following months.
As the incoming administration took shape, I concealed my optimism while recalling how a number of my colleagues made no such attempt when Trump was leaving office in 2021. Our motivations varied in preferring a candidate we knew would shape the Executive Branch, but otherwise our attention focused on keeping the federal machinery humming. Meanwhile, rumors abounded of freshly organized Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staff arriving to federal agencies, embedding themselves in secured spaces with agency datasets with unclear motives. Worst case, they appeared to be antithetical to the stereotype of dedicated civil service: young, ambitious, and skeptical of what lay exposed before them, not unlike a private equity firm sizing up what could be considered valuable and saved … or marked for extraction and disposal. DOGE apparently wasted no time seeking friendship or calming nerves, so suspicions of Musk’s hatchet men abounded as they pursued their nebulous goals.
We’d soon draw the attention of the new caste of political appointees, however, with an otherwise benign emailed request to provide five recent professional accomplishments. Whatever was restrained in the office appeared unleashed across federal forums online: an explosive reaction to the administration moving to reinstate control of a hitherto untouchable bureaucracy. The loudest voices spread rumors of a planned culling with references to Office Space‘s iconic “What would you say … you do here?” scene, warnings of a phishing attempt (which leadership had to step in to dismiss), and general hostility at insinuations the public workforce was not accountable let alone working. Resistance online soon coalesced around upholding our oath of office to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,” union membership — especially as employees were required to return to 100% in-office work — and chatter of protests and (illegal) strikes, proposing rallying symbols of “Come and Take It” staplers.
In my mind, Executive Branch public servants simply serve at the pleasure of the president and deserve no special treatment beyond what’s afforded by law. Such a career is dedicated to being good stewards of taxpayer funding — nothing glamorous or lucrative — in the course of carrying out the legal political will of the chief executive. Thus, I merely settled on trusting the justice system and let the professionals argue their cases appropriately while I fought my daily battles reconciling outdated data management systems across silos compounded with a few seemingly micromanaging policies. Even a simple weekly task of renaming and organizing files across multiple systems would take hours away from meaningful work in order to comply with well-intentioned guidance for audits, but each system had its requirements and quirks to address. Concerns about inefficiency were raised and sympathetically considered by agency management, but there remained a stubborn resignation that “It’s always been done that way.” I didn’t hold my breath that DOGE would immediately rescue agencies from the shortcomings of our procurement software, though it would be a welcome change it could build upon to court goodwill and cooperation from otherwise skeptical federal employees.
Instead of all the energy seemingly devoted to DOGE-watch and fear, how better might government operations have fared and the public be served if the defensive suspicion and resistance against the “tech bros” were replaced with an openness to admitting areas of improvement and collaborating over solutions? Opposition to change, disruption to our lives and careers, uncertainty about the future, and what was reported as sometimes off-putting missteps by DOGE likely all contributed to preventing truly effective reform, not to mention a sentiment by Russ Vought for members of the federal workforce to be “traumatically affected.” If DOGE, on the other hand, wanted to be taken more seriously, they might have opted to not work from the ostensible shadows, challenge the authority of federal law and civil service protections, consider nuance rather than adopting a perceived break-everything-and-rebuild approach, communicate more openly about their processes and findings, and invite more input from whistleblowers earnestly hoping to address waste, fraud, and abuse. Of course, working for the Trump administration apparently invites no end to public scrutiny, congressional inquiry, and legal threats and injunctions, not to mention security risks, doxxing, and professional suspicion. It’s no wonder, then, that the boldest attempt to reform Washington eventually adopted a defensive, less-forthright posture to preserve their work … and their lives.
Amidst the increasing noise of thwarting DOGE’s encroachments of the status quo and the less-than-subtle carrot-or-stick “Fork in the Road” deferred resignation offer, I braced myself for an involuntary transition and refit my federally-oriented resume for a new purpose among an uncharted private sector. Dozens of emails recording application submissions and updates filled my inbox each week, offering or denying the opportunity to explore a new professional future. One Friday evening email in particular, however, drew my attention, then my dismay with blunt language government employees typically avoid receiving.
“I am writing to share some difficult news…”
