Did you feel any direct affects from the government shutdown?

[bjl584]

I personally didn't experience any setbacks or inconveniences.
The only thing I can think of that may have been an issue was if I was travelling via airport.

[kork13]

Ugh .... Significantly.

Of course, I'm in the military, living overseas .... So we're pretty heavily reliant on federal finding. All of the civilian employees being on furlough meant their jobs either didn't get done or we had to put other people in their place to cover down (and double their workload). We had 5 very valuable & needful trips to various conferences & working groups that got cancelled or delayed into next year because all non-essential travel was prohibited. My unit should have a budget around $320k this year, but for the first 2 months of the fiscal year, we'll be able to use $0 of it to purchase equipment we need, send people out for training, replace worn out items (even as simple as a dead generator battery), or outfit our new arrivals with required gear. Logistics slowed down significantly, leading to reduced spare parts availability, empty shelves at the base's grocery store, and shortages at the medical clinic's pharmacy. The teachers at our DoDEA schools on base have gone without pay, and many were starting to run out of options to feed themselves -- the base population came together to voluntarily provide meals at the schools for them, but that could only have gone on for so long. The list goes on .... It's been chaotic & extremely frustrating .... Not to mention the stress of wondering if it when we'll get paid next. For my family, it was annoying & frustrating... For a young E-3 with a family of 4 who earns <$40k/yr? It was a threat to his family's well-being.

I hate politicians. Do your job, and let the rest of us do ours.

[disneysteve]

Us personally? Not that I can think of. But lots of friends and family were affected. Several were out of work without pay. A few had flights cancelled leaving them either stranded at their destination or stuck at home when they were supposed to be traveling or forced to rebook at a different time and a higher cost.

[riverwed070707]

Nothing compared to those going without pay or struggling to buy food, but I was traveling home from a work trip in London and got stranded in Minneapolis. Ended up renting a car and driving fearing my rebooking wouldn't take off either... I was correct - 3 more rebookings, my flight didn't make it home until more than 24 hours after originally scheduled. The frustrating thing about the flight fiasco is like.... I know it's complex, but if you know you have to reduce flights by 4 or 6 or 8%, can you not figure it out the day before instead of cancelling someone's connection while they're mid-flight on the way there? I'm sure there's a reason, but driving 4 hours after flying 9 and being awake for 23 hours was stressful. And also I'm grateful we are not in a financial pinch over these kind of inconveniences. Have 2 more work trips this year. Hope everything gets ironed out but sounds like it will take some time to get the airlines back on track and re-staffed to capacity.

[disneysteve]

I know it's complex, but if you know you have to reduce flights by 4 or 6 or 8%, can you not figure it out the day before instead of cancelling someone's connection while they're mid-flight on the way there?

That fiasco was clearly done to wreak as much havoc as possible. They didn't care at all about the impact it would have on the public. It was a bargaining chip.

[james.hendrickson]

I felt little to no impact, I have some friends who are civil servants who were worried about getting paid...but thats pretty much it.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Yes in a weird way. We were waiting on some government approval for DH's company and it didn't go through. Then we had to wait through october and now november. Now they are quickly resending in the paperwork to see what is going on. So it's not financially impacting us, sort of, but not. But it's a real direct impact on how the levers of government works.

[ua_guy]

It threw a wrench into things at work. Several teams were impacted and that made my work life stressful.

Some friends in other occupations had to work without pay.

I was pretty disgusted by air travel and SNAP being used as bargaining pressure. That affects real people who have to feed their families. We are not on SNAP, but the community assistance and food banks around here went into overdrive trying to soften any potential delays.

[disneysteve]

We are not on SNAP, but the community assistance and food banks around here went into overdrive trying to soften any potential delays.

I guess there is one way we were impacted.

I posted on our Facebook pages offering to help anyone we knew who was struggling due to loss of SNAP benefits. We also made a nice donation to the local food pantry. Neither of those things would have happened if not for the shutdown.

[Fishindude77]

We typically get a conservation reserve payment check in October that hasn't arrived.
I'm not concerned. It will eventually show up.