- "The firings targeted probationary employees, who have fewer job protections than permanent employees, but still must be fired for cause. Some probationary staff are new to the agency, while others recently promoted or transferred positions. Additionally, all "intermittent experts" — temporary employees hired at-will often for specific subject matter expertise — were terminated."
There's no pretense of firing anyone other than "the subgroup of federal employees that are technically easiest to fire". Firing everyone who was recently promoted (for one category) is objectively a very absurd selector.
For all of the talk about "fraud" this is exactly that. All of these thousands of people are being told that they're being let go for "performance reasons" in clearly template emails which is just false. I've been reading stories people are posting about receiving these severance emails in shock because they'd just been praised for their performance, or showing them to their bosses who are also shocked because the bosses weren't informed at all and had no issues with the employee.
There are going to be endless lawsuits about this. The expense and waste of time is going to be enormous. But it achieves their real goal of crippling these agencies and reducing oversight for businesses.
all these probationary firings, across all departments, will impact succession planning in few years. the whole reason to have 'new' people, is to keep an organization functional.
working somewhere that has no new people, is not fun when all the old people with knowledge all retire at once.
It's not just the new people though. There are people with 25 years of experience at an agency who are being fired because they had a promotion within the last 12 months which means they are technically still "probationary" in their role.
The loss of institutional knowledge right now is devastating.
> This is the nature of union employment: seniority >> everything else.
Actors, writers, and directors are in unions in Hollywood, and the seniority plays no part in who gets which part or which crew is hired for a production.
Seniority has often been used in factories because it was easy metric where you had 'interchangeable' people doing the labour: the people were treated almost like machines/widgets themselves. But the advantage of seniority in that context was that it helped stability: you stayed at the same company so it reduced retraining / rehiring costs to the company, and in exchange for your loyalty to the company, the company was loyal to folks that didn't jump around constantly looking for greener pastures.
But there is nothing inherit in being unionized that mandates the use of seniority as a metric.
This tired trope fails to capture the accelerationism at play. Elon is firing the most ambitious people in government. 8 years in one position, 1 year promoted fired over the person 9 years in one position.
This is not the nature of union employment, it is a structural weakness in the way employment has been negotiated. Musk is exploiting that weakness.
Still, seems like it's his responsibility to explain that in the meeting. That message has infinitely more weight if he's the one saying it, otherwise you can just point to his absence and claim its only covering his add
I get there's no worker rights in the US, but surely do people not have contractual notice period, severance etc? I mean, I'm sure not if you're in a marginal job, but US administration..???
no you are wrong.. at a certain legal era, worker rights and protections got very strong in the USA. The bounce-back from that (long ago) includes "illegal" international workers, high-tech "anything to win" business practices, and moribund, glacially paced court cases involving retirement and medical coverage.
Like education, there is a pendulum effect over time.. but the movement is such that "correcting" for one extreme happens over the enaction of another extreme.. etc
But he was suggested by both Obama and Trump. Is it this?
"Panchanathan highlighted how universities like ASU ought to work hand-in-hand with businesses to create curriculum that fosters the entrepreneurial traits employers look for today, in order to produce a future of innovation ecosystems."
Or does he facilitate flooding the US with cheaper H1B scientists from India?
I no longer understand why people rise to the top (this is not limited to the US, Europe is the same).
THIS is what your “disruptive” heroes have bought & paid for. Yes, I’m talking specifically about paulg and his buddies in the VC world, who’ve stepped up their funding & lobbying to levels matching folks like Adolph Coors and Richard Mellon Scaifie. They’re on an ideological vendetta to DESTROY functioning government and leave themselves with near-dictatorial private power, unconstrained by governments anywhere.
These are the folks so many commenters here worship & wish to emulate.
This is the mindless destruction you’ve all been cheering for.
May this be an opportunity for you to reconsider your goals and priorities.
The hero worship is one aspect of a much larger problem, I think, which is that technology culture is almost entirely defined by trends in the startup and VC spaces. It's been that way for at least a decade and a half, by my reckoning.
There is very little genuine technology subculture anymore that is willing to critique dominant trends, raise up our own heroes, and create alternatives.
I'm really hoping that demystifying "disruption" will create a moment of reckoning for technologists.
The decimation of science continues. I am sure the consequences of this will be seen in the future. And I truly feel sorry for people affected, people who sacrificed their lives, their pay, to work in science, and now are dealt with like garbage, and have their careers destroyed.
You've seen it used correctly many times because language evolves and "decimate" has taken on a new meaning other than the one used to describe ancient Roman military practice.
No, they aren't doing anything to improve anything. They aren't even using real criteria, instead just firing anyone whose been in their current position for less than some time. That means a lot of very senior people who happened to take promotions or transfers are being fired willy nilly.
From what I've seen (I know multiple people at places directly affected by this), the justification is "poor performance", which is clearly nonsense as theres been no time for that kind of evaluation and the actual criteria is obvious (probationary or not).
