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14
Mar 10

Thoughts While Sick

I have a sinus infection. At least, I’m fairly certain it’s a sinus infection. I get them several times a year, and every doctor I’ve ever gone to says that the frequency has something to do with how severely allergic I am to all of nature. Well, not exactly in those words, but you get the idea.

Anyway, since I get them all the time, I’m fairly certain the misery I have been experiencing lately is the demon called “sinus infection”. Not 100% certain, but fairly certain. Why the uncertainty? Oh, because this is America, and I am unemployed, and therefore, apparently this means that I don’t deserve health insurance. Which means I can’t really afford to go see a doctor about it, get confirmation of what is slowly killing me, and potentially get antibiotics to cure it.

Back in September, I had one of those special jobs that allows a person to be considered valuable enough to society to get health insurance. Those who have been following this blog already know that my old job, as a teacher’s aide for special education students… went *POOF* and disappeared, right along with a pathetically high number of other teacher’s jobs here in California.

Some of you out there might be thinking: “What about COBRA health insurance?” If you are thinking this, then I firmly believe that you have never, ever, in your entire life, ever lost a job and been offered COBRA. I blogged about this a while ago, but here’s a quick recap.

COBRA cost more per month than I was going to get in Unemployment Insurance benefits. Which means that every cent that I got from Unemployment Insurance would have gone directly to COBRA, plus some of what was in our pittance of a savings account. Once that ran out, and it would very quickly, I would once again have no health insurance. Oh, and this was all a moot point anyway, because, if I remember correctly, I hadn’t actually received any money from Unemployment Insurance by the time the deadline to sign up for COBRA ran out.

A good friend of mine had a brilliant suggestion. She pointed out that most, if not all, clinics and doctor’s offices should have something called a “sliding scale” of fees for people who have no health insurance. Today, as I type this, it is Sunday. If I’m still this sick tomorrow, I’m going to start making phone calls, and begin the “Quest to Find the Sliding Scale”.

The only other option I’m aware of is to do what some members of my family end up doing. Go to the ER when things get so bad that one is near death, and get treated. Then, when the bill comes, “lose it”, or change addresses, or, tell them that you’ve died. Or, declare bankruptcy. Oh, or I could just curl up and die after finally succumbing to my illness. There’s that.

Until then, here I sit. Blogging incoherently, while listening to podcasts, and running a fever. I’m certain that later on, I will go back to the poor woman’s version of health care: Sleeping, drinking lots of water, and playing video games. I’ve been playing Viva Pinata, Farmville, and World of Warcraft for countless hours lately. I don’t recommend getting into the battlegrounds in WoW while really, really sick. Unless you find dying over and over again to be as amusing as I seem to at the moment. Perhaps this sinus infection is eating my brain.

Anyhow…. I know that what I’m writing sounds like a whole lot of “poor me”. If only! There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the exact same overcrowded and sinking boat as I am. When it comes to health insurance, we, the Unemployed, are standing on the Titanic, listening to the Government continue to play the violin and chello, oblivious.

I just read this article that came from the Cal Coast News. com. It’s called County Unemployment At Record High. Here are some “fun facts”:

* Statewide, the unemployment rate increased to 12.5 percent in January, compared with a national 10.6 percent rate.

* The number of unemployed county residents rose by 1,900 people during the month, bringing the 12 month total of non-farm jobs lost to 5,200.

Depressing. I’m not sure why they don’t count “farm jobs” as a part of this, but, whatever. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. I bring up these numbers to illustrate my point, that there are a whole bunch of us out there who are unemployed, who are sick, and who are lacking the health insurance we need to get better.

There are those in this country that believe that if America decided to give governmental subsidized health insurance, (*cough* like Medicare *cough*), to it’s citizens, that this would be horrible, because then we would have become “Socialists”. Somehow, there are a bunch of people out there, who I am certain have adequate health insurance that they have no fear of losing, who just don’t want everybody else to have the same protection that they are enjoying.

