#agencies

People in their probationary period are getting their termination notices effective immediately and without reason. Federal workers in their probationary period typically can only be fired “for cause” but it appears the “for cause” reason can be budgetary sometimes but right now the for cause is that they were hired under either 1 or 2 years ago. I’m sure the budget justification will come later after Musk is done funneling federal money into his personal enterprises. The notices might say for “poor performance,” but there’s no other stated reason and the real reason is so obvious - it’s because probationary employees are the easiest to get rid of in federal service and have fewer protections than permanent employees.

3% of my agency has been either fired or put on administrative leave in the past week now including five of my direct colleagues who are very dedicated and talented employees and have never had a poor performance review.

They got a termination notice that barely said the reason for their termination…. on a Friday before a long weekend…. On Valentine’s Day…. At 3pm…. After we were granted a 2 hour early release from our administrator, so many of them had already logged off for the long weekend and had to come back just to get the termination notice. Now, they’ve been told that they might not even be able to access the building and their offices on Tuesday to pick up their personal effects like office decorations and photos. Besides the termination being illegal and without any input from the employees’ direct management, it was downright offensive and disrespectful the way that the agency and this administration went about the process. There was a way to treat this process with some shreds of decency and integrity and the agency chose not to do any of it. From what I’ve heard from other agencies, it’s no different across the board.

Again, I’m asking you to check in with you federal employee friends - it’s getting harder and harder for us to do our jobs every day and a lot of us are struggling. We feel helpless in this situation and we’re just waiting for the next worse thing to drop into our laps. Call your congressional reps and put pressure on them to act on what’s going on with the agencies. We are supposed to have checks and balances that are not being respected or upheld and Congress needs to act accordingly. This is especially important for people in red states - federal employees live in red states too and are being impacted by this and red state congresspeople need to respond to their angry constituents. You can also go more local - I live in a large city where there are several federal offices and our mayor has said jackshit about the federal employees that live and work in this city, so I’m planning on asking him if he’s ever going to release a statement even about the degradation of the federal agencies that are in the city because this nonsense will start affecting the local economic and political landscape. News outlets like Wired are taking stories from federal employees who are impacted by the attack on agencies and anonymous submissions are allowed. Talk to people about what’s happening and hold your communities close because we’re stronger in numbers and this administration wants us disorganized, lonely, and helpless.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan is delivering the Democratic response to President Trump’s speech before the joint session of Congress. Slotkin’s response began after Mr. Trump wrapped his speech, which was the longest speech of his kind. Slotkin was elected in November after representing Michigan in the House since 2019, and replaced long-serving Sen. Debbie Stabenow in the Senate. The…

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Two days ago I had a talk with my neighbors. Two Gen Xers. And it went somewhat like this:

Neighbors: Our building management is completely useless. Our windows have not properly closed for two years by now!

Me: Oh, that sucks. Have you told them?

Neighbors: We wrote a letter just when it started two years ago.

Me: And have you maybe like phoned them? I mean, letters do get lost.

Neighbors: No. Why?

Now, me? I have had no issues with the building management here. Whenever I have an issue, I have a specialist working on it within three days. Because whenever an issue arises, I just call the building management and they send me over the craftsman for that issue.

About five years ago our apartment also had one window, that for some reason had stopped closing properly. It was repaired within two days.

Heck, by now the guy responsible for our building has given me the emergency numbers of their preferred companies for water sanitation, heating and electricity. Mostly because last winter I did a lot of communication with the heating company after there was a major issue. And the words, as he gave me those numbers were: "Yeah, no, we trust you to make the right call."

But... okay, that is kinda besides the point.

Let me tell you another story of mine.

When I started university back in... okay, let's not talk how long ago it was... I needed to take up student loans. (Mind you: In Germany you never will have to pay more then 10k of those. No matter how many you take up.) Because I had no other income. So... I went to the student loan office and just... asked them. And while my fellow students at times had put in their paperwork much earlier than me (because I made a last minute decision to start uni) I got my student loans approved off before anyone else. Because I just... went to the people personally and asked.

And, look, folks. I have AuDHD. I hate talking to people. And even more I hate phoning people. But all of that does not change the fact that if you just openly talk to people and are nice to them, people are way more likely to give you, what you asked for.

Especially when the alternative is "not asking at all". Because, duh, people are so far not able to telepathically read your mind.

Like, my neighbors? Chances are, that the letter has either not arrived or has gotten lost within the management company. Had they just phoned the people, the windows would have been repaired years ago. But they didn't. But without them just going in there and asking, how is the company supposed to know?

And bonus points: If you gotta phone some sort of service hotline... Just be nice to folks. Like be nice. If something does not work out, be understanding. Because those folks at the service hotlines are rarely doing it meanspirited. And believe me, they had more than enoug people be mean to them already. In fact, if you are nice to them on the hotline, chances are that they might try to accommodate you in some other way.