At a small (six person) dinner party some years back, the hostess spilled a huge bowl of shrimp gumbo on the table. The big loser was my red tie. It had been yellow until gobsmacked by thick tomato juice gravy-like stuff.

She apologized for the accident, then said “I’m just glad nobody nice, or important, is here!”

We all laughed and said it was no big deal. And yet…

There are 800,000 federal workers out there who must feel like my formerly yellow tie. And the guy who tied it.

During the runup to the potential government shutdown, an official of the Office of Management and Budget said that in the event of a furlough 800,000 nonpostal federal workers would be sent home because they were not considered “excepted” employees. Excepted employees are people like federal hospital workers, air traffic controllers, border patrol agents, law enforcement and national security types. Jobs that must carry on, sometimes 24/7, regardless.

Some feds found the 800,000 number interesting because the same number of feds were furlough-bait during the 1995-96 furloughs which lasted 21 days. That was at a time when the government was smaller than it is now (because of the post 9/11 buildup.) Also more government jobs are associated with national security and defense than they were in the 90s.

By Friday afternoon most feds were supposed to have been told, officially, if they were “excepted” (meaning they would work during the shutdown and be paid for it afterward) or if they were “non-excepted” in which case they would not work and might not get paid for time not worked when the furloughed ended. Got that?

What confused some folks is that they are considered “emergency” workers during a major weather event, but are not considered “excepted” during a furlough. Or the other way around.

At one point feds were divided into “essential” and “non-essential” until somebody figured out that was not good for morale. So they changed to emergency and non-emergency and then, at some point, also added excepted and non-excepted. That may have soothed some hurt egos, but now, with excepted and non-excepted, we are back to square one. Consider this e-mail from a from a fed who likes to think he and most of his colleagues are essential:

“I hope you use your legendary influence to get this in front of the powers that be. Every time there is a weather related shutdown or a potential No Budget Yet shutdown, we always hear about ‘Essential’ and ‘Non-Essential’ employees. Apart from the fact that nobody wants to think of themselves as ‘non-essential’ (that old self-esteem thing you know), the fact is it is not accurate. If we are not essential, we should not have a job in the first place (man I can hear a chorus of Amens to that from the legions of Fed Bashers.) I submit the words Critical and Non-Critical as more appropriate. While critical and essential share some commonality in definition according to Merriam-Webster, e.g. both are defined as indispensable, critical adds a more urgent level: ‘being in or approaching a state of crisis.’ (see Merriam-Webster) If you shut down things like hospitals, security, and fire stations, people will die and/or major property loss will occur, a ‘crisis’, thus those employees should be deemed ‘critical.’ If I’m off the job for a day or two or longer, nothing particularly BAD will happen, so I would not be deemed ‘critical’. However if I were off the job for an extended period of time, the long term mission of my agency would be adversely impacted, hence I am still essential to the agency’s mission.” Thanks, A Grateful, Non-Critical, but Essential Fed

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com

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