OPINION:
Federal workers across the U.S. government received an email Saturday, instructing them to report their work accomplishments from the previous week in about five bullet points.
• Wrote a column
• Produced a podcast “ForAmerica”
• Produced a television show, “The Capitol Hill Show”
• Appeared on three TV networks discussing Gaza
• Met with and interviewed the president of a Middle Eastern country
That list took me all of 30 seconds to think of and type. Any logical, rational person who is actually working at the job he or she is being paid to do could have responded to such a request in 90 seconds or less and moved on to the next daily task. It’s the kind of thing corporate America commonly requests of its employees, particularly when new management comes on board.
Sadly, life for government workers in America isn’t like that.
Some snowflake workers say it is part of a pattern of harassment from Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency. They fear their responses may be used to slash their jobs or curtail their funding.
Perhaps I am just the curious type, but if you cannot or will not explain what you do at work on a daily basis, doesn’t that increase the likelihood your job or your budget will be cut?
It reminds me of the online videos where people record themselves refusing to cooperate with a police officer who has pulled them over for speeding. They decline to cooperate “because they don’t have to.”
Rather than simply hand over their drivers license and be on with their life five minutes later, the malcontents refuse, demand to speak to a commanding officer, often end up arrested, and spend weeks or months trying to clear the matter up. Unnecessary and unreasonable.
So it is with the federal workers taking umbrage at being asked to explain their daily tasks to the new sheriff in town.
Contrary to many news reports, the Office of Personnel Management email did not threaten to fire anyone who didn’t reply. Mr. Musk did suggest such a possibility via a post on his personal X account. But his X account is not an official government channel.
Sen. Joni Ernst, Iowa Republican and chair of the DOGE Caucus, told me last week that only 6% of all federal government employees actually show up at their office every single day. Simple math tells us that 94% are not. What are they doing?
Ms. Ernst answered “you can’t tell me that every federal government employee that is teleworking is working a 40-hour week, being responsive to constituent needs.” Some of those employees themselves also apparently can’t tell the senator, or OPM.
In kindergarten, it’s not uncommon for children to have meltdowns over the simplest of tasks. They may be hungry. Their blood sugar may be low. They may be tired. They might have been picked on by their older brother on the way to school. There are any number of reasons why the 5-year-old brain overreacts and reverts to shrieks and protests when asked to do a simple task.
As they get older, human beings usually grow out of these childish hissy fits. This past week however, we have seen that a certain segment of federal workers have never progressed to post-kindergarten maturity.
“It was nothing but a cynical attempt to demean federal workers and terrorize them into quitting,” shrieked Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees. “To be clear, federal employees report to the agencies who employ them through established chains of command. They do not report to OPM, DOGE and definitely not to Elon Musk.”
I am going to let you in on a little secret: Hard working Americans abhor whiners, complainers and slackers.
Many cops, farmers and bricklayers already suspect government bureaucrats who bellyache about having to show up at the office two or three times a week aren’t pulling their own weight. When a group of federal employees bands together to spend weeks or months fighting a request to explain, in the time it takes to type this paragraph, what they do on a daily basis, don’t expect a lot of sympathy from John Q. Public.
In the leftist world of no rules — where there are eight or more genders and where the nation has no borders — why should we be surprised when some employees think they are entitled to a paycheck despite not doing the work and/or not responding to their boss.
I have close friends who absolutely loathe President Trump and now, by extension, they don’t much like Mr. Musk either. Some share with me very clear reasons why. I have no problem with anyone developing an informed opinion of the president. That opinion, however, does not excuse anyone from exercising common sense.
Asking an employee to describe what he or she does isn’t unreasonable. It isn’t harassment. It most certainly isn’t demeaning. It is how any organization maximizes efficiency. Can I get a show of hands for who doesn’t want government to be more efficient?
Mr. Musk is seeking to cut $1 trillion from the federal deficit. Determining who is actually working seems like a pretty logical part of that.
Feeling harassed or terrorized simply by being asked to describe what you do does not even come close to passing the logic test. The silent reply of many government workers speaks volumes.
Mr. Musk is doubling down on his push for a self-description of workers’ weekly tasks.
“Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance,” Mr. Musk wrote Tuesday on X. “Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
Mr. Trump weighed in after there had been pushback from some department heads.
“It’s somewhat voluntary, but it’s also I guess if you don’t answer, I guess you get fired,” he said.
If an employee can’t comply with this simple request, it’s a fair bet they don’t take direction well when the ask gets more complex. If those workers are indeed terminated for failing to comply, that may not be such a bad thing.
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