Government Shutdown Looms: Crackberry Addicts to Roam DC Streets

On the front page of this mornings Washington Post is an article about the how a possible government shutdown will impact those who rely heavily on their smart phones:

You will know them by the classic symptoms of withdrawal: anxiety, irritability, twitching hands, maybe a phantom buzz they keep hearing even when it isn’t there.

If a government shutdown comes to pass, the nation’s capital may soon be in the grips of something akin to a mass nicotine fit. Tens of thousands of federal workers deemed “nonessential” will be forced to give up their BlackBerrys.

Government workers have seen furloughs before, but never in the era when so much of their lives and identities has been bound up in a little gizmo that for many seems to have been surgically implanted in their palms.

“My wife and kids would probably like it for a couple of days,” said Kevin Bishop, communications director for Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), whose mobile device has made it possible for him to do his job from the senator’s Greenville office. “I’m not sure I could handle it, though. It’s basically a part of who you are, from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to bed at night.”

According to the rules, furloughed federal employees not deemed essential are forbidden to do any work during the shutdown, and that apparently is being interpreted to mean answering email on your government issued PDA.  It's not clear whether reading them is illegal...

“I’m of an age where I remember not having a BlackBerry. I’d be fine, thanks,” said Bill Dauster, deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) Still, Dauster said, “I do have to wonder how they would get the word out that people have to come back to work, if they can’t look at their BlackBerrys.”

Geez, they could find out from the newspapers, the TV, the radio, or even their favorite political blogs.  They might even try their land line... if they have one.  It's not like news is that hard to come by these days.   I know people who have multiple PDAs for different purposes, just for reasons like this.

The trauma of severing the electronic umbilical cord is an issue that has come up often in recent years in the private sector, where furloughs became more frequent during the recession, and where wage-and-hour laws have required employers to ban workers’ use of PDAs during that time off.

“People have gone nuts, not only being without it, but also because so much of their lives are intertwined with it,” said Gayle Porter, a Rutgers University professor and expert on workaholism. In 2006, she co-authored a study that found that workers develop an addiction to their PDAs — “technophilia,” not unlike alcoholism — that merits treatment.

 I think a 28 day rehab is in order...