Furlough Fun

[Jay 2K Winger]

So, as of midnight, October 1, 2013, the US Government shut down over funding bill debates. (If you want to open up that barrel of cats, take it to Fratching.) This leaves many government employees and contractors on furlough until it is resolved.

I, as I've mentioned, work on a government contract with The Client, but earlier this week, before the shutdown took place, I was informed that I had been deemed "essential personnel" and it would be business as usual for me.

Not all of my coworkers were so lucky. As witnessed by this exchange that took place between me and my CW "Tone" on IM yesterday:

Tone: Govt shut down = More GTA ??
J2K: Not for me
J2K: <-- Essential personnel
Tone:
J2K: ...(so full of hate)...

Then later in the day, Tone found out that, as he is not "essential personnel," he has to use up his leave since he's not working. That wiped the smirk off his face.

Apart from that, most of my day today has been handling the usual kind of IT calls, but some of them are issues that are probably going to take longer to resolve, since more of the IT folks who would normally handle it are on furlough.

[Ophbalance]

Count me in as another casualty as a contractor to the FEDs. So much fun.

[Javarod]

So far as far as i know i'm safe, i do bulk mail deliveries to Postal Offices along with picking up loose returns (56901 mail for those in the know). Far as i know, Post Office isn't closing any time soon, so i'm safe, but...

[Arcus]

Because the Post Office is self funded, they don't have to worry about little things like the fed shutting down... Not bringing in enough to pay their bills from postage is a bigger worry.

[bhskittykatt]

I was worried about my dad since he works for a NASA contractor. Since he provides support for the ISS he's considered essential...for now, anyway. Apparently the contractor he works for is paying the furloughed employees for time off because they are awesome like that, so for at least the short term they're in a good spot. (Dad was apparently slightly disappointed he wasn't sent home for the paid time off.)

[AccountingDrone]

Haven't been able to get a straight answer about whether or not Rob's military retirement pension will be paid out or not - that is our mortgage money, so if I vanish it is because we cut off the cable/internet to save a few bucks. I also don't know if Tri-care will be picking up my meds this week or not ... and we really don't happen to have a couple thousand bucks to manage to get the damned things if we can't get them at the base dispensary. I do know if my health suffers, I may try suing some of the damned representatives who voted to put us in this pickle. You may not be able to sue the government without permissiom, but I sure as fuck can sue a private individual.

[thatcrazyredhead]

Haven't been able to get a straight answer about whether or not Rob's military retirement pension will be paid out or not - that is our mortgage money, so if I vanish it is because we cut off the cable/internet to save a few bucks.

I don't know about retirement pension, but I did read that the VA will be out of money if this goes on for more than a couple of weeks. Hubs gets disability, and it's a decent chunk of our income. Great timing, what with me getting fired and all.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Furlough Problems, Continued...

So I took a call on day one of the furlough from a Luser at Very Important Facility. Luser needs what I'll dub a "log in key." Basically a little device that would give him access to Secure Network (SecNet) from non-Client facilities. (I'm vastly simplifying, for the purposes of obfuscation.)

Problem is, the way to get one of these SecNet Keys is to submit a "change" ticket through Catalog Services, i.e. not something that ITSD handles. (Despite Catalog Services' intranet site saying we do.) Compounding issues are the facts that A-- Catalog Services was almost guaranteed to be running on minimal staff due to the furlough as it is, and B-- it was after the "closing hour" when CS' staff would have gone home anyway!

Being that Luser was at VIF, I sent up a trouble ticket to see if there was any way we could get around CS, and my supervisor Gobber picked up the ticket. Gobber turned to me and laughed a bit, "He needs a Log-In Key? Good luck with that today..." but he handled the ticket from there.

Fast-forward to today, two days later. I walk in and go to put my stuff at my desk before putting my dinner in the fridge, and see a little confab going on by the Service Managers' desk. Gobber is involved, and I overhear people mentioning "he's at the Very Important Facility." This pricks my ears up a bit, and a little while later, Gobber calls someone up and advises them to "come down to [Client Facility], to [our room number] and go up to the desk, and we can figure out what we're going to do about this. ...No, it's not usually this difficult to get it done, it's just, due to the furlough... all right. Have a nice day."

I turned around and asked Gobber, "Was that the guy who needed the Log-In Key?"

Gobber: "Yeah. I mis-read the ticket when you sent it up, I sent it up to [Non-Secure Network] Ops, I didn't realize it was for SecNet, which needs a change ticket." We both sort of shook our heads, both knowing that thanks to the furlough, it would have taken a long time to get taken care of, even if Gobber had handled it correctly the first time around.

