Last Spring, Chantel Williams’ position in the federal government was in limbo.
Williams, once a General Services Administration employee on its hiring and recruitment team, found herself in a state of confusion and anxiety. The agency she worked for was in a holding pattern as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency began its work to aggressively shrink the size and scope of government agencies at President Donald Trump’s direction.
The DOGE cuts, a pillar of Trump’s second term, were swift and wide reaching across the federal workforce. Some of the most impacted agencies included the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education.
“As a federal employee, the oath is to the work and to the role, and not the administration,” Williams said. “It started off as feeling very startling that the transition wasn’t occurring as seamlessly as it had in prior years, because I had been working at GSA through a transition before.”
Williams said she felt, for the first time, real turmoil about working for the federal government.
