<p>I’m a fed, and my agency is closed. I went in for a few hours this morning to close things down.</p>
<p>My husband is also a fed, but he is excepted. He will work throughout the shutdown but won’t get paid until it’s over.</p>
<p>We have savings that I hope will stretch for howevet long this mess lasts. I put the chance of back pay for furloughed employees at about 0%.</p>
<p>Putting aside the lost income, I really just want to be able to do my job. I truly believe in my agency’s mission, I work hard, and I am very good at what I do. I take great pride in my service to the American people, and I resent the hell out of this situation. Of course, it’s just the latest episode in a long demonization of federal workers. </p>
<p>Sorry, that got long. As you might guess, I’m a little stressed and emotional right now.</p>
<p>I have seen posts on many sites saying Congress should not be paid during a shutdown. Without debating that particular point the fact is they cannot shut off their own pay. See the 27th Amendment.</p>
<p>Yes, but my understanding is that many Congressional staffers are federal government employees and they will be furloughed. They aren’t “essential.” Ditto for many White House employees.</p>
<p>Please see post #2. I have had to delete three off-topic posts now. I think this thread is of interest to a lot of people, but I’m done editing. No more political or off-topic posts, please!!</p>
<p>To remind people of the topic, here is the question in the OP:</p>
<p>“Is the shutdown affecting you personally?”</p>
<p>When the government shut down 17 years ago, I was at a scientific conference. They made the announcement in the convention center to ask all NIH people to leave the conference and go home. Many of them do not work locally and need to change their ticket and check out their hotel early otherwise they cannot reimburse the cost. More interesting, my friend was not even allow to stay on his own expenses. It is a total waste of money and resources.</p>
<p>There is almost always a silver lining in these types of situations. Federal employees are not losing their jobs and will probably be paid retroactively as they have in the past. They are getting some time to spend with their families or at home getting other things done. The national parks get a rest. People may be learning a lot more about the necessity of government services than they knew before, and how our government works. They can resolve to work to change it if they don’t like it. They may be learning firsthand that it is important to save 3 month’s worth of expenses like they’ve always been told. This is not a doomsday scenario. It has happened 17 times before, so there’s no excuse to be surprised about it. When one door closes, another one opens. Good things may come of this as well.</p>
<p>@billcsho
My BF is currently abroad and they deemed him ‘excepted’ since it was cheaper to keep him there until his return date next week versus fly him back to the USA and then fly him back abroad to finish his trip</p>
<p>Colleagues on a project are under furlough, so if this stretches on they’ll have to sneak into work. We went through this 18 years ago on another similar project; in that case, some of those furloughed folks ended up having to sneak into their offices to get crucial work done. Shhh, don’t tell. </p>
<p>H is off at least for now. Last time it happened he was paid retroactively. He planned to be off Thur and Fri anyway so if this still going on he’ll get to use those days some other time.</p>
<p>The stock market was down a little bit yesterday in anticipation of the shutdown. Now that it’s shutdown, the market is up by about the same amount. It looks life will go on with some of the federal employees not getting paid.</p>
<p>I may make a trip this weekend to either Sequoia or Yosemite after all. The House is voting to re-open the national parks which the AP said will pass. With people cancelling their plans there should be space open at the lodges for the weekend at the last minute.</p>
<p>My sister works for the FDA and that was her description. They were required to stay for 4 hours and were told they wouldn’t receive any pay retroactively. She said the main reason for having them come in was to sign a furlough notice. If they didn’t sign it today, they wouldn’t be allowed back on the job when this gets resolved. With everyone changing their phone messages at the same time, their phone system crashed. Out of the 8 homes in her cul-de-sac, 5 work for the federal goverment or are government contractors.</p>
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