劳拉是中西部农业部的一名联邦雇员，当她收到一封电子邮件，提供她一个带薪辞职到9月份的机会，否则就面临被解雇的前景时，她接受了。
劳拉在农村发展部工作了大约六个月，帮助人们获得房屋所有权。她知道大规模解雇可能会影响到她，因为她是一名试用期员工，这是政府对工作不满一年的员工的一种身份。
“我看到了不祥之兆，”劳拉说，由于害怕遭到报复，她拒绝透露自己的姓氏。
但在她收到接受“延期辞职项目”的确认一周后，她醒来时收到一封电子邮件，通知她自己已经被解雇了。
“没有电话，什么都没有，”她说。然后，像许多联邦雇员一样，劳拉立即失去了她的工作通信。
劳拉是一群跨多个机构的联邦雇员中的一员，他们上周因试用期而突然被解雇，尽管他们接受了一封名为“岔路口”的政府电子邮件的邀请。
自那以后，联邦政府工作人员面临着来自其机构的关于他们未来的相互矛盾的信息，许多人像劳拉一样，被蒙在鼓里，无法访问他们的工作电子邮件。
大约20万名政府雇员被归类为试用期，这是特朗普政府上周第一波大规模解雇的目标群体。白宫和联邦机构都没有公开披露这近20万名员工中有多少人被解雇，在这一群体中，不清楚有多少人尽管接受了“岔路口”的提议，但还是被错误地解雇了，据白宫称，约有7.5万名员工接受了这一提议。
当被问及尽管接受了延期辞职提议但仍被解雇的员工时，政府的人力资源部门人事管理办公室(OPM)表示，“OPM对各机构的指导是尊重接受延期辞职提议的员工。”在这篇报道首次发表后的第二天，农业部在对ABC新闻的评论中表示，它将遵循OPM的指导方针。
当唐纳德·特朗普总统最近被问及他对政府大规模解雇事件的发展是否有任何担忧时，他说没有。“不，一点也没有。我认为我们必须做我们必须做的事情，”特朗普说。总统说，他当选是为了让政府“更强大、更小”，并承认“在某些情况下，他们会解雇一些人，然后他们会让一些人回来。”
一些联邦工作人员已经通过他们的个人电子邮件和手机与他们的机构联系，通知他们仍然有资格参加延期辞职计划，需要在周五之前再次选择加入。但他们担心其他被解雇的人会钻了空子，不知道他们仍然有资格参加延期辞职计划。
“这一切都很混乱，”劳拉说。“我最好的建议无疑是向你的领导层寻求帮助。”
对劳拉来说，只有通过自己东拼西凑的研究，她才发现自己可能仍然有资格获得这份工作，然后打电话给她的主管，主管证实了这一点。
她在LinkedIn上找到了一位同事Nick Detter，他是堪萨斯州农业部的自然资源专家。Detter也是一名试用员工，因为与Laura相同的原因参加了延期辞职计划，并且像她一样，仍然收到了终止通知。
但Detter拒绝交出他的工作笔记本电脑，保留着他的电子邮件通信，直到推迟辞职计划更加明朗。
德特告诉劳拉，他在周二下午收到了一封电子邮件，就在她被解雇并不得不交出工作通信权限的几天后，邮件称该部门“打算尊重(延期辞职项目)的条款。”
Detter已经向多家新闻媒体讲述了他的情况，他继续收到来自相同职位的同事的大量信息。
一位同事说，他的主管明确告诉他，试用员工永远不应该有资格参加延期辞职计划，所以要把解雇信视为最终决定。
但是，在他们最初被解雇近一周后，Detter和他的同事收到了另一封电子邮件，为“缺乏信息或信息冲突”以及被解雇可能造成的“混乱”道歉。
“这份通知旨在澄清，作为一名处于试用期或试用期状态的员工，您可能已经选择加入延期辞职计划(DRP)，现在您有资格参与DRP，”该电子邮件称。
对于DRP相关信息的缺乏或冲突，以及您的终止通知可能造成的任何混乱，我们深表歉意
邮件要求收件人在2月21日之前回复“你继续参与的意愿”，并表示员工将在2月24日之前复职。
尽管如此，对于联邦工作人员来说，许多问题仍然存在，比如他们是否会在不确定工作状态的日子里收到薪水，或者他们是否有信心在未来会收到薪水。
这个过程已经很混乱了。他们看到OPM发出常见问题解答，向联邦工作人员保证该计划是合法的，并鼓励他们接受。亿万富翁埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)在接管Twitter后，曾向员工发送了一封几乎相同的电子邮件，他也热情支持这一提议。
但是许多工会进行了反击，警告他们的员工这样的举动是没有先例的，接受它的人可能会陷入困境。一项法律挑战推迟了该计划的时间表，暂停了该计划，并将接受要约的截止日期推迟到2月12日，但最终允许该计划继续进行。然后，几十个机构开始大规模终止妊娠。
“这次经历之后，我不知道自己对这份工作有多大信心，”劳拉说。她说，在这一点上，如果她需要申请失业或申请其他工作，她至少可以说她辞职了，而不是被解雇了。
德特表示，他最初对《三岔路口》电子邮件中概述的重组抱有很高的期望，受到提高效率和建立更多基于绩效的晋升和薪酬体系的承诺的鼓舞。
“但根据我过去一个月对整件事的经验，事实并非如此。这只是刀耕火种，”他说。
即使在收到为错误道歉的电子邮件后，消费者金融保护局的一名律师表示，他仍然觉得自己的处境和一周前第一次被解雇时一样。由于担心遭到报复，这名律师要求匿名。
这位前CFPB雇员表示，他接受了延期辞职的提议，因为他正在远程工作，而岔路口电子邮件警告称，这种情况将不再被容忍。他说，作为妻子和年幼孩子的主要收入来源，他想“保守地玩游戏”。
“但是沙子每天都在变，”他说。
尽管他的上司告诉他，尽管上周二他被解雇了，但他现在将获得延期辞职的提议，他说有理由对此表示怀疑。
他正在密切关注他的下一份薪水，并担心他的机构的未来，该机构在过去几周几乎被特朗普政府关闭。
“如果我们的机构完全解散，资产最终被转移，我不知道我的机构会付给我什么，”他说。
