Ah . . . Those Government (I mean Public) Employees

Assume you work for Apple, or General Motors, or Bob’s Hardware. You get an email asking you to provide five bullet points summarizing your work activities during the past week. Your reaction? You sit down at the computer, generate the bullet points, and ship the email off to the boss. You might even CC your boss’s boss to make sure he or she knows your value to the company.

Elon Musk, who has been deputized by the leader of the administrative branch (President Donald Trump), sent such an email to members of the federal government workforce last weekend. Employees were given until the end of the day Monday to respond. Many employees responded, possibly as many as a million. However, the number of responses has not been confirmed.

There is a good argument that the Administration handled this exercise poorly. Some early reports stated that failure to respond to the email would be tantamount to resignation. Other reports indicated failure to respond could result in termination. However, there may have been some Trump-appointed agency leaders who told employees that responding to the email was voluntary. It certainly seems as though this was a case of “ready, fire, aim.”

Nevertheless, it is instructive to watch the reaction of many government employees and the people who represent them. It has become obvious that employees of the federal government are unaccustomed to being held accountable.

Musk’s email asked for one very simple thing: tell us five things you did last week. For most of us who hold down a job, this is not difficult. However, from the reaction of many employees, Democrat politicians, and the news media, you might think Musk demanded that these employees take a flight in a SpaceX rocket.

Let’s try to give these folks the benefit of the doubt. It probably was a bit intimidating (and certainly unusual) to get a Saturday email from the world’s richest man asking for information. However, by Sunday it was clear what was going on – the email was intended to ensure there was an actual person attached to each email address, and that the employee checked their email. So, just respond already!

It is clear that many of the “public” employees who received this email were offended by the fact that someone intends to hold them accountable for something as simple as reading and responding to an email. That alone tells you a lot about what is wrong with our public employment system.