The government of the United States releases all manner of statistics concerning employment. It measures the unemployment rate, non-farm payroll employment, underemployment rates, initial jobless claims, etc.
But one thing the U.S. government doesn’t measure is just how miserable and humiliating a large percentage of jobs in America can be. Employers use this lack of transparency to their advantage, especially if they want some of their employees to quit. There are – as far as I can tell – Nine all-American ways of getting your workers to quit ‘voluntarily’.
I’ll get to those in a moment.
In general, it’s important to remember that there are certain risks inherent to firing employees under U.S. law:
a) An employer can be sued for wrongful termination if there isn’t a clear or reasonable cause for letting the employee go.
b) When a company fires employees, it often must provide severance pay for weeks or more, which can be very costly.
c) Employers are sometimes forced to honor the terms of employment contracts that can require even higher payouts than severance pay.
d) Employers are often required to deal with labor unions who don’t like their members to be fired and can shame employers or make life miserable for the company and management team; and
e) If you are a conflict-averse person, it is simply never fun to tell someone face-to-face to clean out their desk and hit the road.
In addition, there are many people in management who are ill-fitted for those roles and would rather hide in a closet than raise the ire of their workers, a trait which, in-and-of-itself, can raise the ire of their workers. It is fact, not always simple to maneuver workers into a position where you can say, “You’re quitting!”
THERE ARE RULES TO FIRING U.S. GOVERNMENT WORKERS
Nobody could accuse the current U.S. administration – headed by President Donald Trump and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) master and multi-billionaire Elon Musk – of being averse to firing workers. In fact, they seem to revel in the act.
Among the ways that Trump became famous nationally was by hosting a Mark Burnett-helmed reality show called “The Apprentice” where his catchphrase was “You’re Fired!” So, it hasn’t surprised anyone that there have been lots of firings in Trump’s presidency.
But in his second, non-consecutive term, Trump – with the help of Musk – is trying to shrink the federal workforce via mass firings as quickly as possible. Part of the reason for this approach is that it was a promise of his campaign and Project 2025 (which Mr. Trump claims to know next to nothing about). But Trump and Musk are also moving fast because there are federal laws in place that state exactly how U.S. government employees should be fired.
For example, the president does not have the legal authority fire inspector generals within various cabinet agencies without first giving ninety days’ notice.
Second, and more importantly, the U.S. Congress holds the metaphorical purse strings of the federal government. It is debatable whether the executive branch is has the unilateral constitutional authority to change the amount of money funded or defunded in the federal budget without first consulting Congress.
The Trump administration has already been frustrated by judges’ rulings that these firings were done illegally or improperly. Time will tell if Trump and company will honor all, or any, of these court orders.
Regardless, in the American legal and economic system, there are many other ways to get rid of workers – namely by making life so miserable for them, that they will want to quit voluntarily. In fact, there is a long history in America of managers creating work environments that are so toxic that workers will start heading for the doors.
Many CEOs won’t openly admit this is their technique in management books or to the media, however. But the media and the public should be aware of the methods employers use to downsize that go way beyond handing out termination notices. These means can be as effective as firing, albeit much less noticeable and overt.
Here is a list of time-honored techniques companies and organizations use to encourage their workers to quit…I have noted if President Trump and Mr. Musk have deployed any of the following.
#1 LOWER MORALE BY FIRING OTHER WORKERS
The goal of mass firings at a company or organization isn’t always to fire the specific workers who receive the first pink slip. The effect of firing staff brazenly and cruelly is to lower workers’ morale and create a climate of fear and confusion in the workplace that encourages other employees to quit.
President Trump and Mr. Musk have carried out mass firings, not in private but in a very public way, on purpose. Their intention is quite plainly to get other federal workers to quit on their own.
Similarly, famed Sunbeam Corporation CEO Al “Chainsaw” Dunlap in the late 80s and early 90s infamously used the technique of firing masses of employees to lower morale, so that more employees would quit or — more importantly to old “Chainsaw” — accept lower wages.
CEOs are beholden to company boards of directors who love lowering costs and often reward CEOs who do so with large pay packages. Let’s face it, the stocks of certain companies can suffer if they treat their employees too well. Firings done for no good reason are a time-tested method of thinning things out a bit to boost the stock price.
You can bet that part of why the current administration wants to run the U.S government like a public company is to lower costs so that their campaign donors can receive tax cuts – a direct financial benefit. Trump sees himself as the CEO of America he seems to equate the destruction of a large portion of the Federal government with Making America Great Again. I have major doubts.
But again, I digress…
#2 MICROMANAGE AND SET UNREALISTIC GOALS
Gaslighting isn’t just something that happens in bad relationships. Bad workplaces with sadistic managers can also feature notable gaslighting.
A good way to get unwanted staff members to quit is to essentially create a situation where they cannot succeed. Create unrealistic goals so they are sure to fall short and then micromanage and nitpick to the point that the worker feels as if their work is more flawed than it really is.
