National Weather Service employee tells shuttered government to pay up in encoded bulletin

The federal government shutdown enacted last week is having widespread consequences across its network of services, with some closing down entirely, while others are required to stay open despite not having the budgets needed to pay their employees. A good example is the National Weather Service, and one Anchorage employee is making the displeasure public with a weather bulletin containing a pressing message down the leftmost column: “please pay us.” The Washington Post reports that roughly 3,935 NWS employees have been excepted from the shutdown, and according to Dan Sobien of the National Weather Service Employees Organization, “nobody knows when anyone’s going to get paid.”