November, 2009

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30
Nov 09

I Think I See the Problem

There was an article posted today, November 30, 2009, in the San Luis Obispo Tribune. Stimulus grant for Calif jobless system questioned is the title of this article.

It seems that the state of California was given $60 million dollars of Stimulus money to improve it’s computer system. Why?

* “The state handles about 13 percent of the nation’s unemployment claims but processes benefits on a computer system built during the 1980s based on 1970s technology. The state should have completed an upgrade last year using federal unemployment money it received seven years ago, with the new system already in operation.”

This means that the state of California is handling all of it’s Unemployment Insurance stuff on computers that were made back when Madonna was making videos that were being played daily on MTV. The state of California computers are using technology that was designed when America had either Nixon, Ford, or Carter as it’s President. Hmm…. I think I see the problem here.

California was given money a while back to upgrade it’s computers, and it didn’t use it to upgrade it’s computers. It was given Stimulus money recently to upgrade it’s computers, and it didn’t use the money for that either. Somehow, this is ok with the government.

* “Despite the lag, the U.S. Department of Labor has found no fault in how California used the previous allocation because the program was designed to give states flexibility. They could use the money as they saw fit.”

Wonderful. The Department of Labor isn’t intending to fine the state of California for not using the money as it was supposed to be used, either. Why?

* “The Labor Department said it was more concerned that new stimulus funding is used in a way that will allow more workers to qualify for unemployment assistance.”

Well, ok. I suppose that allowing more people to get their Unemployment Insurance benefits would be more important than upgrading the computers right this minute. This is epecially true considering the extremely high number of unemployed people right now, here, in the state of California. I understand that it’s more important to make sure people can still buy groceries, and (hopefully) pay their mortgages than it is to upgrade a computer system right now.

But…. why on earth didn’t the state of California upgrade it’s computer system the first time it was given money to do it? This is a mystery to me. Perhaps if they used that money for what it was intended for, the first time it was given, we wouldn’t have this mess right now.

You can apply for Unemployment Insurance online, but that is pretty much all you can do. Everything else is done on paper, passed through the hands of workers, and sent out through the US Mail. Need to fill out a continued claim form? Wait for it to get to you through “snail mail”, fill it out by hand, and then send it right back through “snail mail”, and wait for a EDD worker to find it, open it, and process it. Then, wait some more for the EDD worker to send your next continued claim form through the US Mail, and the process starts over again. Want your Unemployment Insurance check? Wait around for the EDD workers to send it through the US Mail too. Oh, and I almost forgot, you have to wait around for that “Telephone Interview” before they do anything else. This is why everything is taking so long!

Nothing, except the initial signing up for Unemployment Insurance, is done online. We, the unemployed, cannot log in and receive our continued claim forms online. Therefore, we cannot fill them in online. Therefore, we are all attempting to send the physical paper forms back to the EDD through the US Mail on Sundays.

We are standing by our mailboxes, waiting for the Postman to arrive, so we can get our Unemployment Insurance checks, which we then have to run to the bank. The US Mail vehicle that services where I live arrives sometime between two and four in the afternoon. Let’s say the EDD check arrives on a Monday. If I immediately jump in my car and drive like a mad woman to my bank, I might, if I’m lucky, get that check into my bank account that same day. But, due to the time of day when it gets there, the bank is probably not going to include that money as part of my account until Tuesday. If the state of California upgraded it’s computer systems when it was supposed to, we, the unemployed, would be getting our Unemployment Insurance checks by direct deposit, which is much faster and more efficient.

Wonder why it takes so long to get through to the EDD by telephone? Assuming, of course, you manage to get through to an actual person AT ALL! It’s because the state of California didn’t use the money it was given to upgrade the computer and phone system to…. upgrade it’s computers and phones.

* “One upgrade would have better matched staffing levels with call volumes on the government’s unemployment help line. The other was to improve a payment system so claimants can certify their eligibility over the phone or Internet.”

Where did this money go instead? I really don’t know.

Of course, the state of California cannot simply drop everything right now, bring it all to a screeching halt, and upgrade their computer systems. That would make things even worse than they are now! Apparently there are plans to make these upgrades “in the future”. I’ll believe it when I see it.

And now is pretty bad. What kind of computers is the state of California using to handle it’s Unemployment Insurance benefits, you wonder?

* “State officials plan to use $20 million to overhaul the state’s unemployment database, which runs on computers that display a black screen and fit just 30 lines of text. That conversion is expected to take 1 1/2 years.”

