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+[8] Ethan Marcotte’s homepage Posted on 18 February 2025
+
+Moving on from 18F.
+
+Note: This post gets into the last few weeks of American politics. If that’s
+not your cup of tea, or if that’s a stressful topic for you, please feel free
+to skip this one. (Also, it’s a bit long. Sorry about that.)
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Last week, I finished my tenure as [9]a designer at 18F.
+
+I want to state up front: I’m not leaving under a “[10]deferred resignation.” I
+also wasn’t laid off. (Though it’s possible I almost was; more on that later.)
+Instead, I resigned from my position as a product designer, submitting two
+weeks’ notice…well, two weeks ago.
+
+Before I get into any of that, I’d like to write a bit about 18F, and why it
+was so hard to leave.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+While I was writing this post, I thought I’d revisit [11]what I wrote when I
+joined 18F last May:
+
+     1. Every single person I’ve met this week — and I’ve met quite a few!
+         — has been smart, kind, and really happy to be working where they do.
+        As someone new to the organization, that’s so encouraging to see.
+     2. It’s, like, remarkably energizing to be around people who are really
+        (really, really) passionate about making digital services work better
+        for people.
+
+Honestly, that holds up. Because really, the thread here is the people working
+at [12]18F, and the culture they’d built: I really, really liked showing up for
+work each morning. Everyone I met at 18F was inviting and kind, and excited to
+talk about what they were working on. (And just as crucially, what they did
+outside work.)
+
+And my goodness, they were helpful — which, as a new kid joining the team, I’m
+always going to remember. Here’s one example: during my first month, I was
+grousing about some weird little computer issue, and a random coworker just
+offered to hop on a call to look at it with me. They hadn’t dealt with the
+issue before, and they definitely hadn’t dealt with me before, but they thought
+they might help a coworker out. And that impulse — maybe I can help someone out
+ — sums up so many of my interactions with everyone at 18F. They were, and are,
+a remarkable group of people.
+
+At the same time, I was proud of the work I was doing. Alongside my coworkers
+at 18F, I worked with client teams to help them define requirements, refine
+their designs, and build better products. I even got asked to pitch in on a
+small branding project, and I’d be the last person to call myself a brand
+designer. But I mention that because I was often asked to stretch myself, and
+every single time I felt safe trying something new — safe, and supported by my
+team. I can count on one hand the number of times over my career that I’ve felt
+that kind of safety at work. I doubt that’s true of every job in government,
+but I know it was true for me at 18F.
+
+I know it sounds pat, but 18F was one of the best places I’ve ever worked.
+Until it wasn’t, and I felt I had to leave.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Before I dive in, here are a couple points that’ll become relevant:
+
+  • I was considered a probationary employee because I’d been employed by the
+    government for less than a year. [13]Probationary employees don’t have most
+    of [14]the protections afforded to “full” employees, and can be dismissed
+    more easily.
+  • Due to some idiosyncrasies of how our roles were defined, many (most?)
+    people in my organization were legally not eligible to join a union.
+
+So. After last year’s election, I was trying to decide whether or not I could
+stay at the job. A far-right candidate had won the election^[15]1, and was
+threatening to [16]reshape the government into something more partisan, more
+regressive, and more autocratic. My job involved putting rectangles on screens,
+and couldn’t have been further from any kind of political influence or impact.
+But despite that, I didn’t know if I could let myself be part of that
+government, even in a small way. (Also, [17]as you might have guessed: I was
+panicking.)
+
+During that time, a friend suggested that while things were calm at work, I
+should write down some lines I wouldn’t want to cross: things I’d want to watch
+out for that, if they materialized, might be a reason to leave. This was
+wonderful advice, and I’m grateful to them for it. Equipped with a plan, even a
+small one, I started thinking through what my lines would be.
+
+I’ll spare you the whole list, but I’ll share three of the entries.
+
+ 1. First, I need to work remotely. If the incoming administration made good on
+    its promise to end teleworking for federal workers, I’d likely have to find
+    another job. (This is, of course, [18]why “return to office” policies
+    happen.)
