21-02-2025
Former federal worker shares frustration on TikTok after losing job in less than 2 months
WASHINGTON () — A federal worker who lost her job after being in her position for less than two months hopped on TikTok to tell her story as well as share information and resources to help other federal workers in the same position.
'I was one of the thousands of federal worker terminated this weekend, let's talk about it,' said 24-year-old Victoria Chege in her video on TikTok with over a million views.
Chege worked for the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services after graduating with her Masters.
'Honestly, I feel like people just think that we're just a number to some people… But these are real people with real lives that are being impacted, real pockets being impacted, and some people don't really know where their next check is going to come from,' said Chege.
She had been working in her new position for about 6 weeks before she noticed something something was wrong on Valentine's Day.
'My email stopped refreshing and said that I can't log into my email anymore, and when I tried to log back into my compute it said my access was revoked. An hour later I tried again and I was able to access everything again, everything was reinstated,' she said.
On Saturday at around 2 p.m., Chege was one of many to receive an e-mail stating that they were 'not fit for continued employment' because their 'knowledge and skills do not fit [the] agency's current needs and performance has not been adequate to justify.'
'That was really, really heartbreaking to see because I was in this role for about six weeks and I haven't received a performance review yet. I didn't hear from anybody until [Tuesday] morning, my manager called me, and I don't even think he knew that I had been terminated,' said Chege.
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This comes as the Trump administration tries to reduce the size and cost of government.
'We didn't even take taxpayer dollars to fund our mission. So, if you're actually looking line by line as to where to cut costs, my role would not have been cut at all,' she said.
Chege tells me she understands why the administration is downsizing, but she doesn't agree with how it's being done and how it's being handled.
'It's very chaotic, very rushed, it was really frustrating to see, again, the lack of overall communication we've been receiving is just really frustrating for this whole process,' she said.
Chege is now using her TikTok platform to keep people informed and share resources for those who need it.
'I'm just going to do what I can as far as getting the information out there. Some people don't know where their next meal is going to come from, where the next source of pay is going to come from these are real lives being affected.'
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