Federal civilian employees in Hampton Roads are anxious, confused and exhausted by the whirlwind of requests for them to resign.
“I think it's just been all gas, no breaks, and there's also just directions flying from so many different people and no one's quite sure what to make of things,” said one Department of Defense employee, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation for speaking publicly.
It started on Jan. 28 when the Trump administration emailed more than 2 million federal civilian employees promising them eight months of pay and benefits if they resigned.
Employee unions have challenged the legality of the offer while about 2% of eligible workers have said they’ll take it. The deadline for accepting, originally set for late Thursday, has been delayed until after a court hearing Monday.
The DoD employee told WHRO that she loves her work, her colleagues and felt secure in her job until the emails. While the offer seems “too good to be true,” she pointed to Elon Musk, Trump’s ally in the budget-reduction plan, and how he handled staff reductions at Twitter in 2022, after which thousands of employees sued saying they never got promised severance payments.
The last week and a half has left her so burnt out she felt the need to take time off to decompress.
“We had an all-hands (meeting) yesterday that went over everything. And there are people with the Q and A who are crying in front of people. This is going to ruin people's lives,” the DoD employee said.
She said she’s received more information from Reddit forums filled with federal workers than from the leadership of her command.
“You get a memo now and then, 30 minutes later, there's a new memo that says ‘screw the last one.’ … It's just so chaotic and not cohesive, which I do believe is part of the overarching plan to overwhelm us, confuse us, tire us out, let us quit.”
The “complete chaos” has her worried that the administration may try to automate her job or fire her if it doesn’t get the number of resignations it’s after.
More than the financial impact, the DoD worker worries how the ordeal — and whatever may come next — will weigh on her colleagues. She’s especially worried about transgender workers and people of color who are targeted by other Trump measures.
“I'm worried about suicide rates.”
Nearly a third of federal civilian workers are former servicemembers.
She said higher-ups acknowledge the strain but haven’t offered much in answers or comfort. One email about dealing with stress advised, “Go look at the first tree you see” or “smell your favorite thing,” the DoD employee said.
“That's a joke now between me and my best friend: ‘I'm just gonna go stare at a tree real quick.’”
Even with her concerns about mental health and stress, she won’t call the counseling hotline provided by the DoD.
“I don't know what's going to be used against people in the next day or week or whatever.”
How it could hurt Hampton Roads and Virginia
The military gets top billing in Hampton Roads with 80,000 service members at naval bases and airfields. But there are another 60,000 federal civilian employees. That’s roughly one in every 14 non-military workers.
“Any kind of a cutback in federal spending or federal employment numbers is going to have some sort of an impact here on our region, and not to the positive,” said Rick Dwyer, the retired Air Force officer and engineer who heads the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance.
Dwyer’s group was started by city and county governments in 2006 after Naval Air Station Oceana was on the chopping block during base closure discussions in Congress. HRMFFA is charged with retaining and growing the federal government presence that accounts for nearly half of the region’s economy.
Dwyer notes federal jobs here pay nearly $100,000 on average, twice the average wage of the rest of the area’s industries.
“So for every federal civilian job the region loses, you essentially have to create two other jobs to replace it,” he said.
Dwyer is following the news like everyone else and even high-level officials he’s heard from can’t grasp the fallout. He spoke to one recently who said leadership isn’t getting reports on civilians who have “pushed the ‘accept’ button on the resignation program.
This week, Virginia lawmakers announced an emergency committee to track and mitigate the fallout of workforce and funding reductions. Beyond the 60,000 federal civilian workers in Hampton Roads, 85,000 more live in other parts of the state.
Del. Michael Feggans (D-Virginia Beach) represents 30,000. House Speaker Don Scott (D-Portsmouth) appointed Feggans to the bipartisan group. Its primary objective is to make recommendations for the 2026 General Assembly.
But there’s only so much the state can do with a potential vacuum left by gutted federal programs, he said.
“When you’re looking at the federal government and understanding the millions and billions of dollars that are spent within the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, the VA, NASA, so many of those (that) have a prominent role within Hampton Roads,” he said, “there’s no way that a singular state budget can compensate for the billions of dollars being potentially removed.”
Feggans said he’s heard from constituents and people he’s close to who are worried.
“It’s definitely been demoralizing,” he said.
The anxiety reaches beyond those in the civil service. A retired federal worker from North Carolina spoke on the condition of anonymity, wary of backlash that may reach relatives in the federal government or even his retirement benefits.
He worked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for more than 30 years, reaching a GS-14 senior management role. Reductions in the workforce were handled differently in the past, he said.
When his position was potentially rescinded in the 1990s, he was offered priority placement for jobs elsewhere in the government, job training to change fields or a severance package.
Employees considering the resignation offer today aren’t given the same guarantees, he said, calling the offer “disingenuous.”
“How are you going to (pay employees) if you don’t need us for the next eight months, and you’re trying to reduce spending?” he said. “It’s kind of like doublespeak to me.”
He’s concerned about his daughter, a federal worker, and others like her.
His daughter works remotely in Richmond with her spouse and young child in a house she just bought. The return-to-work executive order has her wondering how to show up to her job 100 miles away in Northern Virginia and balance her family obligations: Should she sell the house and rent an apartment near Washington? Take the resignation offer and look for work somewhere else? Wait and see?
“It’s a very precarious situation,” he said. “How do you navigate that?”
