Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2013 12:39:23 -0400
From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
To: undisclosed-recipients:;
Subject: [WSFA] A point of information about the government shutdown
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

For those that know, just delete - this is for everyone else.

Or rather, several points of information: first, I'd guess somewhere between
a quarter or a third (or more) of the federal workforce are contractors, or
contracting companies' employees. "Salaried" or "exempt" *used* to mean you
got paid a fixed annual wage, regardless of work. These days, if you can't
bill, you don't get paid.

Right now, with the "Tea Party" (and their wealthy backers) shutdown of the
government, and unlike the federal employees who *may* get their pay for
while they were on furlough, we will *NOT* get paid. Right now, I've just
gotten the official notice that my employer is *REQUIRING* me to burn
accrued vacation time, up to a full week. After that, I have the option of
leave without pay.

And I will NEVER get that back.

Oh, and my company's project manager for my team just told us she's been
told to burn vacation time, too.

Second: I've heard twice in the last few days, including on the radio, about
feds "gaming the system", that were offered the status of "essential", so
that they could keep working, and said they'd rather go on furlough, have a
vacation, and expected to get paid after.

This is 100% pure bullshit. Everyone who's "essential" knows whether they
are or not, it's not something that happens on the spur of the moment, and
the *only* folks who are deal with medical, security, or protection of
property... and *no* *one* else. Medical studies? Sorry, shut down. My whole
division, being a research division, is *completely* shut down - not even
our (fed employee) director is "essential". We've just left our servers up
and running, though no one's supposed to log on, and if they go down, oh,
well, we'll fix that when we get back.

mark
--
Avoid the Gates of Hell.  Use Linux -- unknown source