‘I Love My Job’: Laid-Off Federal Worker on DOGE Cuts

“This was given to me for working the Eaton Fire. We all got one. And this is a huge honor to have received. My name is spelled wrong, but it’s OK. After working these fires, I got a termination email. It made me feel like the rug was pulled out from under me. They said it was based on my performance, but this was copy and pasted for everybody. So I know for a fact that that wasn’t it because I always tried my best in every job I had. The firefighters and the whole operation — it is reliant on these maps. It shows the progression of the fires or the fire perimeter, and then it shows all the operations surrounding the fire. I love my job and I love all the aspects that came with it. So I responded to the Eaton fire. It was raining ash there. Very hazy. I worked about 12 to 16 hours a day, and I worked 11 days with the G.I.S. Eaton team. Our G.I.S. trailer was like right, straight forward here. This is really interesting to see this area, that it’s so lively because during the fire operations, it was really stacked with a bunch of resources for fighting these fires. So all this was at my desk. Cleaning up my desk, that was very difficult. Emotionally, just the memories of it. It was very sad.” “My guest Jasmin is from Lancaster, and she was working for the Forest Service until she was unjustly terminated. You made the effort to come all the way out here. The least I could do is to get you to the House chambers.” “The president of the United States.” “My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy.” [cheering] “Hearing Trump’s speech and sitting close enough to where I can see Elon Musk’s reaction, it was infuriating. All the people that were terminated, the federal employees are all valuable in so many ways to the public, and it’s sad that they don’t see it yet. They won’t see it until they need that person that they let go and the work isn’t done.”