Harass the Harassers: DOGE
You’ve probably heard about the infamous five bullets email that DOGE has required from federal employees—all 2.4 million. (If you haven’t, jump to the BackStory.) Since the original email went out, federal employees—all 2.4 million—have been told they are to send a similar email with five bullets EVERY WEEK. Noncompliance can get them fired.
The good news! You can play too!
Disrupt by sending your own five bullet points each week, by Monday, to hr@opm.gov
BUT, use an anonymous email for our safety.
The BackStory
The original email came via the Office of Personnel Management, but was initiated by Elon Musk’s DOGE. Titled “What did you do last week?,” it arrived over the weekend and asked each worker for roughly five bullet points about what they accomplished last week. Elon Musk posted on X that for employees who didn’t respond to the email, it would be taken as resignation.
Some agencies then told their employees not to respond. Some of these then told them later to respond after all. But, late Monday night after the weekend when the original email went out, Musk again posted to X that “subject to the discretion of the president” employees would be “given another chance” if they hadn’t sent their email, and that “failure to respond a second time would result in termination.”
The confusion hasn’t improved. OPM and Musk have now said that employees must send weekly emails with five bullets, essentially justifying their work to OPM. The work they’ve been assigned by their managers and that their managers already track and report on.
Employees have received conflicting emails and conflicting directions from their own management versus OPM versus what Musk is posting on X. (Remember that X is not an official government channel.)
Supposedly, DOGE is sending the emails received through an AI program, a Large Language Model (LLM) AI to assess the necessity of their roles. Ask yourself, would you feel comfortable having an AI assess whether your job is necessary? Would it understand the contribution you make?
If you wouldn’t trust it for your job, we shouldn’t trust it for our critical government jobs.