Trump puts staff at risk of Legionnaire's Disease with rush to ban remote work: report
President Donald Trump and his right-hand tech billionaire adviser Elon Musk demanded all remote and hybrid federal workers return to in-person office work or accept a "deferred resignation" buyout. But those forced back into the office are finding offices that aren't ready for this level of staffing, reported USA Today — to the point that the Trump administration is forcing many employees to provide their own hygiene products.
At least, that's the reality many workers are seeing at a Defense Department office at a Midwest Army base.
At that base, "supplies are so scarce that they have to bring their own toilet paper and paper towels," said the report. "To help out undermanned cleaning crews struggling to keep up with germ-riddled bathrooms and dirty workspaces, employees are told to pack up their trash and take it home with them."
But this humiliation is only the beginning of the problem for government offices that were wholly unprepared for a universal return to in-person work, the report continued.
For one thing, there's also a massive issue with parking, to the point where many are parking illegally out of desperation. They can't get proper breaks because the cafeterias aren't operational. There are also infestations of rats and cockroaches, and fears about Legionnaire's Disease, a serious type of pneumonia caused by Legionella bacteria that can be found in old buildings' ventilation systems.
This type of situation is not remotely uncommon, as previous reports find a similar situation facing government employees ordered to return to office for other agencies across the federal workforce. For example, a report earlier this month found workspace shortages at IRS offices, as workers struggle to cope with the year's tax season. And at one Federal Emergency Management Agency office, supervisors were told they may have to "flip a coin" to decide which workers get a desk that day.
Trump, for his part, has insisted that the return-to-office policy is necessary because otherwise federal workers might just go out golfing on the clock — even though, notably, he has already taken several extended golf vacations of his own in the few short months he has been back in the Oval Office.