Government shutdown?

rainstar752

Is anyone else going to be affected by this if it happens?  I'm a federal employee, so I won't get paid- I'm mostly just irritated that they're not going to pay even the military and yet Congress still gets paid.  Also, I'm already going to have to take a month of unpaid leave for maternity leave (I only have 5 weeks paid) so I could really use the income right now.  Argh!

supermom83

It's ridiculous I agree. Hubby is a federal employee too and I am a SAHM so his income is our only income. 

This situation is just unacceptable.  

LauraOTR

Yes, DH works tech. help desk for the government, and if they are shut down, his work is making employees take leave without pay or vacation. He said his work did say they may keep on a couple "essential" employees, but that's only if the client says they may still need people. DH is thinking that he might be picked as an "essential" employee due to his knowledge and experience, but who knows.

Basically, this will affect. 1. His leave after baby is born, if he has to use it all up for this crap, and/or 2. my ability to take some extra time off after my 12 weeks is up. I was going to take an additional 4-6 weeks without pay, but if DH has to take time w/o pay, I won't be able to do that, because we'll have to use up the money we saved for my leave.

Not happy.

mesr

i will also be affected by the shutdown as a gov. contractor.  if my customers are not designated essential, i'll have to start using up the leave that i'd been saving for my maternity leave...  i'm really unhappy about the situation.

yack & nally

My mom is a government employee.  She has been for over 25 years.  She is going to have to deal with the same ***.  I can't believe they do this to their help...well, being that is is the government, unfortunately, I can believe it   So sorry.

3Girls3xsTheFun

I think I'm the only person who wouldn't mind a few days off! H and I work for the same Dept. but he is a manager (essential) and I am a regular worker (non-essential). So, if we shut down he still has to go in & I will be home!

The last 2 times this happened (once in the late 90's for 27 days) everyone was paid once the budget was passed. I'm confident they will pay us again if we are put on furlough. So, I'll be happy to take a few free days off.

As for the pp who's husband is allowed to take vacation time, we were just sent a memo form the big boss Hillary today telling us we don't even have the option to take annual (vacation) leave during the shut down. If the gov't is shut down you are technically unemployed, and if it lasts longer than 1 week AND they don't offer back pay once a budget is passed, the memo said we can collect unemployment from the state we work in for the time that we were out of work.

I'm not getting my hopes up... word on the street is that they will have another week long continuing resolution and figure it out next week.

LauraOTR

3Girls3xsTheFun:

I think I'm the only person who wouldn't mind a few days off! H and I work for the same Dept. but he is a manager (essential) and I am a regular worker (non-essential). So, if we shut down he still has to go in & I will be home!

The last 2 times this happened (once in the late 90's for 27 days) everyone was paid once the budget was passed. I'm confident they will pay us again if we are put on furlough. So, I'll be happy to take a few free days off.

As for the pp who's husband is allowed to take vacation time, we were just sent a memo form the big boss Hillary today telling us we don't even have the option to take annual (vacation) leave during the shut down. If the gov't is shut down you are technically unemployed, and if it lasts longer than 1 week AND they don't offer back pay once a budget is passed, the memo said we can collect unemployment from the state we work in for the time that we were out of work.

I'm not getting my hopes up... word on the street is that they will have another week long continuing resolution and figure it out next week.

DH doesn't actually work for the government. He works for a company that works for the government. I guess that's how to describe it...he's not technically a "government employee" so I assume that's why they said he is able to take leave? 

mesr

3Girls3xsTheFun:

As for the pp who's husband is allowed to take vacation time, we were just sent a memo form the big boss Hillary today telling us we don't even have the option to take annual (vacation) leave during the shut down.

we got this memo too -- while i b*tch about my situation having to take leave if my customers are deemed non-essential, i really feel sorry for them that they won't even have that option.  i agree with pp that this is a really crappy way to treat loyal employees.

LoriD10

Unfortunately yes. DH is in the Marine Corps so thankfully if they do end up in a Government Shutdown we'll get back pay but for the meantime this is a situation that would hurt us. Especially with a child on the way. It is a very unacceptable solution seeing as they should have had this budget figured out and agreed upon last October!

kas80

My husband works for the government but is an essential employee, so eventually we'll get his back pay.  It's just a pain for half of our income to be delayed, especially right now.  The other huge pain is that essential employees cannot take any form of leave.  If they are scheduled to work they have to or they are considered AWOL, so we'll just have to hope nothing happens with the baby while this is going on or I'll be on my own.