Too bad that government workers will not be allowed to find a freelance gig in the time that they are/will be furloughed. They need to get prior approval so that there's no conflict of interest. And since their supervisors are also furloughed, they wouldn't even be able to get said approval.
Brilliant!<p>I'm curious to know: How did you ramp up your marketing so fast to get employers and developers to the site on short notice?<p>(Other than posting to HN, of course!)
Somewhat relatedly how does unemployment insurance work for the furloughed? Can they collect it? If they get back pay later do they have to return the unemployment payments? Could they actually come out ahead?
What a wonderful way to make lemonade! Thank you for doing this. I hope the site can withstand the onslaught of visitors as I'm sure they'll get more than their fair share at the moment.
This is really cool of OP to do. Given how shitty the terms of furlough are I'm really pretty proud of DC (used to live there) doing some cool stuff to help out the folks who were furloughed. Between Unfurlough and the heavy food/drink discounts (<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dc-businesses-offer-helping-hand-federal-employees-amid/story?id=20436552" rel="nofollow">http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/dc-businesses-offer-helping-h...</a>) I hope that furlough doesn't completely suck.
Where I work(ed) at the USGS most of us doing the tech work are actually contractors who are now basically on unpaid leave. Is this site yet another thing us contractors are excluded from?<p>Also I can't confirm if this is true or not but more senior federal employees have told me that in the past they have received back pay but us contractors are at a loss.