Tuesday, August 30, 2005

I couldn’t get into the blog to note this yesterday, but I knew it was going to be a potential problem when they were saying Katrina was headed for New Orleans. And I’m thankful that we federal employees submitted our payroll last week before Katrina hit. Here’s the problem, the federal government payroll is processed by a little department called the National Finance Center, which happens to be based in...New Orleans. *sigh* There are plans to move those operations to Kansas City, but not until next summer. So the upshot is that it is very possible that we may not see a paycheck for a couple of pay periods if the damage to the NFC is extensive. And I’m expecting it to be so.

I discovered that the NFC website, which we use for transmitting our data, was down yesterday morning when one of our contract guards called to complain that she hadn’t received her pay. Her specific problem is not tied to Katrina, but it could be a while before we can resolve the problem since NFC is out of commission. I feel for her and I’m glad that this isn’t her full time job.

The potential good news is that there is a back-up site in PA. I’m hoping that the back-up will be usuable next week when it’s time for us to process our Time & Attendance data again. I’m skeptical that NFC send current back up tapes to the site on Friday though since it didn’t seem that New Orleans would be targeted by Katrina. And I also note that the date of the GCN article is from June 2005.

Good thing I’m mooching off of my parents, right?

[Link via Kevin]