I spent four years working seasonally for the National Park Service (NPS) to achieve a permanent job. I was fired on Valentine’s Day by DOGE. After the firing I moved on with my life and did new things, thus I was unable to accept reinstatement after the court ruling in March. I believe DOGE, Doug Burgum, and the trump administration are taking actions that will be detrimental for the NPS, and now that I don’t work for them I’m at liberty to talk about it. Ask me anything.
I was a park ranger fired by DOGE AMA
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Who did you vote for?
Do you believe they are intentionally sabotaging orgs like the Park Service and if so why?
Personal anecdote with doge: my friends an engineer working on a base and he got laid off and reinstated within a week. I just had an interview with a department on the same base who does maintenance on all the Navy’s destroyers and they told me that within 5 years over half their team will be ready to retire, but due to the ongoing hiring freeze they have to get exemptions to replace each person. It’s just so stupid.
Elon has to be smart enough to realize even if doge fired every person from every agency they were looking into that they wouldn’t make a dent in the deficit, so what is the intention other than sabotage?
Doug is evil.
That being said, take a mellow occupation like caregiving or retail work.
What was your GS equivalent?
What’s the Craziest/Scariest thing you’ve seen on the job?
What job have you decided to do instead? Have you noticed any positives from being fired?
Did you see any coworkers who voted for the other ‘loser’ get canned by doge?
What’s something about working for the NPS that you wish the general public knew or had a better understanding of?
“Welcome to Doge: I love you”
Of the work you’ve seen your fellow rangers do, what is usually the sought after position?
What was the hardest part about being fired?
What were your job responsibilities day to day?
I also heard that the GOV is selling NP land 😢is that their justification for cutting out services , just curious what their rationale is and why
I was at a major inflection point in my life after being laid off from a factory job. It was time to change careers, and joining the national Park service was at the top of my list…. until I learned just how smart, how educated, how dedicated, how hard, and how underpaid the park service is. You all are the coolest people in the room, hands down. The fact that our country is okay laying off a single one of you before they ask billionaires to pay their fair share just hurts my heart so damn much.
Favorite national park or monument or battlefield?
Also, did you work at the same park or did they rotate you? What kind of qualifications did they require you to have?
Also, I’m so fucking mad at how they’re treating our parks. All of my childhood vacations revolved around road trips and national parks. (Have an embarrassing amount of Junior Ranger badges collected.)
No questions, but it’s pathetic that Elon does these things and then just like that gets bored and exits. A game for him, no so much for the people impacted.
How shall you affect your revenge?
whats with the hiding of bigfoot and people vanishing in national parks?
Did you vote?
I worked a summer doing tours at a very remote national monument in the west. On a daily basis I was blown away by the stupidity and arrogance of guests/tourists. Do you have any stories of tourists that you had to interact with due to disrespecting or damaging the parks you worked at?
Is it a crime to use a (electric) chainsaw to cut down dead trees for firewood
Do you think people resigning is an effective way to protest the policy changes, or are there opportunities for malicious compliance to help obstruct and delay their goals?
Never even heard of the NPS you learn something new everyday
Who did you vote for?
DOGE removed my son’s job with NFWS.
List 3 tasks you’ve completed at home today
What was the process when they fired you?
> I was fired on Valentine’s Day by DOGE.
How do you know it was DOGE? Unless the NPS had some shady shit going on with a lot of money wasted on nothing, there’s no reason for DOGE to go after some random park ranger. There has been examples of departments trying to fire people over nothing, with DOGE having nothing to do with it – and in those examples, those departments blamed DOGE for something they didn’t do.
Edit: apparently, people don’t understand the concept of “malicious compliance”.
DOGE: We’re trying to reduce US spending and remove unnecessary government workers. We’re even offering them nice incentives if they resign.
Some agency that hates DOGE: Ok, we’re going to create problems by firing a bunch of people that are necessary and provide legitimate services. Then we’re blame it on DOGE because we “complied”.
How much were you making and how is that salary comparable to the same or similar job in the private sector?
That trans park ranger that place the trans flag on El Capitan at Yosemite just permanently defunded everyone for the next 3 years
It seems like the government is bring run like a circus. I read somewhere that a federal judge ruled what DOGE did with the mass firing of federal workers was illegal and must be rescinded.
How is NPS (or other departments that you know of) dealing with this ruling? Would you go back to being a park ranger if offered the opportunity again?
This was super interesting. Thank you for putting yourself out there. Good luck with your current job and educational plans.. the world needs more thoughtful people like you.. sending love and respect.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/s/pD9R4wIyOP
Do you know this person?
How many years did you work as a seasonal employee? What was your season? And what were your duties? Im curious. I work seasonally with public works and was let go also. What was your usual season? Mine- November to March.
How much do you nps staff despise booz allen corp?
Do you think one of the reasons NPS employees are so underpaid is they exploit people’s passion for the parks? It’s insane to need a masters for a GS-7
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