| Hot Jobs 02 Oct 2013
| Bank accounts are short a couple hundred bucks. Federal employees fret about not heading to work. Vacations are delayed, canceled or ruined. Basic everyday services disappear. Those are some of the effects Americans saw Tuesday morning after the U.S. government staggered to a stop at midnight, and millions, including 800,000 furloughed federal workers, began to cope with the hiccups — some irritating but small and others large and worrisome. Below are excerpts from some first-person accounts we received Tuesday. If you’re directly and concretely affected by the shutdown, we’re interested in your story. Savings accounts unfortunately replace income in a shutdown  Vonda J Sines Vonda J. Sines, 65, of Herndon, Va., retired in 2004 from a federal government job and thought the shutdowns of 1995 and ‘96 long past. Now, with Congress’ shuttering of the government less than 24 hours old, she and her husband notice an immediate hit: The loss of his income from his federal contractor job means a $174.33 drop from their budget each day the shutdown persists. It’s also put a scare into her as she enters Social Security. Sines writes: Covered by the newer federal retirement system, I'm eligible for Social Security and signed up for Medicare Parts A and B in 2012. I had decided to apply in October for Social Security payments starting Jan. 1, 2014. Because I had questions about my benefits, I opted not to apply online, but to schedule an interview. Then I read that a shutdown could mean no processing of Social Security applications. Even imagining the potential backlog triggered a headache. I scrambled to get an appointment. After 42 minutes on hold, I snagged a telephone appointment at 1:45 p.m. on Sept. 30 — just under the wire. I had to cut an important doctor's appointment short to get home in time for the call. When the phone hadn't rung 10 minutes after the scheduled time, I felt nauseated from stress. It finally did. Had I been unable to sign up before the shutdown, receiving benefits of around $2,000 a month could have been delayed. Since we were already on a bare-bones budget, we cannot tighten it. Savings must replace lost income. The only relief in sight is what we can create ourselves. However, I have already fired one salvo of emails to all our congressmen to express my disgust over their inability to keep the government afloat. Read more of Sines’ story. Shutdown plays politics with national parks  D.C.Douglass D.C. Douglass and his wife scrimped pennies, he says, for three years to pay for their twice-a-decade trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park where they vacation with his sisters and their families from Texas and Florida. But the government shutdown has closed 401 national parks, including the Smokies. Park roads and service facilities are unavailable, and visitors are being asked to leave immediately, according to ParkAdvocate.org. Renting two cabins for a week set his group back $6,000. Douglass writes: I understand this is not a situation that is going to elicit much sympathy from government employees who are going to go without paychecks or Americans who are waiting for FHA mortgage approvals. But this ridiculous partisan spat is negatively affecting millions of Americans, and our illustrious Congress does not seem to care a bit. And it is costing me money. I am writing this while sitting on the deck of a mountainside cabin in Wears Valley, Tenn., just outside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. My family comes from around the country to congregate here in the autumn every five years. My wife and I make the 10-hour drive from the suburbs of Detroit to hike, camp and enjoy the Smokies' magnificent fall color. We made our reservations nearly a year in advance. We saved our pennies for nearly three years. Again, the cost is really not the object. It is the experience we relish, as I am now approaching 60, and the strenuous uphill hike to the lodge is getting more difficult with each passing year. But I still look forward to making the trip. Perhaps we will not make it this year after all, thanks to our uncompromising legislators. Not that they care. Let me also say that I am not one of the 1 percent. I am not even close to it. This is a trip we save for all year, often bypassing other pleasures to be certain we the funds are available. I do not expect anyone to feel sorry for us. Read more of Douglass’ story. Everyday tasks that much harder  Robert Clark Young In San Diego, Robert Clark Young has cared for five years for his infirm father, who needs government-issued IDs for doctor visits, emergency-room care and access to handicapped services. Young mailed off the necessary paperwork for a federal passport card, but with the government shutdown and a local office unfunded and unsupported, there’s no one to process the application. Young writes: How long will the government be closed for business? Who can say? But I know one thing: Giving my father the daily care that he needs could be complicated if he lacks legal identification. My father's HMO requires a valid photo ID before providing him with routine medical care. His catheter is changed once a month, for instance, and the scheduling puts him in different facilities with different nurses. What if he has no ID at the time of his appointment? Over the past five years, my dad has been in the emergency room 12 times. He's always been asked for a photo ID. Technically, we can't even use a handicapped parking space without my father being able to prove that he's the person the placard is assigned to. Shutting the government down affects millions of Americans in ways large and small. I hope the Republicans in Congress will compromise on this matter, before the inconvenience to Americans becomes too great. Meanwhile, we'll be trying to get my dad an ID card issued by the state of California. The Democrats are in charge here, and the state is open for business. Read more of Young’s story. Government calls it a furlough; family calls it a major problem  Kim Jacobs Kim Jacobs Walker’s husband works in an administrative position for the federal government in Austin, Texas, but as of Monday, he’s furloughed. Walker says a less obvious result of the government shutdown is that federal employees with get fed up and look for work elsewhere. He works for the federal government and has for more than six years, and for now, he's on vacation without pay. It isn't like those snow days we had in school as kids. He will likely spend the day worrying about how we're going to pay the bills this month, and how long this will last. I have an eBay business, so I told him he can help me with some listings while he's off. Maybe we can generate a little extra money that way. The biggest frustration with this situation, aside from the fact that we don't know when it will end, is that a lot of avenues to coping with it are blocked. He can't apply for unemployment unless it lasts for more than a week. He can't get a temporary job lasting more than a day, because Congress could miraculously reach an agreement at any moment, and he would be called back to work. We're in limbo. I'm encouraging him to spend his free time applying for jobs outside the federal government. The economy here in Austin has remained stronger than most. There are still jobs to be had, though I suspect that this week, there will be a veritable flood of new applicants. Read more of Walker’s story. State picks up funding slack, but uncertainty remains  Darcy Chappel Darcy Chappel landed a job two weeks ago at the Bureau of Disability Adjudication, which relies on funds from the Social Security Administration. When the clock struck midnight on the shutdown, that money dried up, but the state of Nevada stepped in to keep her office in Reno open. Chappel writes: I am lucky that if I am required to take unpaid leave from my job, I have my working spouse to fall back on. But it will still be a major hardship if I have to take a cut in pay. I have two teenage boys at home who rely on my paycheck for their educational expenses, extracurricular activities and vivacious appetites. I'm sure that the congressional members who failed to reach an agreement to fund federal agencies Monday night could care less about my plight. They are focused on undermining the Affordable Care Act, and delaying the enforcement of the mandate that requires all Americans to obtain health insurance. While I may not personally agree with Obamacare, I think that House Republicans are being irresponsible by playing around with others' livelihoods. They are taking a stand, but it is at their constituents’ expense. After all, they are still getting a paycheck as "non-essential" government agencies are being shut down. They won't feel the trickle-down effect of their actions, and they probably aren't worried about the impact of their actions on this 40-year-old mom of three. They probably don't realize that if Nevada's Bureau of Disability Adjudication has to shut down for even a day, that severely ill people who have applied for disability will have to wait even longer for benefits. It would be interesting to see if they would be so quick to take a stand if it directly affected their pocketbooks or health. Read more of Chappel’s story. Original Post: http://tinyurl.com/m8okv4b P.S. Check out hot jobs available on the left column. If you are looking for change, leave us a message, we will contact you. |
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