Govt. Shutdown

[ancona]

So, most here know I do a lot of work at Kennedy Space Center, so at this point, we've been shut out for a month, with equipment and systems locked out. I have eight projects out there, all in limbo with no real hope of starting up again anytime soon. This is a serious revenue stream buster for us. Something like 420 large for the last 30 days alone. We are running around with our hair on fire looking for anything at all, commercial, municipal.....just to keep our guys from jumping ship to feed their families right now. I've literally "bought" three shit ass projects to keep people busy in the last three weeks and it sucks an ass sandwich. We won't even make G&A, just enough to make payroll and burden.

There are a fuck-ton of other guys in my shoes around here and it's starting to get really ugly. One guy I know who was marginal to begin with has already pulled up his stakes and left. A lot of guys are telling me that they have people bailing ship by the dozens because they can't go another week without that paycheck. Some of the larger houses are simply continuing to pay their core crews and having them clean, and then re-clean equipment at their yards, biding their time and hoping these idiots come to some kind of adult agreement sometime soon.

Me? I'm as nervous as a whore in church right now, watching our working capital slowly drain away just like it did on '08, and praying for rain.

[PMBug]

I hate it when bad things happen to good people. Looking out to the horizon and it seems like we might be coming up on another 2008 in the near future, so burning through dry powder now is extra worrying.

I live in proximity to the Johnson Space Center and this area is filled with folks who work there or for one of the big engineering firms that do contract work there. So far, the local news hasn't really touted a severe impact to the local economy or businesses. There are mostly stories about local businesses like restaurants and such offering free or deeply discounted foods and services to folks affected by the shutdown.

[ancona]

I happened to be at JSC at the end of '08 right when the market started to go haywire. We were working on Bldg. 29, the Crew Exploration Vehicle Avionics Integration Facility. Anyone that has seen the movie Armageddon has seen the two million gallon neutral buoyancy pool that used to be there. That's where the astronauts train for zero gravity for long lengths of time in their space suits for doing space walks and working outside the craft. I got to put on scuba tanks and dive in that monster on a Saturday with the Prime Contractors crazy ass superintendent. His wife was above us in the small observation boat drinking coffee and watching us. It was truly surreal.

[rblong2us]

fuck thats harsh ancona.

What does the small print say in your contract ?

Can you insure for this risk ?

Be cool if the gov were in default and you could sue / class action

Might even stop future shutdowns ?

We read about the thousands of wasters sucking of the Gov / taxpayer teat and not getting paid ( but all missed wages being made up when gov shutdown stops ) but dont hear about the knock on effect for contractors, who probably do not get paid for the work not done during the shutdown )-:

[ancona]

No recourse brother. We still have the work, we just can't go do it. We'll be OK though, because we learned our lessons after the big crash. Our firm piled up a huge stack of capital for emergencies that we can tap, and we have outrageous credit if we need it. We don't want it to get there, but it's ready if we need it. Some firms we work with didn't get the message though, and got caught with their panties around their ankles unfortunately. It amazes me to see some of the smartest people I know with that deer in the headlights look, scrambling around to commercial project site visits for the first time in years to try and keep the doors open because they are nearly out of working capital and preparing to dip in to credit lines after only one month. We can last until December if we have to. Although the problem with that is, our performance and payment bond line is directly tied to our cash on hand, so the deeper the burn, the lower our bond line goes, so it's sort of a Sword of Damocles thing.

[rblong2us]

Back to work this week ancona ?
or do you have to wait for the permit issuers to catch up ?

Do you now have to work out a strategy for another shutdown in 3 weeks time or can you confidently assume the idiots realise they fucked up and achieved nothing of benefit for anyone ?