CNN
–
Federal workers spent Monday trying to understand how to respond to Elon Musk’s weekend email blast, telling them to explain their work last week or risk losing their job .
Because it is a day of confused and often contradictory guidance, many federal workers ultimately unclear how to deal with mask demands. Some were told to follow, others were advised not to do so, while others waited for instructions from the agency leader until the end of the day.
From the oval office on Monday afternoon, President Donald Trump called the mask’s email request “inventive” and said anyone who didn’t respond would be “semi-seizure or fired.”
Hours later, Trump’s own administration was directly inconsistent with him when the Human Resources Administration officially informed him that the response was voluntary and that the failure to respond was “not equivalent to resignation.”
Some agencies have delivered that message with guidance to their employees, but not all of them did. Many federal workers left in the darkness just hours before the musk deadline at 11:59pm on Monday.
“Our chief said it was a must. Then the OPM said it became voluntary. And then I think Trump just said it was a must again. ” said one career employee at the Department of Veterans Affairs. “No one knows who is in charge and who will listen.”
“It’s Bedlam,” he added his current IRS employee.
CNN spoke to federal employees at multiple agencies on Monday. Except for one, I asked not to use my name for fear of retaliation.
Some of the most well-known federal agencies have fallen into mask demands, as the Department of Justice, the State Department, the Pentagon, FBI, Homeland Security and the Department of Energy all told staff not to respond to emails. I did.
The Commerce Department and Transportation Department all instructed staff on Monday to engage with employees, while the Commerce asked employees to send information to supervisors.
Among the transport employees that need to reply is the Federal Aviation Administration’s chronic air traffic controller workforce. Many controllers require six days of overtime for 10 hours of shifts.
On Saturday, their union, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, denounced the move as a “distraction” to masked controllers during a time when aviation safety systems are “fragile.”
Meanwhile, NASA said it would respond on behalf of its agency, adding that workers would not need to respond to OPM emails and that employment would not be affected if they chose not to respond.
Ironically, an employee of OPM, the agency that sent the first email, was left in the dark about how to handle instructions themselves until around 6pm on Monday evening. Email obtained by CNN.
The chaos began on Saturday after mass emails from OPM landed in federal workers’ inboxes across the country. At some agencies, the work was disrupted as staff and staff rushed to gather together and tried to decipher a large number of emails. The agency head discussed how to respond to mask requests, several sources told CNN.
David J. Demas, president of the United States Government Employees Federation Local 3003, made 30 calls on Monday from members working at U.S. prison Canaan in Waymart, Pennsylvania, on behalf of the 320 federal Prison Workers Bureau. He said he received it. Respond to OPM emails.
Workers outside the workforce wanted to know if they needed to come to prison because they couldn’t access work emails on their mobile phones or home computers. And those who worked asked for guidance on what to include in the five bullet points.
“It was crazy today. It came from a lot of people trying to send emails. It’s a stupid email that doesn’t make sense to us.” An email from an concerned member.
Just before 11am on Monday, the Department of Justice sent an email saying it didn’t need to respond to workers.
In another government facility, authorities set up rooms to allow employees without computer access, including Janiter.
In the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one worker told CNN, “I have not fulfilled my actual duties due to emails and have to respond to people under me, and clarified from people above me. I’m trying to do that.”
Like several other agencies, guidance from NOAA supervisors and leaders is in line with the latest instructions that state that staff should provide supervisors with five bullet points on work activities by the deadline. I’ve shifted. . (NOAA is part of the business.)
Another Veterans Affairs staff told CNN they had to attend multiple meetings on the order on Monday.
“It’s all the time taken away from the care of patients,” the employee said. That leadership encouraged staff to reply to OPM emails. “It’s totally destructive.”
At the Department of Health and Human Services, a vast federal agency with thousands of workers, employees should refrain from being descriptive when responding to mask emails and maintain a general answer as much as possible. I was told there was.
“Suppose what you write is read by a malicious foreign person and adjust your response accordingly,” read the HHS email obtained by CNN.
Some federal workers took a more ironic approach, at least among them.
In the IRS, a group of colleagues came up with an activity they carried out last week as a fake response to masked emails. The list says, “You started fighting against BS, preventing employees from beating managers, keeping your equipment in work without throwing them on damn walls, and employees are making this a decision from the new administration. , helped me realize that I’m not a management team.” and “trying to minimize fear, confusion and anger that I don’t cause for no reason… tax season!”
The Washington, DC Department of Housing and Urban Development video screens performed a fake video of Trump kissing the toes of his mask on Monday, featuring the term “Long Live the Real King.” It was later removed and replaced with information that “shows the Trump administration’s victory,” the agency said in a statement.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, where staff were told to comply with mask requests, some staff bristled the mixed messages to do so without revealing certain confidential information.
“No one has a spine,” said one EPA worker. “Because the EPA is a target, they are trying to play well with them, thinking that they might not be affected by deeper cuts. When you appease the bully, you’re going to have their own I’ll give them a license to come later.”
State Department officials said people were confused.
“On the other hand, employees want to showcase the important work they are doing,” but there are concerns that “we respond from individual email accounts and don’t know where the information is heading,” officials said. . “I think the dim-rogical narrative that comes from our government makes every federal government employee feel conflicted and deeply disturbed.”
In a statement from the oval office on Monday, Trump suggested that employees who did not respond may not be working at all.
“We have to find out where these people are. Trump said in the oval office when he met French President Emmanuel Macron. “And we said, “You responded.” If we don’t, we don’t think you’re around, and you’re not paid anymore either.”
But Musk wasn’t upset.
On Monday evening he posted an X. “At the President’s discretion, they are given another opportunity. If they fail to respond for the second time, termination will occur.”
CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Jackie Wattles, Hadas Gold, Michael Williams and Pete Moonteen contributed to this report.
