Totally agree, OP. I mean, there's nothing wrong with expecting people to be able to say what they did last week. But:
- You don't do it by randomly sending out an email at the weekend and threatening that they'll lose their jobs if they don't respond (especially to government workers, who may well not have access to email outside work). You organise it in advance and give them pointers as to what kinds of things they should be reporting on.
If I ask my team what they did last week, they know the current priorities and they know that that's what I want to hear about, because I've told them.
- You ask them to report to someone who actually knows what they should be doing.
- You use it as a tool to help them improve and find areas where they need training. You don't use it as a stick to beat them with.
- And what about people who are off sick or on leave and don't see the email?
Honestly, who at DOGE is sitting going through the emails and reading the responses? How are they going to have a clue whether what people have said is true, makes sense, or means anything? What's to stop people sticking the question into ChatGPT and pasting the answers in?