Stephani Cherkaoui sits in her Montgomery County, Maryland, kitchen, a pot of Moroccan tea simmering on the stove and her children’s artwork brightening the walls. It’s a scene of domestic peace, but also a snapshot of transition. For the past five months, Cherkaoui has been one of more than 150,000 federal workers who accepted the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” buyout offer, resigning from her post with the promise of continued pay and benefits through at least September 30, 2025. As she told NPR, “It’s goodness that’s coming from a very terribly depressing place. I’m able to just breathe. It’s a new kind of feeling that I’ve never experienced before. But there’s definitely a lot of fear.”
The buyout program, launched just eight days after President Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, was nothing short of historic. According to NPR, the Office of Personnel Management emailed nearly the entire federal workforce—over 2 million employees—offering a deferred resignation deal modeled after a plan Elon Musk had previously crafted for Twitter employees. Workers had just over a week to make their decision, with a second round of offers reopening in late March and April as legal doubts faded and agency leaders pushed for swift uptake.
Scott Kupor, who became director of the Office of Personnel Management in July 2025, described the buyout as “appropriately generous” in an interview with WTOP radio. “The team designing the buyout did as much as they could to be appropriately generous and give people as long of a runway as they could to go transition into something new,” Kupor said. He saw the moment as a chance to usher in a new government culture, one focused on constant improvement and innovation. But for many workers, the reality has been far more complicated.
Cherkaoui’s own journey reflects the uncertainty faced by thousands. She joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2020, managing training for about 9,000 employees in the Food Safety and Inspection Service. “We send inspectors into all of the meatpacking plants across the country,” she explained to NPR. “They’re out here doing a thankless job, every single day.” Cherkaoui took pride in her role, helping ensure America’s food supply remained safe. But after Trump’s reelection, she grew uneasy, worried that the president’s rhetoric about government “waste and bloat” would put her department’s training programs at risk.
When the first buyout offer landed in January, Cherkaoui hesitated. “I thought it looked shady,” she admitted. But as rumors swirled about mass layoffs, forced relocations, and pay cuts, her resolve wavered. Memories of the USDA’s previous relocation of staff to Kansas City during Trump’s first term haunted her—moving away from her extended family in D.C. was out of the question. So, when a second round of buyouts came in April, she took the leap. “It was the hardest button click I’ve ever clicked in my life,” she recalled. “I went back and forth on it for a couple of days, but I knew ultimately that that was going to be the right choice.”
She’s not alone in her mixed emotions. J., a data analyst in the Midwest who worked for the Transportation Department, also accepted the buyout in April after weeks of anxiety about potential office closures and job relocations. “I might have had a minor anxiety attack in the lobby of my building as I was pacing around, considering it,” he told NPR. J. feared his job would be moved to Washington, D.C., after Trump issued an executive order consolidating IT work. He started applying for private sector jobs and, with offers in hand, decided to leave. But as months passed, the expected upheaval never materialized. His old office lease was renewed, and his team stayed put. Now, J. says, “Now that it’s been a couple of months, I very much regret my decision.” The new job pays about the same, but he misses the sense of purpose—along with the robust federal health insurance and benefits.
The uncertainty extended even to those just starting out. Marie, a probationary employee at the Department of Energy, barely finished onboarding before being swept up in the buyout drama. After being fired as part of a broader purge of new hires, she was temporarily reinstated by court order. Fearing a second dismissal, she opted for the buyout during the April round, abandoning her dream of shaping national energy policy. According to NPR, about 3,000 Energy Department employees—roughly 20% of its workforce—took the deal. Marie’s job search was slow, hampered by economic uncertainty linked to Trump’s tariffs, but she eventually landed a position at a local utility. Still, when asked if she’d return to federal service, she replied, “I don’t think it would be something I’d be hurrying back to do.”
For many, the aftermath of the buyout has proven just as daunting as the decision itself. The job market in the Washington, D.C., area is now saturated with former federal employees. Maryland alone lost 15,100 federal jobs between January and August, according to the state’s Department of Labor. Cherkaoui, now 40, has applied to “literally hundreds of jobs,” but has received only a handful of interviews. “It’s just ‘No, thank you; no, thank you; no, thank you; no, thank you; no, thank you,’” she said. To stay afloat, she launched a consulting business—the Sajai Company—and has returned to school to pursue a doctorate in human and organizational learning. She hasn’t abandoned her dream of leading training at the USDA someday, but acknowledges the road ahead is tough.
Beneath the personal stories lies a broader transformation of the federal workforce. Since January, the administration has dismantled entire agencies and halted work mandated by Congress, according to NPR. Watchdog agency leaders, inspectors general, Justice Department attorneys, and civil rights officials have been removed. Just last week, the White House Office of Management and Budget warned agencies to prepare for mass layoffs of programs “not consistent with the president’s priorities” if a government shutdown occurs.
Cherkaoui estimates about half her former USDA colleagues left voluntarily during the buyout, with the rest dispersed throughout the agency. Her old office has been disbanded. She worries about those still inside government, enduring what she calls “much more than anything that they’ve ever had to endure before.” She understands why so few are willing to speak out, but believes silence is dangerous. “I love my country. Being critical of my country—that’s showing love. If I didn’t love and didn’t care, I would let you act like a damn fool,” she told NPR. “You have to be able to say something, and if you can’t say anything, you’re lost.”
As the federal government faces another possible wave of layoffs and restructuring, the stories of Cherkaoui, J., Marie, and thousands like them offer a stark reminder: behind every policy shift are real people, whose lives and careers have been upended in ways that few could have imagined at the start of 2025.
