Am I the only officially furloughed employee that has to report to work today?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WAMU just interviewed a woman this morning who had to go in to work to change her voicemail message for her "orderly shutdown"

They also spoke about daycares in federal offices that were closed. This is a problem for the non-fed parents who have kids in federal daycares, because those parents still have to work!

Traffic is lighter however, so yes, lots of people are staying home today.

That was not my experience during the last shutdown. We had to keep paying for daycare whether or not we used it. This was precisely because there were people who still needed it because not every employee was a fed or a furloughed fed. in addition the daycare workers were not feds and would be facing a more dire hardship since they would not be eligible for back pay once the budget passed. I had no problem paying. Those workers care for our children and unlike us, didnt get paid if they didnt work.

That was exactly my experience last shutdown--the daycare was closed, but both I and my spouse had to work (I was an excepted fed, he is not a fed). The daycare was closed because the building was closed (financially, they could have stayed open, since they are funded by tuition, but they were not allowed to be there), and I think they ended up remitting tuition for half the shutdown. I didn't mind paying for part of the time we didn't actually use, but it was a huge hassle.

[Anonymous]

So we were told we had to come in regardless of our status as exempt or non-exempt, but it was really weird because no one said anything to us at all this morning about shutdown procedure. At 10 am we are told that our agency is actually open for at least this pay period. A welcome surprise, but what a cluster.

[Anonymous]

Emailed Director ( had to forward the email about my acknowledgement of the shutdown) and change my voicemail and out of office from home.

Off to Carmine’s in a few!

[Anonymous]

So now that it looks as if shutdown is over. Does anyone know what forms we have to spend filling out tomorrow?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the problem with going into to work to get better guidance. All these questions about should I go in or not is really ridiculous. Just admit, you don’t want to go to work.

I went in this morning. There was no better guidance. They have no idea, besides remembering what was done during the 2013 shutdown.

Orderly shutdown my a@@. No ne has any idea what is going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe adults function like this. It's so incredibly prescriptive!

It really is. But it’s the nature of being a govt employee. You are accountable to the public and the public (in the form of their elected officials) tell you how to meet that public responsibility. We already get so many threads about lazy entitled feds. What do you think the perception would be if we weren’t told how to handle a govt shutdown?