As of 30sep2025, I am no longer a federal employee – which is interesting because I never expected to be one in the first place!
(That one sentence took a few months to write.)
What’s next for me? I’ll cover that in a later post. For now, I note that I was not the only one to leave federal service recently. Because there are no official numbers from the federal government, we have to rely on research from Partnership for Public Service who estimate over 211,000 humans have left so far in 2025, with even more expected to leave/be-pushed-out by 31dec2025. It’s important to keep in mind that, even after all those humans went away, the need for their work did not go away. Politicians in Congress create laws requiring those services be provided. Humans in civil service government provide the services (as required by those laws) to all those who depend on those services. Now, however, many of the humans in civil service who did the actual work of providing those services are… gone.
Some humans left or were pushed out because they objected to legally-dubious or plausibly-illegal instructions from new leadership[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Some humans left because they were ordered to relocate at short notice to arbitrary locations intentionally geographically far from their operational work and their family – or else be fired in a form of clandestine layoff[1][2][3]. Some humans left because aggressive, changing and contradictory behavior by new leadership intentionally “put them in trauma”[1][2][3][4][5][6]. Some were fired without cause simply because they were easier to fire[1][2][3]. Some were fired, re-hired and then re-fired [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Some were fired against the recommendation of every living former head of that agency[1]. Some were fired simply because new leadership didn’t know what their department worked on – and later didn’t know how to re-hire them after the severity of the error of their firings was discovered[1][2][3]. Predictably, many of these actions triggered ongoing court cases[1][2][3].
Some humans stayed because they hoped to find a way, despite all the disruptions from above, to continue providing the services they cared about to citizens who depended on them. Some humans stayed because they are driven, in their heart, to serve and help others. Some humans stayed, despite being paid 24% below private-industry average, because they needed the very next paycheck. (This is not unique to U.S. government employees – 37% of all adult Americans, including those with jobs, don’t have enough spare cash to pay an unexpected $400 emergency bill).
Some humans who left felt guilty for abandoning their friends and coworkers who stayed. Some humans who stayed felt guilty for not leaving with their coworkers. Some humans who stayed felt abandoned by their departing coworkers.
Each human had to make their own personal decision – for themselves, for their family and for their professional career. These current/former coworkers are still trusted colleagues, respected domain-expert professionals and (often) lifelong friends.
To all of you who served alongside me in public service – the only words I have are: Thank. You.
John.
ps: Click here for part#2.