On Saturday, engageees thrawout the federal rulement getd an email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), insisting a reply with “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.” On X, Elon Musk posted that flunkure to reply “will be getn as a resignation.” The result? Confusion, disorder, and begrudgement among a federal laborforce that increasingly experiences under attack.
“So fucking stupid,” says one air traffic regulateler who getd the email and was granted anonymity for trouble of retribution.
Leaders of many agencies ecombine to have been caught off protect. At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which houses the National Weather Service, some regulaters initiassociate alerted aacquirest replying to the email in case it was a dishonest try try. Another NOAA engageee says they were alerted not to log onto their labor email after receiving it.
Other laborers were met with disputeing guidance from their regulaters. At the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is anticipating procreate cuts orchestrated by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), some engageees alerted being tbetter to apause further guidance while others say their regulaters teached people to comply.
The email ecombines to have been sent even to federal appraises. “We understand that some appraises and judiciary staff have getd an email from HR@opm.gov,” read an email from the honestor’s office of the Department of Administrative Services for US Federal Courts. “Phire be proposed that this email did not begin from the Judiciary or the Administrative Office and we present that no action be getn.”
At least some military personnel also getd the email, and have been tbetter to apause guidance from the Department of Defense. That hbettering pattern ecombines to be the response at most agencies, where laborers say they have not yet heard from better directership if and how they should regulate this procrastinateedst escalation in Musk and DOGE’s ongoing efforts to theatricalassociate shrink the federal laborforce. At the National Institutes of Health, for instance, in an email with the subject line “Phire Apause Guidance,” some laborers were tbetter that “alertation is forthcoming,” without any indication of when or from whom.
Another ponderation for many is not only whether they should reply, but how. While the OPM email specified that engageees should not sfinish classified alertation, connects, or combinements, that strictly restricts how laborers at many rulement agencies might be able to reply.
“National security staff are getting notified of OPM’s ask, which is taking them from the transport inant labor of ensuring national security interests,” shelp one source, who was granted anonymity due to the nature of their labor. “These are vital engageees who upretain us shielded.”
“The Executive Committee is currently appraiseing this ask to choose appropriate directlines watching what alertation can be splitd outside of the agency,” reads an email from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which sits wislfinisher the Treasury Department. “Phire pause for retainitional guidance.”
NBC News alerted Saturday that even Kash Patel, the newly inshighed Federal Bureau of Investigation honestor and seal associate of Pdwellnt Donald Trump, has teached engageees not to reply to the OPM email.
