Some Thoughts on the Shutdown

Today was the first day of the federal government shutdown, and was the first day I was furloughed.
Since I've had a day to let it all sink in, here are a few of my thoughts about it.

Our office is a team.
We live in a small town, and people are a pretty close-knit team at our office.
When they let everyone go today, they all trickled out of the building and that was that.

I wish there would have been some indication of solidarity amongst us.
Some sort of encouraging words spoken by the managers, to the effect of "you are valuable to us, and I'm sorry this has to happen, and there is nothing we can do about it, but we want you to know that we care about you personally and for your families and all those affected by this".

It was more like, they told us the regs, the procedures and what to expect procedurally, but nothing else really.
And to check the news, we should keep tabs on it if the shutdown ends and report to work.
And hopefully our managers will call us to let us know we can return to work.
But it was somewhat vague, and a little disconcerting.

My manager I could tell was very tired; stressed and just wanted to get out of there.
He even told me to hurry up and leave.
I had to take a few moments to collect my personal items, to water my plants, and mentally prepare myself to exit those doors.

Several co-workers I have emails for and phone numbers, so we'll be in touch.
But in meantime, its more or less each man is on his own, you gotta fend for yourself, and there is really no support system amongst us after the shutdown.

Perhaps a suggested meeting every few days - a casual non-work meeting could have been suggested, if people just wanted to talk and get together, outside of work.
But nothing like that was suggested.
So those are my thoughts.