NASA HQ employees complain about cockroaches after Trump's executive order

At NASA headquarters in Washington, just a mile from the US Capitol, employees returned to an infestation of cockroaches and some are working in chairs with no desks, according to two people familiar with conditions there, Report informs via Reuters.

In a private chat, staffers at US Citizenship and Immigration Services likened the hunt for desks in some regional offices to "The Hunger Games," the popular series of novels and films where young people must fight to the death in a government-sanctioned contest.

And at an Internal Revenue Service office in Memphis, Tennessee, tax assessors sharing a training room are unable to discuss sensitive tax matters with clients over the phone out of fear of breaching privacy laws, according to one IRS manager who spoke to Reuters.

Hundreds of thousands of US federal government employees, many of whom have been working from home since the COVID-19 pandemic, were ordered back to their offices full-time by President Donald Trump on January 20.

But many have arrived at workplaces unprepared for their return, according to 10 federal workers who spoke to Reuters.

The federal employees work inside eight different government agencies across the US who have returned to their office buildings, sometimes after years of working remotely. All spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.

Some critics of the move - including governance experts, federal union representatives and civil servants - have said the lack of preparation is no accident.

They see it as a deliberate effort to make offices so unpleasant to work in that it will force more government employees to resign. Trump wants to slash and reshape the 2.3-million strong federal civilian workforce.

"We are prioritizing in-person work to strengthen collaboration, accountability, and service delivery across the federal workforce," an OPM spokesperson said.

A White House official said in response to Reuters questions that facilities staff at the General Services Administration, which manages federal real estate, "work tirelessly to address reported issues to a satisfactory outcome."