The federal employees are now living in a real-life episode of “The Office,” except instead of Jim pranking Dwight, it’s Elon Musk pranking the entire U.S. government.
Cue the slow-motion panic montage as workers scramble to justify their existence after a weekend email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) landed in their inboxes like a mic drop from bureaucracy heaven.
Enter Latisha Thompson, a clinical social worker with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Philadelphia, who is basically channeling Pam Beesly’s “I’m done with this nonsense” energy.
The directive? Write down everything you did last week—or risk being mistaken for that one guy who just hides in the breakroom all day eating someone else’s yogurt.
Federal workers everywhere are now Googling things like “how to make my job sound impressive” and “is alphabetizing emails a skill?”
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is probably sitting somewhere sipping coffee, thinking, “This is how you build a lean, mean, government machine!” But let’s be honest—if he really wanted efficiency, maybe he should’ve started by teaching everyone how to use Slack properly.
Nothing screams “government transparency” like a surprise email from Elon Musk that feels more like a pop quiz from your least favorite teacher.
Musk, who’s apparently moonlighting as the ghost of bureaucracy future, took to X to announce this little homework assignment.
And just to spice things up, he added the corporate equivalent of “or else” by implying that ignoring the email would be treated as a resignation—despite the email itself being mysteriously silent on that tiny detail.
Classic Musk move: dropping cryptic statements like they’re NFTs.
Latisha Thompson is out here serving us legendary clapback realness. She’s basically saying, “Sure, we’ll tell you what we do—but don’t think for a second we’re auditioning for Team Musk.”
It’s like she’s channeling every fed-up employee in history who ever had to deal with an overzealous consultant or a micromanaging boss.
“We work for the PEOPLE, Elon,” she seems to imply, while mentally adding, “Not for your next Twitter poll.”
Federal employees might start responding to the emails with haikus about their jobs, just to see if anyone’s actually reading them.
Or maybe they’ll all collectively send him a link to their LinkedIn profiles and call it a day. Either way, Musk just turned the federal workforce into reluctant poets and part-time comedians—all while trying to streamline the system. Truly, chaos in its purest form.
Well, well, well. It looks like Elon Musk just tried to waltz into the federal government like it’s one of his startups, only to find out that the feds don’t exactly roll over at the first sign of disruption.
Latisha Thompson, ever the professional, is taking the high road here—leaning on her agency and union (shoutout to the American Federation of Government Employees!) for guidance instead of drafting a strongly worded reply-all email that would make history.
Meanwhile, the big dogs of bureaucracy—the Pentagon, FBI, State Department, DHS, DOE—are essentially forming a defensive huddle and saying, “Elon, sweetie, we’ve already got this covered.”
Imagine the scene: rows of serious government officials sitting around a conference table, nodding solemnly while someone slides a PowerPoint slide titled “Why We Don’t Need Your Email, Thanks Anyway.”
And honestly? The gall of these agencies pointing out that they ALREADY HAVE SYSTEMS FOR THIS is peak shade. It’s like showing up to someone’s house uninvited and being told, “Oh, we’re hosting Thanksgiving next week—you should’ve checked the calendar!”
Poor Elon probably thought he was walking into an episode of Silicon Valley, but instead, he stumbled onto the set of Parks and Recreation.
If anything, this whole debacle proves that federal employees are masters of keeping calm under pressure. While Musk is out here thinking he’s Tony Stark revolutionizing SHIELD, the actual SHIELD agents are quietly sipping their coffee, exchanging knowing glances, and letting him figure out the hard way that you can’t just “move fast and break things” when national security is involved.
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