I have a buddy who is a federal government employee soon to start his furloughs. So, naturally the discussion between him, his government colleagues and the contractors with which they interact has been about what day to take off to minimise the effects of his absence. As you might expect, that narrowed it down to Mondays or Fridays. It so happens that much of the contractor workforce does a 4x10 week so this makes a lot of sense.

That was all well and good until certain higher ups got the word of what was being planned. Notices came down "strongly suggesting" that this was not the way to go and mutterings about "cover". "Cover for what" was the immediate thought. From what little I know about his job I am pretty certain it is not at the sharp end of anything military. It was also "suggested" that the government guys at my buddy's level should show that they are "taking one for the team" by not using their furlough days to make three day weekends. Really? Like a 20% wage cut is NOT taking one for the team already?

I understand that the management said they were not to extend time off by tacking on furlough days to periods of leave, fair enough. But, to get funny about weekends is going to far for me.

What do y'all think?

when the DI says move....the private gets motivated...

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There's nowt so queer as folk

Maybe ask the management how THEY are arranging their furlough days?

Probably not what you wanted to hear but if we treated this like the private sector and layed off 20% of the workforce, the rest can continue on. Sorry, time for government employees to be more like the private sector. After all, that's what they've said they wanted the past 30 years.

I can go for that. Let's start with Air traffic Controllers. It will make afternoons at my house a good bit quieter.

If its anything like my business, I give directives, they get followed or else. I make suggestions, they get ignored and eventually turn into directives. People need written instructions to take a leak now days, its pitiful. I hate to compartmentalize, I like creativity, especially when it promotes efficiency. Most folks these days just seem to be stuck in zombie mode, waiting for a Friday, and a paycheck.

Might have a lot to do with scheduling. If most of the guys in his position have Sat. / Sun. off, then everyone wanting Fri. or Mon. as their furlough day may not work.

Been through several furlough periods while working govt. LEO. If they are smart, they will stagger furloughs, and not do it in lump blocks. No reason not to allow 3 day weekends if his organization has a work force with widley varried days off.

Last time we had furloughs, guys called in sick or took a vacation day on the day of their furlough, and being showed as such on the rosters, got paid anyway..

Larry

My buddy is not in a government place that does weekend work, so there is no "cover" issue for Saturdays and Sundays. I just see certain folk being curmudgeons over this matter. Post #3 probably nails it.

As for taking sick on furlough days and getting paid for it, I would be VERY surprised if that flies given what my buddy has told me.

DUP...............

Privatize and we'll get to the level we need, not some union set number. And I mean REAL privatization, not the quasi-government version. Let the people flying the airplanes pay for the people in the tower, and that INCLUDES small city USA. Sorry if you only have two flights a day, you also have peace and quiet. Not everyone has to have an airport. AND, maybe someone should look at how far that $100M Africa trip would go to help out! I haven't had a vacation in 3 years

A day off is a day off, I like them in the middle of the week, nice and quiet and it breaks up the week. Plus they are usually the busier time. It's like working the day before a holiday, nice easy day and the brass is often not in usually.

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Back to back World War Champs.

Like it or not, management makes the decisions.

Since 2007 I have lost ALL paid time off including vacation pay, have to now pay for my health insurance, and don't get paid for any worked overtime. Welcome to working in the private sector for a smaller business.

So, I have absolutely ZERO sympathy for any government drone. IMO the government should have done what was done in the private sector. Which is basically tell the employees they were going to lose 20% of their pay and if they didn't like it they are perfectly willing to look for employment elsewhere. Fact is that I suspect that these "furloughs" won't do ANYTHING to cut costs and will only lead to increases in costs in the long run because the bureaucrats will just use this as an excuse to hire more of their second cousins. To be blunt you should tell your friend he should be thankful enough for what he is receiving and go in and work for free on his furlough days.

Now you are aware that not hiring air traffic controllers causes my trouble then it saves money?

It starts out that airports are already understaffed which means that the number of airplanes which can be handled had to be decreased. This results that less tonnage of cargo come in per day. Limited cargo space will ultimately increase your shipping cost and the cost of goods. So at the end everybody will be paying more because Government prefers spending 100 million dollars on a Safari trip for the president instead of hiring new air traffic controllers.

The other issue is that in the next 3 years over 46% will be eligible for retirement or hit the mandatory retirement, due to long hiring freezes the government created a bottle neck because there will be a shortage of experienced people training new controllers. Depending on the facility it takes easily 2 years to get certified.

Private Jets do pay their fare share, depending on the airport they charge landing and FBO fees. Depending on the airport that fee can easily reach 1000$ for a private jet.

All the people flying in with their private jets help the local economy, my town heavily depends on them. They bring in a lot of money and create jobs. From the mechanic how might do repairs on the airplane to the guy who cleans their pool.
If you would remove the tower from our airport they would eventually not land here anymore as some might not want their pilots to land on untowered airports. What will happen? Eventually they would land a little bit further south at the airport and over time they would create their own new little community there.

Over the short term you might save a couple dollars with less air traffic controllers but on the long run... You will hurt local economies, jobs and decrease safety.

The good thing is that no politician has really the balls to take responsibility for a jet crashing in the middle of Ft. Lauderdale because he cut the funding. All those talks about closing towers are games, they want to see who is able to hold the burning match longer between their fingers.

After retirement from active LE I worked for the federal gov't for another 10 years and took a second retirement. I can say w/o reservation that most government managers are some of the worst back stabbing bunch I've ever encountered. I'm not bitter; I enjoyed what I did very much and did not want to be in management, I had enough of that during my LEO days.

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Old Cop
LEO (Ret.)

Cry me a river.

My current employer gives neither holidays, vacation, nor sick days. Plus last year we had an additional three days off without pay for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, for a total of six unpaid days off within the space of about three months. Of course that doesn't include random days off without pay when the project manager fails to properly "manage" his resources.

I'll bet money that WITH furlough days, those contractors are doing better than we are.

Which only goes to prove something I have said for years. US employment practices are about 70 years out of date compared with the rest of the industrialised world. In my experience that has led to a lot of people "attending" for 40 hours with 80% of that time spent working, but only on good days. I know it is fashionable to rag on the Germans for their 35 and 37 hour work weeks and longer vacations, but again from my experience they work 95% of that time all the time.

True, but when you are small minded about it you get the response from your workforce you deserve. Control just for the sake of control does not make you a good manager.

Old Cop has it spot on from what I can gather here, and it was the same in the UK where my dad was a civil servant. He had a special list in his head of folk he would never see in the crosswalk until they bounced off the windshield.

when you said small minded, I knew this would involve the federal gov't.

Maybe that was a giveaway. Mind you, the corporate style rampant in the casino industry here may actually be worse. Hard to believe, but I can only pass on what I hear.

Is there any other kind??

Company I worked for was in the process of downsizing (a four letter word to anyone who got caught up in it) and the VP was bitching about the amount of hours we were working. Wintertime was always our hectic time as we received our fuel oil by barge,tanker and pipeline. 40 hours straight time and 40 hours ot was very common and lasted from october until april or may. It got so bad that everyone kept little books with what they worked and what deliveries they did. Then some bright bulb came up with the idea of comphensated time off in lieu of overtime. I had almost 6 weeks of 40 hour ot. Walked in my bosses office and said see you in 6 weeks. He darn near had a stroke. Someone would have to be paid ot to cover my watch. In the end we ended up getting paid for the ot and as part of the fuel oil deliveries we also had to run the high tech sample machine that analyzed the sulfur content of the oil. It sometimes took 4 hours to run the samples especially on a large tanker. Frank