Furlough 2013

As you've probably heard, the federal government decided that the best way to cut their egregious spending was to dock the pay of many middle class workers by 20%.   I know this doesn't affect most of you personally but almost everyone in our community is directly impacted.

Victor is furloughed for 3 months this year in addition to all other federal workers in our area.  Most of the contractors are furloughed as well.  If they aren't furloughed, the government has at times declared that the contractor is getting paid too much and just randomly cuts the salaries of the employees hired by the contractor.  Not by 20% but this cut is a permanent loss to their salary.  Some contracted employees have just lost their jobs completely.

Military pay is not impacted but their productivity is hindered significantly.  Basically for them Fridays are a wasted day since none of the thousands of support staff are able to work.  This seems like a bit of a free day off to me (which I don't think seems too bad) but you'd be surprised at how annoyed the military personnel seem to be by this lack of productivity.  Instead of gloating about shorter Fridays, they are frustrated by the inability to work.  Pretty impressive!

I've been amazed at how little people in our community have been complaining.  It doesn't mean it isn't tough.  I know of stay-at-home parents who have been forced to find part-time jobs, people are dipping into their emergency funds, 401K contributions are often halted or decreased, kids have been pulled out of camps, activities, and preschool for the fall.  Thankfully, it seems as though most people I know have been able to make these "small" sacrifices without feeling like they are risk to lose their homes or something much more catastrophic.

The general attitude seems to be that we'll just suck it up until the end of the fiscal year.  If the lovely government decides to extend it to 2014 you can believe there will be more complaining for the middle class workers who have been dinged.

We've lived in a military community for 2.5 years now and for the 3.5 years before that, while living in NOVA, Victor was working at the Pentagon as an active duty Naval officer.  So after almost 6 years out here (hard to believe) I forget how little the rest of the nation is impacted by government and military decisions. 

I wanted to post this not to complain about it but just to remind the people reading this (most who are not impacted by this recent furlough) that this furlough deeply impacts hundreds of thousands of middle class employees.  Clearly, the nation has continued to march forward but a lot of hard working people are making big sacrifices.

On a different note living in a military community has been one of the best experiences of my life.  Again, being from the midwest, it is so easy to forget that many families are making huge sacrifices over and over again because they are in the military.  Most, if not all, of my military friends have endured 1 or more deployments.  In addition to that they move every two to three years, with very little input into where they are headed.  Often the military spouse works long hours and travels.  The spouses left at home to manage a job, house, kids, and pets never cease to amaze me.  They complain so much less than they should!  Are there perks?  Of course!  They get paid well, they get to see lots of different parts of the nation/world, and the military employees have pretty neat and important jobs.  But it is not without sacrifice and I hope that I never forget that!

 Lastly, military "wives" are some of the best friends you could ever ask for.  They are always willing to help out (because someone has helped them out before), they embrace friendship intensely no matter how long you/they will be in the area, and they are tough (when you are forced to be a single parent repeatedly not much can slow you down).

So that's it - I hope those reading this will take a second to think about what it would be like to suddenly lose 20% of your salary through no fault of your own (obviously lots of people can relate to losing a job/part of their income but I'd guess most people reading this can't).  Also, spend a second being grateful for the hard working military families that sacrifice daily to help keep this country safe.