Admin Leave - what are you telling your kids?

[Anonymous]

The gaslighting is strong in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taking it? Lots of people have been "put on" admin leave. Not a choice.

“Lots”? Who?

USAID
Dept of Ed
OPM

+ the whole EEO/ADA offices of many agencies. Are people really this unaware of what’s happening to people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have kids this age. There is no way to tell them anything but the truth. They would worry more if we tried to hide it from them.

Just be matter of fact. This happened. We have plenty of savings. We may need to cut back a bit but everything is going to be fine.

The same thing any private sector parent says to a kid after a layoff.

Man, you Feds are so precious aren’t you! Acting like the first people to ever be laid off in the history of man.

Oh calm down. People are seeking support, not suggesting that they are the only ones who ever experienced a layoff.

It would be easier to support them if they hadn’t previously been so smug about their impenetrable job security.

You are viewing the federal workforce as a faceless unpersonal group, and applying a stereotype. That is fine in some contexts.
But here we are talking about actual people with real concerns about unemployment. You have no idea if these actual humans were every smug in any way.
Whether or not anyone thinks that objectively lay offs should occur, on a human level, job insecurity is hard- whether it is in the federal sector or the private sector. Empathy would do everybody some good.

There is empathy. But there is also growing annoyance at the woe is me crowd.

The person posting this has has no changes to their job or pay. So 6 pages of looking for empathy for exactly no reason. Just give it a rest. Do what you need to save and cut back, do your best in your workplace at the moment, and keep your options open elsewhere.

We are all in disbelief at what an idiot Trump is. But this running around gnashing teeth stuff is what his crowd is hoping for.

So don’t look at these threads. Some people need support and venting to deal with stuff. You can be bored by the repetitiveness of it all since you don’t have someone affected. Or be like me who can lean on a private sector husband who makes three times what I do. But accept the fact that people deal with uncertainty and job loss differently. And show some empathy. Or, roll your eyes and stay out of these threads. Berating people who are confused is not helpful. Neither is comparing people to private sector job losses. My husband expects he may be laid off. It’s built into the culture and into his compensation. It is less of a stretch when it happens to him (as it has in the past). And even for mybuis

[Anonymous]

The reason people are shocked is because laws are not being followed here. This is not how you conduct a RIF. Every week the courts are issuing some kind of TRO because the administration is testing the limits of its power. Don’t make dumb comparisons to the private sector. This is the force of the United States government being deployed against its own.

[Anonymous]

Our family has endured two major layoffs in times where it was hard to get rehired due to the economy/number of unemployed. First was 2009 financial crisis and second was early Covid. Both were a shock and took many months to find new employment.

Both times we were extremely thankful for living beneath our means/having a simple life/savings.

This is a great argument for minimalism/frugality of which we are huge fans. If you didn’t see it before, maybe now you will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our family has endured two major layoffs in times where it was hard to get rehired due to the economy/number of unemployed. First was 2009 financial crisis and second was early Covid. Both were a shock and took many months to find new employment.

Both times we were extremely thankful for living beneath our means/having a simple life/savings.

This is a great argument for minimalism/frugality of which we are huge fans. If you didn’t see it before, maybe now you will.

Um, many of us have seen trouble before. We don’t wish it on our neighbors. Some of you people are just sick in the head.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reason people are shocked is because laws are not being followed here. This is not how you conduct a RIF. Every week the courts are issuing some kind of TRO because the administration is testing the limits of its power. Don’t make dumb comparisons to the private sector. This is the force of the United States government being deployed against its own.

That’s really all there is to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously other than DEI folks and EPA’s EJ folks, who else?

At ED they put a bunch of people on Admin Leave for taking DEI trainings but who didnt work for the DEI office or do DEI as their main job.

This is absolutely true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taking it? Lots of people have been "put on" admin leave. Not a choice.

“Lots”? Who?

USAID
Dept of Ed
OPM

USAID was overturned. DOE and OPM are mostly still talk. Who else?

USAID went from yesterday until a week from now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seriously other than DEI folks and EPA’s EJ folks, who else?

At ED they put a bunch of people on Admin Leave for taking DEI trainings but who didnt work for the DEI office or do DEI as their main job.

This is absolutely true.

Admin leave still gets paid...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our family has endured two major layoffs in times where it was hard to get rehired due to the economy/number of unemployed. First was 2009 financial crisis and second was early Covid. Both were a shock and took many months to find new employment.

Both times we were extremely thankful for living beneath our means/having a simple life/savings.

This is a great argument for minimalism/frugality of which we are huge fans. If you didn’t see it before, maybe now you will.

Um, many of us have seen trouble before. We don’t wish it on our neighbors. Some of you people are just sick in the head.

I wasn’t talking about seeing the trouble. I was talking about seeing the value of minimalism/extreme frugality and living the simple life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seriously other than DEI folks and EPA’s EJ folks, who else?

Please define "DEI folks"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One child in 8th grade and one in 10th grade.

They have lived through a bunch of government shut downs - and now this.

This is not comparable to gov shutdowns. Gov shutdowns guarantee backpay, so no one ever worries about it. This is completely different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taking it? Lots of people have been "put on" admin leave. Not a choice.

“Lots”? Who?

USAID
Dept of Ed
OPM

USAID was overturned. DOE and OPM are mostly still talk. Who else?

The efforts to pause USAID were paused when thousands of staff were already frozen out of systems. We have neighbors at EPA where hundreds of people have been placed on administrative leave. We have FBI and CIA friends who fear they’ll be placed on leave soon as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The reason people are shocked is because laws are not being followed here. This is not how you conduct a RIF. Every week the courts are issuing some kind of TRO because the administration is testing the limits of its power. Don’t make dumb comparisons to the private sector. This is the force of the United States government being deployed against its own.

This. You can change the priorities of the USA government and indeed that happens in each change of administration. But killing an agency overnight and calling their employees criminals and pulling foreign service officers out of post with a week’s notice-this is not the way a serious country treats its civil service. This is America turned into a banana republic.