Government Workers Told Not To Work On "Any Projects, Tasks, Activities Or Respond To Emails Or Voicemails"

Dear government workers: welcome to the private sector. This is what it feels like to have job insecurity. For the past 7 hours, some 800,000 suddenly idle Federal workers received furlough notices but were told they will still have to report to work for about four hours Tuesday even though the government is shutting down. Or, rather "work." As AP reports, various federal agencies said employees would be limited to doing work related to the shutdown, including changing voicemail messages, posting an out-of-office message on email, securing work stations and documents and completing time cards. At the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, employees were told they cannot work on "any projects, tasks, activities or respond to emails." The more cynical ones out there may ask: just how is that any change?

More on today's shutdown chronology from AP :
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said it will close its offices at 1:30 p.m. Other agencies, such as the Labor Department, expect most employees to be gone by mid-day, but haven't set a specific time.

Once they head home, furloughed employees are under strict orders not to do any work. That means no sneaking glances at Blackberries or smart phones to check emails, no turning on laptop computers, no checking office voicemail, and no use of any other government-issued equipment.

Office managers are encouraging workers to leave government-issued cell phones and computers in a secure place at the office. Those employees who work from home may find it more difficult to break the habit of checking emails or looking at documents.

More