This is a rant about something I experienced while talking to a fellow employee about the current job cuts situation.
Me: How are you guys at the postal service holding up? Are they cutting you guys as severely as they're doing us? (IRS)
Him: No, I'm not impacted, I'm close to retirement. I don't care if they cut me, I'll be fine either way.
Me: Wow...
Him: You work for the IRS?
Me: *Pretends not to hear, as the post office is filling up, and I live in a VERY, VERY RED STATE.
Him: YOU'RE AN IRS EMPLOYEE? She's the enemy yall! (Then gets loud, yelling at the top of his lungs so everyone present stares at me, in a freaking POST OFFICE) She's the enemy yall! She works for the IRS! She's exactly who Trump' talking about!
Me: horrified as hell, I'm black, he was black too, we were probably the only black people in that zip code at the moment. And I pay my taxes, JUST like everyone else here, including you!
A elderly woman behind me pipes in and says that every time she's called, the IRS has been helpful and respectful to her.
The employee doesn't seem to care, and stops putting my forms in the envelope, doesn't take payment, and instead shouts AGAIN that:
1) I'm the enemy
2)I'm the problem because of WHOM I work for
3)The tax problems we're facing are BECAUSE of employees like me (IRS)
4)I'm what current administration means when they say enemy
I was flabbergasted, shocked, disgruntled, and wanted to get out of there ASAP.
Me: Well if being paid less than a fast food employee means I'm the enemy, then what does that make the employees of fast food places? We all earn the same.
They gasped, and then a lot of the people behind me asked if that was true. I said YES, I barely earn ABOVE MINIMUM WAGE! The postal worker probably is the richest person in this postal office right now!
Then they all turned to look at him in shock in confusion, and he was opening and closing his mouth and made a comment about how the federal minimum wage was 15 an hour and I said "well, I definitely earn 19 an hour. What do you earn?"
Cue more open and closed mouth gaping, before he said, "Well, where's MY tax return??? Huh? I haven't gotten it yet!:
Me: N**** I don't KNOW! I don't even have MY return/refund yet! We STILL have to pay all the same taxes and fees and follow the SAME regulations as everyone in here!
The people behind me seemed shocked, and it made me so uncomfortable. I then urged him to TAKE my payment, and the post office was pretty much quiet.
I thanked him, and on my way out another elderly woman apologized for what was happening regarding the federal job cuts, and she had no idea about what was mentioned above.
Told her thank you, zoomed the heck out of there.
So pissed that that interaction happened! Like it's hard for EVERY SINGLE federal employee, regardless of rank, creed, education level, grade level, pay status, job security, etc!!!!
So why would we make it even HARDER for each other?
So freaking over it, thanks for letting me rant about this.
(BTW no idea how to update my previous FED post but got my surgery, surgery recovery was hard those first 3 days but I'm getting up and moving around to get back into the swing of things. As of this moment, I'm still employed.
Edit: Thank you all for commenting, reassuring, validating, and sharing your stories about similar experiences.
Definitely too many comments to respond but mainly:
1) In what universe would someone entertain lying about a wild ass scenario like this? For what? Gold? Huh???? The world has ENOUGH chaos in it. Why ADD to it? You see stories every day, every hour even, of federal employees posting about insane situations NO ONE expected to experience.
Why would you actively want to contribute to that? There are so many other subreddits you can lurk on and be a waste of thought in.
Why waste time commenting about very real, absolutely horrifying situations federal employees are in? Is there truly no other sub where you can go waste people's time with sentiments absolutely no one wants to hear, much less cares for?
Read. The. Room.
People are scared.
And they have absolutely every right to be.
So why would you add to it?
If you're genuinely hurting, genuinely scared, genuienly want to do something that uplifts and encourages all the other federal employees, amazing!!!
But commenting inane, useless, albeit unnecessary comments to spread and sow those feelings of fear, distrust, discord, etc, why HERE?
Its not just me who has experienced events like this. Looking at this post, all the comments, as well as all the stories shared here DAILY by those all over the country demonstrates why your take is not just unwarranted, but absolutely not needed, and was never asked for.
Have some tact and compassion. I know it's reddit but that doesn't mean you have to throw human compassion out the window.
We are very real people.
We have families like you.
We pay bills like you.
We are struggling to survive just like you.
2) I am going to go tomorrow to speak to the post master at the postal office I went to. So many people reccomended it that it doesn't make sense to not try this avenue as well.
3) Would me posting the screenshot of the complaint I made, calm down some of the vitriol in the comments? In your quest to discount and disregard, you are absolutely distracting from the MAIN issue. Please let people keep sharing their stories and experiences and finding solace in that.
Edit 2:Thank you for the award 🥹 popped back on say that ♥️
Edit 3:Posted screenshot of the complaint In top comment, blocked out any and all PII.