The New York Times reports:

The most challenging day in decades for air traffic controllers, safety inspectors and other Federal Aviation Administration employees started with profound questions about a deadly crash the night before — and ended with an email urging them to resign from their jobs.

The email, sent from President Trump’s Office of Personnel and Management to employees across the sprawling federal government, arrived just before 8:30 p.m. Thursday — almost exactly 24 hours after an air crash in Washington that killed 67 people. The message reiterated an offer earlier this week from the administration encouraging federal employees to seek new jobs in the private sector — and did so in terms that appeared to denigrate their contributions, if not cast them as lazy.

“The way to greater American prosperity is encouraging people to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector,” stated the email, which was reviewed by The New York Times.

From the Department of Homeland Security to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the message was regarded by many federal employees as an astonishingly tone-deaf missive to deliver in the midst of a crisis. Workers from the Commerce Department to the Army Corps of Engineers described the email as the latest assault on one of the nation’s largest workforces from an administration scrambling for ways to deliver major spending cuts.

“There are so many public servants working in government because they want to serve the public — that is what motivates them,” said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that promotes best practices in government. “This series of hammer blows that federal employees have experienced has created fear and disorientation and distraction, and shows the administration has not read the room at all.” [Continue reading…]