Bonus Story

Took a call last night from User A, who needed to submit an Outage Ticket. Outage Tickets are put in to track maintenance work and other work within the servers and networks and so on that might cause an outage. These tickets are usually submitted through [Old Ticket System] (OTS) as opposed to the current Trouble Ticket System (TTS). Problem was, User A doesn't have access to OTS.

J2K: "And there's no one else in your office that does have access to OTS?"
UA: "Not today, they've all been sent home because of the furlough."
J2K: "Okay, well, I still have some access to OTS, let me see if it'll let me submit an Outage Ticket. Can I get your ID#?"
UA: "Actually, it's for my boss, can I give you hers?"
J2K: "I actually need yours too, as the person calling this in--"
UA: "Tell you what, let me go talk to her and have her call you back."
J2K: "All right. My direct line is [number]."

I wait a few minutes, and User B calls up, and it transpires that she doesn't have access to OTS either. Hooray for furlough sending home the people who actually do have this access.

We fast run into a problem, however. While OTS does allow me to create a new Outage Ticket, I have no idea how to fill it out. Outage Tickets are not created by ITSD, they're usually created by the teams who actually do the work on the servers/networks/etc. I admitted this to UB, who said, "No problem. Let me ask around here, and see if I can find someone who does have the right access."

Later that evening, I got an IM from UB, who told me she got the Outage Ticket taken care of, and thanked me for the assistance in any case.

[wolfie]

Sounds like the "above your pay grade" people who made the decision as to who is and who isn't essential personnel are the "wetware" equivalent of a certain backup generator that worked during routine testing but failed in a power outage.

For various logistical reasons, the generator was mounted on the roof of a high-rise building, and the fuel tank was in the basement. To get the fuel from the tank to the generator, they had a pump. The pump was driven by an electric motor. I'm sure you can see the problem.

[Chromatix]

Yeah, I see *two* problems:

1) Without power, no fuel flow - unless there's a header tank which is merely refilled from downstairs, and the pump is connected to the generator. (Some small shunting locomotives use a gravity feed from a small header tank in this way, but the refill from the main tank is via a hand pump, which needs to be operated vigorously about once an hour. The rise is only about six feet though, not sixty stories.)

2) If the basement is flooded, the pump will most likely be shorted out. It's also possible that the fuel itself will become contaminated, depending on how well sealed the tank is.

[wolfie]

#1 was the problem they ran into. During testing, it worked fine because there was grid power to run the pump. Whoever designed it didn't put in a header tank big enough to run the generator until it could start taking load, at which point the pump in the basement would have power. Naturally, in a power failure, there's no grid power, so the fuel pump didn't have electricity, so the generator didn't have fuel, so it wouldn't start.

[mhkohne]

2) If the basement is flooded, the pump will most likely be shorted out. It's also possible that the fuel itself will become contaminated, depending on how well sealed the tank is.

Judging from New York in Sandy, they don't tend to be sealed, so after the flood, you have contaminated fuel, all over the room where you keep the tank.

[Javarod]

Because the Post Office is self funded, they don't have to worry about little things like the fed shutting down... Not bringing in enough to pay their bills from postage is a bigger worry.

Nods, "Yep, since found that out, much to my relief. My work doesn't pay much, below minimum wage on a bad day, but its better than nothing, and we need the money."

[Jay 2K Winger]

Welp, as it turns out, I am being impacted by the furlough. Instead of working five days a week, I'm now only working three until the furlough is over, or unless I hear otherwise from my managers.

On top of that, The Client has decided to start bringing staff back on in order to continue doing their job (any further details will violate CS.com Policy and the terms of the contract) so there are now more people on hand at The Client...

...but not at the IT Service Desk. This means when I came back from my forced two days off (which I had to credit to "leave" on my timecard this week), there's still only three of us at the ITSD, and only two of us taking calls. (ITSD Person #3 is busy paring down our massive queue of self-submitted tickets from the intranet site.)

The calls keep rolling in, and part of me weeps, because I know that while these users may think their issues are Uber Importantses And Needs Ta Be Addressed NAO, the fact is, a lot of the support staff that would do it have been furloughed.

Sigh.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Annnnnd I just got furloughed.

Team Lead came by and had just spoken with the managers. They're rotating in some of the other IT Service Desk employees who have been on furlough to work the next couple of weeks, and putting me and the others who have been working on furlough.

I still have leave time to use up, plus 40 hours of un-used holiday time which have been authorized to be used... particularly since the holiday time is "use it or lose it," as opposed to my leave time.