A federal worker described the DOGE emails requiring employees to report their five accomplishments of the week as threatening and harassing.
"It came out wanting us to justify our jobs with five things we did," Cathy, a federal worker, told MSNBC in an interview at a town hall in Haymarket, Virginia last week.
"Last week was on Saturday night, and I was literally working on Saturday night to make up for all the distractions I had had the previous week, which came from the executive branch," Cathy stated. "And so I'm working, trying to catch up on things, and then I get that email on top of it. It's very hard to keep your train of thought when you're getting threatened and harassed like that."
Elon Musk, founder and chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Inc., who is heading up President Donald Trump's DOGE, has pushed for the emails from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) asking federal employees to list their five accomplishments over the past week.
OPM'S SECOND EMAIL TO FEDERAL EMPLOYEES ASKS WHAT THEY DID LAST WEEK - AND ADDS A NEW REQUIREMENT: REPORT
One was sent last weekend, and another this week, with the subject line "What did you do last week? Part II," sparking controversy and going viral on social media and cable news coverage.
The most recent email asked employees to "reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets describing what you accomplished last week and cc your manager."
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Responses are required by 11:59 pm ET. Monday and those who work on sensitive or classified information are directed to specify that their activities are sensitive.
MSNCB host Ali Vitali, who spoke with the attendees at the townhall, told Morning Joe's Joe Scarborough that she heard some federal workers are getting on anxiety medication because of the stress from the emails.
"There is such anxiety and concern about their own financial well-being, their own ability also to continue serving the American public," Vitali said. "One woman that we even heard from there told me she called her doctor to get on anti-anxiety medication because the harassment and the barrage of emails has been so aggressive."
A federal contractor named Andrea told MSNBC that "everyone is on pins and needles."
"There are tenured professionals that are, you know, maybe within months of retirement, but, you know, they they're trying to stick it out for everyone else and be brave," Andrea said. "And the jobs that we do, I support the defense department and the jobs that we do are so stressful. And to have this on top of it, I mean, I know that that's their goal is to make it miserable. So the people that are staying and fighting, I, I just can't thank them enough."