+ 2. The second line was whether I’d be asked to work on a project that could
+    kill or surveil people. I know precisely what governments are capable
+    of — for good and for ill. But one of the things that drew me to the work
+    at 18F was that I understood they tried to weigh individual workers’
+    preferences when projects were staffed. I figured if that ever changed, and
+    I was asked to work on something I was morally opposed to, it’d be time to
+    leave.
+ 3. The third was being asked to meet with someone who didn’t work for the
+    government, and being asked to discuss what I did for work.
+
+The first two were things I looked into when I was first interviewing at 18F:
+some of the basic criteria I was screening potential employers for. The third
+was driven at least in part by the election, and by the billionaire they were
+putting in charge of “government tech modernization.” I expected that if things
+went south, he’d just try to run the same horrible [19]Twitter layoffs handbook
+, and bring in employees from his other companies to rank — and cull — workers.
+
+But it wasn’t just about that. Many things started happening to the federal
+government after the inauguration, none of them good. While the administration
+was conducting its vicious rollback of civil liberties and publicly funded
+research, [20]this billionaire’s so-called “department” was sweeping through 
+[21]various federal agencies, pushing aside career civil servants and the law
+to [22]hoover up [23]radioactively [24]sensitive data — our data, bought and
+paid for with our tax dollars, I should add.^[25]2 And from what I’d read the
+group was acting on [26]dubious legal authority, and with even less [27]
+oversight or [28]transparency. I didn’t want to sit down with anyone involved
+in that, and pretend like any part of their work was lawful, legitimate, or
+moral.
+
+Anyway. The list was a tremendous help; I’ll always be grateful to the friend
+who suggested it. But given the speed at which government typically moves, I
+assumed I’d have several months before I’d have to wrestle with any of these
+questions. If not longer.
+
+(I know, I know. I’m in the future, too.)
+
+A few weeks ago, a member of [29]the new leadership announced they’d be
+reaching out to workers to discuss their recent “technical wins”, in order to
+better understand how the organization worked. The stress on “technical wins”
+to a [30]cross-functional organization felt significant to me; it also felt
+significant that most of the sessions seemed to be getting scheduled with folks
+who’d only recently joined government — probationary employees.
+
+Just to state the obvious, this isn’t what you do when you want to understand
+how your organization works; it is what you do when you’re preparing to slash
+the size of your workforce. As you might imagine, this caused no small amount
+of panic across the agency, including within 18F. The new leadership hadn’t
+communicated these plans to anyone before making their announcement, which left
+18F’s own leaders and supervisors frantically working to fill in the
+information void.
+
+Shortly after the announcement, I started hearing about folks who’d had their
+meetings, but that they didn’t meet with the director who said they’d be
+conducting the interviews. Instead, they found themselves on a call with people
+who wouldn’t say where they worked in government; in a few cases, some people
+wouldn’t disclose their last names, or any part of their names.
+
+And while I was watching these reports trickle in, I got a calendar invitation
+for my own interview. From the first email announcing the meetings, I figured
+one of my lines was in danger of being crossed; I just figured I’d have more
+time.
+
+With only a few hours before my interview, I did a quick overview of my
+options. It looked like this:
+
+ 1. I could do the interview.
+ 2. I could refuse to do the interview.
+ 3. I could delay: call out sick, take a personal day, whatever.
+ 4. I could resign.
+
+The first item wasn’t really an option, as sitting down with this “department”
+wasn’t something I could let myself do. Refusing to participate would’ve likely
+been seen as insubordination by a probationary hire; delaying would’ve just
+been, well, delaying the inevitable. (It also could have been seen as
+insubordination.) My math would’ve been different if I wasn’t probationary or,
+even better, if I’d been allowed to join a union. But given my lack of labor
+protections, and the options available before me, leaving 18F — withholding my
+labor — felt like my best and only option. I called a meeting with my
+supervisor, and gave two weeks’ notice.
+
+In a terrible coda, a large number of [31]probationary employees were summarily
+let go at [32]my agency just before my last day.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Leaving was the right call for me, but I’ll never feel good about the decision.