Here is what I have to say to these people. We, the Unemployed, and Underemployed, outnumber you. Most of us are contagious, since we can’t afford to see a doctor. We still have to go out in the world to do things like go to grocery stores to purchase food, go to gas stations to put gas in our cars, and go to the post office to send off our “Continued Claim Forms”. You have been crossing paths with us. That item you put in your grocery cart might be same one that we coughed on, and put back on the shelf, because we can’t afford to buy it.

Some of us who are underemployed can’t afford to stay home sick from work, so, instead, we are ringing up your purchases while we are sick, and handing them back to you with added germs. We end up serving, (or cooking!) your food as you eat lunch or dinner at your expensive restaurant of choice. You run the risk, each and every day, of catching the diseases, viruses, and colds that the thousands of us without health insurance can’t afford to see a doctor about. If you care for absolutely no one other than yourself, and aren’t stupid, you should be able to see why it would be a good idea for America to give all it’s citizens affordable health insurance. Think about that!

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26
Feb 10

Fighting Tele-marketers

Being unemployed means that you end up spending a lot of time at home. At least, I have. Honestly, though, I like being at home. It makes me happy. And, I haven’t just been sitting around my house, playing WoW, and eating bon bons. I’ve been doing some freelance writing work. So, I guess I should have said that being unemployed, or being a freelance writer, means you spend a lot of time at home.

Since I am at home all the time, I am very aware of each time the phone rings. Shawn and I have been plagued with phone calls from tele-marketers lately. The phone will ring, and the caller ID will say something like “Unknown caller”, or will have an 800 number appearing, or say something like “Card Services”. These are tip offs that the person on the other end of the phone is someone who wants to sell me something.

Those that know me are aware that I am not one to sit quietly by and let something that is bothering me continue to happen, with no comment from me. I have decided to fight the tele-marketers, and see if I can make them stop calling my house all day long.

The first call came from The Bank. In my experience, if any bank wants to let me know about something important, it’s not going to do it over the phone. It’s going to send it by letter. This would be the first tele-marketer I would battle.

The girl on the phone asked for Shawn. I could hear several other voices of the people in the call center behind her. Each voice was harassing another unsuspecting person via telephone.

“He’s not here. Who is this?” I asked. She asked me if I was his wife, and I confirmed that. Next, she started her sales pitch. Something about did I want to take advantage of their offer of some kind of insurance on our bank account? It wouldn’t cost me a thing! She was happy to babble on, but I stopped her.

Here is the part where I must admit that I, too, once worked as a tele-marketer. I was in college, and I needed the money. I’m not proud of it. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and everyone makes mistakes when they are young. I’ll never do work like that again. It was horrible!

This is why I knew to cut off this tele-marketers speech when I did. I recognized right away that she was giving me the kind of sales pitch where if she gets to the end and you haven’t hung up yet, the tele-marketer takes that to mean that you agree, and will take whatever offer they are pushing today.

I hope that everyone reading this blog is aware that these kinds of offers, that “are no cost to you”, and have a “free” trial… come with hidden fees. You usually have to cancel it before the free trial ends, or they will start charging you for this service that you didn’t want in the first place. They are hoping that you will completely forget all about this particular service that they are selling, and won’t remember to call and cancel, and that they can continue to charge you lots of money.

Anyway, I cut off this tele-marketer before she could mark me down as a “sale”. I calmly explained that no, I am not interested in this service.

“But, it’s free!” she said. So, I explained that I know that there is a hidden fee if I took this offer and didn’t cancel it before the free trial ended. “I used to be a tele-marketer,” I said. Most tele-marketers don’t have a handy answer for that one. It stops them from talking for a second or two, and this is when you have a chance to get a few words in edgewise.

“We never, ever, ever, take offers that are given to us over the phone”, I explained. “If we want this, or any other service, we will go into the bank and ask for it. You guys have been calling my house nearly every day for the past few weeks. Please stop calling us now.”

“Ok, if you have any questions, please call…” and she rattled off a phone number. They have to do that. I think there might be some kind of fine involved if they don’t give out that phone number at the end. I remember having to rapidly spit out a phone number before someone hung up the phone on me. It’s not fun. Instead of listening to the number, I hung up the phone.

