In more than 30 years covering the federal government, I’ve never seen anything quite like the Fork in the Road memo.

Agency reductions-in-force (RIFs) usually involve discrete agencies or programs, limited to specific employees who are typically offered a $25,000 buyout payment. The Fork memo seems to offer you a chance to work from home for eight months, then leave.

But there’s a catch. The memo also states: “I understand my employing agency will likely make adjustments in response to my resignation including moving, eliminating, consolidating, reassigning my position and tasks, reducing my official duties, and/or placing me on paid administrative leave until my resignation date.”

Translation: Go ahead and reply “Resign,” but don’t sit around waiting for invitations to Teams meetings.

As with traditional RIFs, the Fork comes with a warning you could lose your job anyway. It says “…the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force. These actions are likely to include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will status for a substantial number of federal employees.”

At that point, should your job get rubbed out, you’d get a “dignified” departure but no showing of the green.

Everyone’s asking, well, how many people will go?

The White House has publicly estimated 5% to 10% of the federal civilian workforce — up to 200,000 people, in other words.

Presuming that’s the case, who specifically might leave? The answer shows the problem of all widely-offered buyouts, or more precisely, deferred resignation. Namely, that the wrong people leave.

For example, all of those cybersecurity and artificial intelligence people so painstakingly acquired by the government over the past few years. They are highly mobile. Industry would grab them up in a second.

Also federal lawyers. Many of them can easily go to that better-paying law firm job sooner.

But what about, say, program managers, a highly specific skill in the federal government? I spoke to a program manager today who runs a research effort, the results of which will make life easier for tens of millions of Americans, irrespective of age, health, economic status or any other condition. It’s important work and it has no political content. He said, “I love my work. I’ve done it for 20 years. I was hoping to ride off into the sunset doing this.” He got the Fork email but hasn’t decided what to do.

The problem with this approach, aside from whether it ultimately proves legal, is that with random and unpredictable numbers of departures, too many people could end up staying in troubled and inefficient programs and agencies. Too many people could leave high performing programs.

In truth, no one has the faintest idea how many federal employees will send “resign” back from their .gov and .mil email accounts. But, man, the whole town is talking about it. The unions, good-government and employee-representing groups are taking universal umbrage. Employees themselves are calculating their TSP balances, their years towards retirement, and whether they can in fact retire and keep federal health care insurance plans.

And, from those I’ve spoken with, they’re working through the turbulence.

If the Trump administration intended the Fork program to create fear, uncertainty and doubt, it’s already succeeded.

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