KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - As President Donald Trump continues to cut the federal workforce in an effort to downsize the government, a Kansas City man is one of many federal workers who was laid off. He said the unknown caused a lot of ups and downs for him.

In March 2024, Jason Buck left his job with FedEx to work for the General Services Administration (GSA ) as a Program Support Specialist.

“I loved everything about it. The work-life balance was what I was looking for,” said Former GSA employee Jason Buck.

In that role, he helped keep track of where Government license plates were needed for vehicles used by federal agencies.

“I felt like it would be something that I could go into and work till I retire; that was kind of the goal,” said Buck.

In December 2024, he was promoted to Fleet Service Representative and started to train for vehicles that were in Nebraska.

“In that role, I was going to be assigned a specific set of customers or agencies,” said Buck. He added, “Any expenses for maintenance, like I would have to decide whether that got billed to GSA or to the specific agency.”

“Congratulations, Jason, I am big-time proud of you and couldn’t be more thrilled you are staying with the GSA Fleet family!!

Never hesitate to reach out and I look forward to hearing more great things!!”

“It really tied in with my previous work at FedEx. We did a lot of maintenance on our trucks, managed our fleet of delivery vans, and now here I am managing a fleet of government vehicles, so I was really excited to get going on that,” said Buck.

On February 13, Buck was getting ready for bed when his phone buzzed.

“Every time your phone email buzzed, there was a little bit of hesitation like is this it? Is this the email that tells me I don’t have a job anymore?” said Buck.

It was. An email titled: Buck, Jason W - Notice of Employment Termination. In the email, there was a termination letter labeled with his first role at GSA: Program Support Specialist.

He met with his bosses via Zoom the next day to clarify his questions.

“I was very much unsure if I was getting fired from a position I no longer had, or if I was getting fired just because I had less than one year and they pretty much confirmed that it didn’t matter, HR hadn’t moved me over from one department to the other,” said Buck.

Getting that email at 9:17 p.m. wasn’t easy for him. It left him feeling angry.

“I’d like to say that I was surprised, but I really wasn’t, but I didn’t get a lot of sleep that night,” said Buck.

He said no one had a real answer as to why he was being fired, except that he was still on probation. That was set to end in March.

“The way it is set up, they (probationary employees) are kind of low-hanging fruit; they are easy to get rid of you don’t have a lot of appeal rights or processes,” said Buck.

That didn’t make things any easier for him or any of the others who were laid off.

“Here I am hitting the reset button,” said Buck. He added, “The Government does a lot for everybody on a day-to-day basis. I know the stereotype is they are just remote workers that do their laundry and nothing ever gets done, and that is just not the case.”

He wonders how the government will continue to operate with less staff.

“We are losing very talented people across the country with a lot of knowledge and a lot of time and sacrifice to do right by the American people and I just don’t know how you recover from this and that may seem grim but it is like a sports team getting rid of all their best players and then expecting to go win a game,” said Buck.

He felt he was doing everything right in his position.

“I go to work every day just like anybody else whether it is public sector or private sector. I mean, are there parts of the government that probably could be trimmed? Yeah, maybe using a scalpel instead of a chainsaw would be the way to do it,” said Buck.

He wants to see more of being your ‘brother’s keeper’ and taking care of each other, he feels there isn’t enough of that.

“I mean, ultimately for the country, I hope they are right. I hope everything they are doing works out cause then you know maybe the world would be a better place to live, but am I skeptical of that? Yes,” said Buck. He went on to say, “I want this to be a better country, I want it to be good, I want it to be all of the things that people deserve but people don’t deserve to just lose their jobs, people don’t deserve to just lose their healthcare.”

Buck is now in the process, like many others, of trying to find a new role somewhere else.