I thought maybe that was the end of that. I explained that they will get absolutely nowhere with trying to sell us anything. They would be rational, and stop wasting their time, right?

Wrong! A few days later, The Bank called again. Unimpressed, I picked up the phone. This time it was a young man on the other end of the phone. He too, wanted to know if Shawn was home. Once again, I said that no, Shawn wasn’t home, this was his wife.

The young man called me “Mrs. Mylastname”, and mispronounced it. He then went into the exact same sales pitch that the girl used the other day. Once again, I cut him off.

“Look, I know that this offer isn’t free, because these things always come with hidden fees if you don’t cancel it. I know this because I used to be a tele-marketer myself. You guys just called the other day, and I explained that to the girl on the phone. We never, ever, take offers over the telephone. If we want something from The Bank, we will just go in and ask…”

“Ma’am, rest.” the young man said. Rest? Is that like the new way to say chillax? Rest? Nobody has ever instructed me to “rest” before, except my doctor when I’ve been really sick.

“You guys call us nearly every day, and have for the past few weeks. Could you please stop calling us now?” I asked.

The young man said “Ok. If you have any questions, please call…” I hung up the phone.

I know from my experiences as a tele-marketer that there are certain ways to mark each call after you get off the phone with someone. Each place does it slightly differently, but, in general, there is supposed to be a code, or a set of numbers to use when a person refuses the offer. This should take that number off the dialer, so the call center doesn’t waste it’s time on “dead” leads.

There should be something specific and obvious in the system to let the bosses know that the person asked to not be called anymore, or asked to be “taken off the list”. Unless it’s changed, there is a law they are breaking if somebody tells them to stop calling and they continue to do so.

None of these codes will work, however, if the tele-marketer doesn’t bother to mark the call correctly. At this point, I figure the first girl didn’t make a note in their system that I had refused the offer. The second guy wouldn’t have any way of knowing that I had already been called, and said “no”. But, I figured, this second guy should mark down that I refused the offer, and they would stop calling. All was well.

Two hours later, the phone rang once more. It was The Bank, calling again! Now, I was getting angry! I picked up the phone, and barked “hello!” into it. Silence. “Hello?” I asked again.

Finally, some very exhausted woman answered the phone. She asked if I was “Mrs. Mylastname”, and didn’t pronounce it correctly. It’s a very simple last name! It has one syllable! Why are these fools getting that wrong, repeatedly?

“I am, but that’s not how you pronounce it.” I said. “Who is this?”

Instead of telling me who she was, she mumbled through the exact same sales pitch I had heard twice before. I cut her off as soon as possible.

“Look!” I told her, very unpleasantly, “You keep calling us! Well, not you, personally. First it was some other girl, and then a guy. You people just called me two hours ago about this same thing! I keep saying that I’m not interested, that I will never, ever, ever take an offer that comes to me by telephone, and that I want you to stop calling us. Can you manage to stop calling us now?”

The tired woman sighed, and started rattling off the same phone number. I hung up, once again.

The good news is that this finally worked. No one from The Bank has called to try and sell us something over the phone since then.

As I am writing this blog, the phone is ringing. It’s a tele-marketer from our Insurance Company, wanting to “schedule a time” for us to come in and talk about our policies. “Just to make sure that you are where you want to be at with those”. Translation: we want to go over your policies, and find some way to make more money from you.

The battle continues!

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19
Feb 10

EDD Needs a Calendar

I don’t think the EDD knows how to read a calendar. Maybe the problem is that it’s computers are too old to have a calendar function? I am starting to wonder if the entire department has some kind of comprehension disorder, and simply cannot understand the information found in a calendar.

Case in point… I got another piece of mail from the EDD today, February 18, 2010. It turned out to be a check, (Yay!), attached to a continued claim form. The good news is that this check means that I have finally found the proper combination of codewords and magic numbers to use in order to let the EDD know that I am working as a freelance writer.

“Piecework” + a guess about how many hours that equates to = check.

