A federally-employed scientist can’t “still use their brains” during a shutdown; see the Antideficiency Act.
Huh? How does this stop them from using their brains? Nothing there is going to stop them from continuing to think about their work, mentally desigining new experiments or new hypotheses.
Admittedly no one’s ever been charged under the ADA, but there are plenty of examples of people being disciplined for violating it. I’ve been temporarily laid-off before—they’re not joking about not being allowed to work. At all.
Nothing there is going to stop them from continuing to think about their work, mentally desigining new experiments or new hypotheses.
Even granting that our hypothetical scientist is willing to take the risk of being admonished for working during shutdown—what exactly are they going to do without institutional support? No journal access, no computing resources, no facilities? Navel gazing only gets one so far.
Admittedly no one’s ever been charged under the ADA, but there are plenty of examples of people being disciplined for violating it.
Thinking about your experiments does not (in itself) involve expenditure of government money, so I don’t see how they would prosecute you under the ADA for that. Yes, managers have to be very clear to workers not to use resources, just to keep them away from edge cases, but even with that level of overcaution, managers can’t actually stop you.
Even if you came back and (for some reason) said, “Hey boss, I totally thought about this experiment from the couch when the shutdown was going on”, they still don’t have grounds unless you were using up resources. Now, they could fire you just for the defiance (maybe), but if they’re that trigger-happy in the first place, then …
How effective is the thinking that can be done if you don’t have access to any of your work? I’m a gov’t employee and am affected by the shutdown. All of my work is on my office computer, which I’m not allowed to even turn on during the shutdown. Yes, it’s illegal for me to turn on my work computer or access work email during the shutdown.
Sure, I can think all day about how to solve the current bug in my software, but without access to the actual code on my gov’t computer not much can be done.
Even granting that our hypothetical scientist is willing to take the risk of being admonished for working during shutdown
This doesn’t seem to be that severe a grant. People go into science because they like it, not because it pays well.- for many, thoughts fields about one’s subject can border on the intrusive. And as long as they come back and don’t say explicitly that their new ideas were from when they were on leave, they’ll be fine.
what exactly are they going to do without institutional support? No journal access, no computing resources, no facilities? Navel gazing only gets one so far.
So, they can read papers they already have. They can get journal access from friends at universities. They can do computing that doesn’t involve as large a scale. They can think about data they got that doesn’t seem to make sense. I agree there are limits but those limits seem not that restrictive as long as the shutdown doesn’t last for that long.
Huh? How does this stop them from using their brains? Nothing there is going to stop them from continuing to think about their work, mentally desigining new experiments or new hypotheses.
Admittedly no one’s ever been charged under the ADA, but there are plenty of examples of people being disciplined for violating it. I’ve been temporarily laid-off before—they’re not joking about not being allowed to work. At all.
Even granting that our hypothetical scientist is willing to take the risk of being admonished for working during shutdown—what exactly are they going to do without institutional support? No journal access, no computing resources, no facilities? Navel gazing only gets one so far.
Thinking about your experiments does not (in itself) involve expenditure of government money, so I don’t see how they would prosecute you under the ADA for that. Yes, managers have to be very clear to workers not to use resources, just to keep them away from edge cases, but even with that level of overcaution, managers can’t actually stop you.
Even if you came back and (for some reason) said, “Hey boss, I totally thought about this experiment from the couch when the shutdown was going on”, they still don’t have grounds unless you were using up resources. Now, they could fire you just for the defiance (maybe), but if they’re that trigger-happy in the first place, then …
How effective is the thinking that can be done if you don’t have access to any of your work? I’m a gov’t employee and am affected by the shutdown. All of my work is on my office computer, which I’m not allowed to even turn on during the shutdown. Yes, it’s illegal for me to turn on my work computer or access work email during the shutdown.
Sure, I can think all day about how to solve the current bug in my software, but without access to the actual code on my gov’t computer not much can be done.
I worked out an algorithm on paper while I was on vacation once. Once I was back, I implemented it quickly.
This doesn’t seem to be that severe a grant. People go into science because they like it, not because it pays well.- for many, thoughts fields about one’s subject can border on the intrusive. And as long as they come back and don’t say explicitly that their new ideas were from when they were on leave, they’ll be fine.
So, they can read papers they already have. They can get journal access from friends at universities. They can do computing that doesn’t involve as large a scale. They can think about data they got that doesn’t seem to make sense. I agree there are limits but those limits seem not that restrictive as long as the shutdown doesn’t last for that long.