Black screens that fit 30 lines of text? I’m old enough to remember computers like those, with the little rectangular blinking cursor that was either in green or orange. This is frightening. Ever seen the movie War Games ? “Shall we play a game?” THAT is the type of computers the state of California thinks it is a good idea to use to handle Unemployment Insurance claims! We’re talking floppy disks here, people! This is eons before Windows even existed. This is only a small step up from backing things up on tape, and entering data on punch cards.

Here’s a little visual of the type of computers that would have “30 lines of text”:
_KAYPRO.JPG

Yeah, I think I can see the problem, very clearly.

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25
Nov 09

Cheap Eats for Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, to all who celebrate it!

Today’s “Cheap Eats” blog is about places to go for Thanksgiving dinner, that won’t cost you a fortune that you don’t happen to have, now that you are unemployed/ underemployed.

* Family first
There is someone in every family that makes themselves the person to visit. This is the person who starts planning the menu sometime in October. This is the person who enjoys cooking up a feast to feed everyone in the whole family. This is the person who has a home large enough fit the entire family, and then some.

Every family has different “rules” about how this works. Some families want everyone to bring a dessert or bottle of wine along with them to Thanksgiving dinner. It generally doesn’t cost too much to run to the local grocery store and pick up a pie, or at least some brownies. Trader Joe’s is a great place to pick up that “Two Buck Chuck” (inexpensive bottle of wine). If your family is aware that you aren’t working right now, they might be cool if you simply show up on time, and just bring yourself.

Upside: Thanksgiving is a great time to spend with family, eating great food, catching up, and watching football. Also, you are likely to get sent home with lots of yummy leftovers, which will feed you for the next few days.

Downside: You have to spend the day with your family. For some people, the stress involved in doing that is not worth the potential possibility of free food.

* Hometown Buffet (also known as Old Country Buffet, or Country Buffet), has a very nice Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving. You can click around on their website to find one of their Buffets near you. I would recommend calling them to make sure they are, in fact, open on Thanksgiving. They usually are.

You pay one price, and can eat all you want, until you are done. I’m fairly certain they will charge the “dinner” rate, even if you go during the usual lunch time. It’s about $12.00 per adult.

If you have coupons, you can give it a shot, but I can’t promise they will honor them on Thanksgiving. I am certain that the free dinner coupon that you get for joining their eClub is NOT something you can use on a holiday (or a Sunday). Other then that particular coupon, well, it can’t hurt to try.

Upside: You can eat and drink as much as you want, and the price will remain the same. You won’t have any dishes to wash later on, and you can safely avoid the relatives you don’t happen to want to visit with today.

Downside: There will be no leftovers for you to take home. In fact, it is specifically “verboten” to bring ANY food out of the buffet when you leave. (Unless, you decided to pay for their “take out” option, which is a different story.) Also, the lines will be long, so you should plan on waiting much longer on Thanksgiving than on a “normal” day to be seated at Hometown Buffet.

* If you happen to be in San Francisco, Cafe Gratitude is planning on serving a FREE Thanksgiving dinner. This will be the fifth year they will do this.

” Meals will be served on a first come, first served basis, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.”

They are doing this as an expression of gratitude for their many customers and fans of their Vegan restaurant.

Upside: If you happen to be a Vegan, a fan of the Gratitude resturant, and in San Francisco, you can get a free Thanksgiving dinner.

Downside: You might not get in, depending on the number of people that arrive. If you aren’t a Vegan, you might be disappointed by the fact that you won’t be served turkey. And, you pretty much have to already be in San Francisco today to even have a chance of taking advantage of this offer.

* If you are reading this blog and are truly desperate and hungry this year, you can use google to find out if your area has a “food bank” or “free kitchen” or even a local shelter that can assist you. SLO Food Bank is an example that is local to me.

Upside: These places are set up for people who are extremely poor and hungry, and they will understand your need. Some of these places might even be able to provide shelter, if you have none.

Downside: No one really wants to spend Thanksgiving this way. This is a last resort, so don’t use this option unless you absolutely have no other choice. Don’t take resources away from someone else who is truly needy, if you are not.

* If you aren’t really interested in having the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, you might want to give the Chinese Buffet a call. Sometimes they are open on holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas when many places are closed. Buffets are a great place to get a lot of food for a reasonable price.

I hope everyone has a happy and safe Thanksgiving this year.

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18
Nov 09

Ways to Save Some Money

Here are some things you many not know about, that can save you a bit of money as you shop, dine out, or make gift purchases right now. Consider this entry to be “Cheap Eats, and Then Some!”

