I love this one, from one of our military personnel:
"You might have heard that all federal government employees were ordered to send a list to "HR" of 5 things we accomplished last week, or else get fired. Lots of controversy. Maybe you wonder why its a big deal. Here's my take on it:
1) There is no such thing as "HR". This order came from a private citizen named Elon Musk. He said on X he was going to send it, and, boom, it appeared in our inboxes. But guess what? I don't work for Elon Musk, and neither does anyone else in the federal government. If some South African billionaire wants to dictate human resource policies for the American government, then he should get elected or get appointed and confirmed. Until then, he can kick rocks.
2) In my organization, there is already a process in place to evaluate what I accomplish. I evaluate my employees, my supervisor evaluates me, and so on it goes, up the chain of command. It's the same way across the federal government. So, what possible value could there be in 3 million government employees sending in random bullet points about their accomplishments to an unknown entity that has no idea what tasks or objectives the employees have been assigned, or what their job descriptions look like? Answer: It serves no purpose. Unless, of course, the real purpose is to intimidate, frighten, and demoralize people.
3) Lastly and most importantly - who the f*** do these clowns think they are? The tone of the message is so disrespectful and belittling. Obviously, they think we don't do jack squat, and we're going to melt into jelly at the thought of having to justify our paychecks. Well, you know what? I'm proud of what I've done over the course of 20 years in public service (which includes time as a Peace Corps Volunteer, a US Army Paratrooper with three combat tours, and a Foreign Service Officer).
I won't give Elon the satisfaction of responding to his message, but if you're curious, here's the kind of stuff a "deep state" bureaucrat like me in the State Department does on a daily basis:
- Provide emergency aid and comfort to American citizens victimized by terrorists.
- Help American citizens getting evacuated from countries that are descending into civil war.
- Assist American children stranded abroad get back home to their families.
- Collect up the belongings of Americans who died abroad and deliver the terrible news to their families in the most humane and decent way possible.
- Design programs to build trust between poor communities at risk for extremism and local security services, in order to prevent ISIS-affiliated groups from gaining a foothold.
- Start entrepreneurship programs so that people in developing countries have more opportunities and don't need to depend on aid or try to immigrate to the US to get a job.
- Help poor kids get scholarships to study in the United States, so that they can come back to their home countries to start businesses, bring development, and make reforms so that those countries can stop relying on assistance from the U.S.
All the above is drawn from my own personal experience - and I'm nothing special. I am surrounded everyday by more impressive colleagues with more noteworthy achievements. And all of them got into this line of work because they are patriotic citizens who believe in America as a force for good in the world and who want to make our country safer, stronger and more prosperous.
And for some reason today that marks us as lazy shitbags at best, or corrupt criminals at worst.
We're in weird times right now folks. It's perfectly normal to want the federal government to be more effective, more responsive, and less wasteful. But we can get there without dragging loyal public servants through the dirt. They deserve better.
And we should demand better of the people in charge right now."
people with one brain cell will start to understand why things were done the way they were before Trump
People don’t have memories. They already forgot 1/6/21. How can we expect them to remember 2015, let alone 1938?