OPM tells federal workers to list 5 accomplishments weekly. Bay Area workers react

Some federal employees got an email Friday evening telling them to list five accomplishments from the previous week. This comes after federal employees were sent an email six days prior, also asking them to list five accomplishments. It is unclear if Friday's email was sent to all federal employees.

Bay Area residents who work at the EPA, FEMA, and the Department of Energy told NBC Bay Area they received Friday's email from OPM. A source familiar tells NBC News that some federal employees at the Department of Education, Office of Personnel Management, and Bureau of Federal Prisons also received an email Friday telling them to send in five bullet points with what they accomplished this week.

The federal employees who spoke with NBC Bay Area said that unlike the first email OPM sent on February 22, the email Friday asks employees to send a list of five accomplishments every week.

NBC Bay Area obtained an email sent to a federal worker on Friday with the subject line, "What did you do last week? Part II."

"Please reply to this email with approx. 5 bullets describing what you accomplished last week and cc your manager," the email read. "Going forward, please complete the above task each week.

The email also set a deadline of Mondays at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

The email instructs recipients not to send links, attachments, or classified and sensitive information.

"If all of your activities are classified or sensitive, please write, 'All of my activities are sensitive,'" the email states.

NBC Bay Area interviewed two federal employees who live in the Bay Area about this latest email. They've asked us not to share their real names to protect their identities. They are afraid of losing their jobs.

The federal employee we'll call "Charles" works for FEMA and the federal employee we'll call "Claire" works for the Department of Energy.

"I think it's going to cause a lot of frustration and anger because we already have a laundry list of things we are working through on a daily basis," said Charles regarding the latest OPM email.

Charles acknowledged that there may be some inefficiencies in the federal government.

"The federal workforce is massive, so of course there are going to be some people who are not doing what is appropriate or doing their absolute best, but by and large, most of us are -- first and foremost -- public servants, and secondly, we’re honored to do the work," he said.

Claire noted, "I and my colleagues are hard-working [and] passionate about the purpose behind our job."

Federal workers, including Claire and Charles, also got the email from OPM on Feb. 22 titled "What did you do last week?"

Elon Musk, who is leading the Trump administration's efforts to slash the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency, said those who don't reply could lose their jobs. Multiple federal agencies sent out conflicting guidance about that first email with some departments instructing employees to reply and others telling them to pause responding.

Musk complained about the backlash to the directive on his social media platform.

"The email request was utterly trivial, as the standard for passing the test was to type some words and press send! Yet so many failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers," Musk posted on Monday.

In a later post, Musk said "Subject to the discretion of the President, they will be given another chance," and "Failure to respond a second time will result in termination."

At President Donald Trump's first cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Musk said he thought the email had been "misinterpreted as a performance review" when it was a "pulse check."

"If you have a pulse and two neurons you can reply to an email," Musk said Wednesday.

According to three sources with knowledge of the system, NBC News reports that responses to the email are expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary.

Claire said she is concerned about the potential for her responses to be fed into an AI system.

She said that she and her colleagues are interested in incorporating more AI into their work. But she said that no one from OPM or DOGE has asked for their ideas about how to do that.

"They have absolutely no curiosity or respect for the work we do -- and we do really important work for the public -- that’s what, I think, makes it so hard," Claire added.

"What is happening now is not about efficiency, it is about something else," she said.

She and Charles said they plan to reply to the latest email directive. However, they both question the purpose behind these emails. Claire said she is hoping to get more guidance from her chain of command about how to respond.

"If they want to increase efficiency, they shouldn’t approach things with an axe, they need to approach them with a scalpel," Charles said. Charles also expressed worry about how the recent layoffs and cuts will impact his department's ability to respond to disasters.

This latest email comes as federal employee unions and supporters are pushing back on cuts by the Trump administration.

Thursday, a federal judge in San Francisco ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind earlier instructions telling federal agencies to “promptly determine whether these employees should be retained at the agency.”

Federal employee unions brought the case forward, asking for a temporary restraining order against the firing of federal probationary employees.

The Coalition to Protect America's National Parks is one of the organizations supporting this effort by federal unions.

Don Neubacher, who is with the Coalition, said the federal judge ruled that "we would likely succeed and that there was harm being done to parks and other agencies across the country."

"OPM doesn’t have the authority, in our opinion, to order the firing of federal employees," said Neubacher, who has also served as the superintendent of both Point Reyes National Seashore and Yosemite National Park.

This case will have another evidence hearing where the judge has ordered the acting director of OPM to testify.

Neubacher said he expects the park workers he knows will reply to this latest OPM email directive.

"Most of the employees I talk to are worried about getting fired, a lot of them have mortgages," he noted.

"And the firing is reckless, there's no efficiency to it at all," Neubacher said, adding that the National Parks Service already faced a reduction in staff over the past decade, now compounded by the federal buyouts and firings initiated under the Trump administration.

NBC Bay Area contacted the Office of Personnel Management for comment on Saturday but has not received a response.