For the 282,000 federal government employees who live in and around Washington, the first weeks of the new Trump administration have been a mix of uncertainty and consternation, as agencies close and job cuts loom. So when the owner of DC9, a local bar and music venue, decided to show his solidarity via rock-bottom prices for a Thursday evening happy hour, a throng of early-career public servants eagerly answered the call.
“My team has been through the mud,” said a young woman who worked in the human resources department of a federal agency and wore a purple T-shirt emblazoned with an uplifting message: “You Are Enough.” (Like many other attendees, she feared offering any personal details that could make her the victim of professional retribution.) “Everybody is very nervous.”
In recent days, Elon Musk and his lieutenants have hacked away at the federal bureaucracy, including by offering controversial buyouts to government workers. In the now-infamous “Fork in the Road” email sent on Jan. 28 at the apparent behest of Mr. Musk’s new Department of Government Efficiency some two million federal agency staffers were urged to take a buyout that would supposedly guarantee anyone who accepted a salary through Sept. 30. The deadline to accept the deal was 11:59 p.m. on Thursday.
Bill Spieler, who has operated DC9 for two decades, was determined to do what he could for the federal work force as the deadline neared. On Monday afternoon, DC9 announced a “Hold the Line” event to coincide with that deadline. Its social media post appeared to be skeptical of the offer, urging government workers “to be our eyes and ears on what is happening in this administration.” But any government employee, whether they took Mr. Musk’s promised buyout or not, was eligible for “$2 beverages.”
A few hours before the deadline, a federal judge in Massachusetts effectively blocked the deal. In response, the White House extended its buyout deadline until next Monday. But Mr. Spieler’s prediction that the last-minute machinations would do little to mitigate the uncertainty or dampen the enthusiasm for cheap beer proved correct.
The memories of Dry January, it seemed, were gone. The months to come may be decidedly less parched, if Thursday was any indication. A young woman in a gray sweater and brown paisley scarf who said she worked at the State Department described a confused and demoralized work force. She sat somberly at a table as the bar began to fill.
At the door, a DC9 employee verified proof of government employment, giving green bands to everyone who passed muster — Mr. Spieler walked around announcing that, earlier in the day, a benefactor had donated $100 for the event. Early birds were thus rewarded with free drinks.
Nearly every attendee appeared to be in their 20s or 30s. Between the tattoos, nose rings and dyed hair, the scene could have easily been in hipster Brooklyn. The bureaucrat of popular imagination, dressed in a flappy suit, was nowhere in sight. Attendees reveled in the chance to show solidarity — and to meet colleagues.
Located on the corner of U Street, once known as “Black Broadway” for its thriving cultural scene, DC9 recalls Washington’s hard-core punk rock renaissance, which offered a challenge to Ronald Reagan’s vision of American life during the 1980s.
“We’re on the front line now,” Mr. Spieler, 61, said in an interview, adding that his wife had come up with the idea for the happy hour. “If we want to have a democracy like we were brought up with, I’ve got to be a soldier.”
None of the people who packed into DC9 seemed remotely interested in taking Mr. Musk’s buyout offer. When asked if he had a message for Mr. Musk and his crew, a fashionably bald and bespectacled government worker used an unprintable four-letter word as he urged them to buzz off. He made sure that his emo band T-shirt would not be recognized in any photographs. Defiance was surging, but so was fear. Nobody believed that Thursday’s court order was the last gasp.
Among the very, very few attendees to sport a suit and tie was Dan, an administrative employee of the Central Intelligence Agency. He bristled at the depiction of government work as a taxpayer-funded sinecure. “So many of us easily could have come out of college and done something completely different, making two or three times the amount that we are, but here we are living in one of the most expensive cities in the United States, working for pennies on the dollar to make the country better,” he said, adding that all he wanted was to go back to work, without having to constantly think and talk about his work status.
A young man with slicked-back hair and restrained stubble said he had actually thought of leaving government employ only to be persuaded to stay by all the badgering. “I’ve never felt more patriotic in my life than I do right now,” he said.
New resolve seemed to be setting in. Sipping drinks on the DC9 rooftop, two colleagues who worked at the National Archives outpost in College Park, Md., had nothing but youthful enthusiasm for their jobs. Neither one of them knew a single colleague who was taking the buyout. Nor did they quite understand what Mr. Musk was after. “We don’t make money for shareholders,” said one of the archivists, Frances, who had brilliant green hair, shaved temples and large hoop earrings. “We serve the public.”
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