Between GigsSurviving unemployment

All of a sudden, the EDD has decided that I exist, and that it wants to correspond with me. In my previous blog, I wrote about how I finally got a check, and that the check was attached to one of those “CONTINUED CLAIM” forms. Today, I got more from the EDD.

Before I blog about what I got, let me mention something very important. Shawn and I went to the bank and deposited the Unemployment Insurance check I got from the EDD. It did not “bounce”, as I suspected it might. After all the stress I went through just trying to get the EDD to start sending me the Unemployment Benefits I signed up for, I couldn’t believe that I finally had gotten some help in the form of a check. I was absolutely certain that this check from the EDD would bounce, or be denied by the bank due to lack of funds in the account it was coming from, or something awful like that. But, that didn’t happen. The money went from the EDD, through this first check they mailed out to me yesterday, and into our bank account without a problem. This was a great relief.

Today, in the mail, I got another confusing letter from the EDD. It arrived in one of those envelopes with the see through window in the front, which I took to mean that it was either a bill, or a check. It turned out to be neither one.

Most of this letter was blank. The part where a check would appear was completely blank, as was the middle part of this letter, where the “CONTINUED CLAIM” form appeared before, attached to the one and only check I got from the EDD so far. The top part looked, at first glance, like the little perforated part that was attached to the top of the check, and also to the top of the first claim form I filled out. It was in all caps, and in tiny letters, just like the other perforated parts I was to tare off and “save for (my) records”.

The very top, next to my name and social security number it says “WEEK PAID 10-03-09″. Next to that, it says “$0.00″. The text below this strange not-a-check says the following:

“NO BENEFITS ARE PAYABLE BECAUSE THE WEEK ENDING 10-03-09 WAS USED AS A WAITING PERIOD WEEK. UNEMPLOYMENT COMPENSATION IS TAXABLE. A QUESTION ON THE CLAIM FORM ALLOWS YOU TO REQUEST FEDERAL INCOME TAX WITHHOLDING AT 10% OF YOUR PAYABLE AMOUNT. YOU MAKE A NEW WITHHOLDING CHOICE ON EACH CLAIM FORM YOU SUBMIT.”

The EDD is telling me that I will not be paid for the week ending October 3, 2009. It is a “waiting period week”. This is, basically, a loophole for the EDD to not have to pay a person anything for the first week after they have applied for Unemployment Insurance. It is telling me that even though I applied for Unemployment Insurance on September 25, 2009, that they refuse to pay me for that first week, which ended on October 3, 2009. I thought the check yesterday was for that first week, but, the handy little perforated slip that I saved for my records tells me otherwise. It says “WEEK PAID 10-10-09″. Hmmm….

Let’s review:
* Week ending October 3, 2009 : EDD refuses to pay for
* Week ending October 10, 2009: I finally got paid for
* Week ending October 17, 2009: No money from the EDD yet
* Week ending October 24, 2009: No money from the EDD yet
* Week ending October 31, 2009: No money from the EDD yet

Today is November 3, 2009, and this week ends November 7, 2009. Somehow, I doubt the EDD is going to trouble itself to catch up and pay me what I am supposed to be getting. Where is the money for the three weeks it already owes me? I am offended that the EDD is encouraging me to hand them some of the money I should be getting as Unemployment Insurance right back to them, in the form of taxes, when they are weeks late in sending that money out to me in the first place!

I also got an actual email from the EDD, something I didn’t think they even knew how to send! Stay tuned for my next blog post, where I will talk about what that said.

Finally, after 38 days of mostly ignoring me, I am finally getting somewhere with the EDD. Today in the mail two interesting things arrived.

One was a form letter letting me know my pin number has been changed. Yes, I know that. I was the one who changed it. I did that on the day I couldn’t get through on the phone to anyone at the EDD, and was completely frustrated. I remember learning by phone, from an electronically recorded voice, that there wasn’t any check at all expected to arrive for me at any time. I remember getting even angrier about being told that there wasn’t a check in the mail, coming to help me, after all. So, it is quite vivid in my memory that yes, I did, in fact, change my pin number, thank you very much.

The other piece of mail from the EDD was something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. I was convinced these things simply did not exist. This letter contained an actual check from the EDD. Here, in my hands, was my first glimpse of my Unemployment Insurance benefits! I couldn’t believe it. I still don’t believe it. I’m half expecting the check to bounce when I attempt to put it in my bank account tomorrow, or for the EDD to send me another letter demanding the money back for some convoluted reason.

Attached to this check is one of those super special Claim forms. This one is called a “CONTINUED CLAIM” form. It covers the week beginning October 11th, 2009 and ending October 17th, 2009. It also covers the week beginning October 18th, 2009, and ending October 24th, 2009. Finally! A super special Claim form for me to send in, so I can continue to receive the appropriate amount of money from the EDD!

Just like the last super special form I was supposed to fill out, this one has a date I am required to mail the form on. It says “November 1, 2009.” Two problems with that. One, November 1, 2009 is, once again, a Sunday. The US mail still doesn’t pick up or deliver on Sundays. Two, this Claim form arrived in my mailbox today, November 2nd, 2009. I suppose the EDD believes I can just jump into my time machine, fire up the flux capacitor, go back in time with this particular Claim form,… and hand it to the mailman before he can, um, deliver it to me?

It bothers me that I cannot simply receive this check, and have a few moments to feel some kind of relief. I cannot think “Thank Goodness, some money arrived! I can pay one part of one bill with this check. That helps a little bit”. The tiny amount of stress that may have disappeared because I finally have had some money come in comes right back to me when I see that I am, through no fault of my own, already a day late in sending back the CONTINUED CLAIM form. That’s just mean!

So, I’m going to fill it out right now, and walk it back to my mailbox tonight, for the mailman to pick up tomorrow afternoon, when he gets here. Either the EDD accepts it, or they don’t. I have no control over that. I have no control over any of this. I absolutely hate being this dependent on the kindness of the US government in order to have a snowball’s chance in hell of paying my bills.

Maybe all my blogging and ranting about how incompetent and despicable the people who work at the EDD are finally, in some cosmic way, got me what I needed. Some people believe that if you just think positively about something you want to have happen, it will cause that very thing to happen for you. If that is true, then the converse must be as well. Perhaps all the rage and anger that I have been directing right back at the people of the EDD who caused it has forced them to finally get off their asses and start helping me. I don’t know. It’s hard to know what to believe anymore, after pretty much losing my mind while trying to deal with the EDD.

This means that I officially have been paid for the week starting September 27th, 2009 and ending October 3rd, 2009, and also for the week starting October 4th, 2009, and ending October 10th, 2009. It took the EDD 38 days to send me my first check. Let’s see how long it takes them to send the second one. Assuming, of course, that any more checks arrive.

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.