The late General Electric CEO Jack Welch criticized managers who micromanaged their employees. He felt that having an independent workforce was ideal if a company’s management wanted to maintain high morale. But it you want morale to drop among your employees, then micromanaging them is the way to go.
At the investment firm Goldman Sachs, former employees brought a lawsuit against management in 2023 accusing them of this very technique. They accused top managers at Goldman Sachs of exerting intense pressure with the intent of causing mental duress sufficient to push people out the door. There have been similar suits brought by workers at Walmart and other firms.
It remains to be seen whether President Trump or Elon Musk are going to employ this particular technique to reduce the headcount of government departments.
My gut tells me: “yes.”
#3 CHANGE ‘THE MISSION’ SO THAT WORKERS OPPOSE IT
While micromanagement and unrealistic goals may or may not be part of the Trump Administration’s playbook, changing the company’s avowed mission – many U.S. companies profess to be on ‘missions’ — so that workers have reasons to oppose it seems like a sure bet for a DOGE and MAGA-friendly technique.
If you are in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and your new boss asks you to prosecute Greenpeace, there’s a likelihood that you will not enjoy that task to the point where you might want to move to the private sector.
If you are a lawyer at the FCC and your task is to sue National Public Radio, then you very likely didn’t see this on your bingo card as part of your daily tasks at an agency that’s supposed to protect free speech. You might want to go…elsewhere.
Even in cases where you are not being asked to do things that fly in the face of your convictions, if your boss (The President of the U.S.) essentially hobbles your agency and makes it impossible for you to get anything done, then you might not want to stay on the job.
To choose a different, but equally compelling example, if you hope to get another job outside of the Federal Government, you might determine that having Department of Education experience under the current administration’s rule might lessen your chance of getting other education-related jobs. Dismantling an agency isn’t necessarily a marketable skill in the workplace. You might very well pack your bags and get out.
#4 RELOCATE YOUR WORKERS TO A DISTANT CITY
A good management euphemism in America is “worker attrition”. On paper, attrition sounds like it’s not especially stressful, but that’s not necessarily true.
If you move the restroom a half mile away from the workplace and force employees to walk there when they need to pee, the stress of traveling to and from the loo will cause a certain amount of folks to quit each week.
Because this “attrition” happens gradually doesn’t necessarily make the situation less stressful or upsetting. I know this is an extreme hypothetical, but managers do really love saying there’s an “attrition” of workers because it helps them sleep at night.
For example, in Donald Trump’s first term in 2019, he relocated two key USDA research agencies – The Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture – from Washington DC to Kansas City, Missouri. As much as Kansas City is a nice place to live (and eat great barbecue), the staffers in Washington, D.C. had kids in D.C. schools and spouses with jobs in the greater D.C. area.
You get the point.
The managers who arrange such moves have the ulterior motive of getting workers to quit, or “to attrition” if you prefer, rather than relocate half a continent away, but they can claim that it makes more sense to move USDA headquarters to a region with more farming. The media can’t make accusations that the goal of the government is to get employees to quit, because you never know for sure unless an internal memo to that effect leaks. The fact is, it can be very hard to identify motives.
It’s not surprising that this technique of shrinking the workforce has been used quite a bit in the private sector. The apparel company Dickies Workwear moved its HQ from North Texas to California earlier in 2025 and the relocation resulted in one hundred twenty-five workers quitting their jobs.
President Trump and Elon Musk have not used this ploy yet in the current term, but it would not surprise me if it happens.
#5 OFFER THEM A BUYOUT OR ‘EARLY’ RETIREMENT
There is a misperception that a “buyout” offer to employees is some philanthropic gesture, but as the old saying goes “the devil is in the details.”
Now, a good deal is a good deal, but a deal offered to the workforce under lots of coercion and pressure is indubitably going to be a raw deal.
The world’s richest man – Elon Musk – has from the start of the new administration offered basically every federal worker a buyout plan via email as part of his aim to drastically shrink the federal workforce.
Before we go into whether this is a generous deal, let’s first acknowledge that there must be thousands upon thousands of Federal Workers who – for the sake of our society – SHOULDN’T take this deal. DOGE should clearly not have offered the buyout to literally every federal worker.
Even though conventional wisdom tells people, including me, that too much bureaucracy is bad, it is also clear that some amount of bureaucracy is essential. For example, the people who inspect meat, keep water clean, and handle air traffic control – those jobs all seem kind of essential. The mass emails that offered a buyout were sure to lower morale because they suggested that the leaders of the new administration didn’t value ANY Federal worker.
The DOGE buyout offer was not one of those rare, kind ones that provide workers with major incentives to retire early. DOGE’s offer was done via email, which in and of itself is lame by virtue of being completely impersonal.
You’d hope managers would talk to employees individually, one on one, about the offer to field questions, etc. A human touch can help in these types of situations, but that does not appear to be a DOGE priority. These buyout offers came from a department run by a man who says his chief aim is to fire masses of people, so the reason why most workers would accept this offer is out of fear.
