<p>Well the aftermath of the '95 shutdown was a set of budgets that lead to a surplus in a couple of years.</p>
<p>
Now you have a goal to work towards.</p>
<p>There are many high COL areas in our country, I live in one of the highest. Our S understands that an emergency/rainy day fund is NOT optional and has proceeded accordingly. He’s been at his job for just over two years but has done of good job of living well below his income and saving a lot.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If nothing comes of it, then you are probably right. If negotiations happen and future reduced spending results, it could have a positive outcome.</p>
<p>Just tried to access IPEDS for one of the threads and realized the website was shutdown. Minor complaint, but grr…</p>
<p>Well now here’s an inconvenience… DS’s gf is furloughed, and is locked out of her email. She is scheduled to finish her gov’t fellowship mid month and transition to a FT employee of the agency where she’s been doing her fellowship. The agency is not a govt agency. And, once she is no longer a gov’t employee she loses access to her govt email. So, if the furlough continues past the date she rolls off as a federal employee and onto the private sector, she may lose all her emails, contacts, etc. That seriously sucks.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That was never an issue. There is no way that Congress would not have paid everyone, including their staffs and the federal courts, for the furlough days. Paid vacation. Win-win.</p>
<p>JYM,
Is there anyone that the gf is friendly with who can help her with this? If she shares her user name and password, maybe the friend can help access her account and print out her contacts, UNLESS you need the gold cat card to access her specific account. That’s one thing H did before he retired from his federal job, figured out how to print out his contacts list. Something for the gf to consider in any case. Once H was fully retired, he totally loss access.</p>
<p>
This is not what the people on furlough think about this. They want to go to work. And it’s not like many of them can take a real vacation right now, because their kids are in school and their spouses are working.</p>
<p>All the federal employees we know WANT to be working and are anxious about the many things that will be made more difficult by the shutdown and re-start. The federal employees we know are NOT happy to be prevented from doing their jobs and concerned about things piling up in their absences and hardship to the public and those they work with.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about other agencies, but I am pretty sure DOD employees have not been allowed to accrue any comp time since mid-June; they are limited to 8 hour day. So even if they go back to work, they aren’t getting paid any overtime involved in catchup work. Most of the ones I know work 10-12 hour days anyway.</p>
<p>Yes, as a federal retiree, H saw his working hours stretch over his 45 years from close to a “normal 8-10 hour day,” 5 days a week to working up to 15+ hours, including weekends as more and more folks retired or lost their positions and no one was hired to fill them. When he left, they had to get 4 people to do the work he did alone, and also have contractors fill the gaps that they can’t get done. He rarely ever put in for comp time for the many, many, many extra hours he put in, but thankfully he loved his job and liked most of the folks he worked with.</p>
<p>
You can certainly have an enjoyable time off from with without your spouse and kids.</p>
<p>And not all have young kids. Or spouses. S’s gf got her car fixed. And put a grill together ;)</p>
<p>The fed employees did not create the situation they find themselves in and had no control over the current situation and had no control over whether or not they will be compensated while this shutdown exists/persists. Don’t see anger at the furloughed or working essential federal employees as constructive at all.</p>
<p>I’m not seeing any anger directed at the federal ee’s at all, Himom. Some of us actually worked for the federal gov’t in the decade (80-90), when there were 9 furloughs within 10 years. Back then, supervisors would simply roll their eyes and tell everyone to go home. No one worried that it wouldn’t end, because it always did. No one worried that they wouldn’t get paid, because they always did. There is absolutely no reason to believe it will be any different this time.</p>
<p>There are “digs”/“barbs” about the “free vacation” the federal employees are getting. I know I’m ambivalent about that, personally. Actually, this time around, the circles I frequent expressed some uncertainty about whether those who were not allowed to go to work would get compensated. Recent legislation Saturday has put that issue to rest.</p>
<p>I think some are cynical that govt ees are getting paid vacations on their dime, but they are not blaming those ees for it.</p>
<p>
The issue is that the emails are currently inaccessable. At least thats what I was led to believe (could be wrong). It would certainly be no problem for her to give her email info to someone else, but everyone in her fellowship program is in the same predicament. I imagine she can get a former supervisor to help out if it comes to that. The place she is working is where she’s been doing her fellowship- shes currently a paid federal employee but when the fellowship ends in a week or so she’ll be in the same location, but now as a private sector employee. They cant access the fed govts emails.</p>
<p>Yes, contractors don’t get the same rights and privileges as federal employees, which is one reason H refused to be re-hired as a contractor. After decades as a federal employee he already knew what things he wouldn’t be allowed to do as a contractor and that chafed him just thinking about it. Let’s all cross our fingers that things are resolved sooner rather than later so losses will end and people can do their jobs.</p>