odanny
Diamond Member
This is the very definition of a man made disaster. Giving someone of this temperment the keys to the front door is only just beginning to show what a looming trainwreck is rolling down the tracks. It has been remarkably bad in only just a matter of weeks. The reason it is going to get so much worse is because of this brain drain that our federal government is currently undergoing. Even if all these jobs are refilled the experience that was there is all gone. Will take years to repair the damage done in weeks.
The first message from her manager on Saturday afternoon misspelled Amanda Mae Downey’s name. The second mentioned “the news” about probationary federal workers and how the Trump administration planned to fire them.
When Downey called her boss at a Michigan branch of the U.S. Forest Service for an explanation, she learned her name was on a firing list. She would have to come into the office to sign a letter formalizing her termination. And she had to do it before the holiday weekend was over.
“I’m glad that our agency at least has decided we can do it in person,” her manager said, according to a recording Downey provided to The Washington Post. “So we can add a little human touch to what’s going on.”
Many federal government employees were dismissed over the holiday weekend as managers confronted a Trump administration demand to fire workers by Tuesday. In group texts and in online forums, they dubbed the error-ridden run of firings the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
The firings targeted new hires on probation, who have fewer protections than permanent employees, and swept up people with years of service who had recently transferred between agencies, as well as military veterans and people with disabilities employed through a program that sped their hiring but put them on two years’ probation. Most probationary employees have limited rights to appeal dismissals, but union heads have vowed to challenge the mass firings in court. The largest union representing federal workers has also indicated it plans to fight the terminations and pursue legal action.
Critics warned of swift consequences as the administration raced to execute a vision Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have touted for a leaner, reshaped government. The latest wave of personnel actions already prompted an administrative complaint on behalf of workers at nine agencies, adding to more than a dozen legal tests of Trump’s power filed one month into his term.
The Trump administration will not disclose how many workers it cut since last week ahead of its Tuesday deadline, but the government employed more than 200,000 probationary workers as of last year. The firings have extended to touch employees at almost every agency, including map makers, archaeologists and cancer researchers, The Post found, in choices that some workers said contradicted a U.S. Office of Personnel Management directive to retain “mission-critical” workers.
This account of how the Trump administration’s firings played out over the weekend, sowing pain and chaos, is based on interviews and messages with more than 275 federal workers, as well as dozens of government records and communications reviewed by The Post.
The Federal Aviation Administration let go hundreds of technicians and engineers just weeks after a midair collision a few miles from the White House killed 67 people, eliciting promises from Trump officials to improve air safety, workers said in interviews. FEMA, which handles the nation’s natural disasters, is preparing to fire hundreds of probationary employees, according to four people familiar with the situation who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The agency is already stretched thin responding to fires in California and floods in Kentucky. And the administration terminated scores of employees who work to bolster the nation’s nuclear defense, only to realize its error and start reversing the firings.
WaPo
The first message from her manager on Saturday afternoon misspelled Amanda Mae Downey’s name. The second mentioned “the news” about probationary federal workers and how the Trump administration planned to fire them.
When Downey called her boss at a Michigan branch of the U.S. Forest Service for an explanation, she learned her name was on a firing list. She would have to come into the office to sign a letter formalizing her termination. And she had to do it before the holiday weekend was over.
“I’m glad that our agency at least has decided we can do it in person,” her manager said, according to a recording Downey provided to The Washington Post. “So we can add a little human touch to what’s going on.”
Many federal government employees were dismissed over the holiday weekend as managers confronted a Trump administration demand to fire workers by Tuesday. In group texts and in online forums, they dubbed the error-ridden run of firings the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.”
The firings targeted new hires on probation, who have fewer protections than permanent employees, and swept up people with years of service who had recently transferred between agencies, as well as military veterans and people with disabilities employed through a program that sped their hiring but put them on two years’ probation. Most probationary employees have limited rights to appeal dismissals, but union heads have vowed to challenge the mass firings in court. The largest union representing federal workers has also indicated it plans to fight the terminations and pursue legal action.
Critics warned of swift consequences as the administration raced to execute a vision Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have touted for a leaner, reshaped government. The latest wave of personnel actions already prompted an administrative complaint on behalf of workers at nine agencies, adding to more than a dozen legal tests of Trump’s power filed one month into his term.
The Trump administration will not disclose how many workers it cut since last week ahead of its Tuesday deadline, but the government employed more than 200,000 probationary workers as of last year. The firings have extended to touch employees at almost every agency, including map makers, archaeologists and cancer researchers, The Post found, in choices that some workers said contradicted a U.S. Office of Personnel Management directive to retain “mission-critical” workers.
This account of how the Trump administration’s firings played out over the weekend, sowing pain and chaos, is based on interviews and messages with more than 275 federal workers, as well as dozens of government records and communications reviewed by The Post.
The Federal Aviation Administration let go hundreds of technicians and engineers just weeks after a midair collision a few miles from the White House killed 67 people, eliciting promises from Trump officials to improve air safety, workers said in interviews. FEMA, which handles the nation’s natural disasters, is preparing to fire hundreds of probationary employees, according to four people familiar with the situation who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The agency is already stretched thin responding to fires in California and floods in Kentucky. And the administration terminated scores of employees who work to bolster the nation’s nuclear defense, only to realize its error and start reversing the firings.
WaPo