+I mean, there’s the grief angle: up until about a month ago, I was working on
+projects that felt like they mattered, and working alongside people who cared
+about helping government services work better for the public. A few months ago,
+I would’ve told you I’d like to stay there for years, which is not something
+I’ve said about any other place I’ve ever worked. I am incredibly sad to leave
+this job.
+
+And look, being able to leave is, flatly, a privileged option: I can’t not work
+forever, but I can not work for a little bit. Most of my coworkers didn’t have
+that option. Some had just bought a house; some returned from parental leave,
+only to learn they might be losing the jobs they’d counted on to support their
+families.
+
+I’m also angry at what was taken from me. At what’s being taken from all of us.
+I’ve watched a wonderful job, a wonderful place to work, a wonderful team get
+pulled apart by rich men in ill-fitting suits, each of them parroting the same
+talking points around “realignment” and “right-sizing”.^[33]3
+
+But what’s happening right now is not about “government efficiency,” nor is it
+about “cost-cutting.” I would gently urge you to look at the net worth of the
+people who are telling you otherwise. After all, there is no financial
+analysis; no review of possible downsides, no weighing of potential negative
+impacts. There is no discussion of what could happen if our math is wrong? Or
+even more importantly, no consideration of who might be harmed?
+
+Instead, as [34]Anil Dash predicted, the billionaire’s so-called “efficiency”
+“department” is best understood as a sprawling form of [35]procurement capture,
+in which a group of impossibly rich individuals are trampling over the
+regulations — and the federal workers — that stand between them and a deep,
+deep [36]revenue [37]stream: [38]your tax dollars. And as they do, they’re
+making an explicitly fascist move to roll back rights for every marginalized
+community in the country — for anyone who doesn’t look like them, or who stands
+in their way.
+
+So, yes. This is a wholesale attack on the American safety net, led by
+billionaires and far-right politicians who are frighteningly comfortable with
+fascism and autocracy. The last month has been called a coup by [39]politicians
+, [40]researchers, and [41]watchdogs alike. I don’t want to diminish the harm
+these people will do — the harm they are doing. I also don’t want to downplay
+the terror of this moment, because lord knows I fucking feel it.
+
+At the same time: what’s happening right now is also a labor story.
+
+If the American government is slow-moving, it’s because rapid change is deadly
+when you’re talking about healthcare, social security checks, market
+regulations, food safety, or any of the other countless critical functions it
+performs. Those federal agencies are, quite simply, infrastructure. And as [42]
+Deb Chachra showed in [43]her excellent book, infrastructure is how a society
+invests in its future: in its ongoing economic, societal, and political
+stability.
+
+In government, that infrastructure is built by laws, policies, and regulations.
+But regulations alone do not infrastructure make. Regulations require workers
+to become infrastructure: those workers who labor to understand new policies,
+how best to enact them, and then work to make them legible and understandable
+to the American public — and, yes, to enforce them. Without those federal
+workers, and their labor, these systems fall apart. And the architects of this
+assault on the federal workforce are keenly aware of that fact.
+
+The last month has, flatly, been hell. But even so, I wouldn’t trade away my
+time at 18F for anything. It was a fantastic place to work, filled with
+genuine, hard-working people who cared for that work and for each other. Even
+when things got rough, I saw the leaders of 18F scramble to answer their team’s
+questions; I saw coworkers reaching out to support each other in countless
+little ways. All while ensuring they got their project work in on time. I saw
+something wonderful at work, in my work. I’m always going to be grateful for
+that, and to my coworkers.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Resources
+
+If this story’s moved you, I hope it moves you to action. Because the workers I
+mention above quite literally need your support.
+
+A few resources, if you’re interested:
+
+  • Wired has some [44]good coverage on the layoffs I described above, and [45]
+    on the billionaire coup more generally.
+  • [46]Labor Notes also has some indispensable coverage around [47]this
+    administration’s attacks on the federal workforce, and how organized labor
+    is fighting back.
