Are you an ‘essential’ federal employee?

The Washington Post asked federal workers if they think their role is “essential.” “If you could make a pitch to your boss for why you should continue working during a partial shutdown, what would it be?”

A Federal Communications Commission attorney-adviser answered: “It's nearly impossible for anything I work on to have a life-or-death impact on the public, so I'm not 'essential' in the true sense of the word. Telecom policy is simply not going to make a difference in the fossil record. But neither is most of the policy work that Congressional staffers do. If THEY couldn't be deemed 'essential' and allowed to continue working through the shutdown, Congress would NEVER play these games and allow a shutdown to happen. But most members of Congress won't feel the financial pain that the average federal employee feels, nor will their staff; playing politics with other people's money is no big deal to them because it doesn't hurt their day-to-day work lives or wallets.”

Who is essential? “Anyone who works on things that impact the public health and safety - e.g., the folks who insure that antenna towers are properly secured and marked for safety purposes, the folks who monitor signal leakage to prevent interference with public safety frequencies, that sort of thing. ”