It has now been 38 days since I signed up for Unemployment Insurance. I have yet to receive my first financial aide check from the EDD.
I’ve decided to keep a running count in this blog, day by unpaid day, just to make a point. The EDD is not helping unemployed (or underemployed) people one bit, and I feel like something needs to be said. I know I have no power to change anything on my own, but if everyone who is struggling with the same problems that I am speaks up, blogs about it, podcasts about it…. perhaps eventually, someone out there who does have the power to change things will make those changes. Staying silent when things are wrong certainly won’t help, and there are lots more of us than there are of the EDD workers. Our combined voices can make a noise too great to be ignored.
There is another blog out there on the internet that is similar in topic to mine. It’s called Unemploymentality. It’s a fine blog, and you may want to go check it out. I did! Earlier this week, as you might recall, I spent an obnoxious and unjustified amount of time speed-dialing the EDD, desperate to let them know that I have obtained a part time job. I, of course, got absolutely nowhere, which, it seems, is exactly what happens to everyone else. When both me and my husband finally abandoned all hope of being able to contact the EDD, he started searching online, to see if there was any information out there that we were somehow missing out on.
This blog entry on “Unemploymentality” was enlightening in many ways. This blog started months earlier than mine did, and the writer was having the exact same problems that I am now experiencing. NOTHING has gotten any better, despite how many other people are being jerked around by the EDD. Read the comments on “Unemploymentality”, she gets tons of comments, and they are all from people as frustrated and angry as I am about the whole Unemployment Insurance situation.
I followed a link from her blog titled Tips and Tricks getting through to California’s EDD sanity intact, which I thought might provide help. The EDD, as I mentioned in earlier blog posts, spontaneously stopped sending me the forms I am suppose to continue to fill out in order to receive Unemployment Insurance benefits. Without those, I cannot possibly let them know that I have a ten hour a week job. Without those forms, I cannot continue to apply for benefits, which, I realize, must be exactly the way the EDD wants it. Somewhere on that blog page I found a link which lead me to the EDD site where I can request more of those super special forms.
You use a series of drop down menus to select what you want. It takes time, because things are worded in a confusing manner. Eventually, you get to an EDD page that will allow you to “request” more Claim forms. It wants you to start with your birthday, and in counts down each character you use to explain the problem as you type into a little box.
Here is what I just wrote to the EDD:
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.
I tried to be a specific as possible, so no morons over at the EDD could look at my explanation, and say, “You didn’t put the year! We can’t send you anything because we have no idea what year you applied for Unemployment Insurance, or what year you are referring to! Hahahahhaa…. no Claim forms for you!”
The next page asks me to put my name, social security number, address, and all that kind of stuff that the EDD already has been given at least three or four times now. It asks “How would you like to be contacted?” and gives you four bubbles with selections to choose from. The first one says that you don’t want to be contacted at all. Seriously? This, to me, proves that this truly is just an elaborate game. I selected the bubble next to “US Postal Service”, hoping they would get the idea that I wanted them to mail the Claim forms to me that I am asking about right now. You know, the forms they couldn’t be bothered to send? Those forms!
After that, I get shunted to another screen, where the EDD whines to me about it’s woes, once again. “Our volume is very high due to the high demand for our services. We ask for your patience. We will contact you only if we need additional information. In the meantime, we will process your request.” The EDD is supposed to be there to help me with my problems, not the other way around! I feel it is completely inappropriate for the EDD to keep giving me this message about how stressed and overburdened it is feeling at the moment.
There is also a reference number on this form that I will need to keep, when they ignore me, once again. Let’s see if this little experiment brings me any help, or, if it causes the EDD to deny my claim for Unemployment Insurance entirely, because I dared to ask for actual help from them. Right now, I don’t care which way it goes, I just want to be out of this never ending labyrinth of nonsense and frustration.
Tags: Unemployment Insurance