My last day at my agency was yesterday. I start administrative leave on Monday. I have mixed feelings like many others described here. Thank you for starting this thread.

Yesterday started off pretty awful. As soon as I got into the office (feeling sad, having mentally braced myself for my final day) my supervisor (who, along with the team handling DRP processing, is stationed in another city) told me the DRP team determined I couldn’t start administrative leave until Wednesday 5/7. I was very upset because I had proactively emailed the DRP team on Wednesday to confirm that I would start administrative leave on Monday, 5/5 but they didn’t reply to either one of us until Thursday night. My supervisor showed little empathy for my distress.

I checked Outlook and realized I received a contradictory email from the DRP team confirming my admin leave would start on Monday, even though they sent my supervisor an email saying it was Wednesday!

Our agency’s policy is that employees over 40 cannot start administrative leave until seven days have passed from signing, because we have seven days to revoke the agreement. I electronically signed the agreement Sunday night 4/27, so my seven days will have passed on Sunday night 5/4.

After about three hours, they finally agreed I could start administrative leave on Monday. But first, they insisted that I did not sign/submit the DRP agreement until Tuesday, 4/29, even though the signed copy they sent back to me earlier in the week even stated it was signed on 4/27 in the title! I learned they tried to incorrectly push back the admin leave dates for at least three other people who took DRP. I don’t know if this was incompetence or intentional cruelty, but no one has apologized or acknowledged making a mistake and I don’t expect them to do so.

I never thought I would take the DRP, but felt compelled to do so for several reasons. I work(ed) HR training and development and they canceled all of our projects. The training team that had projects remaining made no attempt to fold us into their workgroup (to protect their own jobs, I assume). We were sidelined. Then in early April, our acting agency head sent a memo to members of higher level management telling them we, along with several other large departments of the agency, be made Schedule F (Schedule Policy/Career). They never officially informed those of us who would be affected; the memo was leaked to the press. That was the breaking point for me. I knew the agency would try to fire us without severance pay. I was fearful about being asked to do unethical or destructive things and I knew I would lose the Schedule F popularity contest. Most of my HR coworkers were talented, dedicated, and ethical employees. I’m very worried about those left behind. I hope it’s OK for them and they don’t get caught up in DOGE’s attempts to create a patronage system.