With all the troubles that the Donald Trump administration along with the Elon Musk led DOGE have been causing for the federal employees, getting them back to work from office is bound to rank quite high on the list. While an endless number of federal employees have been terminated from their jobs, the bunch of workers who have been called back to office are now facing bad working conditions.
As Trump had declared anyone who did not “show up to the office on time and on schedule” would be fired, federal workers had no other choice but to reach their offices. However, as the New York Times reported, ever since the employees went back to office, they have been forced to take out trash and even clean the toilet to make the working atmosphere bearable.
An employee of the Bureau of Land Management mentioned to NPR, “we have to go to the agency head to ask if we can buy toilet paper” as the pay cards issued by the government, which were previously used by them, now come with a cap of $1.
These employees, whose identities are not revealed for obvious reasons, further mentioned that calling the employees back to the office did not seem like a wise decision because it was evident that no planning had been made to accommodate them properly in the office. There was complete chaos as employees belonging to various departments had to sit and work together.
It was also reported that there was a sheer lack of proper work stations as people were forced to work in cafeterias and lobbies because not enough desks were provided. On March 17, 2025, after employees of the Food and Drug Administration reached their Maryland office, they found that even the parking space was crammed and the queue of employees trying to go past security had resulted in a huge line that spread through the neighborhood.
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Moreover, on March 10, 2025 , some federal employees who work directly with Americans and help them with their tax filings, went to the office, only to be sent back. Jeff Eppler, who is a retired manager at the agency, told Times, “So instead of working that day, they spent time hanging out in the office and were eventually sent back home to do the work that they would have been doing the whole day.”
However, the managers at some federal agencies, like in the Internal Revenue Service, have defied Trump’s order and continue to work from home. Moreover, the federal employees also believe that the Trump administration is putting them through all of this so that they give up and quit. After signing the executive order that required federal employees to come back to office, Trump had said, “a substantial number of people will not show up to work, and therefore our government will get smaller and more efficient.”
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Talking in the same line, Musk had written in his op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal , “If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home.”
With a huge section of employees choosing to come back to office even among the horrid working conditions, it now remains to be seen what the Trump-Musk duo come up with next to make their lives difficult or if they figure something out to help them work properly.
