Essential vs. non-essential personnel

Something seems backwards. A couple of days ago, people at work were finally talking about the potential government shutdown and the fact that it probably wouldn’t affect us because we are paid by the project and funding has already been allocated for our specific project while other government workers might get some unpaid vacation time because they are paid more directly.

Aside from that, the government shutdown should affect only non-essential personnel, meaning that essential personnel would still have to report for work, even if the federal budget expires. That would include police, fire fighters, air traffic controllers, and other jobs that directly impact public safety. I am clearly a non-essential employee and honestly, would not mind a few days of unpaid leave even though it is very unlikely to happen now.

Anyway, shouldn’t essential personnel be paid more than non-essential personnel? The simple distinction between essential and non-essential indicates that one group of people is more important than another group of people, and therefore should be compensated more generously for the work. I know fire fighters, EMT’s, and police officers don’t make near what most engineers make but it would be a major problem if they were to all stop working, even for a day, but society could live without engineers for awhile. Eventually, the lack of engineers would cause a problem but it wouldn’t be the disaster of going without police officers for a day.

Trust Issues

It’s hard to trust people. Unless it’s someone who has a proven track record of dozens of encounters with me, I have doubts in my mind about whether someone will flake out on me or forget about a plan we made or just not understand me clearly. I can count on one hand the number of people I never worry about being a bad friend. I try to trust people and accept that when they say they’ll do something that they will do it (or have a damn good excuse for not doing it). In the past, that has left me disappointed too many times and mentally unprepared to adapt to the situation well. But the truth is that most people are unreliable, except to their immediate family and a couple of their closest friends, and trusting people who haven’t proved to you that they are dependable only leads to more disappointment later on. I’ve found that a good attitude to have in situations like this (having a date or other plan with someone relatively new to you) is: “I don’t care much what happens. If the person does come through, great, but if not – well, I didn’t expect them to anyway and I’ll find something else to do.” I tend to think I am extremely reliable, even with people I barely know but I may be delusional.