<p>Senior executives are not exempt from the furlough and I’m pretty sure 85% of the government is not still working.</p>
<p>Those are spending percentages. The 83% is entitlement spending (medicare, medicaid and SS) and military expenditures.</p>
<p>Day whatever and still no effect on me or anyone I know. I’m hoping the IRS never comes back.</p>
<p>This has moved from page one of the newspapers to page six or seven around here. </p>
<p>I have no personal impact…yet, but have family members who work in the DC area who are affected.</p>
<p>The pain from the govt shutdown is spilling over to companies with federal contracts. While federal employees will get retroactive pay, federal contractors will not. The 2013 contracts have already been paid, so those contractors are still on the job until their funding runs out (that would include my S1). But those who are counting on 2014 appropriations are not working. I know of several companies with large govt contracts (military, software developers, etc.) that are barely making payroll. The local Whole Foods was offering a “Shutdown Spaghetti Dinner” free to all furloughed government employees. </p>
<p>Senior executives are NOT exempt from the furloughs. We have friends who are SES who currently on furlough.</p>
<p>DH’s agency has 28 people out of 800+ (nationwide) working.</p>
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<p>GGNRA is all federal – I live adjacent to one of the GGNRA parks. The park isn’t gated so hiking trails are all accessible - I took my dogs there yesterday and there weren’t even any signs posted. It seemed like many more people than usual were using the park, but we are also having unusually warm and sunny weather, so maybe it was just a nice day. </p>
<p>GGNRA web site is down except for a notice that the parks are all “closed” but most of the GGNRA parks don’t have a lot in the way of services, so there’s not much to close. Wikipedia still up: [Golden</a> Gate National Recreation Area - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_National_Recreation_Area]Golden”>Golden Gate National Recreation Area - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>(Sorry, I’m just a little irked at the implication that we don’t have many federal parks in California --GGNRA covers 59 miles of bay and ocean shoreline across 3 counties. )</p>
<p>Traffic a bit lighter.</p>
<p>Marian is right. While federal employees will be paid for this time, there will be others who won’t be paid and the longer it lasts, the worse it’ll get. Last night, I had dinner with friends and of course the government shut down was brought up.</p>
<p>I’m directly affected because H is a federal worker (like tens of thousands in Maryland). But two other families were also affected because they were federal contractors. One person can sort of work from home, (usually works on federal property) but he can’t talk to any federal workers he deals with. I don’t know if he’s getting paid our not. Another couple are both federal contractors. The wife had already lost business due to sequestration (remember that? it didn’t go away) and with the shut down had a couple of projects put on hold/probably canceled. That’s money gone. She won’t get it back.</p>
<p>I think these are three very common scenarios regarding the government shutdown and employment.</p>
<p>No one is relaxing during the shut down. It doesn’t matter if we have a financial cushion or not. It’s unsettling to not know when you can return to work.</p>
<p>I am clearly missing something, but whats the purpose of shutting down the websites? There was an article in the local paper about businesses that rely on government websites being unable to function. Why shut the websites down? Are they really that ripe to be hacked or something?</p>
<p>Personally affected ~ I’m buying 1 banana at a time.</p>
<p>I don’t think all websites just run themselves with no human input.</p>
<p>If you’re talking about in order to keep up-to-date, emily, you are correct. A human is needed. </p>
<p>If you’re talking about a website functioning then you are wrong. Websites can run by themselves. A website is just a chunk of codes.</p>
<p>Would those unmanned websites have the ability to turn off the “contact us” function? Otherwise, if unmanned, they would be faced with tens of thousands of emails potentially to answer when they return.</p>
<p>Potentially. :)</p>
<p>They could easily remove one letter from the section of the code pertaining to the “Contact Us” and <em>poof</em> you have a non functioning link. </p>
<p>However, someone would have to do that. If all the offices are shutdown, no one can do that. Shutting down the websites is an easy fix to prevent people from contacting you.</p>
<p>I think there are also costs involved in running a website (however minimal) and since the government is shut down and since most websites are not considered critical they have to go dark.</p>
<p>Dont know who hosts the websites (or if the govt has their own hosting capability), but many are paid as an annual fee. I dont think its like your newspaper delivery (remember those??) where if you do a vacation stop you can get credit added at the end of your subscription.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter. Only government services critical to life and property are allowed to continue when the government shuts down so, for example, NOAA stays up but the Census Bureau shuts down.</p>
<p>^^ Exactly. Government shutdown is was it says it is. The government closes. Things dealing directly with national security and safety stay open but all else closes.</p>
<p>Yes, people are inconvenienced. That’s what happens when the government is closed. You can’t have a no-impact shutdown.</p>
<p>I’m beginning to wonder at what point I should look into getting a second part time job. All of the posturing has me really questioning how long this could last. I can hold out for awhile, but not forever</p>