AUSTIN, Texas -- There are nearly 36,000 federal employees in Texas currently working without pay, and now they're wondering if they'll get a check at all on Friday. 

• 36,000 federal employees currently working without pay
• More than 1,800 of those employees have filed Unemployment Insurance Claims

It was an eerily quiet morning at one government building in South Austin. 

"What you're looking at is a parking lot that's usually filled with cars and as you can see there are no cars," said federal employee Eddie Walker. 

Walker is a tax examiner and has been for 20 years. He has faced shutdowns before, but this one is personal. Walker and his fiancé began the process of closing on a house just before the holidays. 

"My timeline is say, January is when we close and we're in great shape, February, that's when things start to get rough," said Walker.  

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Walker is one of more than 200,000 federal employees in Texas. About 36,000 are currently working in agencies without funding. Since the shutdown began, more than 1,800 of those employees have filed Unemployment Insurance Claims with the Texas Workforce Commission. Some of the people are employees that Walker represents. 

He serves as president of a local National Treasury Employees Union chapter in Austin. 

"They're up against student loans, they're up against childcare," said Walker.  

Walker said disagreements in Washington shouldn't be the reason his parking lot is empty. 

"Public servants should not be the ones to bear the brunt of this political dispute," said Walker.  

It is a dispute that Walker fears could cost him a future home if the shutdown drags on much further.