The effects on unemployment here will be absolutely unprecedented, given how many very smart, otherwise successful people are being punted. It has also killed morale at any and all government agencies and companies that work with them (pretty clearly the point, imo). Everyone knows making the entire workforce depressed and fearful helps productivity!
yes, but no... Limited experience here in California shows a) Feds who can't attract the best talent and b) the power to outsource, subcontract and stall. It would be great to idolize every member of Federal Science but.. survey says.. no, not so simple in reality
> “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” she said of Mr. Trump. “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
Nature, Radiolab, NOVA, I probably haven't gone a week without watching or listening to something funded by the NSF since I was a kid. That's just the media stuff off the top of my head, hard to put a finger on just how much NSF funded research and projects impact our daily lives.
I actually grew up listening to talk radio; still do. The nationally syndicated stuff is whatever, but, the locally produced stuff is useful. Gotta know what the people around you are thinking and saying.
Before we had an FM radio I used to listen to a lot of Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura when I was little. Listening to something at an early age and thinking "I don't agree" was a good experience. To this day I don't like reading, watching, or listening to stuff that I "agree" with.
Where are the corporate lobbyists on this stuff?
My understanding is that public research funding (and its associated administration) periodically yields results that either turn into viable commercial products or tools for whole sub-industries.
Lasik surgery, PCR, CRISPR, MRIs are supposed to have come out of NSF projects, and these all became someone's line of business. Why are the heads of biotech or pharma or medical device companies not publicly stating that destabilizing the apparatus for early research risks shrinking these fields?
I think the "solely" part isn't necessary to the claim that the NSF is a large net benefit to industry by supporting early research. Apparently the NSF did provide support for IntraLase to pursue commercializing a device for LASIK cornea surgery.
With PCR, their own claim, which other sources seem to agree with, is that research on extremophile bacteria supported by NSF in the 1960s found the bacteria from which a heat-tolerant DNA polymerase enzyme was isolated.
I think this is actually a pretty good example of research which initially might have seemed purely exploratory that facilitates valuable applications which couldn't have been seen at the outset.
Per Grok, no NSF funding was used to develop CRISPR. I'm too lazy to fact check other.
This doesn't affect the NSF grants. They fired 10% of middle managers distributing the grants. The actual scientific work is not done by employees of NSF but by employees of universities etc.
Finally, it's a stretch to argue that even if NSF grants go away, the progress of science stops.
Universities have other sources of funds and I don't see why businesses need government subsidies. They are not giving free lasik surgeries or MRI scans, they can fund their products and services from profits not taxpayer (i.e. you and me) money.
“Middle managers” is a pretty gross mischaracterization of NSF program managers. They are more like investment portfolio managers, responsible for coordinating and leading the external reviews of research proposals, evaluating the proposal and reviews to prioritize which projects to invest in to achieve a good risk/reward profile for the goals of the broader program, and working with the academics doing the research to help them stay on track and increase the impact of their ideas.
I don’t totally disagree with your point about scientific progress continuing with a diminished NSF, but NSF does place a lot of emphasis on early stage fundamental high risk / high reward research, which industry has been trending away from in favor of quicker and clearer returns.
Having an evidence-based discussion about how the US should allocate resources for scientific discovery is great - but it should be a clear discussion within the norms of our democratic institutions instead of a unilateral move by a few that stand to personally gain at the expense of the broader interest of the the American people
Every professor in a scientific field that I know is telling me that their university leadership is preparing for indefinite hiring freezes and massive cost cutting in preparation for huge slashes in funding from these institutions.
The only difference is that when the Romans did it, they had a purpose in mind. What we are seeing now is the act of a Batman villain, not a general or an industrialist or a president.
Readit News
There's no pretense of firing anyone other than "the subgroup of federal employees that are technically easiest to fire". Firing everyone who was recently promoted (for one category) is objectively a very absurd selector.
That fact is VERY apparent because there's been more than a couple of times where OMB has scrambled to rehire recently fired employees.
This is a haphazard mess that will cripple the government and likely the US economy for a decade or more.
For all of the talk about "fraud" this is exactly that. All of these thousands of people are being told that they're being let go for "performance reasons" in clearly template emails which is just false. I've been reading stories people are posting about receiving these severance emails in shock because they'd just been praised for their performance, or showing them to their bosses who are also shocked because the bosses weren't informed at all and had no issues with the employee.
There are going to be endless lawsuits about this. The expense and waste of time is going to be enormous. But it achieves their real goal of crippling these agencies and reducing oversight for businesses.
working somewhere that has no new people, is not fun when all the old people with knowledge all retire at once.
The loss of institutional knowledge right now is devastating.
Dead Comment
Probationary status for federal public sector workers has nothing to do with unions in the federal public sector.
Federal public sector unions do not even have a legal right to bargain over this topic.
