Furloughed federal workers pushed to make partisan out-of-office replies

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) provided the following template language to establish employees’ out-of-office notifications.

“Furloughed Employees: Thank you for contacting me. On September 19, 2025, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5371, a clean continuing resolution. Unfortunately, Democrat Senators are blocking passage of H.R. 5371 in the Senate which has led to a lapse in appropriations. Due to the lapse in appropriations I am currently in furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume,” the text read.

However, multiple furloughed employees at the Department of Education report their out-of-office replies were automatically reset to mimic the language above – without their permission.

“They changed our out-of-office message… [They] did it after everyone left,” one department of education staffer told ABC News. “[I’m] so pissed,” they said.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    42·
    6 days ago

    It’s on purpose

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)

    In 2006, Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker:

    There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. “Democrat Party” is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but “Democrat Party” is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams “rat”.

    • BertramDitore@lemmy.zipEnglish
      26·
      6 days ago

      Yeah exactly, which is why it showing up in these out of office replies is that much worse. The Hatch Act is meaningless.

      • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
        19·
        6 days ago

        The Hatch Act is still law, it is just that the current administration is not enforcing it against their team. They are betting that there will never be someone in charge of the DOJ who would start prosecuting over that.

        • vortic@lemmy.world
          7·
          6 days ago

          and

          If we ever get another administration, they should clean house to remove those who ignored their oaths. Federal employees have sworn not to violate the Hatch Act and should be prosecuted to remove the infection from our government. As a former federal employee, I do not appreciate these roles becoming political in any way.

          • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            6 days ago

            The only way that can work is if the GOP gets over it’s martyr complex and recognizes that this politization is wrong and needs to be punished. Otherwise they will just complain that the Democrats are exiling Republicans due to their political stances, and proceed to purge everyone again when they take over, pardoning and installing all the lawbreakers again.

            • vortic@lemmy.world
              3·
              6 days ago

              Yeah, unfortunately I recognize that… The difference, not that it really makes one in the current climate, is that one side would have actually broken a long-standing law while the other would not. Hopefully if that cycle is repeated enough people would see who the liars are.

              It probably doesn’t matter, though…

    • Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      7·
      6 days ago

      It would be great if people could realize this applies to Democrat as an adjective and not Democrat as a noun. The Democrats literally use the word in their youth organizations (Young Democrats of America and High School Democrats of America), and I’ve seen people on the fediverse act like it’s a slur. If people could learn how sentence structure works before going off on someone for using Democrat as a noun that would be great.