Good Work if You Can Get It

Can't start? It's their problem if they can't process your resignation.
- Exactly. I don't know American laws, but I would submit my resignation by registered letter (I assume there are still doormen to receive those), and if they kept paying me I would put the cash in a savings account in case they ever remember to read the mail and notice they were paying me after quitting.
  
  It's not moving from one company to another.
  It's moving from the government regulator to a company regulated by that former employer. The rules on government conflicts of interest still apply, and you can't accept a paycheck from a regulated entity while you're still technically employed at the regulator.
  
  I think it would probably be safer just to not cash the check from the previous employer.
- If the job is in an industry regulated by the fda it can be considered a conflict of interest and normal government employees would need to have that approved by an ethics committee
  
  Resigned. Not an employee.
- Pretty sure there's no rule against having two jobs, especially if you don't have to go to one of them.
  
  Yeah this whole thing is bullshit.
  
  A lot of contracts have an exclusivity clause. So in that case they'd be vulnerable to breach of contract lawsuit.

This sounds super fake
- My wife had a coworker Rif'd and is in the same situation. It is not fake, this is really happening to real people.
  
  I know several people in this category: still employed by the government and subject to government ethics rules, unhireable by any company that still needs to follow that government agency's rules about conflicts of interest.
- Yes, I don't think you can be in limbo for more than the statutory 2-weeks notice period or some such.
  Still, there's going to be quite some extra cost associated with the heads-over-heels way in which contracts were cancelled.
  
  That's intentional. Bleed the agency to death so it can't operate.
  
  Probably fake, but to be fair, the government isn't exactly following the rules these days.
- Maybe before the Incel in Cheif took over, now that just sounds like a Tuesday
- Sounds like Trump & Musk presidency
- When I worked for a state university it was common knowledge that some people stopped showing up to work and have been getting paid for years. Usually they go on medical leave or vacation and just never come back. We had a list of ones we knew or suspected because every time we would do backend changes requiring lists of active employees those people's data would throw wrenches into the system. We weren't allowed to not include them in things because they were still employed
  So it could be fake but also the government already doesn't know what it's doing on the best of days and these are not the best of days
- Sadly not. Super common, and the obvious result of RIFing everyone without a care for who does what or why. Strategy was apparently on the DEI forbidden words list.
  These people have zero idea how the government works, they only operate on "loyalty." Which is simply not having the audacity to speak up when something is profoundly stupid, lest it harm their ego. Everything else is scams inside of scams for personal benefit at the taxpayer's expense.
  The pattern repeats over and over. Hundreds of embarassing court cases, constant incompetence beyond anything rank and file government ever did before, blatant lies the only way to save face. Clowns elected by fools to spin up a circus to entertain them all while the crops rot in the fields, with no one willing to harvest them.
- I can't tell anymore.
- I know a guy first hand in the same situation.

You been DOGEd!
- Wait, I thought dogging was something entirely different.

Legally I think a resignation is valid upon delivery. CCing the new employer on a resignation email that specifies the effective date should solve your friend's dilemma. OTOH if he continues to accept payments it would be an acknowledgement of continued employment - which the new employer wouldn't know about but could be used by the previous employer if there's ever any sort of legal dispute in which his exact end date is important.
- I think the move would probably be to send the letter, begin new employment, and then set aside any further payments they receive from the job they resigned from for reimbursement. On the other hand, have fun with the nightmare of returning the funds to the FDA, and also tax season and...yeah nevermind fuck that.
  
  set aside any further payments he receives from the job he resigned from for reimbursement
  In a sane world the smart thing to do would be to put it into an index fund, but of course with Herr Gröpenfuhrer in charge, chances are SPY tanks again and they'd lose the money

If people can secretly work two simultaneous full time jobs, you can work a different job while collecting the paycheck for the job you left but they won't process the resignation for.
- Apparently not if one paycheck is from the government and the other is from a company that works with the government.
  
  Not works with the government, is regulated by said part of the government. It's a pretty common sense regulation because of the conflict of interest when you could be both overseeing a company and working for it. Same reason presidents before the orange turd have historically placed their assets in a blind trust.

Forwards from Grandma energy

I TOLD you ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS were WASTING Taxpayer Dollars! But he's WHITE and RICH so I DONT CARE! DEPORT BROWN US CITIZENS INSTEAD!