Tweets, Politics, and a Career as a Federal Employee

It’s a brave new world for federal employees and politicians. Before social media opened up the world to anyone with a computer, an internet connection and a political opinion, opinions were more often personal beliefs shared with a few friends and colleagues.

 Not that long ago, a federal employee telling a colleague over lunch he thinks the new president for whom he works is a facist would not create a problem. Who knows or cares what the employee thinks as long as he does a good job at work? The agency head or the White House would not know or care what a General Schedule employee working in a federal agency thinks about the president.

A federal employee sending out a tweet to thousands of people telling everyone he thinks the new president for whom he works is a facist is different. Welcome to federal employment in 2017.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has a talent for making news. In the last couple of years, the issue was patient care, or the lack of it, in some VA facilities. The publicity led to legislation in Congress, appeals to the Merit Systems Protection Board, and some VA employees finding their photos in newspapers with unflattering articles.

 More recently, union activity at the VA has been an issue. It also led to bills being introduced to reduce the amount of official time being used by union officials at the same time patient care was being called into question in the national press.
 Tweeting by VA Employees

New publicity is now emerging on a different topic. The VA may be taking center stage again.

 How much criticism can a federal employee level at a president or an administration and still be retained as a federal employee? (For more, click here.)
What in this article made you “weigh [the] potential consequences against the satisfaction of expressing those opinions”? What will you think twice about the next time you open Twitter, Facebook, or another social media platform?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *