Fired Federal Workers: A Portrait Project

Alex Hulett @alex.hulett.photo

In March 2025 I started a project taking portraits of fired federal workers. I've never shared the photos. I explain more in my blog (link in bio) but today I'm sharing them. I'm collaborating with Alex on this post so she can share updates.

Given the now month-long government shut down, it seems appropriate that I finally share these portraits and the stories along with them.

Alex Hulett, Baltimore, Maryland

From Alex:

My name is Alex Hulett, and I am a lifelong, passionate photographer and videographer. I am a disabled female veteran of the U.S. Army, having served for nine years as a Combat Documentation Production Specialist (25V), now known as a Visual Information Specialist (46V). I was deployed to Afghanistan from 2012 to 2013 as part of the 55th Signal Company (Combat Camera), which is the Army's only active-duty combat camera unit. Our mission was to document everything from combat operations to humanitarian efforts, serving as the "eyes of the Army" for the Department of Defense. My work has been featured in media outlets such as Time magazine and on the television program 60 Minutes. Serving my country was one of the greatest honors of my life, providing me with a sense of purpose and responsibility that I had always sought. My final tour of duty was at the Defense Information School, where I served as a Photography Instructor, teaching incoming Combat Camera soldiers their specialty.

After completing my service, I pursued a Bachelor's degree in Media and Communications at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), graduating Magna Cum Laude. At UMBC, I worked as a Video Production Intern and was credited as the Campus Videographer for "A College Tour" on Amazon Prime Video.

After graduation, I served as Associate Producer/Editor for the PBS Series To The Contrary, a weekly television forum of diverse women discussing timely issues from both sides of the political aisle. Throughout my time, though, I was always looking for a position back in government where I felt at home. My previous job was part-time, so I lacked the benefits of full-time work.

When the opportunity to continue serving my country as a Civilian came, I jumped at it. I took on the role of Audiovisual Production Specialist at the FDA. While I was excited about this position, I also recognized its significance, as my work directly affects the health and lives of millions of Americans. From the beginning, my peers and supervisor greeted me with open arms, determined to help me succeed in my role in whatever they needed to do. I began at the FDA in late October. I worked as a hybrid employee, spending 2-3 days on campus and working from my home office for the rest of the week. This agreement provided the flexibility to achieve a work-life balance while finally having a job with benefits and support. The GS-7 position has a one-year probationary period, with the possibility of promotion to GS-9, provided there are no issues on my part.

However, once the election passed, I worried about my role, not if I was to be fired or not, but whether I would be forced to create projects that negatively affect Americans based on pseudoscience. Immediately after the inauguration, we began to receive strange emails from outside the organization that seemed like phishing emails.

Then, we were ordered to stop all communications with the public, regardless of whether they were pertinent. Then, we were told to privatize several videos on our YouTube Channel, all of them regarding women's health. Meetings with the team became more and more grim. Confusion and panic filled our department, and even our supervisors couldn't calm our fears. You could see it on people's faces; they wanted to express their thoughts, but what once felt like a safe environment to share ideas now felt unsafe. For up-to-date information, we resorted to forums such as Reddit, where other federal workers shared anything they could possibly find to best protect our jobs.

While we waited to hear back on the next course of action, I continued my work. I stayed productive, finishing up projects and working to increase efficiency in the organization. When the "Return to Work" mandate came, I was prepared to work on campus 5 days a week. A week before I was fired, I had my performance review with my supervisor, who rated me as a 4: Achieved More than Expected Results. She remarked how pleasantly surprised she was by how much I was able to accomplish in such a short time and how happy they were to have me on the team.

Finally, on Saturday, February 15th, at 5:43 PM, while I was taking PTO to visit my Grandmother for her 96th birthday, I received an email with the subject line, "Read this email immediately." Attached was a boilerplate memorandum that all other probationary employees had received.

The letter states, "Unfortunately, the Agency finds that you are not fit for continued employment because your ability, knowledge, and skills do not fit the Agency's current needs, and your performance has not been adequate to justify further employment at the Agency."

My supervisors did not make this decision. They were not informed or even CC'd on the email, only learning about it a day later. While I suspected this day was coming, it was still a massive disappointment. I grieved the work I could've done for the public. I grieved the career and opportunities I could've had. I grieved the stability I could've achieved in my life. What I grieved the most was for the people of this country. What unsettles me the most is, who will come to take my place? With the threat of reducing the workforce by up to 60%, will anyone come to take my place? By the time I was fired, I was the only one left in my department qualified to do the work.

