Many government workers are set to reject the Trump administration’s offer of a “deferred resignation,” calling the plan a fake buyout and vowing to continue working out of protest.
The offer, which landed in most federal employees’ email inboxes yesterday with the subject line “Fork in the Road,” would provide pay and benefits through the end of September 2025 and exempt workers from the administration’s return-to-office requirements.
Employees have until Feb. 6 to return the pre-written resignation letter to the Office of Personnel Management.
But workers on Reddit’s r/fednews, the subreddit for federal employees and contractors, appeared determined to thwart President Donald Trump’s efforts to drastically downsize the federal workforce.
“I’ll be honest, before that email went out, I was looking for any way to get out of this fresh hell,” read one post with more than 25,000 upvotes. “But now I am fired up to make these goons as frustrated as possible, RTO be damned. Hold the line!”
Nearly all top commenters were in agreement.
“This past week and a half I have transitioned from being nervous and anxious to being pissed off,” one worker wrote. “Much more of a fighting mood now.”
Other posters stressed their commitment to public service and their unwillingness to get “bullied out.”
“They can drag me out,” one post with 3,600 upvotes said. “I joined the federal government to serve Americans. To help my countrymen and to help my country. I was so proud on the day I took my oath.”
“They want to dismantle the very institutions that keep this country running, to tear down the work we have dedicated our lives to,” another person wrote. “Stay strong, fellow federal employees. We are in this together, and we are not backing down.”
Yesterday’s unexpected email is another sign of Elon Musk’s influence in the Trump administration. Musk gave workers at X—then Twitter—a similar ultimatum in 2022, complete with a nearly identical “Fork in the Road” subject line.
He poked at the similarities in a cryptic post yesterday evening.
At X, however, Musk promised severance packages to workers who left immediately. Federal employees have no such assurances.
While news reports quickly labeled the proposal a “buyout,” some observers pointed out that the offer doesn’t necessarily mean employees can stop working, giving them less incentive to accept.
“Every media headline is calling it a ‘buyout’ but when you read the actual email from OPM it’s simply an offer to telework until September,” Washington, D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson wrote on X. “No cash buyout.”
“Ha, it’s not a buyout! A buyout pays you to quit (e.g. leave today but we’ll pay you through Sept),” another account wrote. “Only benefit you get for resigning is you can work from home—same deal federal workers had until last week except checks stop in Sept, no backsies. It’s a terrible fucking deal!”
OPM attempted to address this concern in an FAQ section on its new “Fork in the Road” web hub, saying employees are only expected to work “in rare cases determined by your agency.”
But the distrust between the Trump administration and many civil servants makes OPM’s assurances difficult to believe for some.
“They can’t fire us as easily as they thought, so they are trying to scare us into quitting, don’t fall for it!” wrote one poster on r/fednews. “OPM is not your direct supervisor, HR or agency/department head. Only your agency can make this kind of deal with you.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) echoed those sentiments on the Senate floor yesterday evening.
“The president has no authority to make that offer. There’s no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work,” the former vice presidential candidate said. “If you accept that offer and resign, he’ll stiff you.”
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