As you may or may not know, I work for the federal government. I could make three times what I make if I got a job in the private sector, and believe me I have people clamoring to give me a job. But I believe in serving my country because it's a job that needs to be done and I'm one of the few people with the talents and training to make a difference. To me, the money is not the point: I am going to live a comfortable life no matter what job I choose to take, thanks to the amazing opportunities I've been given in life. I appreciate those opportunities every day. I would like to pay back how generous American society has been to me.
But now, because of the shutdown. I'm not even allowed to work. And all of the other technical people who I know and who I work with, we're really struggling. Job security and stability is the one benefit that is assumed with government work, and that has been taken away from us. If you don't think that the immediate effects of the governnment shutdown are bad, you're so far in denial that you're not going to listen to me anyway. The evidence is everywhere already. I'm even more concerned about the long term effects, by which I mean this little thing called STEMmorrhage going on in the federal government. It's an evacuation of our highly trained Science, Technology, and Engineering, and Mathematics personnel to the private sector because, quite frankly, they treat us much, much better than the federal government does. We are a valuable asset. The federal government can only operate smoothly with technically trained people making decisions about technical matters. We as a society should value these people in a way that reflects the important decisions they have to make, the important decisions that only highly-trained people can make with any degree of success.
Every day that passes, more and more of us wonder if it's really worth it to put our own well-being on the line to serve our country. I just hope for America's sake that enough of the federal workforce is going to choose to remain federal employees after how we are being treated in this debacle. The function of the government post-shutdown is going to depend on these people to get things operational again.
Though the shutdown is absolutely a disaster the scale of which we're barely able to grasp yet, on a personal level I've been affected strangely. I was recently hospitalized again for GVHD in my gut, which I think is going to finally make me take a bit of leave-without-pay. That's right, just before the shutdown I already went through about a month of forced leave due to my ongoing health adventure. I had about a week of leave saved up when I got sick, a week's-worth that I worked very hard to accrue. I have not taken a vacation since I started my job a year ago since I've been using all of my leave when I get sick and when I have hospital visits. A week is all I saved up in all that time, and I was looking forward to using some of it to go to a wedding with Ted's family in Texas.
Well, now that leave's gone. The irony is that with no end to the shutdown in sight I should be able to go to the wedding next weekend without feeling guilty about taking leave without pay, so I'm a little grateful for the time off. I'm still feeling really off from the most recent high-dosage steroid regimen, so I think it's helping me to have some time off. I'm even having some anxiety and other mental side effects that I'm trying to be honest with myself about and that I'm seeking treatment for, after independent recommendations from several friends. Technically I'm supposed to do this through work, actually, but with the government shutdown that is not an option. I am instead seeking care through the normal medical system. I think it's the only reasonable alternative, but some of the issues I'm having I'm not going to be able to discuss with my psychiatrist. So I don't know if the session is even going to be that productive, but I'm going to give it a try.
The shutdown didn't precipitate this need... the factors are too numerous to go into in this post. The shutdown certainly has been on my mind in the past week though. I don't understand the worldview of the people in Congress who think that brinksmanship is a good idea or that the very government that provides so much for them is somehow a bad thing. I understand even less the American citizens who support them in this government shutdown. I just hope that in the aftermath of this tragedy that American citizens will vote in a crowd of legislators who will fix this broken system where a group of renegades can hijack the most important institution in the world and hold it hostage over their own petty egos.
Feeling pretty sick right now, and for once it's not because of leukemia.
No comments:
Post a Comment