THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 21, 1995 TAG: 9511210272
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DEROCHI AND DEBRA GORDON, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
By 1:30 p.m., more than 40 Navy men and women had figured it out.
The Navy Family Services Center off Hampton Boulevard was open for business again. The lights were on in the reception area. Yellow signs announcing a federal shutdown were torn from the door.
Every parking space was taken outside the trailer that houses the Job Information Center, where service members get leads on civilian employment.
Still, Renee Nixon, a center employee, apologized for the low turnout. Usually, she said, the room is packed with service members anxious to log onto one of a dozen computers.
``The word isn't out as well as it could be right now,'' said Nixon, a specialist who helps people who are leaving military service write resumes and practice interview skills.
The slumbering federal government awoke Monday under a deal giving the White House and Congress until Dec. 15 to negotiate a balanced budget. The crisis had shut down national parks, museums and research offices, and stopped other government functions deemed nonessential for public health and safety.
Nixon and the four other federal contract employees assigned to the office were among some 800,000 federal workers across the country who ended furloughs and piled into offices where tasks had mounted since last Tuesday. In Hampton Roads, 20,000 to 26,000 federal workers were idled.
Nixon was anxious to return.
``The people who work here do so because they love it, they love helping people,'' Nixon said. ``What we're able to do is give people direction. You see it in their faces. It makes us feel good.''
The job center was only one component of the family services complex reopened Monday morning in Hampton Roads.
All of the 71 contract and civil service employees were back on the job by 11 a.m. Presentations on topics ranging from pre-deployment briefings to personal finances were being rescheduled. Clients who came to the center for private counseling sessions were contacted.
Nixon said she was glad to see a full parking lot.
``It was very difficult not knowing from day to day what was going to happen, when we were going to come back,'' Nixon said.
Across town, at the Social Security office on Robin Hood Road, Deborah Morris had made sure she was one of the first people in line. Anticipating a big crowd, she had arrived 15 minutes before the doors were to have officially opened.
Instead, she found a nearly empty waiting room and Social Security employees already helping customers.
``I'm surprised there's not more people,'' she said. The Chesapeake woman was there to apply for disability benefits for her mentally handicapped son, who turns 18 in two weeks. She worried she was already late with the paperwork, and last week's delay during the government shutdown increased her anxiety.
``I think they're stupid and childish, and I'm glad to hear they've got something resolved for a little while, anyway,'' she said of the political bickering. ``They're grown people. They should get in there together and talk to each other.''
District manager Roger St. John, one of five managers working last week at the Social Security office, attributed the nearly empty waiting room to a lack of information. Most people, he said, still didn't know the federal government was back in business.
The same thing happened in reverse last week, he said, when people didn't know the government had shut down.
Several people came into the office on routine business, he said, and had to be sent home. Most were understanding, he said, although a few vented their frustration at the politicians who created the impasse.
St. John, a 20-year federal employee who has been through previous government shutdowns, said he was surprised at the length of this one. But it doesn't change his feelings about government service, he said.
``To me, although it might sound corny, it means public service,'' he said. ``It offers a lot of pride and a lot of security.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by VICKI CRONIS, The Virginian-Pilot
With the government shutdown over for now, Jody and Juliet Oliver
are able to work on her job search at the Job Information Center.
by CNB