Best f’ing news I’ve heard all month. And I’m not exaggerating. More on reddit.com

Imagine being paycheck to paycheck, fired, then reinstated. Who's going to cover the bills they couldn't pay? No doubt some have moved out of the area already. More on reddit.com

So, it’s not just the firings. There is also the job offers, like mine, that were rescinded. There are the forks. There is the fact that overall, there has already been a 15% reduction in the workforce over the last decade, despite doubling of visitation. There is the fact that some parks already had 35% or more of their permanent positions vacant. And then there is the hiring freeze. Sure, it has been lifted, but these workers won’t be able to start work until later in the summer, and many of them won’t even want to relocate across the country for only a 2 month season. Then, who is going to supervise them? I was in the process of hiring 7 seasonals when my position was rescinded. These are specialized positions requiring a degree and take a lot of training. Nobody will be there to train or supervise them, and they would start so late they wouldn’t be able to accomplish the work even if they had a supervisor, so nobody is bothering to hire them. On top of the fork resignations, people are and will be leaving in droves simply due to the intentional infliction of emotional distress they are suffering under this administration and now the public. Park workers want to serve their country and the public, but won’t when the public turns on them. This week begins the “reduction in force” in which the parks have to prioritize the 25% of positions they will be left with due to all the above factors. We will only be able to keep 1 in 4 permanent positions. So, we are looking at a loss of 75% of the (already understaffed and strained) workforce. More on reddit.com

The U.S. Forest Service and Department of Interior fired thousands of employees this week, gutting the public land agencies at a time when they typically would ramp up hiring for the spring and summer seasons. “These are real people we’re talking about. People in your grocery stores and at restaurants. You see them at the sidelines of soccer games. These are people in your communities,” says Land Tawney, co-chair of the newly-formed conservation group American Hunters and Anglers. “And this has major implications for management on the ground. The folks they are cutting, that they cut, are people that actually do the work on the ground.” While specifics on the firings are hazy, Politico reported Friday that the Forest Service dismissed 3,400 people, which is about 10 percent of its workforce. The Interior Department fired about 2,300 probationary employees — those who have been in their positions less than a year — including 1,000 people in the Park Service. The Interior Department also oversees the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The cuts are part of a broader effort within the new administration to slash the federal workforce, which included firing about 200,000 of the government’s probationary employees. For those of us who hunt, fish, and recreate outside, the cuts may well mean closed trails, closed campgrounds, and no one to clean toilets, Tawney says. The probationary employees are often ones who worked seasonal jobs for years and were new to permanent positions. They work in fire resiliency and on restoration projects and help maintain 840,000 acres of public land across the country, including national parks and historic sites, sprawling national forests and multiple use BLM lands. During the first Trump administration, President Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, which included — among other support for public lands — funding for decades-long deferred maintenance issues at national parks. People fired in national parks include those working in health and safety fields such as those who run park wastewater treatment plants, says Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. She was told several major parks lost their sewer system operators. “None of this was done thinking through who stays and who goes. And there are going to be problems in parks as a result of this,” she says. “Some parks might smell like sewers this summer.” More on reddit.com