The Lost Do-Gooders

Most civil-service Ivy Leaguers will land jobs post-DOGE. They may not find a new calling.

- Careering: Nick Summers

LAUREN WAS AT HER DESK when the email arrived, as bland and curt as it was apocalyptic. “Good morning, CFPB staff,” it read. “Employees should stand down from performing any work task. Thank you for your attention on this matter.”

It was a few minutes before 9 a.m. on Monday, February 10.

“I just got physically nauseated,” Lauren told me. (I’ve used a pseudonym to protect her privacy.) The message was from Russell Vought, the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where Lauren had been an exceptional per- former for more than a decade. Since Donald Trump’s reelection, she had been reassuring her staff that their work would go on; sure, the new administration would instruct them to quit some projects, but perfectly valid ones would take their place. This email made it clear she’d been naïve. Their jobs would be vaporized.

Though a judge has stalled the matter, Lauren puts her odds of termination at 99 percent. She has never been fired before.

The concept of joblessness seems faintly ridiculous if you look at her magna cum laude résumé: degrees from Columbia and Harvard, editor-in-chief of a law journal, prestigious fellowships, so many academic and professional honors that she could not, when we spoke recently, recall them all.