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Comment by cavisne | Hacker News Reader

Non-probationary employees can't be fired (and even voluntary resignations are rate-limited by the Iron Mountain mine shaft elevator). So every day that process takes lowers the number of employees that can even be fired. Once it gets to a year (very easily) they would all have come off probation so nothing could be done.

Everyone saying "oh something should be done but just do it slower" is actually saying do nothing.

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Of course non-probationary employees can be fired, don’t be so credulous. OPM has a whole process for a RIF, which is actually what is happening, DOGE is just lying on the separation paperwork blaming individual poor performance, because following the law and treating employees like they’re human beings is hard and it’s easier to falsify some paperwork.

Has it ever happened before? Pre DOGE it was a common assumption that they could not be fired due to various protections. Just because there is a theoretical process doesn't mean it can be done (or has ever been done within a presidential term)

Eg. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/04/politics/rule-protecting-fede...

The Biden rule was aimed at preventing firings for political reasons (eg what’s happening in the FBI where they’re tracking down anyone who worked on Jan 6 cases in any capacity) - if DOGE wanted to shrink the overall size of the government, they should work with congress to defund specific departments rather than illegally impounding approved spending. Once that happens, the departments would follow the RIF ‘playbook’ to shrink the size of their teams.

And yes, they’re entirely common.. as one example the Air Force did a big one of its civilian staff during the Obama era. The military does them all the time for their base closures and realignments. Tens of thousands of staff were let go during that process.

“Something must be done, and this is something.” Usually a joke, but now this is how the U.S. federal government works.

The whole idea behind the layoffs is a belief that the feds are wildly overstaffed, with tons of easy obvious staff cuts to make. That was never the reality, and now we’re all about to learn that the hard way.

They couldn’t do what they did to the probationary employees, either, but they did. There’s a layoff process, and they didn’t follow it.

Your reasons aren’t a good justification for what they did, because they’re breaking the rules anyway.

What we're saying is the "something" to be done is something else. What is the goal? What is the measurable objective? What is an acceptable cost? None of that has been made clear. They are actively lying about how much spending is being cut, but the number is likely less than 1% of the tax cut Congress is teeing up. There is no fiscal outcome being sought. This is purely action for the sake of looking busy.

I didn’t realize that; this is a really good point

(It’s not true)

https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restruct...

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