I apologize, in advance, because I realize many, if not all of these tips are going to be available only to people in the United States right now. Also, I know that at least a few of these things are somewhat “California-centric”.

*Barnes & Noble wants to give you the Membership discount for things you purchase from BN.com.

I've never heard of this before. Go look up a book you are interested in buying. Next to it, you will see the "list" price, followed by the "online" price. Under that, you see something like the following:

BUY IT NEW
$28.99 List price
$18.84 Online price
$17.39 Member price
(Save 40%)
Limited Time Offer!
Everyone receives the Member Price on books.

If you click on the link to see more details, it says :
"Special Holiday Offer Details:
For a limited time, starting on Nov. 2, 2009, customers who are not Barnes & Noble Members will receive the advertised "Member Price" on bn.com only on eligible books and only at bn.com and its mirror sites. This offer is subject to change or discontinuation without notice; we will, however, honor properly placed orders with valid methods of payment with sufficient funds placed prior to such change or discontinuation, while supplies last.

Only books that display a Member Price on bn.com are eligible for this offer. The Member Price will be applied during checkout." This is, of course, followed by more fine print.

Barnes & Noble is, primarily, a bookstore, but it also sells CDs, journals, cards, calendars, and an endless array of knick-knacks. If you go into the actual "brick and mortar" stores, and buy anything at all (even from the cafe), you will get asked if you want to pay $25 dollars extra to become a "Member", and to get the slightly lower Membership price on all the stuff you buy. Most of the time, things cost one price in the stores, and a somewhat lower price if you buy it on the Barnes & Noble website instead.

Now, for a limited time, Barnes & Noble is shooting its stores in the foot with bigger bullets, as it allows customers to go online, and buy stuff for the Membership price, WITHOUT having to sheck out the extra 25 bucks to buy the Membership card! Kind of insane, but, something unemployed consumers can take advantage of. This offer is for "a limited time", and I can't find anything about when, exactly, it will end.

Shipping is free, if your order is over $25.00, which is helpful. This allowed me to ship gifts to my family in Illinois, all the way from where I live in California, at zero cost to me.

* Evos is my favorite place to eat. It air cooks the food, so you can eat fries, and burgers, and not have either one be dripping in grease.

On Sundays, the Evos I go to puts out an easel with a whiteboard in front of the store. This will tell you what deal they are doing that particular Sunday. Sometimes it has been something like “buy a Veggie Wrap and get fries and a drink free”. Last time we went, it was “Buy fries and a drink, and get Chicken Strips for free.”

Here is an example of what I mean:
evossign

Hang on to your receipts! At the bottom, you will find an offer that will say something like “Come join us from 2pm/close nightly!! FREE BURGER w/purchase of any lge value meal.”
These offers change, so take a close look at your receipt before you recycle it.

Also, my Evos gives discounts to students. You need to bring in your school ID, I think, as proof. One day is for students of the local high school, another is for students of one local college, and a third day is for students of the other local college. How nice!

* Panda Express is another place I love to eat at.
panda express

This is another wonderful fast food place that gives you a discount attached to a receipt. The front of the receipts say “FREE ENTREE ITEM”, and tells you to flip it over and read the back for full details.

It’s easy. Call a phone number, take a quick survey about your Panda experience, and they give you a code. Write down the validation code in the little box provided for you on the back of the receipt, and bring it with you next time you go to Panda Express! You have to do the survey within two days of your visit, and you have to have the actual receipt with you when you try to use it for the free entree item. This works well if you happened to be hungry enough to eat a three entree plate, and only had enough money to buy a two entree plate. Nice!

* Starbucks wants to give you something for free.

starbucks1.jpg

Spend $15 dollars at Starbucks, and, for a limited time, you get the Starbucks and (RED) exclusive CD called “All You Need Is Love”. “Enjoy exclusive songs from Playing for Change, U2, Dave Matthews and John Legend.” Somewhere on the Starbucks website is a place where you can listen to some of these songs. For every one of these CDs that Starbucks distributes, they will “contribute $1 U.S. to the Global Fund to help fight AIDS in Africa.”

So, you get a free CD, and you get to help fight AIDS in Africa. Pretty great deal! If this CD isn’t exactly your favorite style of music, perhaps it is something one of your loved ones would be excited about having as a gift this holiday season.

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18
Nov 09

Not Just Seasonal Depression

Here is another article that shows how difficult and stressful it truly can be to be unemployed right now. The title is “Suicides in the downturn raise worries about recession’s real cost”, and this was posted on November 9, 2009.

This article is about the number of suicides that have happened in Elkhart County, Indiana, as a result of someone becoming unemployed, and the stress that comes from that experience. The writer, JoNel Aleccia, talked to John White, who was the coroner for Elkhart County, Indiana.

* “In more than a quarter of the cases, White said, distress caused by job loss or financial failure was cited as the last straw. “We have a real problem,” said White. “They left notes specifically stating that the reason they did this was because of the economy.””

There is an example given of a woman who sent her child to the store, and then shot herself in the head. She was struggling to pay her bills, and her house was heading towards foreclosure. She shot herself the day after collectors came and took the vehicle that she and her late husband purchased together.

The example of the suicide rate in Elkhart county, Indiana, is something like a microcosm of the suicide rate all across the United States right now.

* “While there hasn’t been a link between suicide rates and recent national recessions, which are declared based on many factors, there is a link with circumstances that come along with a recession, such as unemployment and home foreclosure, said John L. McIntosh, a professor of psychology at Indiana University at South Bend who researches suicide trends. Individually, people who’ve lost jobs commit suicide at rates two times to four times as high as those who are employed, the suicide association notes.”"

Read the article to hear more stories about individuals who have taken their own lives as a result of unemployment, and an excess of bills. It’s just sad!

One of the points of the article is that we all need to keep our eyes open, and check on our loved ones who are currently unemployed. It’s not always apparent just how depressed and stressed out a person truly is.

This is the time of year where people who get seasonal depression are most effected, as the days become darker. Christmas is coming up fast, and this is going to be a really tight year for many families. Not everyone has happy memories of Christmas in the first place, and when you add that to the stress involved in trying to find enough money to purchase the perfect presents for everyone in your family, well, this could prove to be too much to deal with for many people.

It’s easy tally up the numbers of jobs that have disappeared. It’s easy to count up the number of new cases of unemployed people, seeking assistance each year, each month, each week, each day. What is overlooked is how individual people are truly being affected by this barren economy that isn’t producing nearly enough jobs.

Take care of yourselves, and your loved ones, this holiday season, people. It’s going to be a rough one!

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16
Nov 09

Well, Look What I Got!

Another surprise arrived in the mailbox today from the EDD. I almost fell over when I opened it. Here, in my hands, is a check from the EDD, AND one of those super special Claim Forms! And…. wait for it…. BOTH of them are on time!

Here is an Unemployment Benefit check for the week ending October 31, 2009, and the week ending November 7, 2009. Imagine that! At the top of this one, it says that my payment has been lowered because I elected to have them go ahead and withhold Federal Income Tax on it. Wouldn’t want to not do that, and have the Fed hunt me down later, for a huge some of money that I didn’t get taxed on!

It also says that my payment has been lowered for the week ending October 31, 2009, and the week ending November 7, 2009 because I reported that I worked some hours those weeks. Yep, this check is significantly smaller than the previous one, from before I found a part time ten hour a week job.

Last time I got a check, and sent in a claim form, I blogged that I was wondering what would happen now that I had a part time job. It seems the answer is that my Unemployment Insurance benefits gets lowered when I work. But still… it’s a check from the EDD, and it’s being given to me in a timely fashion! I am relieved to know that the EDD didn’t look at the part of the claim form where it said that I did, in fact, work a few hours, and say “No more financial aid for you, then!”

The claim form is for the week ending November 14, 2009, and the week ending November 21, 2009. That’s this week! I am to send this claim into the mail on November 22, 2009, which is, once again, a Sunday. The EDD hasn’t learned that the US Postal Service does not pick up mail on Sundays. But, it is nice to know that the EDD finally acknowledges that I cannot actually jump into a time machine, fire up the flux capacitor, go back in time, and mail the claim form before I received it. This is a step in the right direction!

So, let’s recap:
The first check from the EDD took about 38 days to arrive.
The second check from the EDD took about 8 days to arrive.
The third check from the EDD took about 7 days to arrive.

So, once they actually get moving, the EDD can be somewhat efficient. Where they need serious improvement, however, is the time it takes for people who need help to get that first check.

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15
Nov 09

It’s a Bad Time to be a Teacher

I think that there is a misconception out there that people who are unemployed have it easy. We don’t have to get up every day and drive a long distance to a job. We don’t have any deadlines coming from angry bosses. We can stay up later than people who have to be at work early in the morning. We never have to tell our friends and family “No, I won’t be attending that party/get together/holiday event, because I have to work.” We have all this free time to play World of Warcraft all day long, and into the night, if we feel like it. Anyone who happens to hate their job might find themselves dreaming about how “easy” it would be if they were unemployed, how delightful life would be without the stress that comes from having a horrible job that you don’t like.

I can tell you from personal experience that the very idea that being unemployed is “easy” is nothing more than a myth. If you have been following this blog, than you have already seen my own version of what being unemployed is actually like. There is a huge amount of stress in the lives of the unemployed. Dealing with the EDD provides an endless amount of stressful situations. It can be extremely stressful to have suddenly lost the income you depended on to pay your bills and buy groceries. Christmas is coming, and the unemployed are going to struggle to come up with extra funds to buy gifts for their loved ones.

Nobody enjoys the tedium of searching through job listings every day, re-doing resumes, or filling out job application after job application. It becomes more stressful when employers neglect to let applicants know when the job has been filled, leaving the unemployed job seekers in this nebulous space between “Maybe they will call me” and “I should give up on that one and look elsewhere”. This is not an easy, breezy, lifestyle. We are not simply sitting on our couches, watching Oprah, and eating bon-bons.

For many people, being unemployed comes with emotional and/or psychological stress as well. This is especially true for people who identified themselves with the job they used to be doing. There are a lot of people who, when asked to tell about themselves, will say “I am a (whatever job title they have)” as the first piece of information they give you. Many people who are unemployed right now have spent a large chunk of their lives either working in that field, or preparing to work in that field. It can be devastating to suddenly have the very thing you spent so many years doing taken away from you, often with no warning or good reason, especially if you were working in a field that you were told was “safe”. It’s stressful to go from thinking “This is the job I will do for the rest of my life, until I retire.” to “What else can I do?”

MSNBC posted an article on November 12, 2009, titled Teacher shortage has given way to teacher glut. This would be an example of one of the careers that was considered “safe” before the Recession, or Depression, or whatever this economy is in right now. There used to be a saying that is no longer valid. Once you get a college degree in something, anything…. if that doesn’t work out, people would say “Well, you can always teach!”. Not true anymore.

Here are a few quotes from this article:

* “Across the country, droves of people like Lackey are unable to find teaching jobs, in large part because the economy is forcing school systems to slash positions. The teacher shortage that many feared just a few years ago has turned into a teacher glut.”

* “”I always thought that if I didn’t find a job, I would be able to sub. And then once that started to be more difficult, it was really kind of devastating,” Lackey, an art teacher, said during a career fair for educators at the University of Kansas.”

* “Since last fall, school systems, state education agencies, technical schools and colleges have shed about 125,000 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.”

* “Substitute teaching rolls have grown so large that some districts have increased their requirements or stopped accepting applications altogether.”

In the past, many public school districts across the US would hire anyone with a college degree, in anything at all, as a Substitute Teacher. Some school districts would prefer that a person had a degree in Education, or at least Early Childhood Education, but it wasn’t usually a “deal breaker” if your degree was in history, or math, or even in business.

Now, we are seeing more and more school districts that are not even going to consider hiring someone as a Substitute Teacher unless they already have at least a B.S in Education. They are going to start choosing former teachers, who already have the correct teaching credentials for California, or Illinois, or whatever state the school is located in.

And, they can do this, because there are so many teachers who have become unemployed due to the state government cutting out teaching jobs. It might be a good thing that students are going to get Substitute Teachers that are more qualified to teach than the Substitute Teachers of the past were, this is true.

However, what is unjust is that this means that the same teachers who worked so hard to find enough money to pay for college, who studied hard and passed those classes, who bought extra study guides, and studied even harder to pass the specialized, and required, teacher examinations that one needs to obtain “credentials”, are now going to be payed way less than they deserve, as they attempt to find work as a Substitute Teacher.

Full time teachers generally get : paid sick days, holiday pay, a regular annual raise, a union that protects them from being treated badly by the school district, health benefits, (that often include dental and eye care), a reasonable (if low) rate of pay, and the expectation that they will have work for most of the year.

Substitute teachers, on the other hand, get paid at a much lower rate than regular teachers, and do not get paid at all on days that they do not work. (For example, if the school is closed for summer vacation, or if the school is closed for a Federal holiday). Substitute Teachers get zero paid sick days, zero paid holidays, and cannot count on when, or if, or how much, work they will be doing.

In short, this economy has made it acceptable for school districts to pay teachers much less then they deserve, based on the credentials and degrees they have obtained. Teaching was never a profession to go into to make money, everyone knows that. Now, Teaching has become the profession you don’t want to go into at all, because you cannot make a sustainable amount of money from doing it, no matter how many expensive and respectable degrees you may have worked to get. Someday, when this economy improves, I doubt that the school districts across America will suddenly decide to lower their criteria for hiring Substitute Teachers. After all, they are getting a great deal! We all know that schools now are more interested in the money they can save, than in the moral implications of their actions.

I, for one, have decided to never teach again. It’s not worth it. I’m certain that there are many other former teachers out there who feel the same way. On the other hand, there are lots of people out there who feel that teaching is their “calling”, and who are going to continue to attempt to work as a teacher, no matter what. It is those teachers I feel sorry for. It’s a bad time to be a teacher. It’s going to continue to be a bad time to be a teacher for the foreseeable future. Once this economy gets sorted out, I believe it will still continue to be a bad time to be a Teacher. There is no incentive for school districts to change what they are doing.

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11
Nov 09

Why Johnny Can’t Read

I’ve already blogged about the thousands of jobs in Education that have been cut out of existence from America’s public schools. The “Powers That Be”, in their infinite wisdom, feel that we, as a nation, don’t need all those teachers. I cannot understand how it can possibly be a good idea to cut out “extras” like Resource Teachers, and Special Education Paraeducators and school Librarians, and expect that the children those teachers used to help will be unaffected. There is going to be an entire generation of students that go through critical years of school unable to get the help they need to learn basic things, like, how to read.

But wait! Schools aren’t the only places where literate people can go to read books, or do research, or learn new things. One can always go to a local bookstore, right? I mean, don’t most places have at least one Barnes & Noble, or Borders, or Waldenbooks, or B. Dalton nearby, right? Um… no, not anymore they don’t.

This article was sent to me by a very good friend. The article was published on November 5, 2009. Here’s the main idea of the article:

* “Borders (BGP) announced Thursday afternoon that it will close 200 of its Waldenbooks stores by early January, cutting as many as 1,500 jobs, most of them part-time.”

It’s no secret that Borders has been struggling for a long time now. I still find it shocking that they are closing 200 stores. 200 stores! I feel bad for those 1,500 workers who are going to be unemployed sometime between now, and the beginning of January 2010. Way to say “Happy Holidays”, there, Borders!

* “The move comes as Barnes & Noble (BKS) prepares to shutter all but two of its smaller, mall-based B. Dalton stores by January, signaling the last nail in the 1980s-era heyday of shopping-mall retail for book chains.”

Barnes & Noble is no better, it seems. This article doesn’t say an exact number of workers that BN is planning on taking a job away from this holiday season, but, it’s obviously a large number. All but
two of the B. Dalton stores are closing, forever? What’s so special about those two stores, that BN spared them from death? Oh, wait… they must be the only two B. Dalton’s that are “making plan”. Right.

I’m a child of the ’80s, and I spent countless hours in the mall, browsing through the bookstores. I always found something in those bookstores that made me want to read more. A new author, a book I’d somehow missed by a favorite author, kids books that didn’t exist when I was little… there were always treasures to be found. I didn’t have much money then, (just like now), but somehow, it felt like buying a book was better for me than buying the trinkets found in all the other stores in the Mall. It makes me sad that the kids and teens of today will not be able to have the same wonderful experience that I did, killing time in a bookstore. It is that ability to explore books, unguided, and not as part of an assignment or a deadline, that makes “people who can read” into “readers”.

Most Borders stores, or Barnes & Noble stores are located in big cities. It was the Mall stores, the B. Daltons and the Waldenbooks, that were accessible to people who lived in smaller towns. By closing the smaller stores, these big chain corporate retail companies have, effectively, made it nearly impossible for most people to find something to read.

Now, many people are going to have to get in their cars or trucks, and spend gas money to drive to the bigger cities, if they want to go to a BN or Borders. They might even have to pay to park their cars someplace, as they hurriedly run through the bookstore, trying to “beat the meter”. This is not the same as having the ability to browse around, and randomly find that one special book. With so many people unemployed right now, it’s going to be even more of a struggle to come up with the gas money, and the parking money, before they even can consider if they have enough money to buy something to read. I’m angry that BN and Borders basically set up shop and took all the business away from the Mom and Pop bookstores, and the Used bookstores, only to abandon the very consumers who helped keep them in business.

Ok, so, you can’t really read at school. Soon, you won’t be able to read at a whole bunch of bookstores. What about the local library?
It might not have the latest books by all the authors you want, but, it’s free. Free is good, when you are unemployed (or underemployed).

Here is an article from my local newspaper. The title is “11 people to get layoff notices from county library system this week”. This was published November 11, 2009.

* “Eleven people will receive layoff notices this week from the city-county library, according to Library Director Brian Reynolds, as the system seeks to adjust to the withering economy.”

The article goes on to say that, somehow, “the 11 people account for seven full-time positions.” I’m guessing that some of these people who will suddenly be unemployed for the Holidays are full time workers. Perhaps the rest are part-time workers, who, if you put them all together, make up a few full time positions. I bet the Library Director, Brian Reynolds, is not going to be one of the people who is going to be desperately attempting to contact the EDD this Holiday season.

I cannot imagine that the reason the library is axing jobs is because there aren’t enough patrons to help. In this economy, with so many people unemployed, I would think that the local Library would be filled with people who want to read. After all, the library is one of the few things in this world that is still free. So, why take away the jobs of these 11 people, Brian Reynolds?

* “Increased demand likely doesn’t imply increased revenues,” he added. “So, we are looking at doing more with less, at being innovative for the long haul.”

Oh, right, I forgot! Money is more important than the people who work to help you make whatever money your corporation, company, or governmental entity receives! Or, so the people who are high up enough to be safe from losing their job seem to think. They make me sick.

So, why can’t Johnny read? First, they took away his teacher. Then, they closed the local bookstore. Now, they are firing the librarians. Just who declared the war on literacy?

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9
Nov 09

More EDD Mail

So, here’s something interesting.

I got not one, but two, letters from the EDD in the mail today. The first one, I believe is in direct response to the comment I left on the EDD official website, basically asking them to get off their asses and start sending me the Claim Forms they were supposed to be sending.

This letter contained a Claim Form for the week beginning October 25, 2009, and ending October 31, 2009 and also for the week starting November 1, 2009, and ending November 7, 2009. It seems the EDD likes to do these things for two weeks at once.

The little perforated part at the top says ” THIS FORM IS BEING SENT TO YOU TO BRING YOUR CLAIM FORM UP- TO- DATE. IF YOU WISH TO CLAIM BENEFITS FOR THIS PERIOD, PLEASE COMPLETE THE ENTIRE FORM. SIGN AND MAIL IMMEDIATELY BUT NO LATER THAN 11-19-09.”

Looks like the EDD is finally doing what I asked it to do. Now, why couldn’t they just go ahead and do that in the first place?

The second piece of mail I got from the EDD today was even more interesting. I have now, officially, received my second check from the EDD. It looks as though this check is for the week ending October 17, 2009, and also for the week ending October 24, 2009. The little perforated part also says something about “THE ATTACHED CHECK INCLUDES A FEDERAL STIMULUS PAYMENT.” I’m not sure how much that stimulus payment was for, since it’s rolled into the check for a two week period, and there isn’t anything on this letter that gives details about this.

Attached to this second EDD check is, of course, a Continued Claim Form. This one is for the week starting October 25, 2009, and ending October 31, 2009, and also for the week starting November 1, 2009, and ending November 7, 2009. The exact same dates as the claim form I got in the other letter from the EDD that arrived in my mailbox today. Clearly, the EDD is one of those places where one hand not only has no idea what the other hand is doing, but also has no knowledge that another hand even exists.

Inexplicably, this Claim Form is not exactly identical to the other one. This one says I should mail it by November 8, 2009. That would be… um… let me see… yesterday! Once again, the EDD wants me to jump into my time machine, and make this somehow work out. Instead, I’m just going to fill it out tonight, and mail it tomorrow, like I did the last one.

It will be interesting to see how the few hours I have been working at my part-time job affect the next check I get from the EDD.

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9
Nov 09

Looking for a job?

Looks like the CalJOBS site is up and running again. It’s up to you to decide wether or not your trust it enough to put your resume and personal information into it. Remember, it was down for a while because of a little problem that allowed random users to view other people’s resumes. Oops!

I just went there and looked through the site, and I am not impressed. First of all, there aren’t any more education jobs listed there now than were there before the site went down. Also, for some reason, the site is no longer allowing me to use the “back” button on my browser to go back and forth between the list of jobs and a particular job listing. Not impressed at all!

Maybe you aren’t looking for a job right now, but you have an interview (or more than one interview) coming up. I hate interviews. I don’t like the uncertainty of having to guess what kind of answer a possible employer is looking for. I’m the type of person that you can drop into a room full of complete strangers, and I will quickly and easily find myself in a conversation with at least one of them. But, somehow, interviews make me extremely nervous. Perhaps it’s because so much is riding on those precious few minutes that a potential employer is granting me to prove that I am the person who should be hired for this job. It’s especially hard when the job is one that I really want, or absolutely need, to get.

