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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 14 2019, @05:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the business-as-unusual dept.

Two weeks into the government shutdown, National Parks are starting to close. The public has been getting free access, since there are no employees to collect entrance fees of up to $35 per car. But neither are employees there to collect trash and clean bathrooms. So, with overflowing trash cans and toilets posing a threat to human health and safety, parks are shutting down.

But in the nation's oldest national park, Yellowstone, local businesses are pitching in to pay park staff to keep it open — or at least parts of it.

[...] Jerry Johnson owns a business that rents snowmobiles and sends seven guided tours a day into Yellowstone in the winter. He calls it 'the trip of a lifetime.' When the shutdown began, he received a big spike in phone calls from people who had already booked trips, and he didn't want to tell them their Yellowstone adventure was cancelled because politicians in Washington D.C. couldn't resolve their differences.

[...] "If you don't groom," explained Johnson, "the trails will get very rough, and you get bumps, moguls, in them, and it'll be — it's just miserable."
So, during the shutdown, private businesses that operate inside the park are picking up the tab — about $7,500 dollars a day to groom Yellowstone's 300-plus miles of snow-covered roads, and to keep one paved road open to cars. Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which runs the only hotels operating inside the park in winter, is paying most of that — paying park service employees to perform the same grooming duties they do under normal circumstances.

Xanterra asked the 13 guide services that operate in the park to chip in to help pay, and all of them did. It adds up to about 300 bucks a day for each of the guide services.


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  • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 14 2019, @08:54PM (4 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday January 14 2019, @08:54PM (#786631)

    I am not sure I would be turning up for work under those circumstances. I would be out looking for alternative employment.

    I know, I know, they probably have reasons for doing their jobs for free. I just think their reasons are not very good.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday January 14 2019, @10:49PM (3 children)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday January 14 2019, @10:49PM (#786677) Journal

    I sympathize also. But one reason some might do their jobs for free, like Air Traffic Controllers, are that there is *no* other employer for them but the Fed (if they want to keep doing what they're doing because they like it).

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    • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 14 2019, @11:44PM (1 child)

      by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Monday January 14 2019, @11:44PM (#786712)

      The air traffic controllers might like to consider how reliable their only employer is, and look for another career.

      From the outside it looks like a really odd way to run a country.

      • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:53PM

        by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Tuesday January 15 2019, @03:53PM (#786936) Journal

        No doubt. And I'm sure there are controllers that are looking, plus there aren't many jobs (I'd imagine, anyway,) where the government can be the only possible employer. But they do indeed exist, and the real suprise would be if they aren't given all their back pay (for doing nothing) when government finally starts acting like adults and not spoiled 3 year olds - at least in this instance as I expect nothing better of them normally.

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        This sig for rent.
    • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Tuesday January 15 2019, @05:18PM

      by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 15 2019, @05:18PM (#786968)

      I read somewhere that if they quit then they are barred from ever getting a gov't job ever again, which would basically be a death knell for their careers.