IDENTIFIED: The Biggest Waste of US Tax Dollars So Far
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
It’s as if every single federal employee has been sucked into the 1999 movie, Office Space, forced to generate value-sucking and utterly-useless TPS reports just to make a goddamned micromanaging control freak happy. Via NBC News:
Billionaire Elon Musk issued an ultimatum to federal employees Saturday, saying in a post on his social media platform X that employees must respond to an email justifying the work they completed this week or resign.
Federal employees have already begun receiving an email asking to summarize their work, sources familiar with the matter told NBC News, though unlike Musk’s post, it does not explicitly threaten a forced resignation.
The email, sent from the Office of Personnel Management and shared with NBC News, asked employees to send approximately five bullet points listing what they accomplished this week, CC’ing their managers.
The email reviewed by NBC News requested that employees not send any classified information, links or attachments. It said employees must respond by a deadline of Monday at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Good luck to any federal employee who’s on leave or on vacation and doesn’t learn of this until after the deadline — or who can’t provide five fucking bullet points because their job is as simple as “fought a forest fire” or “nursed veterans.”
If this is how Musk runs publicly-listed companies, shareholders should contact the boards of directors and demand he be removed because he’s wasting their investments as well.
No need to do your jobs better, no need to add more value. Just worry about fulfilling this massive time waste.
Musk needs to be fired.
Here’s your action item: find a special election for a congressional race and help the Democratic candidate win. Keep an eye out for future special elections. Take back the House to prevent any effort to legislate this kind of massive waste of tax dollars. The GOP has a very slim margin which can be eliminated through special elections.
Then find a way to communicate to other voters they need to know about this waste and be ready to help pitch in to fire Musk.
Nobody elected a shadow king, and nobody elected this blackhole draining our taxes.
Unfamiliar with the reference to Office Space? It’s streaming on Hulu.
_________
Image by: Daniel Manrique ([email protected]) via Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0
Ugh. We were warned.
Alt Text: Bluesky post by ChrisO_wiki (@chriso-wiki.bsky.social):
Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels haven’t aged well. For example, Moonraker – published almost exactly 70 years ago in April 1955 – features a villain who’s a super-rich industrialist and rocket-maker seeking to cause chaos because he’s a secret Nazi. Such a silly idea! ” — February 22, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Work-product related data from “a million” federal government employees + AI = tremendous value to Elon?
Dataraker.
What new data is he getting? All the bullet points could be pure bullshit. Believe me, managers and employees all know what’s going on and they’ll be communicating to complete this bullshit task in an organized fashion.
It’s not even a good approach to monetizable data collection.
At work we did a weekly meeting to tell others what we did that week. (For some people, it really was all BS.) Twenty people in a room being treated like kids in school – I hated it, especially since we had to document our time anyway.
He isn’t even in their chain of command; he really doesn’t need to know. And very few jobs can be summed up in five bullet points.
I’d send a reply, BCC’d to boss, congressperson, senators, House Speaker, Majority Leader, and the WH, and ask if this unelected, unappointed, unofficial guy deserves anything more than a loud GFY from everyone.
Also that many replies are going to crash the email servers.
Ah! The Law of Intended Consequences…
So, if your job was on the line, would it take a couple of hours to do this? More, perhaps; not counting getting approval from your supervisor? And if you were a supervisor, would you be working with your team all day on Monday polishing those bullet points?
Then comes the math: Multiply the total number of employees responding times some estimate of average time spent writing those responses. You’d get a huge Total Time number.
Divide the total hours by 2080 to get the FTEs (full time equivalent/person years) to find the portion of the workforce that was diverted in order to do this useless stunt.
To wrap up front end of the stunt, multiply the average full cost of labor and benefits for those FTEs to get the one-time cost in $$$.
Then we need to calculate the administration of the debacle. Is DOGE going to process all those emails with AI – and no human intervention? (AI developed by the folks that didn’t know who actually owns the nuclear weapons stockpiles, and that Bonneville Power Administration salaries are funded by its ratepayers, not taxpayers.) What about classification? If this had happened in my last office, the civilian employees’ unclassified accomplishment summaries would probably look pretty watered down to an AI thingy.
DOGE is committing full scale classic/textbook Waste, Fraud, and Abuse. It will result in enormous costs. Exactly what Inspectors General investigate.
The question I keep hearing is: “Is this even legal”? In a non-Doge world, the HR and legal folks would be providing employees information based on the legal authority that allow (?) something like this, and also providing information on any appeals processes.
