These scientists were in the early stages of they careers, with newly earned PhDs and temporary employment working on coastal flooding research. They were likely looking for jobs in academia or industry after getting a publication or two from their postdoc position. Those publications would ultimately help the USGS mission.

But they were ultimately seen as government waste by the unelected officials controlling the U.S.A. government under this adminsitrative #coup.

It is demoralizing. Recruitment of young scientists to our research community in St Petersburg was a hue part of who we are. Transmission of new ideas, formation of new collaboration, discovery of new ideas - this is how the scientific process really works. It is not the crumbs of individual geniuses like half of our population thinks Musk is. It is this very system that they are dismantling here and elsewhere!

To me, this is horrible. Scary. But there is one detail that haunts me most.

Officials in Washington had no control over the office computer systems, but ITS staff did. And they dutifully followed the order. They protected their self interests over the interests of several postdoctoral researchers (several thousand when you factor in other USGS offices as well as the CDC, where this evidently also happened).

They are going to continually pit us against one another. I cannot believe that an IT person wanted to do this. But they did. Making a small error on a Friday afternoon would have given postdoctoral researchers the weekend to get their data, a huge loss if one gets fired at this stage of their career. The cruelty of the speed of the decision was the point, and some people collaborated in the cruelty to protect their own jobs. They should be ashamed and we should all think about how we can be manipulated like that.