Member-only story
BULLETS AND BULLYING
The Real Purpose of the “Five Bullets” Emails
Elon Musk is doing to federal workers exactly what was once done to me by IBM
We are now in the second month of the “five bullets” emails. These are the emails federal employees were — and for the most part, still are — required to send to the Office of Personnel Management each week. Each employee must list five tasks accomplished the previous week.
Federal employees received two of these emails, the first on February 22 and the second six days later. Both were alarming: unsigned, no author identified, and no indication that possibly sensitive information sent to the unsigned author might get into the wrong hands.
In fact, they looked like the same kind of junk mail that I received this morning from a (fake) home warranty company thanking me for subscribing to protect my refrigerator and stove (I hadn’t) and asking me to provide my sensitive information (I didn’t).
But these emails, as it turned out, were not fake. They were from Elon Musk, so replies were required. Replies were to be sent to each employee’s supervisor, and supervisors were required to review them.
“How’s that going?” you might ask, and I did.
- Substantial_Web_8515…