There’s simply a lot of coercion going on here.
Federal workers know their jobs are not safe, so receiving any amount of money up front seems better than getting the axe with no warning or severance package at all. The effect of these buyouts could perhaps be called “attrition” (see above) rather than what they are: a very, very thin silver lining.
It seems like when people about to be executed by firing squad are offered a last cigarette. Or am I engaging in unfair hyperbole? You decide.
#6 MAKE THE WORKPLACE LESS SAFE
There are ways to make a workplace less safe, such as letting loose a wild boar in the office. I’m referring to the genus of wild boars that have sharp tusks. This could be absurdly funny at best, but could cause injuries or death, at worst.
A bear on cocaine works in this hypothetical as well. But there are equally dangerous workplace situations that can actually occur in the real world.
A summer job in my youth was working as a dishwasher at a restaurant. A special task my managers gave to me one day before customers appeared was to use an electric water pump to clean up a flooded basement.
I was knee deep in fetid water in the basement with an electric pump. When I turned the device on, I received a major electric shock. Luckily, I survived and didn’t even complain to OSHA or to my parents, but it was clearly not safe. My youth and dim sensibilities kept me from realizing that I could have literally fried my brain.
Even pushing workers too hard, over too many hours, with not enough air flowing through a building and using non-ergonomic chairs and keyboards can be considered unsafe. This is another good way to get rid of workers without firing them.
We have not yet heard that Mr. Musk and President Trump are employing this technique within the Federal Government, but Musk has been accused of making the workplace unsafe as CEO of electric car company, Tesla. After a worker was electrocuted on the job, the federal government under the last administration cited Musk’s company for workplace safety violations.
#7 TREAT WORKERS LIKE THEY ARE ALREADY GONE
Another way to alienate workers and get them to quit is to basically treat them like they are no longer part of the company or organization.
Bosses don’t return phone calls from those employees that are targeted, don’t make eye contact in the hallways, and don’t take questions from these workers in meetings.
The people who are subjected to these methods feel terrible, get the message and quit, unless they have a family and feel they are betraying the mouths they need to feed by voluntarily eschewing their salary, even if the writing is on the wall.
It must be noted that quitting a job makes one unqualified to collect unemployment benefits, which could prevent an otherwise unhappy worker from quitting.
#8 GIVE WORKERS BAD PERFORMANCE REVIEWS, NO PROMOTIONS
One of the most widely used methods to get workers to quit is probably the least abusive. Essentially, give those employees less-than-stellar annual reviews and deny any requests for promotion.
It’s painful for the worker and it creates conflicts managers would rather avoid, but it’s a widely accepted method of giving someone the hint that could cause them to leave on their own. It can be argued that firing a worker is more humane than the slow torture of coaxing them to leave, but that might be subjective.
#9 MAKE WORKERS FEEL LIKE SH*T BY SH*TTING ON THEM
This last category is essentially an umbrella term that all the other categories fit under. It’s not a technical term. And to be clear, I’m only speaking of the metaphoric “sh*t,” not the literal kind.
Pretty much any employee can be gotten rid of if you downplay their importance. Elon Musk calling Social Security a Ponzi Scheme is at once designed to undermine the public’s view of social security and to make the people who work for the Social Security Administration feel like unappreciated enough to quit their jobs.
You don’t have to call people names to make them feel bad. Issuing executive orders that take away collective bargaining rights will make even workers who were never planning to engage in collective bargaining feel underappreciated.
Rick Scott, one of the wealthiest U.S. senators, has put forward a bill that calls for 12-year term limits for federal bureaucrats. The bill might not pass, but it’ll make many federal workers feel unvalued. Some may even quit through “attrition.”
Public service and civics used to be universally admired words in our society, but now they are, well, shat upon.
THE NEW NORMAL? IT’S UP TO US.
As shocked as the much of the country is about the administration’s plans to fire tens of thousands of federal workers without much transparency, I anticipate this will eventually be seen as the new normal.
In a fast-moving news cycle, the public will likely stop hearing about federal workforce cuts in a weeks or months. President Trump is proving that it’s possible to shrink workforces merely with executive orders and decrees.
As I’ve laid out, it is as American as apple pie for managers to pressure some portion of their workforces into quitting. It doesn’t make it right or moral. As citizens, we should keep our eyes open to how these methods are deployed in both the business world and in our government.
The salaries of government workers are paid by us — U.S. taxpayers — so we have a reasonable right to know and understand how our government is run, both formally and informally.
Leaks will help us know what’s going on behind the scenes, but a curious public helps too. And a curious and probing media.
Stay engaged. And if you see something, say something.
Gideon Evans is a television producer and playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Evans has produced and written for various TV and audio projects including “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”, “The President Show” for Comedy Central and the podcasts “Mobituaries” for CBS News and “The Hall” for Netflix.
