I don’t get paid for travel time. No one cares how long I wait in line at the airport.
Back when I first started consulting in 1995, it was made very clear from the start and continues to this day that travel time is not billable. Period. Doesn’t matter if I have WIFI and can answer e-mails while airborne.
No-shows among screeners across the nation soared Sunday and again Monday, when the Transportation Security Administration reported a national absence rate of 7.6 percent, compared with 3.2 percent on the comparable Monday a year ago.
I doubt this improves the situation - particularly if moral is already in the dumper due to the people on duty having missed last weeks paycheck. I suspect that most of the TSA screeners fall into the 80% of Americans that are living paycheck to paycheck with almost no reserves. They’re probably already worried about choosing between rent, food, and medicine. I can’t imagine what happens if this goes into next week. A lot of other federal employees are in the same boat, as are many more contractors - and the contractors won’t be getting back pay. (Not that getting back pay matters if you’ve already been evicted because you didn’t make the rent on time and someone like tRump is your landlord.)
And now I understand there will be retribution over the sick-out, which is a real shame.
"We’re confident that we will be as efficient and as welcoming as people expect the city of Atlanta to be here at Hartsfield-Jackson for the Super Bowl,” Gobeil said.
Whistling past a graveyard, airport edition… By the time people are streaming in for the Super Bowl - probably late in the week of Jan 28, TSA screeners will have missed their second paycheck, ATCs will also have missed their second paycheck, and CBP will be in the same situation, assuming anyone from outside the US will dare to enter the country. Could be ugly - will enough Senate Republicans revolt this week?
It’s going to take 55 R house members bucking Trump as well before this is over. The extent to which our system of primaries and gerrymandering selects them to be the most extreme of extremists makes this a tougher ask than the 15+ Senators.
Last Friday as I passed through TSA checkpoints I made it a point to thank them for still working. One very funny TSA ID checker started into a quiet rant as she verified my ID. I told her I agreed but I jokingly told her if she got me started she was going to have to refuse my entry past the checkpoint. We laughed and she chased me on my way.
I appreciated her humor and commitment to her work, but this is personal. And, it’s not getting any better.
Call your Congressman at least twice a week and let them know that we are all watching.
Republican Koan: Is it a strike if you’re not getting paid? 
Yes, ramp up the pain. Make Americans realize how important federal workers are to their well-being and how Don the Con and the corrupt GOP are making their lives worse. And, if you don’t believe me, aside from air travelers, ask the farmers. I wonder what proportion will go bankrupt and lose their farms due to Humpty Trumpty’s Tariff War For No Reason and the government shutdown.
You think some (almost all?) will be rueing their 2016 votes?
Ask to travel on Air Farce One ------------------ you will go straight through .
The “good” news is that TSA assures us that the failure was not due to “a staffing issue” related to the shutdown. It was just an ordinary screwup that you can expect to happen even when there is no shutdown.
It definitely is not reasonable that those who can least afford it pay the highest price for the shutdown.
It can be very rewarding to make a human-to-human contact with a person working at a job where it is easy for everyone to just move along past the worker without a word and with minimal eye contact. Darn if there aren’t human beings, rather than robots, in those uniforms.
Anyone who plans on less than an hour at Hartsfield might as well as forget about their boarding pass, because they’re not going to make their flight… on a good day! Either TSA is lying about the current wait, which must be averaging an hour and a half, or there hasn’t been much of a falloff in TSA staff making it to work.
Nope. They can’t. The courts will never uphold the firing of a federal government worker who didn’t show up after not being paid. There is absolutely no authority in federal law to fire someone for that. And last I heard, the 13th amendment outlawed involuntary servitude. And by the way, there’s nobody left working at the agencies to fire anyone, anyhow.
Late breaking news, the House Republican Caucus has stripped Rep Steven King (IA) of his (now minority) committee assignments for his racist rhetoric.
Do I smell the smell of Republican pee running down pants legs in the evening? Fortunately I’ve already eaten and the wind is blowing away from me.
Yep - I remember in San Jose (SJC) getting an inspection and they found two tennis balls in a sock in my luggage. The TSA inspector pulled it out and asked me what it was for. I told him and the other TSA folks in range - "It’s great for massaging your back! Put it across your back (balls on either side of your spine) and roll up and down. And I proceeded to demonstrate the exercise, right in the line (it was a slow day). I told them that if they spent a lot of time on their feet (as they were doing) - this was a good thing to have at home and in the break room - with a good pad. Cheap, too. They were quite appreciative, especially as various spine attached ribs clunked and popped as I rolled. After I rolled up and offered the sock for confiscation, the inspector tucked it back in my suitcase and thanked me for the suggestion.