“我现在的处境和一周前刚被解雇时一样，感觉自己需要养活一个四口之家。我仍然需要找一份工作，我仍然需要找到一个确定的事情，”他说。
Federal workers took the 'buyout.' Some got fired anyway
When Laura, a federal employee for the Department of Agriculture in the Midwest, got an email offering her a chance to resign with pay through September or otherwise face the prospect of termination, she took it.
Laura had been in rural development, helping people access home ownership, for about six months. She knew mass terminations were likely to effect her because she was a probationary worker, a government status for employees with less than a year in their role.
"I saw the writing on the wall," said Laura, who declined to use her last name out of fear of retaliation.
But one week after she received confirmation of her acceptance into the "deferred resignation program," she woke up to an email informing her she'd been terminated anyway.
"No phone call, no nothing," she said. Then, like many federal employees, Laura immediately lost access to her work communications.
Laura is part of a group of federal employees across multiple agencies who were suddenly fired last week due to their probationary status, despite having accepted the offer from a government-wide email titled "Fork in the Road."
The federal workers have since faced days of conflicting information from their agencies about their futures, with many, like Laura, in the dark without access to their work email.
Roughly 200,000 government employees were categorized as probationary, the group targeted by the Trump administration's first wave of mass firings last week. Neither the White House nor the federal agencies have publicly disclosed how many of those nearly 200,000 employees were laid off, and within that group, it's not clear how many people were mistakenly terminated despite accepting the "Fork in the Road" offer, which about 75,000 workers did, according to the White House.
Asked for clarity on employees who were terminated despite taking the deferred resignation offer, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the human resources arm of the government, said "OPM’s guidance to agencies is to honor the deferred resignation offer for those who took it." The Department of Agriculture later said it would follow OPM's guidance, in a comment to ABC News the day after the story was first published.
