bullet points (12. 252)

As an encore to the stochastic terrorism being unleashed on the US federal workforce following thousands of probationary period employees being illegally fired and a milquetoast reception to the original threat of deferred resignation, DOGE (at the urging of Trump to ramp things up) has issued another mass-email on Saturday to some two million civil service employees requesting a list of five things that they accomplished this past week. Responses are due Monday at midnight with one’s supervisor courtesy-copied. Aside being unlawful, desperate and a sign of overplaying one’s hand, it’s agonising in regards of crafting an acceptable list and I am sure that far more time will be spend in commiseration and consultation on how to justify one’s work as an organisation, further taking away from productivity in the name of greater efficiency after a week of increased workload due to chronic understaffing, bidding a tearful farewell to those being purged, the chaos of the hiring freeze, manoeuvring the return-to-office mandate with inadequate desk space and general doom-scrolling about what comes next. If we are made to submit the bullet points, I am sure the follow-up abusive email will be a loyalty test, if the termination notices don’t come first. Not sure if mass non-compliance or malicious compliance is best but I can think of some recommended answers: “Supported and defended the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” or in the vein of wrong answers only “Did a DEI,” “spent forty-hours correcting maps and globes with a sharpie to read ‘Gulf of America,’” “Did a tonne of ketamine,” “Played golf and danced on stage with a chainsaw.”