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On Friday, staff at what was formerly the United States Digital Service and is now part of Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative met with Stephanie Holmes, who identified herself as a part of the DOGE team and as the staff’s new HR representative.
Throughout the meeting, which started at noon ET, dozens of USDS employees lobbed questions at Holmes related to last week’s “Fork in the Road” email offering federal workers “deferred resignations,” according to documents detailing the meeting obtained by WIRED and corroborated by sources in attendance.
The questions covered issues ranging from the future of staff projects to whether the return-to-office mandates would apply to fully remote workers, as well as the exact nature of the offer the federal government was making employees.
Holmes—who did not immediately respond to a request for comment—could fully answer only a few of the questions. She said, when asked, that the offer was “lawful,” and later said, “We believe the offer is lawful,” and could provide little additional guidance beyond that. At one point, she was asked if there would be a more formal way to accept the buyout than replying to an email with the word “resign” in the subject line. One employee expressed concerns that outside actors could send resignation emails on staffers’ behalf by spoofing their email addresses.
“I assume that, if folks do decide to go through with the deferred resignation, there’s some kind of actual agreement that we sign,” one employee said. “Can we get a copy of that ahead of time to preview? Can we get a copy of the agreement if there is an agreement?”
“I don’t know,” Holmes replied. “But will circle back on that.”
The same employee responded, saying, “I apologize for the interjection, but there are a variety of things that this room has brought up that are contradictory or challenging to understand … I’m just wondering why you are unable to commit to providing those specifics right now.”
“Yeah, I appreciate your question and I don’t mean to be repetitive or appear to be argumentative in any way, but again, I would just encourage you to not lose sight of the big picture here,” Holmes says. “The benefits of accepting the deferred resignation is that you will be guaranteed not to be subject to reduction in force and you’re exempt from the return to office mandate. So I would just encourage you to focus on the generous aspects of the offer.”
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