I'm a scientist at a federal facility. We just had a meeting about the potential shutdown today and our Branch Chief said that the shutdown will begin at midnight on Friday. We are not allowed on the base over the weekend. I'm not considered essential, was told that the essential list is extremely short. We expressed concern about our experiments, etc., but were told, "The Government doesn't care."
Congress is apparently working over the weekend and will likely pass another CR on Monday (?). Interestingly, Congress passed a bill ensuring they will get paid during the furlough, even though other civil servants won't. As the poster mentioned below, back pay is unlikely given the current mood of Congress. I'm technically a contractor on soft grant money and will continue to receive pay, as will all other contractors.
If we do go on furlough, we're not allowed to check our email and must shut down all computers, in the lab and any gov't-owned laptops or smartphones at home. Our IT guy said that they're expecting a surge of hacking activity because the little hackers out there think that no one's going to be around to take care of IT security. So the IT guys are on the essential list and will continue business as usual.
I won't mind the break as I'll just be working on papers from home using my personal computer and personal email account. But as the other scientist mentioned, I'm worried about my biological samples that can't go for more than a week without my attention. So if the shutdown extends beyond the weekend, I might have to climb the fence at night and sneak in through a window to check on my samples ;).
[quote]washingtondcwonk wrote:
Last shutdown started in 1995 but ended in 1996. No chance on backpay this time...politically untenable. My gut is that it won't shutdown. Sorry, DC types!
[quote]Runningart2004 wrote: