The federal workers showed up at their offices on Monday morning. They collected their desk plants and food from break-room refrigerators. They shut down their government equipment. They went home to take aimless walks and wait.

But by the afternoon, hundreds of thousands of federal employees across the country were left with a stinging case of shutdown whiplash as politicians in Washington declared that the government closure was over. For now. Maybe.

The Washington region has the highest number of federal workers, but government employees and contractors can be found in jobs across the country and the world. They are program managers at the country’s largest national forest in Alaska. They are studying the moon for NASA in Houston. They are examining Social Security claims in Kansas City.

On Monday afternoon, they fumed at both political parties, and said they were once again being made into sacrificial pawns in a badly played game of chess.