Posted on 12/22/2018 8:10:58 AM PST by Java4Jay
There are essential and non-essential federal employees. During a shutdown the non-essential do not report to work while the essential MUST or risk termination. Neither group receives pay while the shutdown is in effect. When it's all settled and everyone gets their back pay, the non-essential group received paid days off while the ones that were required to report for duty got shafted.
Hmmmm, I work on a military base so I wonder if it works differently for me.
Why don't the non-essential employees each get custody of 2 illegals with the responsibility of feeding, clothing, educating, and providing living space in their homes?
A few years back my wife and I counted all the years we cut back, hunkered down, denied the family vacations and other nice things and braced ourselves for being unemployed because the business was doing poorly. The count? More than half the years I have been working. Many years I worked and the family went on vacation because we were so short handed and I had survived a layoff. After I finally did get laid off in the crash of ‘98 and hung out my shingle I went for 15 years without a single day of vacation. Praise be the kids were grown and off to college.
My Dad was civil service and my Mom a teacher. We didn’t have such conversations in our house when I was growing up. Recessions and layffs were for other people. Dad respectfully and gently explained this to us. His Dad had worked for Fisher Body, kept a job most of the time but my Dad grew up hard in the Depression.
The oil industry cut back so far they were making soup out of our bones between 1986 and 2002. There was no fat left and only the slightest bit of muscle. There were multiple layoffs in some years. Even if you were top rated you never knew when a vendetta would be exercised against you.
Shirley you must be kidding.
Same with me, may vary by Commander.
when the GHWB funeral day was declared a national holiday, all non-essential fed employees got the day off. my daughter, an essential fed employee, had to work ... but got paid double-time.
My spouse is a federal contractor, nonessential though useful.
We’d rather go without pay for a day or week or month than have the long-term social costs of endless migration and entitlements.
We have an emergency fund even if he’s unpaid, period, for that time. It matters more that we get the wall built, entitlements cut, and other reforms. It will affect the taxes we pay in 20 years.
One of my beefs with unions is that they simultaneously claim that their jobs are terrible, on the one hand, and that they are entitled to keep them forever, on the other.The logical position for a union to take is that the job is terrible and nobody should have to take it. So if you are in a union, the union’s position should be that you should be looking for - and training for - a better job elsewhere. That is what would maximize labor’s bargaining power.
But I agree that the nature of time is that your potential tends to narrow. When you’re in school you make choices as to what - and to what extent - you study. Looked at negatively, those choices narrow your choices going forward. If you go to college, deciding to study mechanical engineering means you are not studying electrical engineering - let alone majoring in liberal arts or . . . whatever. Graduate college with an engineering degree, and there are lots of jobs on offer - but take one of them, and spend some time in it, and you gain experience, and expect to get paid for your experience. Which is more applicable to the job you are in than to most of the jobs being advertised for engineers.
IMHO the highest value an educator could add would be to help the young to have a good perspective on what they are choosing not to learn.
You posted: “And if one is a “non-essential” employee (the term FedGov uses to describe them ....) then exactly why does that job exist?”
Under the Federal rules, the folks who do the daily work of the government departments are considered ‘non-essential’ when these squabbles come up and only limited amount of maintenance personnel are declared ‘essential’ so that they can keep the building heat on, insure there are no water leaks, and that the building guard will be there to provide protection for the empty building.
For example, the employees of the Social Security administration who process new applications, resolve problems (I know that this seems to be rarely done), and other daily work to get the checks out are considered “non-essential,” while the maintenance crew and the building security folks are considered “essential.”
Screwy, ain’t it.
I am Spartacus.
See my post #149 for an explanation of “non-essential” employee.
From a 2011 article on NPR, of all places, during an Obama government shutdown:
“Still, with so many federal agencies deemed essential, it’s unclear whether most Americans will even notice if the government is shut down.”
https://www.npr.org/2011/04/07/135199130/essential-vs-not-which-jobs-are-exempt-to-shutdown
My daughter is a federal contractor. So no pay and no back pay
See posts 90 and 149 for explanations of how the determination of essential vs non-essential is made. In using the restaurant example, if there was a temporary closing of the restaurant the janitor and night watchman would be considered essential to protect the value of the property, the people who do the actual work of taking food orders, cooking and serving the food are considered ‘non-essential’ because the restaurant is temporarily closed for daily business.
All those risks?
I have a running joke I tell: Love working for myself but my boss sexually abuses me! :/
Thanks for the explanation, and yes - very screwy. Still, have to chuckle at the FedGov’s usage of “non-essential.” That’s what opens up the discussion for comments like mine (and the ensuing jokes that would likely follow.)
I understand — but I bet you feel like that everyday as you see all the non-productive slugs around you. You are probably in the 15-20% that does all the work.
The entitlement mindset a work.
One year, instead of cash bonuses, I gave my employees frozen turkeys. The response was always, “Thank you.” But when I gave them a cash bonus, it was always, “It that all?”
Being asked to report for duty in service to your country is being shafted? The private sector is calling you, Shirley.
Imagine how much progress there would be in getting the wall built if all of the non-essential employees were given a trowel, some bricks and mortar and told to report to the border? Hang in there.
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