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BULLETS AND BULLYING
The Real Purpose of the “Five Bullets” Emails
Elon Musk is doing to federal workers exactly what was once done to me by IBM
We are now in the second month of the “five bullets” emails. These are the emails federal employees were — and for the most part, still are — required to send to the Office of Personnel Management each week. Each employee must list five tasks accomplished the previous week.
Federal employees received two of these emails, the first on February 22 and the second six days later. Both were alarming: unsigned, no author identified, and no indication that possibly sensitive information sent to the unsigned author might get into the wrong hands.
In fact, they looked like the same kind of junk mail that I received this morning from a (fake) home warranty company thanking me for subscribing to protect my refrigerator and stove (I hadn’t) and asking me to provide my sensitive information (I didn’t).
But these emails, as it turned out, were not fake. They were from Elon Musk, so replies were required. Replies were to be sent to each employee’s supervisor, and supervisors were required to review them.
“How’s that going?” you might ask, and I did.
- Substantial_Web_8515 posted on r/VeteransAffairs on Reddit 11 days ago: “They told us it’s voluntary…. I don’t want to find out so I just send my bullets and go on with my day.”
- Swervo05 posted on r/fednews on Reddit one day ago: “DoD, the weekly 5 bullet email states ‘submissions must exclude classified or sensitive information and will be incorporated into weekly situation reports by supervisors.’ My supervisor says they don’t do a damn thing with it and they have received no guidance on ‘weekly situation reports’.”
- Warlikeloki, an employee of the Department of the Navy, also posted on Reddit also one day ago: “I get an email every Friday morning from OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] requiring the 5 bullet points by Tuesday. I send it stuff, but I make the bullet points vague in content.”
- A U.S. Forest Service employee sent a reply to the emails stating they would not comply and copying every employee in the entire…
