(via POLAROLL - doiy)
Another ridiculous item that I really really want
1. We do NOT automatically get back pay. Congress has to pass legislation approving it. There is a non-zero chance that we won’t get paid at all.
2. If we apply for unemployment and then get back pay, we have to pay that unemployment money back to the state, with very few exceptions. We are not getting “double salary”.
3. We are not “getting a vacation”. Since we cannot predict when the government will reopen and we’re not bringing in a salary, most of us are sitting around trying not to spend money on anything but the essentials, anxiously awaiting word that we can return to our jobs. It is not relaxing or fun.
4. We cannot legally do ANY work during the shutdown unless we are excepted employees, and then we can only do necessary duties. That means that I legally cannot communicate with colleagues, write papers, conduct research that will protect lives and property, distribute publications that the taxpayers paid me to write about volcanic hazards, talk with the media about subjects in which I have expertise, etc. Zero. Zip. Nada. My scientific career has basically come to a grinding halt.
5. If we get another job during a shutdown, the ethics rules we’re legally bound to follow mean that it cannot be in anything related to the expertise for which we are federally employed. That means other jobs we could qualify for in the interim are likely going to be lower-paying and insufficient to cover the expenses that we’ve normally planned for.
6. Federal contract workers may never get paid for the time they cannot work during the shutdown, since their employers are under zero obligation to give them backpay. They are often the lowest-paid people in our workplaces to begin with, and shutdowns hurt them immensely.
maikohkaiowas