This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kira Carrigan, 36. It has been edited for length and clarity. BI has verified Carrigan’s identity, employment, and the termination of her role.
A request to comment from Business Insider to the Office of Personnel Management went unanswered. On Monday, President Donald Trump said that what the Department of Government Efficiency is trying to do by cutting jobs and spending is “not necessarily a very popular thing,” but he thinks it has to be done to “save our country.”
My first days working as an HR specialist at the Office of Personnel Management were a dream come true — I loved my boss, I had a sense of purpose, and I felt like I was starting a promising career. When I was fired on a mass video call less than two months after starting, more than my job crumbled. Our family’s careful planning crumbled, too.
Before starting my job at the federal government, I’d been out of the workforce for years. Deeply impacted by 9/11, I joined the Marines straight out of high school and left in 2010. But I stayed connected to the service; I met my husband during my active-duty years, and he’s a Marine to this day.
Our time together has been dotted with long-distance — he deployed to Iraq when we were dating, to Afghanistan a year after we got married, to Bahrain while I was pregnant with our third child — and cross-country moves. We’ve pinged back and forth between California and Virginia, done a stint in North Carolina, and now live in New Orleans. Come June, we’re back to the West Coast.
Between getting my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, moving so often, and raising our kids, I knew it would be hard for me to have a job. And that worked well for a while since I wanted to focus on being a mom.
The government was meant to be a stable job option
By the time we moved to New Orleans in the summer of 2023, though, I was ready to get back into the workforce. All of my kids were in school and it finally felt like my moment. Not to mention, my husband is eligible to retire in 2026 and my salary could help carry us through his retirement.
I started applying for jobs in January 2024, well aware that the federal government is a good option for military spouses and vets. It’s not only the flexible remote work options but also the sense of understanding that comes with working with so many other veterans.
In May, I applied for the job I eventually landed at OPM. My official offer came in October and my first day of remote work was December 16. Getting the job was no small feat; according to the posting, almost 4,500 people applied.
The first few weeks were a lot of training, onboarding, the usual. Then, on February 12, two great things happened: military spouses on remote work agreements got exemptions from return-to-office mandates and I got my very first case to tackle independently.
The next day, everything changed.
I got an invite for an all-hands meeting set to take place in an hour. Probationary employees — people still in their first one or two years in their position — were the only ones on the chaotic call. There were technical errors and we were growing more anxious until eventually Charles Ezell, the acting director at OPM, fired all of us, just like that. He didn’t even introduce himself.
We were given around 30 minutes’ notice.
I’m haunted by the way I was fired
The worst part for me has been the supposed reason I was fired. According to my termination letter, I was terminated for poor performance. I wasn’t even at OPM long enough to get a performance review.
It’s been devastating and, frankly, I think about it all the time. I know it was just a job, but it was my job and I worked really hard for it. And it took me a long time to get it — years of moving, of waiting for the right moment, of working up the courage to submit applications.
I hate looking at my résumé and seeing I was fired for performance reasons. I wish they’d reinstate me just to fire me again the right way. Now, I’m stuck in this weird limbo, a type of grief period: I’m still mourning the job and I don’t have any closure.
Applying to something new isn’t an option, since we’re heading to California in just over two months. I can’t look for a new job there yet, and probably won’t be able to until the fall when my kids are settled into their new schools. With the hiring freeze, I doubt I’ll be able to work for the government again, and who knows how long it’ll take to find, let alone land, a private-sector gig that works for my family?
Military life has been hard. But we’ve always had a sufficient paycheck; if my husband retires next year, that won’t still be true. And I feel like I just lost my shot at grounding us.
The day I’m talking about all of this is my daughter’s tenth birthday. I wish it could just be her tenth birthday, a day of joy and candles and cake — not the day I talked to a reporter about getting fired and feeling I have nowhere else to go.
My husband and I always thought there was general appreciation for the military and its families. Now, that’s all starting to feel a little fake.
