Federal employees returning to the office after WFH ended under Trump’s administration are disgusted by what they find.

Thousands of federal employees who were forced to return to their offices in recent weeks have made some disgusting discoveries – including a lack of toilet paper and rodents.

Donald Trump promptly ended work from home options for federal workers upon taking office, saying anyone who does not ‘show up to the office on time and on schedule’ will be fired.

Ever since, federal employees across the country have found themselves in cramped offices where they have been forced to clean toilets and take out the trash, according to the New York Times. 

One Bureau of Land Management employee even detailed to NPR how ‘we have to go to the agency head to ask if we can buy toilet paper’ because the government-issued pay cards they used to use have been capped at $1 under Trump’s spending freeze. 

Together, the unidentified employees have said the Trump administration’s efforts to bring back federal workers has been marred by a lack of planning and coordination, leading to confusion and even more inefficiency.

At times, the federal workers are even forced to share office space with people from other agencies – creating chaos as they all try to video conference at different times.

Some have said they were not even fortunate enough to get a desk at the offices, with shortages of anywhere to 80 to 100 desks, according to a Federal News Network survey. 

The lack of space has left some working out of conference rooms, cafeterias, hallways and even storage closets. 

President Donald Trump promptly ended work from home options for federal workers upon taking office

At the Food and Drug Administration, employees who flocked to the Maryland office on March 17 also found that parking was scarce, and a line snaked around the neighborhood as workers tried to get through security.

Once inside, they told the Times, they found the cafeteria had not stocked up enough food and there were not enough office supplies to go around.

A scientist with the agency, who was hired for a remote position, also said she now has to share office space while she works on sensitive and proprietary projects – creating ethical and practical concerns.

Meanwhile, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, employees were told to brace for limited parking at the two campuses.

One employee there said it can now take up to an hour and a half just to leave the campus because the parking lot is so full and there are choke points at every turn.

Part of the problem, the employee said, is that the campus was never designed for all employees to work in the office.

He explained that over the past decade, the federal government implemented a long-term plan to reduce the number of leased properties the agency used – which led to an increase in remote work. 

At the Food and Drug Administration, employees who flocked to the Maryland office on March 17 also found that parking was scarce, and a line snaked around the neighborhood as workers tried to get through security

At some federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, managers wound up defying Trump’s order as they told staff to continue to work remotely.

That left at least one employee having to choose between following the Trump administration’s rules and return to the office knowing there was not enough space, or continuing to work from home in violation of the executive order.

Some employees who work directly with Americans on their tax filings, though, did show up at the office on the first day they were set to return, March 10, only to be sent home.

‘So instead of working that day, they spent time hanging out in the office and were eventually sent back home to do the work that they would have been doing the whole day,’ Jeff Eppler, a retired manager at the agency, told the Times.

Another IRS employee who works at an office in Texas also said those without a desk assignment ‘were told to go to the cafeteria and wait for an email, but there’s no WiFi in the cafeteria.’ 

But the IRS was not the only agency experiencing inefficiencies due to Trump’s order, with a doctor at the Department of Veterans Affairs saying she returned to the office after working remotely for the past two years – only to spend her days sorting out seating charts, setting office hours and finding equipment for herself and her colleagues. 

A security member stands outside the headquarters of the Office of Personnel Management

The Office of Personnel Management houses the Department of Government Efficiency – which has been working to downsize the federal government

Other employees have detailed how they were left scrambling to find a place to work, with a Forest Service worker saying she was hired into a remote position without a physical office.

In fact, her onboarding forms stated that her ‘duty location’ would be her home address.

The department did not have any physical building leased by the Department of Agriculture – and workers were therefore asked to look for any federal building to work in within 50 miles of their home.

That left employees of different agencies all working together in the same office, trying to be productive as their colleagues conduct virtual meetings.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ one respondent to Federal News Network’s survey said. ‘I’m not with my team and this does not promote cohesion.’ 

‘I’m literally remote working form an office instead of at home,’ added an employee at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, whose supervisor and colleagues are in different states.

The influx in employees has also led to weaker WiFi signals, leaving some employees unable to receive messages or log into video conferences. 

Meanwhile, another Department of Agriculture employee said they  were given a list of possible locations for their upcoming return to office deadline.

One location on the list was described as a ‘storage unit,’ and when the employee asked about the option, they were told the federal government rents a unit to store a US Fish and Wildlife Service boat. It did not include heat, windows or electricity.

Many federal employees now see the return to office mandate as a thinly-veiled ploy to get them to quit under Trump and DOGE chief Musk’s efforts to rein in the federal government

Many federal employees now see the return to office mandate as a thinly-veiled ploy to get them to quit under Trump and DOGE chief Elon Musk’s efforts to downsize the government – something both the president and Tesla CEO have hinted at.

After signing the executive order, Trump said he believes ‘a substantial number of people will not show up to work, and therefore our government will get smaller and more efficient.’ 

Similarly, Musk wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal last fall that ‘If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t ay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home.’ 

Yet at least one employee said they are remaining vigilant amid the uncertainties of layoffs and location changes.

‘It’s completely unnecessary and we recognize the reason for it: To make us so miserable that we quit,’ the employee wrote in the Federal News Network’s survey. 

‘But most of us won’t out of sheer spite.’

As of the end of March, the Treasury Department said 85 percent of its employees were back in the office.

Many workers have also returned to the Small Business Administration, and an official from the Environmental Protection Agency said that 68 percent of its employees who were based in DC returned to office full time.

Nearly 10,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs have also gone back to work in-person since January 20, with more set to come back in the coming weeks, and at the Department of Defense, 120,000 civilian employees have returned to in-person work since January 20.