As regular readers know, I work for the US government. I discovered over the summer that even though being furloughed affords me extra time, it’s not time where I’m generally in a mood to blog. The pointlessness and selfishness of this government shutdown has absolutely killed my enthusiasm. To paraphrase a colleague, they have dug another morale hole for us to fall into.
We’ll see what happens.
My condolences. But at least you’ve coined a nice new phrase out of your experiences (I’m a big fan of “dug another morale hole for us to fall into”).
Perhaps you can take heart by considering the Los Alamos shutdown from the mid 2000’s? Scientific staff were required to come in to work, but forbidden from doing any science and restricted to doing compliance paperwork. And (anecdotal but true story to follow) a postdoc caught printing out a scientific paper on a work printer (to read at home) was cause for disciplinary action for his supervisor.