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Thread: One Month Government Shutdown - How Much?

  1. #11
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    Default build the wall

    They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
    “As a general rule, the earlier you recognize someone is trying to kill you, the better off you’ll be.”

    "You think a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a sheet of glass."



  2. #12
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    Here's the downside to the shutdown.

    With Government Shut Down, Citizens Forced To Interfere In Their Own Lives
    Satire

    https://babylonbee.com/news/with-gov...heir-own-lives
    Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.
    I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.

    “Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.”
    Gandalf the Grey

    People with ethics have little use for the state. Conversely, the state has little use for people with ethics.

    My Disqus channel:

    https://disqus.com/by/PierreBezukhov1812/

  3. #13
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    It disappoints me to hear or read that people call it a "shut down".
    I am sure that less than 15 percent of the government is shut down
    and or some are not going to receive their portion of stolen wealth.

    A piece of good news, if true, is that the fiction movie company
    called NASA is also shut down.
    That is a savings of 55 to 58 million dollars per day.

  4. #14
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    I'm an Air Traffic Controller and I am affected this shutdown. I'm actually "furloughed" this time because I just transferred to a new airport before the shutdown. If you are not certified at any position you are furloughed. So I timed this transfer just right! But now I live where I always wanted to. Anyway...

    The shutdown without a doubt costs the government more money than if it kept running. We were going to send some controllers to learn how to be trainers at a facility a few hours away. Hotels and everything was already paid for, now a shutdown, and it's cancelled, the money wasted! Not to mention people get pissed they're not getting paid (particularly union) and we have to call in overtime-which will likely get paid for. With all of the cancelled classes, backlogged programs, and just wasted time the shutdown costs a lot.

    I don't like being furloughed because I can't go and train at my new tower, I'm wasting time. Can't go home to see family because I have to be back the day we reopen, which could be tomorrow as far as I know. I have savings but I'm doing part time stuff just in case I don't get back paid.

    All that being said I hope to see a wall out of this. I am still glad Trump is in office, but I don't see why he is pushing the wall now, after the repubs lost congress. He should've went hard for the wall on the first budget, with a slight majority everywhere.

    It is a drag getting played as a political pawn. The US gov is broken. But remember there are a lot of Feds that are normal people, even constitutionalists like myself. To continue my career at the places I wanted I had to go federal. I'm a damn good controller, it's a hard job, and we take pride in our work. I used to think of federal employees as slugs; now I know there are a few good career fields and the rest slugs.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by BeefSupreme View Post
    I'm an Air Traffic Controller and I am affected this shutdown.
    Thanks for your service, and I'm sorry you're going through all that. Here's a couple ATC posts I found on Reddit, does anything sound true or not true to you?
    Wait, ATC's aren't getting paid? Holy shit, I didn't know that. Don't they have like the highest rate of suicide, and are usually considered the most stressful jobs in the world? Now throw in the stress of not getting paid, and not having support staff? Holy shit, I could only imagine. Bad things are gonna start happening if this goes on for more weeks.
    [Next Post]
    Yup. I’m a controller and we’re not getting paid right now. We’re basically working for IOU’s until the government reopens. Not only that, all leave is cancelled and you must report to work or risk not getting paid at all. There are women who have had babies is the last few days that have to either choose staying at home and risk not getting paid or coming into work and waiting to eventually get a paycheck. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time around the holidays. People were coming in on Christmas Day instead of taking leave to spend with their kids. Morale is getting very low and we’re all getting very tired of all this. I personally don’t care if a wall gets funded, I just want to be able to make my payments without getting hit with late fees. On a side note, I’ve been a controller for 12 years and have never heard of anyone committing suicide. That’s just a myth.

  6. #16
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    You don't have to thank me I was lucky to get into the job.

    As far as the post, here's a couple of things. The controller words his post to make it sound like everyone is AFRAID to not get paid. If you are "essential" and can still go to work you are almost guaranteed to get back paid, this is a known thing. You can still take vacation but you are placed on furlough status instead of annual (paid) leave or sick leave. It would be the same for maternity stuff. So if you take off you take the CHANCE of not being back-paid (for those days you took off) because of the shutdown. Us controllers are paid decent so most people should have some savings. Although new-hires and people who have only worked at slower airports are likely to make a lot less and may be hurt by a paycheck.

    Morale is bad, everyone is sick of this. Something they preach in the ATC world is to leave personal problems at home when you come to work, because at work, you need to be 100% focused. So now our bosses (gov) are adding a problem (shutdown) that is weighing heavily on the new guy trying to get finished up training at work. Anybody that is paycheck to paycheck is going to be thinking about the shutdown all day! That guy hasn't been around if he hasn't heard of ATC suicide, not that it is rampant, but it happens. I don't think it happens as much today as it used to get credit for.

  7. #17
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    Air Traffic Control is one of those critical jobs that probably should have been privatized by now. The government will never pay the rates required for top level professionalism and it's just going to frustrate good people working in a bad system.

  8. #18
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    Not to mention automation. That looks to me like a job where computers are going to be much better at routine matters. Save the humans for dealing with exceptions.


  9. #19
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    The more these shutdowns happen the more the controller workforce opens up to privatization. I wont get into the pros and cons too much but I'm for it. I worked in KS at a contract tower and enjoyed it, they don't keep weak controllers around at private towers.

    Automation is happening more and more at En-route facilities (Centers/ARTCC). In the terminal world (radar sequence into airports and towers) automation will take awhile to get going. ADSB will have a lot to do with ATC automation (GPS used between aircraft and GPS used instead of traditional radar). If ATC is privatized automation will come sooner, if it stays federal it will take a very long time. Either way it won't be in place to take my job while I'm in it, and I have 20 years to go.

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