Stripped of their jobs but not their dedication, fired federal workers grapple with uncertainty, loss and an unfinished mission to serve the public.

Federal judges in California and Maryland dealt a blow to the Trump administration’s plans to quickly reduce the federal workforce, ordering the reinstatement of workers who had been terminated based on their probationary status. But for many fired feds, this welcome news does not mean a return to work. 

For me and most of my colleagues in the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF), for instance, it means being placed on administrative leave. We will continue to receive our pay and benefits, but we won’t be allowed to work.

One might think that this is a pretty good deal—but only if you don’t know federal employees. Two of my colleagues shared with me their passion for their work, asking for anonymity because of the continued uncertainty over their employment.

[Federal workers] do [the work] because they believe in a mission, helping people in the U.S. have better lives because they are Americans, too.

A fired federal worker who moved to D.C. weeks before their termination

It’s hard for me to imagine wasting the talents of my first colleague, a change management specialist, who thrives on helping federal managers develop new programs that promote efficiency without sacrificing worker or customer satisfaction. After years of working on political campaigns and in corporate customer service and business strategy roles, he realized he’d been heading towards a career in the federal government all along. Offered a job at HHS the day after the 2024 presidential election, he was nervous about rumored changes to the federal workforce, but buoyed by the encouragement of his mentors who said, “This is your dream. The way you light up, this is the thing we want in federal employees. Roll the dice, go for it.”

In December, he embarked on his federal career remotely from Florida, and moved to Washington, D.C., in 2025, just a few weeks before receiving notice of his termination. He and his partner weighed returning to Florida and simply starting over, but he loved his job too much to give up hope. His work brought him joy and he saw that same joy in his co-workers. 

“At the end of the day you aren’t guided by a profit margin, which doesn’t allow for you to be exuberantly compassionate. [Federal workers] do [the work] because they believe in a mission, helping people in the U.S. have better lives because they are Americans, too.” 

Another ACF colleague expressed similar commitment both to the mission and to the opportunity the federal government gave her to do her dream job. She is a policy analyst specializing in children’s issues, including the financial impact of regulatory changes to children and family programs run by HHS. It’s the kind of job that combines her doctoral work on children’s development with her love for statistics and a desire to put research into practice. 

And she works with dedicated colleagues who care about kids and about each other. Her colleagues supported her over the last two years as she dealt with a difficult pregnancy that ended in a stillbirth, then a second pregnancy that landed her in the hospital a month before she received the termination notice. She was still in the hospital on that day, which had started out triumphantly, marking the 24th week of her pregnancy, a critical point after which the fetus has developed enough to survive outside the womb.  

In a cruel twist of fate, it was Valentine’s Day—and also the anniversary of the stillbirth. All her fears and worries for her child were suddenly magnified by the realization that her job and her benefits might suddenly end. And yet her health meant she couldn’t act on the impulse to fix things or try to start over.  

“Sitting in hospital, I had to ration how much I checked Signal or watch the news. Look for another job?—not possible to schedule an interview on bedrest. The safety net that I had worked really hard for to support our family was gone.” 

Fortunately, her son arrived a few weeks later premature but healthy. She spends her days in the NICU now, and while she is happy about the cancellation of her termination, she still has no answers about what it means to be on administrative leave when you might otherwise have taken FMLA or gone on parental leave. She hopes, one day, that she will be able to return to the job she calls the “perfect job.”

“It’s so hard. It’s been a devastating loss. I had the perfect job and there aren’t many like it, but I don’t know if that job is the same now. I believe so strongly in our program and I want to go back—do the job of a civil servant, work in the way that aligns with the laws, supporting the program as written.”

Despite their different circumstances, both my colleagues share a desire to serve the public—and they want to make sure that people understand that federal workers are not lazy or apathetic, nor are they are poor performers.

One told me that civil service is “this esoteric removed space in the public imagination, but everyone there is thinking about real people, trying to meet needs. We certainly are not doing lazy bureaucratic work for the sake of it.”

I believe so strongly in our program and I want to go back—do the job of a civil servant, work in the way that aligns with the laws, supporting the program as written.

A fired HHS worker who served as a policy analyst specializing in children’s issues

Another said the mission is the motivation: “There would be no point to doing this job if you wanted to be a slacker. It only makes sense to be happy and good at your job if you are going into the federal government.”

For the moment, many fired feds are in limbo, being paid not to do the jobs they love. This waste of talent, resources and dreams serves no one and reveals the purge of federal workers for what it is—a cruel political stunt that hurts the public and the people who serve them.