I didn’t have to wait all the way until February 22, 2010, after all, as I was afraid I would. Usually these checks/claim forms arrive on Mondays. Today is Thursday. I figured that perhaps, the reason it arrived on a Thursday was due to the little SNAFU, which required me to fill out the duplicate claim form to their very particular specifications.

But then, I thought about it.

This continued claim form says I am to mail it back on February 14, 2010. That would be…. let’s see… my calendar that was five days ago. Once again, the EDD assumes I can jump into a time machine, and magically mail this claim form on time.

The plot thickens! February 14 was a Sunday. The EDD still hasn’t realized that the US Mail does not pick up or deliver on Sundays. Which means that even if I had a magical time machine, it wouldn’t actually do me any good to have put this claim form into the mailbox on February 14. Either the EDD is completely oblivious to reality, which, from what I have seen so far, is entirely possible, or…. they really truly have set things up so that people will have an impossible time trying to send these forms back. And, of course, these forms are the way to make the checks come.

There is another detail I’d like to share. The envelope this check/continued claim form arrived in bears the postmark of “February 12, 2010″. February 12 was a Friday. This means the US Post Office received it on Friday, and stamped it. The EDD is not located in my town, which means that Saturday, February 13, this piece of mail was being sorted.

February 14, of course, being Sunday, would not have been at all conducive to getting this piece of mail to me. In which case, the mail should have arrived to me on Monday, February 15, 2010. This is usually what happens. I get it a day late, I mail it back the next day… and usually, all is well.

The EDD is a governmental institution. Somehow, this governmental institution failed to take into account the Federal Holiday that was on February 15 of this year. Have you heard of a little holiday called “President’s Day”? You have? Well, clearly, you are not employed by the EDD! President’s Day is one of those quirky little holidays where all the governmental buildings, and banks, shut down for the day. Which means, you guessed it! There was no possible way for me to receive the check/continued claim form on February 15, 2010.

I find it difficult to believe the the EDD just overlooked the fact that this was a federal holiday. Didn’t they shut down for it? Did no one who works for the EDD question the reason why they were all getting a three day weekend?

Somebody in there should have had enough reasoning capability to go “Hmm…. let’s see…. Monday is a holiday. All the governmental stuff shuts down. Mail will not be delivered. Oh! We should work a teeny bit harder and get this week’s checks/continued claim forms mailed out earlier, so people will get them on time! Oh, wait, no, no… that’s too much work. How about we just add an extra day onto the claim form, so people will be able to mail their forms back to us ontime?”

Instead, the people of the EDD were probally thinking something like “Woo-hoo! Three day weekend for me! Let’s leave a few hours early on Friday, and start this weekend even earlier! Screw all those people who are relying on us. I got a three day weekend!”

This means that tonight, I will be filling out the my continued claim form knowing that it is already four days overdue. The postman will pick it up tomorrow, and then it will be five days overdue. I’ve no idea when it will actually arrive at the EDD. This is due to no fault of my own. I’m certain there are a lot of other people out there on Unemployment Insurance who are tired of playing these little games with the EDD.

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9
Feb 10

“Piecework” is Not Enough

So much for that idea!

Yesterday, I was expecting to get one of my Unemployment Insurance checks. They come every two weeks, and I had been filling out and sending all the continued claim forms on time, as requested. Yesterday, Monday, February 8, 2010, should have been the day the check arrived.

Except that it didn’t.

Instead, I got an envelope from the EDD that didn’t look anything like the ones that the checks arrive in. I knew this couldn’t be a good thing. As I walked back from the mailbox, I was convinced that this was the “letter of doom” I still believe I’m going to someday receive. I was certain this was the letter telling me that they decided to cut off my Unemployment Insurance benefits, due to some loophole they found that would cheat me out of what was, in reality, my money.

Instead, I got what looked like a continued claim form. Attached to it was NO CHECK! None at all. Needless to say, I was not at all impressed.

The little perforated part at the top, which usually has reasonably understandable information printed on it said this:

“This is a duplicate claim form. On your original form, the “total hours worked” (6B) was incomplete or incorrect. The “total hours worked” each week is required regardless of how you are paid. Please complete the entire form. Sign and mail immediately but no later than 2-18-10.”

