It finally happened. The government has shut down. As I mentioned last week my office has enough funds to keep on going for another 2 weeks. Well week one is almost done and the office has started to get a little bit tense. It started off with a meeting last week on Monday were my division met with the Attorney General and the Deputy to the Attorney General. I was a little late to the meeting because I was speaking with the Senior Assistant Attorney Martha about a project she wanted me to help with. Nonetheless, when we showed up to the meeting it was in full swing with the Attorney General laying out our plans for the next couple of weeks. As previously stated we have enough funds for the next two weeks and they are all praying the shutdown will end before our two weeks are up.
Now as an unpaid intern this shutdown does not really affect me because I do not make any money. Yet to several hundred people who are out of work, it makes quite the difference. I even notice it on my way to work every morning because the metro is not very crowded and the traffic is significantly slow by my apartment building. But back to work. After the government shutdown was announced on Tuesday October 1st several things changed when I went into work the next day after class. For starters I had an email informing me that 400 of the District of Columbia Superior Court had been furloughed. For those of you that do not know what furloughed means it is when you have to come in and work even though at the present time you will not be paid. This is when my office became a little bit frantic because we were running on a shoestring budget in order to stay open for the next two weeks. It became harder and harder for the lawyers to do their jobs. For example, in order to give a deposition you have to pay the court reporter coming in to take down the deposition. Also it the person you are deposing is and expert they also have to be paid for their time. The problem is the District does not have enough money to take down all the depositions that were planned causing several of the lawyers to cancel their depositions. Which puts a major dent in their cases and timelines to file court paperwork. As you can imagine this made several of the lawyers in my office very unhappy because they want to get things done and not have to delay there procedures. I noticed the lawyers in my office were not the only ones who were getting nervous or frustrated. The Deputy Governor was also going around and asking to have everyone's budget for the next two weeks. To see where people were allocating the remaining funds they had, and probably praying that someone would have some extra to distribute the wealth. As this past week has gone on there has been a growing fear among several of the office workers that they will be temporarily out of work. Guaranteed most of them are lawyers and are most likely not having money troubles but it does not mean they do not want to be out of work. Now I of course cannot speak for everyone I know some of the lawyers are a little bit looking forward to having a slight vacation, but they do feel guilty about others being out of work who really need the money. My main concern is at the end of the two weeks does the entire building shut down? If not do I have to go to work because I am not paid either way? These questions will just have to wait and see but hopefully the government shutdown does not last much longer and people can go back to work and being paid.
3 Comments
10/7/2013 02:05:44 am
Well Shannon I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we have the required votes to pass a CR, but the bad news is that the speaker will not bring the bill to the floor. I admire your compassion and I agree that even the lawyers who do not need the money, still want to be there because they love what they do.
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Kate Mitchell
10/7/2013 10:49:35 am
It is crazy to see just how many employees (and even us interns) are affected by this shutdown. At the same time, it is amazing that we are here in the nation's capital as this is all happening. Sounds like you are in the heat of it all!
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Caitlin Murphy
10/7/2013 01:33:26 pm
I am so happy to see other comments from your classmates. Shannon, your piece was so informative, engaging, and extremely timely as others are reading and responding to your post. I really liked how you framed the government shutdown and shared all of the details of your office; the different opinions and what that means for different stakeholders. You did an awesome job on this post! Keep it up:)
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AuthorMy name is Shannon McCullough. I have Political Science and Legal Studies degree at Nazareth College of Rochester. I have previously interned at the Office of the Attorney General for DC. Currently, I am studying my Masters degree in International Relations at Shandong University in Jinan, China. Archives
September 2016
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