I was ordered to return my badge and equipment to campus immediately. The following week, I returned to campus for the last time. I went through security and attempted to badge myself in, but my access had already been revoked. My supervisor then had to pick me up at the front door and escort me to my office to collect my personal items. I couldn't leave without my tea kettle and coffee mug. After leaving my equipment on the desk, I was escorted out as if I had done something wrong. Before I left the building, all my higher-ups wanted to speak to me one last time personally. All with tears in their eyes, they hugged me and profusely apologized for what was happening to me. They promised to help me find a new job and offered to be a reference for me. Then, I walked out of the building and drove back home. That marked the end of my time at the FDA. It took nearly two years to be accepted for a government position, followed by two months of investigation and onboarding before I could start the job. Unfortunately, I lost it all just three months later.

The entire time, I did not shed one tear. I still haven't cried. As the Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought once said regarding federal workers, "We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected... When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains... We want to put them in trauma."

Well, they're not getting any tears from me. I am not the villain. I am a proud Army veteran. While I no longer wear the uniform, I still follow the Army values of loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, integrity, honor, and personal courage. That will never change, no matter how hard they try. I am also not special, as every federal worker, especially our veterans, who make up 30% of the federal workforce, largely follow the same principles.

The situation has given me perspective, though. The Republicans no longer hide their real allegiances in the shadows. They have their cards fully in view now: they don't give a single fuck about veterans. They have no loyalty, integrity, or honor (the abandonment of the Kurdish forces and the Afghanistan withdrawal show me that first, but the recent reversal in support of Ukraine exemplifies it once again), especially not those who served, protected, and laid down their lives for this country. They have no sense of duty, respect, or selfless service as they strip away the freedoms of countless lives and make useless our constitution for the sake of one con man. They certainly don't have the personal courage to look in the face of their constituents while doing it, as Republican house members are told to no longer conduct town halls for fear they would actually have to face the consequences of their actions.

Going forward, I will use this time to determine the best course of action for my family and me. I will strengthen my connection to my community and find every way in which I can help. We have no one else in this life but each other to trust. I will explore my creativity, as the aspect of my life that has never left is my love and endless fascination with photography and videography. Most importantly, I will speak out against the ongoing coup d'état in America.

Allie Pawlikowski, Pasadena, Maryland

Continuing my fired federal workers photoshoot, today I'm presenting: Allie Pawlikowski

Allie Pawlikowski

Allie is a transgender woman with a 15-year military, government, and civil service career. She spent the majority of her long career doing intelligence work in support of the war on terror.

While Allie did not technically get fired during the federal workers firing spree last February, she quit, brokenhearted, before what she knew would be her inevitable firing for being a trans woman. She sent in her resignation “out of disgust.” Her breaking point was watching government leaders in organizations comply with unethical and/or unlawful administration decisions from the White House, specifically regarding transgender people like herself. Allie has committed herself to trans activism for the foreseeable future.

Allie wrote to me saying:

"Given the nature of my past 15 years, I am very scant on social media.  I currently am a very active member of Transexual Menace Baltimore, but outside of the socials involved there I don't have personal accounts anywhere. 

I'm 34 years old.  I joined the Navy in 2009, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, and 2012.  Starting in 2016, counter-terrorism started becoming a large part of my life's work.  I deployed to Iraq in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020.  For the majority of the past 20 years, I've believed strongly in this country, its ability to be a home for all, and its devotion to the diversity, equity, and inclusion that make us so special. 

I knew the Trump 2.0 administration was going to be rough.  What I didn't expect was how I would feel.  I thought I could push through it given we'd been through it before.  Being called "dishonorable" and "unfit for military service" (by this point I was in government service, but in the exact same career field), by somebody who was so clearly hateful and themselves overtly dodged military service, hurt.  Watching the President of our country denigrate any minority he could, hurt.  What hurt the worst was watching all sorts of leaders throughout the government capitulate to his childlike demands.  And so, here I am, currently unemployed (although I hope not for long), and pouring my energy into local activism."

In the second and third photos, Allie holds up an award she received on December 12, 2022: the “Defense Meritorious Service Medal” for “outstanding meritorious service with the Armed Forces of the United States.”

On top of the framed award and citation, she’s scrawled in permanent marker some of the most cutting, cruel, and belligerent words hurled at military personnel who have honorably served in the U.S. military for years. These words appear in Trump’s executive order "EO" 14183, aka the “trans military ban,” from January 27, 2025, and in other press releases and speeches he gave surrounding this executive order.

Declaring that as a transgender individual she and other military personnel are “dishonorable” and “undisciplined,” that they participate in “radical gender ideology,” and that trans people are “unfit” for service. The EO reads:

“Success in this existential mission requires a singular focus on developing the requisite warrior ethos, and the pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.”

The words scrawled on the award illustrate pure hypocrisy; her t-shirt confirms she's pure badass...and she's not going to hide who she is.

#federalworkerportraits #savefederalworkers #transgenderrights #transgenderhumanrights #firedfederalworkers