For more on civil service protections and the category of "probationary employee" see:
https://www.mspb.gov/appeals/infosheets/Probationary_Employe...
Actors, writers, and directors are in unions in Hollywood, and the seniority plays no part in who gets which part or which crew is hired for a production.
Seniority has often been used in factories because it was easy metric where you had 'interchangeable' people doing the labour: the people were treated almost like machines/widgets themselves. But the advantage of seniority in that context was that it helped stability: you stayed at the same company so it reduced retraining / rehiring costs to the company, and in exchange for your loyalty to the company, the company was loyal to folks that didn't jump around constantly looking for greener pastures.
But there is nothing inherit in being unionized that mandates the use of seniority as a metric.
This is not the nature of union employment, it is a structural weakness in the way employment has been negotiated. Musk is exploiting that weakness.
Such courage. I've had to fire a number of people over the years unfortunately and I've always had the courage to do it myself.
>> terminated by the end of the day, without severance
As long as its done with humanity.... oh, no? Oh well.
Like education, there is a pendulum effect over time.. but the movement is such that "correcting" for one extreme happens over the enaction of another extreme.. etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethuraman_Panchanathan
But he was suggested by both Obama and Trump. Is it this?
"Panchanathan highlighted how universities like ASU ought to work hand-in-hand with businesses to create curriculum that fosters the entrepreneurial traits employers look for today, in order to produce a future of innovation ecosystems."
Or does he facilitate flooding the US with cheaper H1B scientists from India?
I no longer understand why people rise to the top (this is not limited to the US, Europe is the same).
Dead Comment
These are the folks so many commenters here worship & wish to emulate.
This is the mindless destruction you’ve all been cheering for.
May this be an opportunity for you to reconsider your goals and priorities.
The hero worship is one aspect of a much larger problem, I think, which is that technology culture is almost entirely defined by trends in the startup and VC spaces. It's been that way for at least a decade and a half, by my reckoning.
There is very little genuine technology subculture anymore that is willing to critique dominant trends, raise up our own heroes, and create alternatives.
I'm really hoping that demystifying "disruption" will create a moment of reckoning for technologists.
[edited to say "decade and a half"]
Deleted Comment
Doing it by end of day without severance seems unnecessarily cruel. And the director is a coward if he didn't attend the meeting.
From what I've seen (I know multiple people at places directly affected by this), the justification is "poor performance", which is clearly nonsense as theres been no time for that kind of evaluation and the actual criteria is obvious (probationary or not).
The effects on unemployment here will be absolutely unprecedented, given how many very smart, otherwise successful people are being punted. It has also killed morale at any and all government agencies and companies that work with them (pretty clearly the point, imo). Everyone knows making the entire workforce depressed and fearful helps productivity!
In case it seems like these people at all know what they're doing: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doge-firings-us-nuclear-weapons...
The Cruelty Is the Point:
* https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive...
* https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/665171/the-cruelty-...
> “I voted for him, and he’s the one who’s doing this,” she said of Mr. Trump. “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”
* https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/us/flo...
Before we had an FM radio I used to listen to a lot of Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura when I was little. Listening to something at an early age and thinking "I don't agree" was a good experience. To this day I don't like reading, watching, or listening to stuff that I "agree" with.
Lasik surgery, PCR, CRISPR, MRIs are supposed to have come out of NSF projects, and these all became someone's line of business. Why are the heads of biotech or pharma or medical device companies not publicly stating that destabilizing the apparatus for early research risks shrinking these fields?
LASIK wasn't solely from NSF funding.
https://www.nsf.gov/science-matters/invention-impact-story-l...
With PCR, their own claim, which other sources seem to agree with, is that research on extremophile bacteria supported by NSF in the 1960s found the bacteria from which a heat-tolerant DNA polymerase enzyme was isolated.
I think this is actually a pretty good example of research which initially might have seemed purely exploratory that facilitates valuable applications which couldn't have been seen at the outset.
This doesn't affect the NSF grants. They fired 10% of middle managers distributing the grants. The actual scientific work is not done by employees of NSF but by employees of universities etc.
Finally, it's a stretch to argue that even if NSF grants go away, the progress of science stops.
Universities have other sources of funds and I don't see why businesses need government subsidies. They are not giving free lasik surgeries or MRI scans, they can fund their products and services from profits not taxpayer (i.e. you and me) money.
I don’t totally disagree with your point about scientific progress continuing with a diminished NSF, but NSF does place a lot of emphasis on early stage fundamental high risk / high reward research, which industry has been trending away from in favor of quicker and clearer returns.
Having an evidence-based discussion about how the US should allocate resources for scientific discovery is great - but it should be a clear discussion within the norms of our democratic institutions instead of a unilateral move by a few that stand to personally gain at the expense of the broader interest of the the American people
The only difference is that when the Romans did it, they had a purpose in mind. What we are seeing now is the act of a Batman villain, not a general or an industrialist or a president.