The bureaucratic busywork of cataloging weekly wins is over. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has officially axed the requirement for federal employees to document five weekly accomplishments, a policy born from Elon Musk’s short-lived tenure with the Department of Government Efficiency, as CBS News reports.
In February, federal workers opened their inboxes to a peculiar demand: list five accomplishments from the past week or face consequences. This directive, spearheaded by Musk’s efficiency department, aimed to trim the federal workforce by spotlighting underperformers. It landed like a lead balloon.
Musk, then leading the charge, didn’t mince words. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation,” he posted on X, setting a draconian tone. The threat felt more like a tech bro’s ultimatum than a practical policy.
The “five things” email was Musk’s brainchild, designed to shrink a bloated bureaucracy. He called the task easy, claiming on X, “The bar is very low here.” Yet, many federal workers saw it as a pointless exercise in self-justification.
Agencies weren’t buying the hype. Many, including the Defense Department, told employees to ignore the directive from the outset. Resistance spread faster than a government memo.
OPM, caught in the middle, played the diplomat. It advised agency heads to use discretion, effectively giving them a free pass to sidestep Musk’s mandate. This was less leadership and more bureaucratic sidestepping.
By May, the Defense Department formally killed the requirement for its civilian workforce. Other agencies followed suit, either scrapping the practice or quietly managing it internally. The policy was crumbling under its own weight.
Musk’s departure in May as a “special government employee” marked the beginning of the end. His exit left the Department of Government Efficiency without its chief evangelist. The “five things” experiment was running on fumes.
OPM’s Scott Kupor delivered the final blow. “At OPM, we believe that managers are accountable to staying informed about what their team members are working on and have many other existing tools to do so,” he said. Translation: we don’t need Musk’s micromanagement.
Kupor’s statement is a polite jab at Musk’s overreach. Managers already have tools to track performance -- why add a layer of paperwork? It’s a rare day when bureaucracy rejects more bureaucracy, he thought.
The “five things” policy was to many a classic case of good intentions gone awry. Aiming to streamline government, it instead alienated workers and bogged down agencies. Efficiency, critics suggest, shouldn’t mean forcing employees to write weekly self-help essays.
Musk’s X posts revealed to many a problematic disconnect. Calling the task a “low bar” ignored the reality of federal work, where employees juggle complex tasks, not tweet-sized victories. His tech-world bravado didn’t translate to government cubicles.
The end of the “five things” mandate is seen by some as a win for practical governance. Critics of the prior rule say that employees can now focus on their missions without the distraction of arbitrary checklists. Workers are free from the threat of resignation-by-email.
Yet, the episode exposes a deeper issue: the clash between private-sector swagger and public-sector realities. Musk’s brief stint showed that government efficiency requires more than bold tweets and ultimatums. It demands nuance, not bravado.
The Trump administration deserves credit for pulling the plug. By letting agencies ditch this policy, there has been a restoration of a bit of trust in federal management. Many are hoping that the next efficiency push doesn’t involve more inbox clutter.
