WASHINGTON — Federal workers who have missed two paychecks said they are eager to return to their jobs on Monday, but they’re concerned about the potential of yet another government shutdown in three weeks.
Announcing the agreement on Friday to end the shutdown, President Donald Trump said the government would be reopened for three weeks — until Feb. 15 — to provide time for negotiations on border security.
“All we want to do is do our jobs,” said Danielle Roziewski, of Columbia Heights, as she grabbed a free, hot meal at the World Central Kitchen in the Federal Triangle neighborhood. She’s an employee at the Center for Democracy, Human Rights and Governance at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Roziewski said she’s borrowing money against the threat of a second shutdown in three weeks.
“We’re all worried about that … I actually took out a loan — just in case for that possibility — through the credit union, a furlough loan … I would not be surprised at all if it happened again,” she said. While some federal workers WTOP spoke with said that they were able to get by from generous family members.
Many federal employees said they are prepared to return to jobs where work has piled up for 35 days and there will be a good deal of catching up.
“We have to go through email … contact the taxpayers that we work with, deal with mail. It’s not something like you just turn us off and then you can turn it back on like a television,” said Tim Hartigan, of Frederick, Maryland, who works for the IRS and made clear he was speaking only for himself, not for the agency where he works.
“Hopefully the shutdown fever — for those people who suffer from it — hopefully they’re cured of it and they understand that the federal government really does important things and you cannot keep it shut down forever,” he said.
During the shutdown, some federal workers have stood in long lines at the disaster relief kitchen which provides free, hot nutritious meals — eat-in or carryout — to feds and their families.
“One day this week, we served 11,400 meals out of this small kitchen” said Nate Mook, executive Director of the World Central Kitchen.
“While we’re seeing some tentative hope that our government will stay open, there’s still a lot of uncertainty and a lot of folks are still not getting paid immediately,” Mook said.
The disaster relief kitchen founded by Chef Jose Andres plans to remain open for federal workers until Friday, Feb. 1.
“We’ll see what happens after the next three weeks and hopefully the government will not close again,” Mook said.
WTOP’s John Domen contributed to this report.