Now, I was confused. I was pretty sure that the big blue booklet didn’t say anything about writing down the number of hours I worked. Let’s check that part again. Page 16 says:

“If you receive pay for piecework, report the total amount paid in the week it was earned. Include the word “piecework” in item 6b along with your earnings.”

Nope, I didn’t somehow misread it. This paragraph that mentions “piecework” does not say one word about writing down the total number of hours worked on the form next to where you write “piecework”. Which means that I followed their directions exactly as they wrote them, and still, the EDD felt the need to punish me by withholding my check.

It seems to me that there are more little quirks and loopholes hidden in the rules that govern if and when I can get my Unemployment Insurance checks than one can possibly find simply by reading, and re-reading, the information pamphlets that they send out to you. I believe that these rules are designed specifically so the EDD can prevent people from getting their money. They are supposed to be helping people!

So, what happens now? Well, I’ve already filled out the “duplicate claim form”. I figured out how many hours I worked, (best guess, since freelance writing does not actually pay by the hour), and wrote that down on the form, next to the word “piecework”.

We put it in the mail today. The mail generally arrives here between 3 and 4 PM, which means that I did not have the time to rush through filling out the duplicate claim form and drive like a madwoman down to the post office. But, even if I managed to do that, the duplicate claim form still would not have gotten processed until today, Tuesday February 9, 2010, anyway.

Since the only thing I can count on the EDD to be is “slow”, and since it likes to take at least two weeks to do anything at all, I can be assured of one fact. I will not see the money I was supposed to have in my hand yesterday until possibly Monday, February 22, 2010. This is a guess, because, who knows how long it takes them to process a “duplicate” claim form. That could be an entirely different department, for all I know!

I’ve no idea if I will receive the continued claim form , (and the check that would be attached to it), that I would have expected to receive on February 22, 2010 at all. Will it send me two checks at the same time? Somehow, I highly doubt that.

In other words, despite following their written directions, I am being punished by the EDD. Perhaps someone in their organization hates freelance writers?

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6
Feb 10

Piece

I am still working as a freelance writer at this moment. So far, I love it. There have been times when I needed to find my motivation to continue writing, as opposed to, say, continuing to play World of Warcraft for another hour. But, for the most part, I am having a good time. Again, the job has an endpoint, and I am aware of that. My employer has offered me extra work, and then some more extra work, and I think that is a good sign of things to come.

There is something very interesting in the big blue pamphlet that I am so glad to have found. For those of you new to this blog, the big blue pamphlet is one of the first things I was sent when I signed up for Unemployment Benefits. It’s an informational booklet, designed to answer questions about the whole process. Inside, there is this lovely word: “Piecework”.

Page 16 of the booklet states:
“If you receive pay for piecework, report the total amount paid in the week it was earned. Include the word “piecework” in item 6b along with the employer’s name”.

I had been wondering just how I was supposed to let the EDD know that I had been hired as a (temporary) freelance writer. I considered trying to figure out how many hours I worked on it, and also thought maybe it would want me to somehow convert the pay into hours. Nope! I am being paid a specific dollar amount for a specific amount of writing. This means I am being paid by the piece. I am doing “piecework”!

Every two weeks, I must fill out another Continued Claim Form, and send it to the EDD (the government) to review. I will have to do this every two weeks until my Unemployment Insurance runs out, or, I manage to get a job that is going to sustain me like the full time job that I once had. In general, when it comes to filling out government forms, it’s best and smartest to find a way to make everything fit “into the box”. It seems that the EDD wants me to call the freelance writing I am doing “piecework”. I assume that if I was a carpenter being paid by each piece of cabinet I put together that would also be called “piecework”.

That lovely little word “piecework” is going to make things so much easier for me! Easy is good, especially when dealing with paperwork from Unemployment Insurance.

