Furloughs: Fed Employees in the DMV area (Fairfax: inspection, food)

[mikecart1]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

I hope you're joking but fear you might not be!

No it's been like that for most of this year lol. I thought everyone was like this? We ran out of soap last week so someone brought a bar of soap for everyone to share. He broke it up into 10 pieces so we all had a small section of soap to use LOL.

It sucks!

[Forehead]

I work for a sub-agency under Homeland Security. We got Notices back on March 7th though haven't had anything official handed out yet. Our notice said the intention was for all employees to be furloughed not more than 14 days, or 112 work hours. This is supposed to occur between April 21 and September 30, which is something like 23 weeks, so it looks like it won't actually be a "one day a week" thing.

It won't be fun, but hopefully we can manage.

Oh, and Mike...what you describe sucks. To this point, the folks who clean the bathrooms, vacuum, etc. have been here every day, we haven't gone as far as your agency apparently has.

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by mikecart1

No it's been like that for most of this year lol. I thought everyone was like this? We ran out of soap last week so someone brought a bar of soap for everyone to share. He broke it up into 10 pieces so we all had a small section of soap to use LOL.

It sucks!

Sorry to hear that!

We've been told to stop a lot of printing when possible, and most travel and training has been put on hold. But nothing as picayune as what your place is doing.

It's so absurd that the Smithsonian is not doing furloughs at all, but things related to national security are getting cut.

[oneasterisk]

Our group has been told we're not going to go through furloughs. We'll see if they sick to that. I'm cautiously optimistic but I've got some reserves saved in case something changes.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

It's so absurd that the Smithsonian is not doing furloughs at all, but things related to national security are getting cut.

Demand for the Smithsonian's services have gone up while national security concerns are kind of on the wane, so this isn't surprising. Defense spending has lost support on both sides of the aisle with the tea party returning to its roots in the Taft/America Firster wing of the Republican party. The right seems willing to sell defense down the river in exchange for lower taxes.

[South Jersey Styx]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

It's so absurd that the Smithsonian is not doing furloughs at all, but things related to national security are getting cut.

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Demand for the Smithsonian's services have gone up while national security concerns are kind of on the wane, so this isn't surprising. Defense spending has lost support on both sides of the aisle with the tea party returning to its roots in the Taft/America Firster wing of the Republican party. The right seems willing to sell defense down the river in exchange for lower taxes.

The Smithsonian never received tens of millions of dollars to support something like a war (or was it 2-3 wars?). Furthermore, they have already been getting fed cuts to their budgets in the last few years. Also, the Smithsonian is not a "purely" federal agency. They have Trust Funds which operate similarly to a federal system but are not federal $.

[mikecart1]

Furloughed delayed by 2 weeks!

[DefenderRoute1]

Yay!

[lqda4]

I am tired of all these theatrical resolutions. Bring it on and balance the budget!

[ChristineVA]

Originally Posted by mikecart1

Furloughed delayed by 2 weeks!

Same here. I wonder if there is new language in the continuing resolution that allows each department to have more flexibility with the sequestration so they can now avoid furloughs. I guess we shall see.