Are You Forking KIDDING Me?

Please observe a moment of silence for millions of federal employees who may no longer be getting paid not to work.

Even though I was born in NYC, I spent a good chunk of my childhood in Florida, which isn’t particularly southern in the sweet-tea-and-yes-ma’am-and-collard-greens sense (there’s a reason it’s known as “New York with palm trees”), but occasionally you did get a little bit of Dixie down in God’s Waiting Room the Sunshine State.

“Bless her heart,” your mom’s friend would whisper after regaling you with a tale of just how long the hardware store lady’s mustache had grown since her last visit. “Bless his heart,” your aunt would say as your cousin struck out at the plate. Again. “Bless their hearts,” you and your friends would say, referring to the tourists trying to pronounce Kissimmee correctly. (It’s Kuh-SIM-ee, not KISS-a-me.)

“Bless [someone’s] heart” is Southern for “well, the poor bastard probably tried.” It's the verbal equivalent of presenting someone with a participation trophy and then praying they never try again.

Anyway, you know those millions of poor federal workers who were offered eight months’ pay if they would pretty-please promptly resign from the overcompensated jobs they barely did and save Trump the trouble of having to fire them himself?

Bless their hearts.

“American taxpayers pay for the salaries of federal government employees, and therefore deserve employees working on their behalf who actually show up to work in our wonderful federal buildings, also paid for by taxpayers,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. "If they don’t want to work in the office and contribute to making America great again, then they are free to choose a different line of work, and the Trump Administration will provide a very generous payout of 8 months.”

So just like that, millions of workers were offered a golden parachute—more like a golden blimp—to float off into early retirement or take their time perusing Indeed while collecting a nice paycheck practically into the fall. But instead of being grateful for the parting gift, they ran to a judge and screamed, “It’s so not fair! We need more time! You think eight months’ pay for doing nothing is generous? We’ve been doing nothing for years and getting full-time salaries plus benefits!”

As is typically the case with nearly every bureaucratic gripe or grudge match I encounter, I wonder how is this even a thing? When I was laid off from my advertising job in the early 1990s, I didn’t receive even one extra day’s pay for work I was no longer doing. There was no “here’s a few months to mentally prepare for unemployment, get your resume spit-shined, and maybe take a nice trip to the Bahamas” bonus-few-weeks on the corporate clock included. I was given an empty box and fifteen minutes to collect my things before being escorted out of the building.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr., has twice put the brakes on the Office of Personnel Management’s so-called “Fork Directive” because he needs more time to ponder whether the administration is allowed to do what every private-sector company has done forever: offer buyouts to trim the fat. So far, 60,000 employees have accepted the exit package; a senior administration official told NBC News that they expect 5%-10% of the federal workforce to ultimately follow suit, an exodus that will save the government around $100 billion.

Trump: Show up and do your job or you’re fired.
Millions of federal employees: But we want to get paid for having a pulse, and we want to do it from home!

No wonder Democrats loathe DOGE so much.

As I type, the federal government is spending $7 billion a year on office space that’s as empty as a dentist’s office on Halloween. Nearly half of federal employees are still working from home, but taxpayers are also footing a $3.3 billion bill for new furniture (I wonder if a lifetime of free Blockbuster movie rentals and a set of Encyclopedia Britannica come with that?). The Biden administration’s telework policies are so loose that 228,000 employees aren’t required to report in person at all, and unions have locked in work-from-home privileges until 2029. House Republicans want Trump to close the virtual office loophole, but they might as well be mopping the ocean: nearly half of remote workers say if their employer demanded they actually change out of their PJs and clock in at some office—even a swanky one with brand new chairs!—they’d immediately start looking for a new job.

Headlines said the quiet part out loud: “Trump’s return-to-office order amounts to an unwelcome pay cut.” Apparently, being physically present on the job is now considered a financial hardship. If we’re not careful, in-person work will be deemed unconstitutional for violating employees’ “right to pursue happiness” if the position involves an annoying commute, having to pay a babysitter, or not being able to take a bubble bath on company time.

I get it. If I’d been perched upon a taxpayer-funded throne for years, I probably wouldn’t want to get off, either—even for the equivalent of a full-term pregnancy’s worth of paid vacation time to binge-watch Netflix and perfect my sourdough starter. Life’s rough sometimes, especially when grumpy Uncle Sam is your boss and he actually wants you to put on pants and crawl out of your cave. #TheStruggleIsReal #SendHelp #IDidntSignUpForThis #BringBackTheBed

What do you think about the current administration’s audacious demands on the federal workforce? Are they akin to a hotel occupancy tax (“Oh, you want to STAY HERE, too? That’s gonna cost extra.”)? LMK in the comments.

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