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The request was at best a bad joke, and I think you know that too. If the real purpose, as Musk later stated, was to see who would respond and who would not, w

The request was at best a bad joke, and I think you know that too. If the real purpose, as Musk later stated, was to see who would respond and who would not, with no consideration of content, why deceive? Be direct: "This is a test of government employee email deliverability and responsiveness. Please reply to this email when you receive it. An empty reply is fine, you do not need to put anything in the email." If you want to know what people are working on, you work with the management chains because those are the people whose job it is to know what their people are working on. You take your time to dig into the data, talk to people at all levels, understand the structure and the work. This request, in the way and fashion it was made, shows an incredible lack of disrespect, distrust, and disregard for federal employees across the board. If I were a government employee and received that mail, I would be unable to avoid expressing my own disrespect and distrust in my reply. These emails sets up a self-fulfilling prophecy where government fails to serve the people. Some people leave public service. Others stay but are disillusioned and checked out because they know their actual job performance no longer matters, the whims of a billionaire who voted with his wallet to make himself co-president can destroy their livelihood at any moment. Over time, you have people who are unable to leave and thus will do what they're told out of fear, and unqualified loyalists who just do what they're told.

dcow 2y ago
I think it’s a brilliant and effective way to route out insubordination and dead workers.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
  I hope you never end up in a position of management, because it's a real shitty way to manage people.
  - dcow 2y ago
    On every team I’ve worked on there is an expectation of at least weekly updates. Usually a daily or every other daily standup. The request is not unreasonable. I can never know what I’d do when faced with a position where I believed some of my budget was going to pay dead and inactive employees, and where members of the management chain were insubordinate and unwilling to help identify the issue and even complicit. I’d guess I’d just fire them all. Is that more humane?
    - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
      > On every team I’ve worked on there is an expectation of at least weekly updates. Usually a daily or every other daily standup. The request is not unreasonable. At the team level, that is of course quite reasonable. Doing this from a top-down approach in an organization at any real scale is fucking insane.

dcow 2y ago

I think it’s a brilliant and effective way to route out insubordination and dead workers.

sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
I hope you never end up in a position of management, because it's a real shitty way to manage people.
- dcow 2y ago
  On every team I’ve worked on there is an expectation of at least weekly updates. Usually a daily or every other daily standup. The request is not unreasonable. I can never know what I’d do when faced with a position where I believed some of my budget was going to pay dead and inactive employees, and where members of the management chain were insubordinate and unwilling to help identify the issue and even complicit. I’d guess I’d just fire them all. Is that more humane?
  - sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
    > On every team I’ve worked on there is an expectation of at least weekly updates. Usually a daily or every other daily standup. The request is not unreasonable. At the team level, that is of course quite reasonable. Doing this from a top-down approach in an organization at any real scale is fucking insane.