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A lot of this is the psychological shock for government workers to find themselves unsure about their futures. Government work has long been understood as a bargain* for the employee: the employee gives up significant salary and upward mobility, and receives in turn a relatively easy job and close to complete job security. You don't make as much money, but you'll never get fired. Current government workers have built their lives around that bargain. They "knew" they were giving up other opportunities, but in exchange they were getting job security.
Now that bargain is being shaken up. Whether anyone has actually been fired or not, they know they aren't wanted, and that their firing might be only a matter of time. This is devastating if you thought you would never be fired.
*One can dispute the accuracy of this bargain, some government workers seem very well paid, but it probably turns into dueling-nit-picking about what the same workers' potential earnings in the private sector would be. Regardless, this bargain is still understood as being in force even if it has factually decayed. Most government workers will tend to compare their careers to the best of their peers in the private sector and find they made less, not to the worst, so even if a government salary is higher overall it still will be perceived as middling.
Yeah, this seems to be largely the case. As a fin-tech worker, the idea of job security is one I can hardly process, but I've been told that easy job and lifetime job security were top reasons for moving to DC. I think also, "there's not actually much work for a PhD in linguistics," is up there. I'm sympathetic to the claims of being terrorized--it seems like the firings are extra confusing and malicious--but I'm a little-shoulder shruggy in terms of losing one's job. It makes me seem like a demon around here. I have to keep up the pretense that I'm sorrowful for all the people. That said, I don't know who's getting fired, so I don't know who to call to make a big scene about how terrible it all is. I've been accused of not being 'curious enough.'
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