Despite their circumstances, some furloughed government workers are single and ready to mingle. One local is helping them meet up.
Emily, the person behind “furlough-nely,” invited federal workers to meet at the kiosk cafe that sits in front of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum on the National Mall.
She has spent the last 11 years working for the federal government.
“It can be a very isolating time,” she said. “We’re used to being around people every day, and it just seemed like the right time to gather together.”
Emily, who loves puns, said she thought “furlough-nely” seemed like a nice pun that encompasses everything that’s going on right now.
The topics that started the meetup shouldn’t surprise anyone that works in the D.C. area.
“What we do, where we work, what our day to day looks like,” Emily said, describing some of the frequent conversation starters. “Also talked about local activities we like to do.”
One of those who joined the meetup was Mel Harper. This is Harper’s fourth shutdown as a federal employee, and she said it’s nice to be able to be with other federal workers who she can relate to.
“It’s a very specialized language. We use a lot of acronyms, and it’s like we’re getting together and like speaking our little code,” said Harper. “You can’t even really talk to your family and close friends a lot of times about this, because they get so worried about you.”
During the shutdown, Harper said she has been doing a lot of decluttering at home, and has not been on Netflix or Hulu. “Binging is what I do when I am working and I need to decompress,” she said.
While there were some at the meetup who did have a special person in their life, and just wanted to hang out with work friends, Harper made it clear why she was there.
“I am looking — heavy on the lonely,” Harper said with a laugh. “I’m open to a nice, nerdy federal man, maybe an IT bureaucrat who’s self aware? Yeah, I’m down for that.”
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Furloughed federal workers join singles meetup amid government shutdown