+  • The [48]Working Families Party and [49]Emily Amick both had some great
+    primers on what it means to call your members of Congress, if that’s a
+    thing you’re able to do.
+  • If you’re looking for other ways to get engaged, [50]Mariame Kaba has
+    pulled together a massive list of [51]actions that are not protesting or
+    voting.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+Footnotes
+
+ 1. A victory by the slimmest of margins, mind you. But still a victory. [52]↩︎
+
+ 2. And, seemingly coincidentally, thereby ending [53]various investigations
+    against the head of said “department”, and occasionally [54]lining his
+    pockets. [55]↩︎
+
+ 3. And perhaps just as excruciating for me: “datalake”. [56]↩︎
+
+Tagged with
+
+  • [57]work
+  • [58]jobs
+  • [59]politics
+  • [60]us politics
+  • [61]employment
+  • [62]government
+
+Related posts
+
+  • [63]On context. I read these two essays some time ago, and I keep returning
+    to them. I bet you’ll like them too.
+  • [64]The bricks we lay. Design is not neutral.
+  • [65]Free, faster. Many of the free web themes I’ve seen recently are…slow.
+    How can we fix that?
+  • [66]Hello, Editorially. I’ve cofounded a startup with some dear friends.
+    It’s called Editorially. I’d like to tell you a little about it.
+
+━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
+
+You can find more entries in [67]my journal.
+
+Read another post
+
+[68] Previously: A challenge of blog questions.
+
+What did I just read?
+
+Photo of Ethan standing in front of a leafy green hedge.
+
+Hi! I’m Ethan Marcotte, an independent web designer and writer. Some time ago,
+I coined the term “responsive web design.” (You can [69]read more about me or 
+[70]my work, if you like.)
+
+My latest book
+
+[book-ydatu]
+
+[71]You Deserve a Tech Union is a book about the tech industry’s resurgent
+labor movement, and how you can—and should—be part of it. [72]Learn more.
+
+Subscribe for updates!
+
+If you enjoyed this post, sign up to get new journal entries emailed to you:
+
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+
+Your email address:
+
+[73][                    ]
+[74][                    ]
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+
+Site footer
+
+[76] Ethan Marcotte’s homepage
+
+Here
+
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+  • [DEL:Twitter:DEL]
+
+Copyright © 1999–2025 Ethan Marcotte. All rights reserved.
+
+No part of this website may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose
+of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. The author
+expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception.
+
+(That means get lost, “AI” scrapers.)
+
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+References:
+
+[1] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#content
+[2] https://ethanmarcotte.com/
+[3] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/
+[4] https://ethanmarcotte.com/books/
+[5] https://ethanmarcotte.com/work/
+[6] https://ethanmarcotte.com/contact/
+[7] https://ethanmarcotte.com/search/
+[8] https://ethanmarcotte.com/
+[9] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/18f/
+[10] https://www.afge.org/article/afge-cautions-feds-not-to-be-tricked-into-resigning-you-might-not-get-paid/
+[11] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/18f/
+[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F
+[13] https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce-rightsgovernance/2025/02/what-are-the-rules-for-probationary-periods-and-federal-employees/
+[14] https://www.mspb.gov/
+[15] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#fn-margins
+[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
+[17] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/catalog/
+[18] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/quarter-bosses-admit-return-office-104103939.html
+[19] https://web.archive.org/web/20221102222024/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/29/elon-musk-twitter-takeover/#:~:text=The%20note%20continued%3A%20%E2%80%9CPlease%20come%20prepared%20with%20code%20as%20a%20backup%20to%20review%20on%20your%20own%20machines%20with%20Elon.%E2%80%9D%20Later%2C%20people%20inside%20the%20company%20reported%20that%20Tesla%20engineers%20were%20in%20fact%20reviewing%20the%20code.
+[20] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c23vkd57471o#:~:text=Despite%20its%20full%20name%2C%20Doge%20is%20not%20an%20official%20government%20department%2C%20which%20would%20have%20had%20to%20be%20established%20by%20an%20act%20of%20Congress.
