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.
I know, it’s so irritating. Which of course is just what they want. I always thought it just made them sound stupid, but they are totally fine with sounding stupid–they’re even proud of sounding stupid because they’re anti-intellectual, anti-education, anti-science. So the last thing they want is to sound “educated”.
But I think at this point they’ve overused it so much for so long that it’s lost its slur impact. By now a whole generation or two has grown up hearing it over and over so it probably just sounds normal to them. They probably just think that’s the actual name of the party.