Probationary Employees Fired En Masse

Forget the “Meritocracy” Pretense - This is No Way to Treat People

Aspiring scientists and NASA Goddard interns visit the Wallops Flight Facility.

Disclaimer: This post was written by Dr. Andrew Rosenberg in his personal capacity and not on behalf of any organization or entity. The views expressed herein are Dr. Rosenberg’s and his alone.

Yesterday, so-called “probationary” employees of the Federal government were clumsily informed that their employment was terminated. In this context, probationary means those hired in the past year (sometime longer or shorter probationary periods are used) and are becoming established in their new roles. It has nothing to do with job performance, the importance of their work, or their potential for future success. It simply is a term used to indicate that the recent hires have fewer job protections at the outset.

The firings were done by recorded voice message or a recorded video link with the Office of Personnel Management Director, Charles Ezell, informing employees that they were terminated. I doubt Director Ezell learned that technique in Management School or in an online course. I think it’s from the Trump School of Management: YOU’RE FIRED! Apparently, the only rationale given was that the firings were pursuant to the President’s (and we can assume the co-President’s) desire to shrink the size of the federal workforce. Some employees were told they had 30 minutes to leave the building where they worked.

President Trump and Co-President Musk and many of their appointed henchmen like to talk about re-establishing a “meritocracy” and efficiency. I don’t know if they have any idea what the word means, or that they don’t care, or if they are just playing games and showing off their power. Because nothing they are doing has anything to do with merit, efficiency, or making government, America, or anything, great. A more apt slogan would be MAMA -- Make America Mean Again.

This is no way to treat people who are trying to work hard and do the jobs they signed up for in service of the public. Reportedly, 1000 people at the Veteran’s Administration have been fired. Is that because the country is providing too much service to veterans? Or that the wait times should be longer for service? There were about 3000 firings at the US Forest Service. After all, no one really cares about trees and national forests or timber production, or the environment as a whole, right?

Many probationary employees are recent graduates, including scientists, who are starting a career path in public service. I was once one of them. There is excitement and nervousness, too. Can I do this? Am I in the right place? Do I have the skills and capability to do a tough assignment under pressure? Because in addition to having nothing to do with merit, there is no evidence that these or other employees are part of the fiction about rampant fraud and abuse in government. To the extent that occurs (in my experience, much less than in the private sector), it’s probably not at the junior level or even within the civil service writ large, and certainly not with recent hires. Political decision makers are a bigger part of the problem.

As Max Stier from the Partnership for Public Service has noted in the Washington Post, “It’s stripping out, likely, a whole new generation of talent for our government, who are targeted not because of evidence of poor performance but because they are easier to get rid of.” In other words, these mass firings have nothing to do with merit, efficiency, or cost savings.

I talk to lots of young scientists, now and throughout my career. I always encouraged them to consider government science jobs as a great place to use their skills, spread their wings, and have an impact on the world. Sure, there is a big bureaucracy to deal with, as there is in universities and other science institutions. But it’s an opportunity to work on really challenging, interesting, and exciting science and see it brought to application in many cases. I don’t know if I can say that anymore. I want to encourage people to try public service, but this administration is doing everything it can to send the message, “Got talent? Go Elsewhere! We don’t want you.” You may want to be the best that you can be, but we don’t care! I hate that this is happening to our talented youth. And to the scientists, technical staff, support staff, all the agency staff. They don’t deserve this disrespect. And we can’t afford to lose them.

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