I’ve got one more little update, but it’s not as important as “piecework”. In a previous blog, I mentioned that I had a little coupon from Baja Fresh. I had to go online, sign up on their website, and write a code down onto the coupon itself, before bringing the coupon into the store. Seems I have been misreading the coupon. Disregard what I put in my previous blog. The correct amount was it gives you five dollars off of a ten dollar (or more) purchase.

I am happy to announce it worked, with no questions asked. Shawn and I went to Baja Fresh to eat dinner after watching Avatar in 3D. Both of us had friends rave about how awesome that movie was, and that we needed to see it in 3D before it left the theaters, and this made it seem like as much of a cultural event as we get nowadays. So, we saw the movie, (yes, the movie was awesome), and then went to Baja Fresh afterwards. We spent about ten bucks, used the coupon, and immediately got five bucks off. No hassle, and no questions asked. It’s nice when places live up to the promise they print on their coupons.

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27
Jan 10

Baja Fresh

Got an interesting coupon recently. Baja Fresh is, for those unfamiliar, a mexican food chain that exists out here in California. I’ve no idea where else you can find one. They, like several other fast food places, have been sending out various coupons to entice customers to come to their fast food restaurant, instead of some other one.

Anyhow, recently go this coupon from Baja Fresh that says :
“$5.00 off any purchase of $10.00 or more”

In order to use this coupon, you have to go online, to www.bajafresh.com, and join their club. It is extremely easy to do, and almost instantly, you get a code. Write the code on the coupon, and bring it with you when you go to Baja Fresh. Easy! Oh, and of course, you have to use it before the expiration date. It expires February 15, 2010. There is one in town, so this will work. Just like that, cheap eats!

All of that was very straight forward and simple. The form I filled out when I joined their club asked for my email address, and I gave them one I use for that sort of thing. Will I get any interesting coupons from Baja Fresh in my email? Do they give you free food on your birthday like some Hometown Buffet does, when you join the club? I’ve no idea.

I will let you know what I get, if anything.

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23
Jan 10

It’s Someday

You may have noticed a distinct lack of writing appearing on the Between Gigs blog as of late. There is a good reason for that. No, I haven’t been too sick to write, (although those that know me well can see where that might have been the case). No, my computer didn’t wash away in the tremendous amount of rain we have been experiencing in California in the past few weeks. I have been safe, dry, connected to the internet, and (relatively) healthy.

You might remember this blog post from not too long ago, where I mentioned that I’d sent off a resume and some writing samples to not one, but two different potential freelance writing jobs. Each of them, at that time, had sent me an email to acknowledge that they received what I sent, and that they would get back to me.

I joked that “someday” I’d hear from them, not really expecting to. Like everyone else who is unemployed right now, I have sent countless resumes and applications to a wide variety of potential jobs that I never hear from ever again. I’ll never know what happened to those jobs. There will never be a reason given as to why they decided not to hire me. It’s all in a maddening “limbo” of non-information.

Perhaps I’ve become jaded, but I’m at the point now where I completely believe that it’s best to assume I didn’t get the job, whatever the job may be, than to think I had a chance, only to become disappointed later, when I finally figure out that this employer never intended on calling me back. This is especially true for jobs that I actually want to do. How heartbreaking would it be if I let myself believe that “someday” one of the freelance writing jobs would get back to me, and I waited and waited and waited…. and they never did?

To my surprise and amazement, one of the two freelance writing jobs I had applied for did keep their word, and get back to me. I couldn’t believe it. I figured I must have been dreaming, but there, on my computer screen, was an email saying I’d been hired. I can now happily say that I am a freelance writer. For the moment, this is true.

Now, before you get overly excited, let me explain a bit about the job. It has an endpoint, which is coming up soon. I knew this when I applied for the job, so that is perfectly acceptable. I am writing non-fiction articles about a variety of topics they select for some projects they are working on. The pay is nicer than anything else I have earned as a writer. Keep in mind, this is my first gig. This is not a “Quit your day job and hire an agent” type job. One has to start somewhere, however, and this particular “somewhere” is a great place to be.

Most of my time lately has been spent happily writing little articles for this particular company to use in their projects. I’m enjoying it immensely. I’ve been “in the zone”, writing words, for a large part of this week, and continually amazed that I’ve been hired to be a writer. I’m extremely happy.

