Last week, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent an ominous offer to millions of federal employees.
In an email titled “Fork in the Road,” these workers were given the chance to continue in their roles and work in the office five days a week, or submit their resignation by Feb. 6 and leave their jobs while collecting a paycheck through September.
It’s unclear if Trump has the legal authority to require all federal employees to return to the office full time, and if he can even make the resignation offer—labor unions filed a lawsuit this week challenging the move. But the past few days have been fraught for millions of employees trying to navigate a confusing offer that will have a massive impact on their careers and the U.S. government writ large.
Three federal workers that Fortune spoke with, who prefer to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, say they’re frightened and disoriented by the turn of events. And they’re deeply insulted by how their jobs have been denigrated by the president of the United States.
“It's heartbreaking, it's disgusting, it makes me want to quit,” says a female employee who works for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “But I will not be bullied out because I recognize that my work matters, and I'm scared at how the government is being dismantled.”
Mass confusion
One federal employee who received the resignation offer has been working at the patent office for more than a decade, and comes from a family of civil servants. He went into government service because he believes it’s a “noble calling to serve the country.”
Because the U.S. Patent Office is funded directly by user fees (i.e. people applying for patents) rather than taxpayer money, he says staff there initially believed they would be spared from the RTO mandate. That all changed, however, when the first OPM email hit their inboxes, which he describes as “worse than any of us could have imagined.” A follow-up memorandum sent by the OPM on Tuesday only caused more confusion.
There is also skepticism among government employees if the offer will even be honored for those who take it—an issue that lawyers have brought up as well. “Congress did not approve funding to be able to pay these employees for being put on admin leave,” says the HHS worker.
Workers that Fortune spoke with say that they have been asking their superiors for guidance on what to do, but to no avail. The patent worker said a supervisor friend was “getting their information from Reddit because they are hearing nothing from the higher-ups.”
“People need to know how little we're getting from management, how blind we are,” he says.
That same feeling was echoed by the HHS worker who is hearing very little from management in the agency. “I think they're afraid to speak to us, and it's terrifying because our leadership tends to be pretty transparent.”
Return to where?
Workers that Fortune spoke with say that even if the entire agency staff did return to the office, there would be nowhere for them to work.
“That’s what has a lot of us very frustrated—we’re told all of these buildings are sitting empty,” says the HHS worker. “My agency doesn’t have space.”
One Veterans Affairs worker said that it was clear his office had no room to put everyone. “Where are we gonna put these remote employees? We don't have parking. We don't have desks,” he said. “We have people in the sub basement. Do you know what that is? It’s a basement in the basement.”
Character attacks
The demand for federal workers to return to the office full time or resign has come along with attacks on their value and work ethic.
“We encourage you to find a job in the private sector as soon as you would like to do so,” reads an FAQ page on the OPM’s website. “The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector.”
Federal employees are certainly feeling the sting of this rhetoric. “It's disgusting because we are being targeted as lazy and not wanting to come to work. And that's simply not true,” says the HHS worker.
“It's got to be the most insulting thing I've about ever heard,” says the patent worker. “You're unfamiliar with the work that we do because it runs smoothly in the background. And it won't be until your poor friend can't feed themselves because they can't access food stamps, or you stop seeing new innovations because no one can get patents, or your kids can't read anymore. That is when you realize that things have gone wrong.”
A terrible choice
The legality of the resignation offer will be fought out in court over the next few weeks and months. But workers on the ground have just one more day to decide what they want to do.
The patent worker had been remote for a long time, and lives several hours away from his department headquarters. He’s meeting with an attorney to explore his options, but he’s leaning towards taking the deal because of how impossible commuting would be. “I literally do not know that I have a choice,” he says.
The VA worker says that even if he did accept the resignation offer, he doesn’t think he would be allowed to step away from his duties for the next few months. The agency is so understaffed, he thinks it’s likely they would still require him to show up. “I would just be giving them an eight month notice of quitting,” he says.
The HHS employee has decided against taking the offer. “I'm not going to be chased out,” she says. “I think my anger is what's fueling me. I mean, sure I could get a job elsewhere, but it's gonna cause such a disruption to my life, people I love, that I'm not willing to do that because the government is bullying me.”
