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I'm a furloughed, federal employee that's been sent home with no pay for a week now. I work at a fish hatchery for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, so if Congress allows for a call back piece mill, like they've been doing so far (they've already called back roughly half of the furloughed employees via the Department of Defense starting Monday), it could be a long, long time before they get to calling back fish hatchery workers, which is approx. an $11 million program nation wide out of a $2 trillion budget.
Until both the House and Senate voted a couple of days ago to pass a bill authorizing back pay once this was all over, I was panicking: both scrambling to find day work; and concurrently checking out the possibility of drawing unemployment, since my next check will be one week for a two week period, and the check after that will be non existent. After a couple of days and some other problems related to trying to get unemployment compensation as a federal employee, I'm finally pretty well set up to receive the maximum amount of compensation to help me get through the non pay period; how ever long that may last.
Here is my dilemma: So far this has been affecting me badly psychologically. I get very little comfort in the fact that I'll most likely get back pay, but at least I don't feel at extreme panic of not knowing if I'll be able to keep the lights on and food on the table. I don't feel comfort, because I want to earn my pay and don't feel like tax payers should pay me for sitting at home, even though it's not my fault.
So...should I treat it like a vacation. Get out and ride, and have a good time; or should I continue to do nothing but sit at home and wait for a call back. Half of our staff is still working with no pay, and in the end, the non-essential workers will get all the pay for no work, and the essential workers will have worked for their back pay. I'm not even allowed to volunteer.
What a mess. What do y'all think?
Until both the House and Senate voted a couple of days ago to pass a bill authorizing back pay once this was all over, I was panicking: both scrambling to find day work; and concurrently checking out the possibility of drawing unemployment, since my next check will be one week for a two week period, and the check after that will be non existent. After a couple of days and some other problems related to trying to get unemployment compensation as a federal employee, I'm finally pretty well set up to receive the maximum amount of compensation to help me get through the non pay period; how ever long that may last.
Here is my dilemma: So far this has been affecting me badly psychologically. I get very little comfort in the fact that I'll most likely get back pay, but at least I don't feel at extreme panic of not knowing if I'll be able to keep the lights on and food on the table. I don't feel comfort, because I want to earn my pay and don't feel like tax payers should pay me for sitting at home, even though it's not my fault.
So...should I treat it like a vacation. Get out and ride, and have a good time; or should I continue to do nothing but sit at home and wait for a call back. Half of our staff is still working with no pay, and in the end, the non-essential workers will get all the pay for no work, and the essential workers will have worked for their back pay. I'm not even allowed to volunteer.
What a mess. What do y'all think?