+[21] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-lackeys-office-personnel-management-opm-neuralink-x-boring-stalin/
+[22] https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-decide-block-doge-accessing-sensitive-labor-department/story?id=118575362
+[23] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/doge-affiliated-employee-accessed-irs-system-sensitive-taxpayer-inform-rcna192423
+[24] https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/17/politics/doge-irs-taxpayer-data/index.html
+[25] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#fn-conflicts
+[26] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/04/elon-musk-government-legal-doge/
+[27] https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-oversight.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2025-02-06.Dem%20Members%20to%20IGs%20re%20Musk.pdf
+[28] https://www.404media.co/doge-employees-ordered-to-stop-using-slack-while-agency-transitions-to-a-records-system-not-subject-to-foia/
+[29] https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/news-releases/gsa-announces-new-commissioners-tts-director-and-general-counsel-01242025
+[30] https://experience.dropbox.com/resources/cross-functional-teams
+[31] https://www.npr.org/2025/02/13/nx-s1-5296928/layoffs-trump-doge-education-energy
+[32] https://fedscoop.com/gsa-looks-to-terminate-probationary-employees/
+[33] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#fn-datalake
+[34] https://www.anildash.com/
+[35] https://www.anildash.com/2025/01/04/DOGE-procurement-capture/
+[36] https://newrepublic.com/article/191506/musk-bezos-pichai-zuckerberg-microsoft-trump-climate
+[37] https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/12/04/1107897/openais-new-defense-contract-completes-its-military-pivot/
+[38] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-lieutenant-gsa-ai-agency/
+[39] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/03/dems-elon-musk-doge-takeover-treasury/78187978007/
+[40] https://www.techpolicy.press/anatomy-of-an-ai-coup/
+[41] https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/tracking-the-doge-treasury-raid/
+[42] http://debcha.org/
+[43] https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/612711/how-infrastructure-works-by-deb-chachra/
+[44] https://www.wired.com/story/doge-tts-fired/
+[45] https://www.wired.com/tag/elon-musk/
+[46] https://labornotes.org/
+[47] https://labornotes.org/2025/02/federal-workers-organize-against-billionaire-power-grab
+[48] https://www.instagram.com/workingfamilies/p/DGLZz2CP9bH/
+[49] https://emilyinyourphone.substack.com/p/everything-you-need-to-know-about
+[50] https://bsky.app/profile/prisonculture.bsky.social
+[51] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OSWxykA1WHOi0vTPLAJDaCeVhR3uSfh7PhlCj4t4yT0/edit?tab=t.0
+[52] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#fnref-fn-margins
+[53] https://www.npr.org/2025/02/12/nx-s1-5293382/x-elon-musk-doge-cfpb
+[54] https://www.levernews.com/musk-just-scored-more-government-cash-while-pushing-education-cuts/
+[55] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#fnref-fn-conflicts
+[56] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#fnref-fn-datalake
+[57] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/tag/work
+[58] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/tag/jobs
+[59] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/tag/politics
+[60] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/tag/us-politics
+[61] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/tag/employment
+[62] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/tag/government
+[63] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/on-context/
+[64] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/the-bricks-we-lay/
+[65] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/free-faster/
+[66] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/hello-editorially/
+[67] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/
+[68] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/blog-questions-challenge/
+[69] https://ethanmarcotte.com/
+[70] https://ethanmarcotte.com/work/
+[71] https://ethanmarcotte.com/books/you-deserve-a-tech-union/
+[72] https://ethanmarcotte.com/books/you-deserve-a-tech-union/
+[76] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#
+[77] https://ethanmarcotte.com/
+[78] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/
+[79] https://ethanmarcotte.com/books/
+[80] https://ethanmarcotte.com/work/
+[81] https://ethanmarcotte.com/contact/
+[82] https://follow.ethanmarcotte.com/@beep
+[83] https://bsky.app/profile/ethanmarcotte.com
+[84] https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethan-marcotte/
+[85] https://ethanmarcotte.com/accessibility/
+[86] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/feed.xml
+[87] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#top
+[88] https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/leaving-18f/#content