(G)ee! Another new federal employment classification!
And then there was Schedule G. If you’re in B, relax. If you’re A, C, D, E, “F” or G, dont expect any sort of civil service protection.
July 21, 2025 11:14 am
3 min read
To paraphrase the old song, I’ve got G on my mind.
Not Georgia. My garage is at the moment undergoing a long-overview renovation. A crew operating a Bobcat with a gigantic jackhammer is removing my cracked, crumbling floor. It was getting so bad we worried one of the cars would crash through to the earth below. The work will cost quite a few Gs, but it’s cool to watch.
Happily or regrettably, depending on your point of view, G also stands for the latest Trump administration gambit, namely Schedule G. Administration officials have discovered what they perceive as a gap in excepted service procedures. If long-established Schedule C covers career appointees in policy positions, the administration reasons, what about non-career?
Soon, a G-book could emerge along with the venerable Plum Book of presidential appointment possibilities. What will they call this cadre of appointees, the Gee Whiz Kids?
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In laying out the alphabet of position types, the administration stubbornly skips the letter “F.” F has bad associations. It sticks with “policy/career” for those, in the order’s words, “not normally subject to change as a result of a Presidential transition.” So you’ve got A-B-C-D-E-policy/career-G. Good Grief!
Crucially, the new rules state “the Civil Service Rules and Regulations shall not apply to removals from positions” for people with jobs in all of the categories except B. In effect, the administration wants to create two unimpeded conveyor belts, one heading in and one heading out.
One odd twist: The order tells the Office of Personnel Management to place particular emphasis on the Department of Veterans Affairs when implementing Schedule G. I wonder what particular policies are so crucial in VA that the administration wants a greased tunnel through which to slide in policy appointees.
In short, more weirdness for the federal workforce.
The weirdness and the real losses were highly obvious when I was involved daily as Federal Drive host.
Yet even now, it’s a real phenom. Where I live, I’m surrounded by federal employees. Now that I’m semi-retired, I see the cars pull out of driveways in the morning and head to work.
In the house to my left, owned by husband-and-wife lawyers, the wife just took a job as a chief of staff in a mission-central job at a large cabinet agency. She had worked as an attorney for a trade association affected by the regulatory agency.
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On the right, husband-and-wife career feds. The husband was a member of the senior executive service until he was inexplicably let go in the spring. Paid through this coming December, he’s technically on deferred resignation and is taking advantage of what feels like an extended vacation. So one leaves for work, the other does whatever.
I said “surrounded.” Across the street live two feds who retired from medical positions in the government. They now do the same thing as retirees and lament what they see going on. Across to the left, a congressional branch career employee. She’s grateful she’s DOGE-proof. On the behind, well, okay, a tavern owner who is not a fed.
The Trump administration’s initial approach to federal employees didn’t exactly surprise anyone. The campaign signaled what it had planned to do, and the Trump 45 plan provided a preview in any case. Anticipation failed to make the reality particularly palatable. More like G for Gross.
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