U.S government workers confront new realities

Low morale and manufactured chaos

Excerpt: Federal workers are accustomed to the quadrennial ebb and flow of agency leadership and the accompanying shifts in priorities. But this time, “it’s like a psyop—they’re after you; you’re the enemy,” a senior Foreign Service officer stationed abroad told me. The problem isn’t just the low morale. It’s the dysfunction.

In many cases, federal employees are simply unable to do the work for which they are paid by the American taxpayer. “At least 50 percent of my time is devoted to trying to deal with the repercussions, the shock” of having hundreds of colleagues suddenly disappear, including many researchers who oversaw studies, one senior National Institutes of Health scientist based in Bethesda, Maryland, told me. What outside observers haven’t yet grasped, he and other federal employees said, is just how far things have spiraled out of control.

Most federal workers know—and will freely volunteer—that some bloat in government exists. Certain contracts should be reviewed, many acknowledged to me, and particular programs axed. “Do we have to know every single language? Maybe not,” the senior Foreign Service officer told me. “Reasonable people can disagree about whether we need 27 communications shops at NIH,” a retired senior scientist at the agency, who requested anonymity to protect his former colleagues from retaliation, told me.

The problem they have is with the administration’s approach—instead of being thoughtful and precise, it looks more like giving a haircut with a hedge trimmer.