Trump's Trials - Desks, wi-fi, toilet paper in short supply for some feds ordered back to office

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

Federal workers have been ordered back into offices only to face shortages of desks, computer monitors, parking and even toilet paper. Others are still waiting to find out if they will be assigned to a building near where they live or asked to relocate across the country in the coming weeks. NPR's Shannon Bond and Jenna McLaughlin report. Read more. Support NPR and hear every episode sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Detrick. We're going to be doing all sorts of things nobody ever thought was even possible. It's going to be a very aggressive first hundred days of the new Congress. An unpredictable, transformative next four years. The United States is going to take off like a rocket ship. Each episode, we bring you NPR's coverage of President Trump acting on his own terms. And that means sometimes doing things that no American president has tried before. NPR is covering it all in stories like the one you are about to hear right after this.

Over 70% of us say that we feel spiritual, but that doesn't mean we're going to church. Nope. The girls are doing reiki, the bros are doing psychedelics, and a whole lot of us are turning inward to manifest our best selves. On It's Been A Minute from NPR, I'm looking at why maybe you and your closest friends are buying into wellness for spirituality. That's on the It's Been A Minute podcast from NPR. Well, well, well, the bros have discovered psychedelics. And guys like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk

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on the It's Been A Minute podcast from NPR. I'm Michelle Martin. Earlier this month, a Department of Agriculture employee who works remotely was told they'd soon have to start reporting to an office. The employee was given a list of possible locations, including one described as a storage unit. NPR's Shannon Bond spoke to that worker and other federal employees who have been ordered back to the office and who say they are dealing with challenging conditions. And she's with us now. Good morning, Shannon.

Good morning, Michelle. So Shannon, a storage unit? What's going on there? Yeah, this USDA worker was pretty confused by this. So they actually drove to the address on this list. Sure enough, it was a storage facility. And when the worker asked the owner of the facility why it might be showing up on a list of federal office spaces, they said the owner laughed and said, yes, you know, the federal government does rent a unit here. It's used to store a boat. Now, to be clear, this employee doesn't expect to actually be working out of the storage unit. Like other

federal employees I spoke with, they didn't want us to use their name because they fear retaliation from the Trump administration for speaking out. I reached out to the USDA. They told me they are identifying issues and addressing them quickly. But Michelle, this is just one example of the kind of confusion, even absurdity, some federal workers are encountering around this order back into offices. What are some of the other stories that you've heard? Yeah, my colleague Jenna McLaughlin and I talked to employees at a dozen agencies who are being ordered back into the office to comply with President Trump's executive order,

terminating all remote work. And what they told us is in many cases, these offices just are not equipped for an influx of people. So they're running out of toilet paper and soap in the bathrooms. There aren't enough desks or computer monitors. Internet connections and Wi-Fi service can be slow or unavailable. You know, I even spoke to people at the FDA who went back to the main office in Maryland last week. They're nervous to drink the water in the building because last year testing found Legionella bacteria in some FDA buildings, that causes Legionnaires' disease. Now, the agency notified employees coming back that it is safe to drink the water,

but some say because they haven't made new testing results available, they just don't want to risk it. The FDA told me it's keeping employees up-to-date on their working conditions. Can you give us a sense of how many people were teleworking or working remotely at least part of the time until now? Well, about 10% of federal employees were fully remote, according to a federal government report last year. That's around 288,000 people, and many more had the ability to work from home sometimes. And of course, Michelle, teleworking increased a lot during the pandemic.

But actually, many federal agencies had been encouraging telework going back decades as a way of saving on costs around like real estate utilities office space. The Office of Personnel Management found telework saved taxpayers more than $230 million in 2023. And the government was encouraging telework during the first Trump administration as well. You know, many of the employees that I spoke with said this is not about they don't want to go back into the office, that it's inconvenient, or that they're being lazy. They say that for them, remote work has enabled them to be more efficient, to be more productive,

and that getting rid of it feels like an indirect way of pressuring them to quit. And they say it just doesn't make a lot of sense bringing people back into offices that can't accommodate them. It's actually going to cost the government money. It seems like some of these goals are at cross purposes. So that is NPR's Shannon Bond. Shannon, thank you. Thanks so much. And before we wrap up, a thank you to our NPR Plus supporters, who hear each show without sponsored messages and, of course, who help protect independent journalism. If you are not a supporter yet, you can visit plus.npr.org to find out how you can get a ton of podcast perks across dozens of NPR shows, like bonus episodes, exclusive merchandise,

and more. Again, that's plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detro. Thanks for listening to Trump's Term terms from NPR. On the Embedded Podcast. No, no. It's called, did Nyanas sweeten the speech? It's misinformation. Like so many Americans,

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