The Washington Post ran over 220 stories during the government shutdown about victims of the shutdown, a huge number of them on terror-stricken federal employees. On Friday, the Post ran a sob story about a furloughed federal employee dealing with the trauma of returning to her job:

There were a few times in recent weeks when Sophia Casey found herself mindlessly walking toward her laptop, ready to scan for new work messages as she’s always done at nights and on weekends.

Then she would see the computer — powered down, closed and unplugged. And she’d remember: furlough.

When Casey saw 1,563 emails waiting for her, she panicked. “Just looking at them started to give her ‘a little headache over my right eyeball,’ so she got up and walked away,” the Post reported. Then she took the next step: she asked for vacation. “She worked from home Thursday to ease herself back into the grind. As soon as she logged on, she fired off an e-mail of her own,” the Post reported. “Her most pressing order of business: a request for vacation time.”

Only the Post could play a paid vacation as an excuse for a paid vacation.