I figure an FTE is 2000 hours, with vacation time included. If not, then there’s going to be about 10 days off for holidays. (It makes the math easier, too.)
As per guidance from management on both the contractor side and the government side, my FTE estimates were to be 2080. That’s how I costed labor, and also estimated impact on FTE as the result of new training being applied to existing billets.
Rayne, thank you for the post today, and historically for pointing out to the readers here how DARVO works. This is definitely waste. And also fraud and abuse. We hear so much about how this administration is eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” and it’s obvious that in fact DOGE is the perpetrator. The messaging is like an anticipatory DARVO.
They’ve cost us more than they’ve “saved”.
All of this is abusive behavior — the manipulative controlling demands for hoop jumping with threats of punitive action, all of it.
The whining ahead about being victims of protests against this behavior is wholly predictable once we understand DARVO.
What about Donald? After we deduct his golfing hours, what do his answers say?
I’m a retired federal employee living in [redacted] now with colleagues I am in daily contact with. One is an AFGE local union leader who sent this message to his officers and stewards:
1) I appreciate the robust dialogue and info sharing but please don’t let them fill up your weekend with angst and worry – for that is their intent. seize back this weekend for yourself and family.
2) I urge you all to stay off of your gov computers and phones till you sign in at work Monday – or whenever scheduled to be back in the office (or on your next duty day if you are still approved for telework / remote work. Checking your emails when off duty can land you in trouble, because that is considered work – and it is illegal for the gov to permit an employee to work without compensation (and approval).
3) i advise you NOT to respond to or forward the email, unless and until you are instructed to do so by your supervisor / chain of command.
4) On Monday – unless we receive official USCIS guidance, I intend (in my official union capacity) to forward the email to the chief information officer and report it as a suspicious external email from an unknown source – as we have been instructed in computer security training. And will ask him to send clarification/confirmation to the workforce about authenticity.
5.) I will recommend to our national council president that he express our concern to the acting agency head and ask that she send out clarifying guidance to the entire workforce.”
Here’s another response:
Here’s something a friend shared – : I believe it was drafted with chatgpt assistance:
Dear Unnamed HR entity,
Thank you for reaching out. I appreciate the interest in my work and am happy to assist in providing the appropriate information through the proper channels.
As a federal employee, I must comply with federal regulations and agency policies regarding information sharing, records management, and security. Because my work is subject to these controls, I am unable to share it directly through this channel. However, if this request is formally submitted through my agency leadership and follows the appropriate review and approval processes, I would be glad to assist in facilitating that process.
For reference, several regulations govern the proper disclosure of federal work:
– Federal Records Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 31) – Ensures that agency records are managed appropriately and prevents unauthorized disclosures outside official channels.
– Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) (5 U.S.C. § 552) – While my work may be subject to FOIA, its release must go through designated agency officials who assess security, privacy, and operational concerns before disclosure.
– Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. § 552a) – Restricts the release of certain government records that may contain personally identifiable or sensitive information.
– Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) (44 U.S.C. § 3551 et seq.) – Requires agencies to safeguard information and ensure controlled disclosure of federal IT and security-related work.
– Executive Order 13526 (Classified National Security Information) – While my work may not be classified, EO 13526 underscores the importance of protecting sensitive but unclassified information.
Given these requirements, any request for federal work products must be routed through my agency’s leadership and appropriate review processes. If you’d like to proceed through those channels, I’d be happy to direct you to the appropriate contacts.
Loyally yours,
Thank you for this, it’s very helpful. I have redacted your location because I don’t want you targeted and it doesn’t matter where you are as a federal employee.
Thank you very much, Rayne. I thought too late to edit it out. You’re right.
I think a “waste calculation” should include secondary costs as employees asking for advice from unions or lawyers, hours put in by people working on complaints, then the time court clerks and judges will spend on possible complaints and so on.
My response will be: I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well; and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. As I am bound by nondisclosure agreements, I cannot disclose anything else.
With so much of the federal workforce being unionized, I am convinced this is designed to tee up court fights that become eventual SCOTUS fights that the muskrat thinks he will win with the hope that some of those judgements are broad enough to hurt organized labor in the private sector
Jeff Bezos is also permanently hopeful for anything that can kneecap unions on his turf.
And, speaking of dying in darkness, Bezos seems to have faded away somewhat from his “kiss the ring” activities. Is he finding the prospect of a full-blown trade war (and all the accompanying side effects) getting close to touching him in tender spot?