The Federal Employee Survival Blog

Cut through the jargon and get the clarity you need to stay a step ahead of agency politics. Each article unpacks new policy shifts, court rulings, and workplace trends, then turns them into actionable tactics—so you can head off discipline, invoke EEO or whistleblower protections with confidence, and keep your documentation airtight. We also archive our most popular social-media explainer threads here, giving you the same insights followed by more than 150,000 people online even if you never scroll on those sites. Read, prepare, and keep your federal career firmly in your control.

 
Federal Employee Rights in a Government Shutdown excepted employees federal employment federal shutdown furlough rights mindfulness at work Sep 23, 2025

With just over a week until the September 30 funding deadline, federal employees are left in limbo. Unlike prior years, when the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published every agency’s continge...

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Religious Accommodation Rights for Federal Employees federal employment mindfulness at work religious accommodation telework policy title vii rights Sep 22, 2025

For decades, agencies could deny religious accommodations by pointing to any “more than tiny” cost or inconvenience. That changed in Groff v. DeJoy. Now, under Title VII, an agency must show a substan...

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CDC Paused Disability Telework Approvals, Then Hit Hold After Pushback disability accommodation eeo process federal employment mindfulness at work telework rights Sep 22, 2025

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that it was pausing approvals—and even renewals—of telework as a disability accommodation. The agency pointed to a new HHS-wid...

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OPM Pauses Relocation Push: What Federal Employees Should Do Now federal employment management directed reassignment mindfulness at work mspb appeals opm relocation Sep 19, 2025

In February, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) ordered many remote employees living more than 50 miles from an OPM worksite to accept a management-directed reassignment (MDR) or risk terminatio...

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Deferred Resignation Reversals: What Federal Employees Should Know deferred resignation program employee rights federal employment mindfulness at work mspb appeals Sep 19, 2025

This year’s “Fork in the Road” Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) was framed as a way to streamline the federal workforce. Many employees at the Department of Labor and other agencies took the offer: ...

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Why Federal Disability Accommodation Cases Are So Complex disability rights federal employment mindfulness at work mspb appeals reasonable accommodation Sep 18, 2025

If you are a federal employee navigating disability accommodations, you already know the law can feel like a maze. Agencies have trained coordinators, HR specialists, and sometimes in-house attorneys ...

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Free Speech Limits for Federal Employees federal employment free speech hatch act mindfulness at work social media discipline Sep 17, 2025

Attorney General Pam Bondi’s viral statement that DOJ would “go after” hate speech sparked confusion. Let’s be clear: in the United States, there is no blanket crime called “hate speech.” The First Am...

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FBI Reassignments Show the Cost of Politics in Federal Work fbi agents federal employment mindfulness at work mission drift whistleblower rights Sep 17, 2025

Recent reporting reveals that nearly 3,000 FBI agents are being pulled from their core work—investigating child exploitation and domestic extremism—and reassigned to immigration enforcement. To put th...

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Trump-Era Layoffs and the Future of the Federal Workforce civil service rights federal layoffs mindfulness at work mspb appeals whistleblower protections Sep 17, 2025

This week, Politico confirmed what many federal employees have been experiencing firsthand: sweeping staff cuts across the government. Nearly 200,000 federal workers are gone in 2025 alone, with anoth...

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Erasing Slavery From National Parks: Why History Matters civil rights dei federal employment mindfulness at work national parks Sep 16, 2025

In 1863, a photograph known as The Scourged Back stunned the nation. It showed Peter Gordon, an enslaved man who had escaped in Louisiana, with his back deeply scarred from years of whipping. The imag...

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Don’t Depend on the Algorithm for Critical Federal Employment News federal employment mindfulness at work opm firings probationary employees tiktok algorithm Sep 16, 2025

Yesterday, a federal judge issued one of the most important rulings of the year for civil servants: OPM’s mass probationary firings were unlawful. On Instagram and YouTube, the news spread fast—tens o...

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The Real Cost of Mass Federal Layoffs agency inefficiencies civil service protections federal employment government cuts mindfulness at work Sep 15, 2025

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick recently criticized the DOGE initiative’s approach under Elon Musk: focusing on firing people instead of fixing inefficiencies. The promise was massive savings—up to ...

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Stay informed, stay protected. The Federal Employee Briefing delivers expert insights on workforce policies, legal battles, RTO mandates, and union updates—so you’re never caught off guard. With job security, telework, and agency shifts constantly evolving, we provide clear, concise analysis on what’s happening, why it matters, and what you can do next.

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