Do you feel like you need some help with interview questions? Here is a fabulous resource for you to check out. Daniel Johnson Jr. has a website called Get That Job! Right now, he is posting one short video every day, for the entire month of November. Each video gives a great example about how to answer some of the most common questions an interviewer may ask you. I find his videos to be extremely helpful, and I highly recommend checking them out.

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6
Nov 09

I Got Email!

In addition to the mail I got from the EDD that I talked about in the previous post, I also got an email. It arrived on November 3rd, 2009. This email seems to be in direct response to the angry post I left the EDD on their website (that I wrote about in a previous blog.) Apparently, somebody at the EDD does, in fact, check the automated website thing.

The title of the email says “EDD Responds”. That alone was enough to make me do a double take. The EDD…. responds? Wow!

The first part says “Thank you for submitting your information to the Employment Development Department on 11/1/2009 at 6:56 PM.”

The email notes that the “category” was “Unemployment Insurance Benefits”. I remember picking that topic out of the box when I was trying to navigate my way through the EDD website, in my effort to have something, anything, happen.

This is followed by a wonderfully warm and positive paragraph, which reveals the empathy rarely seen in the EDD. They are communicating with me now, so I guess they wanted to make how they felt about me clear:

“Do NOT respond to this message through email. If you need additional information or assistance regarding this matter, contact us through the Ask the EDD Web site. Be sure to select the same category and include your Reference Number: (and it printed my reference number here)”.

Translation: “STOP emailing me! Stop sending me stuff that I have to respond to at work!” Um…. sorry? I thought I was asking for help from a governmental entity that was set up to provide financial assistance to people who lost their jobs due to the economy failing miserably. Didn’t realize I was actually contacting some teenager who seems to think he broke up with me, is no longer my boyfriend, and is irritated that I dare ask him questions while he is at work.

Anyway… from there, the EDD pretty much copied and pasted the exact words I typed into their little box.

“My (DOB) is (I put my actual birthday on the EDD form). I got my first Claim form for the week beginning September 27, 2009, and ending October 3, 2009, and also for the week starting October 4, 2009, and ending October 10, 2009. I filled out that Claim form, and sent it to the EDD.
I have not gotten any claim forms since. Please send me the Claim form for the week starting October 11, 2009 and ending October 17, 2009. I also need a Claim from for the week starting October 18, 2009 and ending October 24, 2009. I also need a Claim form for the week starting October 25, 2009, and ending October 31, 2009. Also, send me the Claim form for this week, starting November 1, 2009, and ending November 7, 2009.”

After that it says “Here is our reply:
“You should have received the claim form for the 2 weeks ending 10/24/09 with the check. You will receive a new claim form for the 2 weeks ending 11/07/09 in the mail. Thank you for contacting the EDD.”

Then it tells me my reference number, once again, in case I somehow missed it when it first appeared when I finished typing all that stuff to them on the EDD site, or if I somehow didn’t see it after the first paragraph of this same email. The overall feeling I am getting from this email is “We hear you, we sent you an email, now go away.” There is no clear answer as to when I will be getting the Claim form for the two weeks ending 11/07/09, just that it will arrive by mail, sometime.

I distinctly remember clicking the little bubble on the EDD website that stated I would like to be contacted “by mail”. I did not mark the bubble next to “contact me by email”, or the ridiculous one marked something like “Don’t contact me at all”. This is not mail, this is email. I specifically said I wanted to be contacted by mail so the EDD would go ahead and mail out the Claim Forms that they were supposed to have already mailed out to me.

Now, yes, they are right, I did get the Claim Form for the two week period they mention. Attached to the check was a claim form for two weeks: October 11th, 2009 through October 17th, 2009, and also for the week starting October 18th, 2009, and ending October 24th, 2009. The check covered the two weeks before that, and, as I already mentioned, the first week after I signed up for Unemployment Insurance is something the EDD refuses to pay for.

So, it seems that at this point, I have gotten all the appropriate Claim Forms that cover everything until you get to the week starting October 25th, 2009, and ending October 31st, 2009. Oh, and for this current week, starting November 1, 2009, and ending November 7th, 2009. The EDD is getting closer, but is still far behind where it should be. I guess that whomever first made that statement “good enough for government work” was familiar with how things go at the EDD.

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