President Donald Trump, asked recently if he has any concerns about how the mass firings across government had played out, said no. "No, not at all. I think we have to just do what we have to do," Trump said. The president said he was elected to make the government "stronger and smaller," and acknowledged that "in some cases, they’ll fire people and then they’ll put some people back."
Some federal workers have been contacted by their agencies on their personal email and cell phone, informing them that they still qualify for the deferred resignation program and need to opt-in again by Friday. But they worry that others who were terminated will slip through the cracks, unaware that they can still qualify for the deferred resignation program.
"It's all very disorganized," Laura said. "My best piece of advice is definitely reach out to your leadership."
For Laura, it was only through her own patchwork research that she found out that she might still be eligible for the offer and then called her supervisor, who confirmed.
She'd found a colleague on LinkedIn, Nick Detter, who worked as a natural resource specialist for the Department of Agriculture in Kansas. Detter, also a probationary employee, had taken the deferred resignation program for the same reason as Laura -- and, like her, still received a termination notice.
But Detter had refused to turn in his work laptop, hanging on to his email communications until there was more clarity on the deferred resignation program.
Detter told Laura he'd received an email on Tuesday afternoon, days after she'd been terminated and had to turn in her access to work communications, which said that the department "intend[ed] to honor the terms of the [deferred resignation program]."
Detter, who'd spoken to multiple news outlets about his situation, continued to get a flood of messages from colleagues who were in the same position.
One colleague said his supervisor had explicitly told him that probationary employees were never supposed to qualify for the deferred resignation program, so to take the termination letter as final.
But then Detter and his colleagues received another email, nearly a week after their initial terminations, apologizing for the "lack of, or conflicting information" and the "confusion" that being fired may have caused.
"This notice serves to clarify that as an employee on probationary or trial period status who may have opted into the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP), you are NOW eligible to participate in DRP," the email said.
"We apologize for the lack of, or conflicting information, surrounding the DRP and any confusion your termination notice may have caused."
The email instructed recipients to reply by Feb. 21 with "your continued intention to participate," and said employees would be reinstated by Feb. 24.
Still, many questions remain for the federal workers, like whether they'll receive a paycheck for the days they were unsure of their work status, or whether they can have confidence that they'll receive one going forward.
Already, the process had been tumultuous. They had watched as OPM sent FAQs reassuring federal workers that the program was legitimate and encouraging them to take it. Billionaire Elon Musk, who had sent a near-identical email to employees at Twitter after he took it over, also enthusiastically supported the offer.
But many unions pushed back, warning their employees that there was no precedent for such a move and that people who accepted it could be left high and dry. A legal challenge delayed the program timeline, pausing it and pushing the deadline to accept the offer to Feb. 12, but ultimately allowing it to proceed. And then, mass terminations across dozens of agencies began.
"I don't know that I have a ton of confidence in the offer after this experience," Laura said. At this point, she said, she's holding on to the benefit of being able to at least say she resigned, rather than was terminated, if she needs to file for unemployment or apply for other jobs.
Detter said he initially had high hopes for the restructuring outlined in the Fork in the Road email, encouraged by pledges to increase efficiency and have more merit-based systems for promotions and pay.
"But in my experience over the last month with this whole thing, that's not what this has been. This has just been slash and burn," he said.
Even after receiving the email apologizing for the mistake, a lawyer for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said he still felt that he was in the same situation as when he'd first been fired a week ago.
The former CFPB employee said he took the deferred resignation offer because he was working remotely, which the Fork in the Road email warned would no longer be tolerated. As the primary income earner for his wife and young children, he wanted to "play it conservatively," he said.
"But the sand keeps shifting every day," he said.
Though his supervisors have told him that he will now get the deferred resignation offer despite his termination last Tuesday, he said there is reason to be skeptical.
He's watching closely for his next paycheck, and he worries about the future of his agency, which has been all but shuttered by the Trump administration in the last few weeks.
"If our agency is fully dismantled and the assets end up being moved away, I don't know what my agency is paying me with," he said.
"I'm effectively in the same position I was a week ago when I was just terminated, feeling like I need to support a family of four. I still need to find a job, I still need to find a sure thing," he said.
