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Federal workers toil in hellish conditions while Trump golfs [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-03-27
Federal workers across the country are packing up their laptops and heading into hastily designated workspaces as their freedom to work from home comes to an abrupt end, thanks to arbitrary changes made by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and backed by President Donald Trump.
But even those who survived Musk’s mass firings, emailed buyout offers, and strange “What did you do last week” email ultimatums are now having to contend with an even worse reality.
Government offices around the nation don’t have the capacity to house the already diminished number of workers. In some cases, the offices aren’t even offices at all.
One USDA employee told NPR that they were given options for where they could return to an “office”—one of which was a literal storage unit with no heat, windows, or power.
And those who managed to score an actual office space are not toiling in luxury.
On Monday, another scared federal employee at the Defense Department told USA Today of the nightmarish conditions they are being forced to work in.
Legionella, the bacteria commonly found in pre-war buildings and A/C units that causes the respiratory Legionnaires’ disease, is a legitimate fear as coworkers hunch over folding card tables to work.
Because the building is so understaffed, workers are told to bring their own toilet paper and pack up any garbage they have with them at the end of the day, because no one will be there to clean up after them.
“We honestly get way more done at home than at the office, but those are facts and no one seems to want to know facts anymore,” one anonymous employee told USA Today. “This will end up costing the government much more money than it will ever save.”
One psychiatrist who works with veterans was stunned when she was stuffed into an open office space with 13 other workers, separated by flimsy cubicles. She told The New York Times about how she has worked to gain the trust of her patients, some of whom are dealing with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
But being forced to conduct video calls with her patients out in the open violates two of the most important things she can offer these veterans: privacy and trust.
When she complained, a manager suggested the psychiatrist purchase a privacy screen and a white noise machine.
“I’m ready to walk away if it comes to it,” she told them.
Many federal workers are ready to follow.
A recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll showed nearly 30% of federal employees are prepared to quit or hunting for other jobs due to the return-to-office mandate. But even as workers are crying out for help, Trump has loudly proclaimed that he doesn’t support federal employees working from home.
“You know, since COVID—show up to work in person like the rest of us,” he said. “You can't work at home. They're not working,” Trump said in February.
“They're playing tennis, they're playing golf, or they have other jobs, but they're not working or they're certainly not working hard,” said the president who regularly “works” from his gaudy Florida mansion and has golfed 15 times since he was sworn in on Jan. 20.
“You could never build a company or a country with that,” Trump declared.
x Datawrapper Content
Working conditions aside, federal workers have been through the wringer since Trump reinfiltrated the White House. The president and his billionaire bestie have slashed through the workforce and sent a slew of threatening and confusing emails attempting to scare away the best of them.
But despite terrible working conditions and incessant attacks from the destructive DOGE dorks, many workers are determined to stay and do their jobs—for the country’s sake.
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