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Comment by imgabe | Hacker News Reader

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There's multiple contradictory justifications being given for this and notably, all of them are shitty.

I saw someone talking about their mother recovering from cancer and going urgently into the office to respond to this email.

Which is a) shitty for her, but also b) a total failure if you think that someone else was sitting at home collecting a check and never even reading their email. Why turn it into a big news story so that they can also log into their email for the first time in 150 years and reply with some BS?

It makes no sense, yet here you are defending it.

> I saw someone talking about their mother recovering from cancer and going urgently into the office to respond to this email.

1. You’re out of the office on extended leave and you don’t have an auto-response set up?

2. You can’t access your email remotely, really?

> Why turn it into a big news story so that they can also log into their email for the first time in 150 years and reply with some BS?

Doge did not turn this into a big news story, news agencies did because they need to stir up shit to get clicks and sell ads. “Worker expected to respond to email” is not a news story to any sane person.

Also wtf are you talking about “log into their email for the first time in 150 years”. What job do you have where you do not need to check email every day? If you haven’t logged into your email in “150 years” we definitely need to can your ass because you are not doing anything.

Does an auto-response count? Are you willing to bet your job and healthcare on whatever your answer to that is?

Plenty of federal employees do not have email access outside of their workplaces for a variety of reasons.

and

Musk has tweeted repeatedly about this, and even if he didn't an email threatening to auto-resign the entire federal workforce is going to cause a stir. This should be obvious to anyone.

So, it's a stupid idea and you support it and it's not even the real reason anyway.

And edit to address your edits: You appear to have forgotten that your claimed reason for this was to catch out people who don't check their emails. Now you're angry at me for suggesting these people exist, when my whole point was that if they exist this is a stupid way to catch them out.

Yes the point is to catch people who are not checking emails. This is like the single most basic primary function of a modern office job. If you can’t check emails you should be fired. You are not useful for office work.

It might be a language barrier but you seem to have trouble understanding basic points being made, or are pretending not to understand because your point was illogical. So I'll repeat my point one more time and then give up:

This is a stupid and ineffective way to catch out people who don't read their email.

It’s obviously quite effective or all the people who are not checking their email would not be crying all over the Internet about how they’re going to get caught by it.

Literally send any reply. Elon was even replying to tweets about people sending AI generated replies saying that would be fine.

It is less effort than your multiple replies to me explaining why people should not have to answer their work email.

You're really missing the point.

It's not that replying to the email is hard. That's never been the point. The point is that you got a new boss, and his new best friend who doesn't work for the company just sent you an email that says "Tell me 5 things you did last week or you're fired, also feel free to bullshit it or make an AI reply, lol". It's stupidly unprofessional and disrespectful, and not the way the company should run.

Replying to an email is easy. Replying to an email by an outsider who is threatening to fire you is bullshit.

> 2. You can’t access your email remotely, really?

No. I do not have work email on my phone. You have had some awful jobs based on what you are saying here.

I’ve had some very fine jobs, but they did involve people counting on me to do work. I guess if you never did anything that mattered that can seem like a burden.

My job relies on me to do work and I set boundaries with my job. After my work is done, I am offline. In the case of an emergency, they know my phone number but I am not responding to each and every email after hours.

There was a 48 hour deadline. Nobody was expected to respond outside work hours.

A 48 hour deadline is abysmal. I've been sick for more than 48 hours before. Haven't you ever been off work for more than 48 hours at a time?

Set up auto reply. No I have never been physically incapable of checking email for 48 hours.

How is an auto-reply going to save you when you were supposed to fill out a list of 5 specific items or be fired?

Let’s be real here, an honest email trying to check if people are checking their email could be: “MANDATORY: click this link: <link with presigned URL>. This email is to measure if there are inactive accounts.”

An email of “respond to this email or else HORRIBLE INDIVIDUAL CONSEQUENCES” is a threat, plain and simple.

Here’s an example: “Dear imgabe, respond to this post or else I will find you employer and customers and get you fired”. How does that feel? Especially if I were a position that has power over you. (I’m not going to do any of that, since I’m not a terrible person. This is to take the ideas close to home)

Please stop with the dishonesty and rationalization of Trump/Musk terrible actions. If you are OK with their actions, then call what they do what they do. Don’t distort reality. It’s a threat.

Here I responded to the post. I’m laying in bed while I do it. It is literally one of the easiest things in the world. If you can’t manage to do the easiest thing in the world to keep your job, then what are you being paid for? How are you going to do anything that might actually justify your salary?

It’s not just the “easiest thing in the world”, it’s an easy task with a gun pointed to your head. Do you not see this?

Even more than that, the threat of firing by not complying is likely illegal.

It’s a false equivalence to say that people who don’t respond to the email (or do some other jump through the hoop activity) are not justified to have their job, gov or private.

Maybe they’re on vacation, maybe they’re concerned about the legality of the action, maybe they think it’s a phishing email from some department they don’t recognize, maybe they’re doing classified activity, maybe they’re too engrossed in their actual duties, maybe they’re without internet access, maybe they’re on a submarine for the next 3 months.

This email screams incompetence and trying to find a pretense to justify punitive action. It is not indicative of any honest well-meaning changes.

On vacation: set up auto response

Concerned about legality: reply that you are concerned about legality

Doing classified activity: reply that your work is classified

“Too engrossed”: over 48 hours of not checking email at all? I doubt any government job is that engrossing.

On a submarine for 3 months: the only people who this could possibly apply to are in the military, who weren’t subject to this requirement

> On vacation: set up auto response

Fired, you didn't respond as asked.

> Concerned about legality: reply that you are concerned about legality

Fired, they want people who aren't going to ask questions.

> Doing classified activity: reply that your work is classified

Fired, they don't care about classification. They are violating it anyway, and you not doing it for them is seen as disloyal.

> “Too engrossed”: over 48 hours of not checking email at all? I doubt any government job is that engrossing.

I don't. A lot of departments do most of their communication through other platforms now anyway, so email is only for interfacing with outsiders. If you do little of that in your daily duty, it's not unreasonable to only check your emails once or twice a week.

Why are you bending over backwards to make excuses for this shitshow of an operation? DOGE is an embarrassment, and I'm shocked that people are actually working hard on HN to try to defend its transparent incompetence.

I sincerely hope you consider adopting a kinder approach to dealing with fellow humans, and dealing with a complex task such as reforming government in a responsible and respectful way. There's no honor is treating people like the way Trump and Musk and DOGE do.

While this thread has been flagged, I hope this message gets to you. Be kind. Be thoughtful. There are honorable ways to accomplish the main goals of Trump/Musk without the vitriol.

I will reserve my compassion for all the citizens who have to deal with a bureaucracy that thinks being expected to answer their email is a violation of their human rights.

Try to understand: It's very difficult to give your stance the benefit of the doubt, unless there is some kind of language issue, or you are neurodivergent (not intended as an insult in the slightest).

Easiness is moot. Yes, the task is easy. It's also very easy to kiss a beringed hand - it takes two seconds. Humans shall be treated as humans, i.e. with a baseline level of dignity/respect, or they shall not give you the same back. To say that Elon treats people in a petty/disrespectful way would be an understatement of spine-tingling magnitude. And, to do so from a position of dubiously earned authority, and with such hostile intent, multiplies the effect. People resist such hideousness by their immutable nature, Americans perhaps more so than average.

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