Pre-Shutdown Top 10 To-Do List

My colleague Suzanne Kubota at Federal News Radio has put together this Top 10 list of things you should do before c.o.b. Friday in case of a government shutdown:

10) Water the plants. You may be gone for a while.

9) Update your pay information.

8) Make sure your phone number is current in the system.

7) Subscribe to FederalNewsRadio alerts and emails at your HOME address

6) From Dixie @ DoD: “Have a go at writing (your) respective Congressional member and letting them know what we do and how we feel.”

5) Learn from Senior Corresondent Mike Causey’s experience: Write down those passwords you carry in your head and save them someplace safe. It’s easy to forget them without frequent use.

4) Update email and phone out of office message.

3) Throw out what you have in the office fridge. Replace it when you come back.

2) And no matter what happens, plan on showing up for work Monday, at least to turn in your BlackBerry.

1) Turn in your time card.
And the final tip comes from CNN’s Bob Constantini. He said federal employees who ride the morning MARC train with him said they “haven’t heard that much from their bosses about what to do. They were told to turn in their timecards today to make it faster, perhaps, that they might get paid.”

What’s on your Pre-Shutdown To-Do List?

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10 Comments

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Stephen Peteritas

Yeah turning a time card is a good call. I doubt that the shutdown lasts for more than one pay period so if you get the card in now you might not see a dip in that direct deposit

Marie Anita Brooks

exactly, good idea to go ahead and get all the time in and certified just in case. PROACTIVE not REACTIVE

Scott Rose

If you have any non-essential public facing servers, power then down if possible. You may not be able to reach them during a shutdown and if there is an attack against the system, the skeleton IT staff in your agency won’t be able to respond in time. The downside is you may not be able to reach them to turn them back on again until you can get back.

Cyber-criminals will probably try and take advantage of a shutdown to try and break into Federal systems since there won’t be enough staff to monitor and patch systems.

Margaret Sarro

I’m working from home today and left a good yogurt in the refrigerator at work. Boo! On another note this is so nuts. I just want to get my work done and between the “what-if” conversations I can’t seem to escape and the actual people spending time preparing for the shutdown it has been near impossible. It’s sad, but as usual nothing really ever seems to happen unless it is an emergency. So my hope is that we do shutdown (for a day or two max) to WAKE PEOPLE up! And besides we spent so much time talking about it (and preparing) it would be such a waste not to actually shut down. 😉

Kathie Grant

All you federal employees have my sympathy. The state, county, and city employees did not feel sorry for you when a freeze in pay increases was suggested for Federal employees. Most of us have not even had a cost of living increase for 3 years or more. Some of us have had pay cuts. My suggestion is make lemonaide. Do all the things you have not had time to do, take naps, play with the kids, go for long walks, do the spring cleaning. When you go back to work, you will have recharged your batteries. You will smile when you think of your time away.

Mark E. Spencer

Not all of us civil servants are looking at a time of no pay. Those of us working for the V.A. are still suppose to be receiving pay and bennies, if the gov’t shuts down. That is fine for me, but I still wonder about my Navy retirement check, part of which is paid by the V.A. for a service connected illness. The retirement check and disability check are important to me since they pay my mtg and utilities. Also, what about those who receive SS and other gov’t paid compensations? If the gov’t shuts down and people don’t get paid, then those who are responsible should not be getting paid. I mean after all, as long as they are going to get their fat paychecks and raises regardless of what the rest of us get, why should they care how long they screw around playing the “who’ll blink first on the budget” game? If they don’t get paid either, maybe they would become serious and consider what really matters and work it out. They’ve already had over 6 months to work this out. My hat is off the the junior Senator from WV. He has stated that as long as the shutdown goes on, he will return his pay back to whoever it is that it comes from. Too bad others won’t follow his example. Way to go Joe Manchin!!!!

Jana Opperman

Even tho’ the shut down was evaded this weekend, it looks worse for next year-When we were shut down for a week in NJ a few years ago-dear hubby and I played a game of “since we’re not paid we won’t do “anything””, so we lounged, napped, read books. Luckily the Govenor got it all worked out and even made sure his workers were paid for those days since we were willing and able to work and it was the legislative branch that wasn’t doing what they were supposed to be doing! We even played our game during the furloughs we had to take 2 years ago.

It’s too bad our game can’t include going out to dinner or shopping, etc on the “Do Nothing Days” to help stimulate the economy…