Federal workers comprise less than one percent of the US population, but are responsible for facilitating programs that help all 330-plus million Americans have access to health care, veterans’ services, safe transportation, clean water, nutritional assistance, and so much more.
On Tuesday evening, a memo titled “Fork in the Road,” from a mysterious Office of Personnel Management (OPM) email address, began offering nearly all federal government workers—excluding members of the military, postal workers, immigration officers, and national security personnel—the option to leave their nonpartisan, bureaucratic posts. All they have to do is send the word “resign” in the body of a reply to hr@opm.gov by February 6.
In exchange for leaving of their own volition, the email claims federal workers taking the offer will be able to “retain all pay and benefits” and be “exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements” until eight months from now, on September 30. (Last week, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum requiring all federal workers to return to in-person work “as soon as practicable.”)
Workers who choose to resign could be placed on leave or see their duties reduced through September, the email says. Resigning would also, theoretically, save federal workers the anxiety of a looming layoff down the road, when Trump is expected to make good on his promise to decimate the current federal workforce. “The majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized,” the Tuesday email, reviewed by Mother Jones, says. “At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position.”
To federal employees who received it, the email “implied that anyone who didn’t resign must fall in line with the administration or their jobs could be at risk,” says one federal employee of the Department of Commerce. To the email’s authors, it’s an attempt to allow federal workers who don’t want to contribute to “making America great again” the ability to “choose a different line of work” and receive “a very generous payout of eight months,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told NBC.