I am still learning how to juggle the rest of my obligations around the writing. This blog, for example, got pretty much ignored, and I intend to find a way to prevent that from happening. I’ve got a bunch of other little projects that I do every week that so far, I’ve managed to keep up with. Things are sliding into place.

There is one thing that I keep thinking about. Let’s pretend that I never lost my job as a paraeducator, and that I was working there all this time. The Between Gigs blog never would have existed. I wouldn’t have been looking for work, so I probably would have missed the want ads I found about employers seeking writers.

If, by random chance, I did happen to see the ad that got me the gig I am doing right now, there wouldn’t have been a way for me to take it. I would have been spending full time hours at school, and would have been too mentally exhausted after school to put in the kind of effort required for me do the writing they hired me for. It just wouldn’t have been possible to put in the time and effort I would need to write as well as I can when it’s my only focus. It would have taken longer, and, since this job has a predetermined endpoint, having a job as a paraeducator may very well have cost me the job as a writer. I’d much rather be a writer.

When I lost my job as a paraeducator, with no warning, and for no given reason, I couldn’t imagine why on earth that happened to me. One can argue that things don’t always happen for a reason, they just happen. Religious folks might say that God always has a reason, we just don’t always get to know what it is. Whatever the case may be, it feels to me like there was a reason why I needed to be unemployed right now after all. It’s “someday”.

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17
Jan 10

I’m Turning into a “Hausfrau”

Being unemployed has all kinds of little side effects. I expect that your experience may vary from mine, at least in some ways. Lately, I have noticed an extremely unexpected side effect of being unemployed.

I’m turning into a “hausfrau”.

* Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary says:
Main Entry: haus·frau
Pronunciation: \ˈhau̇s-ˌfrau̇\
Function: noun
Etymology: German, from Haus house + Frau woman, wife
Date: 1798
: housewife

That’s right, I am starting to turn into a housewife! I prefer the term “Hausfrau”, however. Hausfrau sounds a bit more exotic, it is unintelligible to those who don’t speak at least a little German, and it’s a term I remember my Grandma using. She spoke a little German, and every so often I come across a word or phrase in German that I recognize. Hausfrau is one of them.

Recently, Shawn and I decided to move the computers, all the audio equipment, and a bunch of assorted geek type stuff from the main room to the back bedroom. This involved, of course, moving a bunch of stuff, including a couch, a fat, old, huge television, and the stand it stood on, into the main room. It involved moving the large bird cage, (and the five cockatiels that live inside it), from one end of the house to the other. Needless to say, this required a lot of cleaning, dusting, organizing, and appeasing of angry cockatiels. (They don’t like change, not one little bit).

This is where it started. Slightly before New Years Eve, I began cleaning up the back room. I was unemployed, and this allowed me to spend hours sweeping the floor. The birds enjoy throwing the kibble they aren’t interested in eating onto the floor. It bounces. I think they have made a game out of it. Kibble and feathers were everywhere! The floor also needed a serious scrubbing, because of the amount of dirt that had been tracked there. Moving the couch and tv stand unveiled both more dust, and the color that the floor should actually be. It was an incredible mess.

How did it get like this? Easy! First of all, anyone with pets knows how much dirt and mess a pet can make. Secondly, there just wasn’t time to really give the room a good cleaning very often. Shawn and I had the best intentions, but, both of us were working. This room would get nothing more than a general cleaning, when we had time.

I have severe allergies, and cleaning a very messy, dirty, dusty room will make me sick for hours afterwards (and sometimes recovery would take days). So, I couldn’t simply clean after I got home from work one day, without risking that I would become too sick from it to make it to work the next day. For me, cleaning had to wait until that perfect window appeared, where I had enough of time off of work to fully recover from allergic reactions before I had to return to work, and fight whatever allergens I would encounter there. Therefore, while our home never became a bio-hazard, it was far from pleasing the likes of Martha Stewart.

But now, things have changed. Right before Christmas, I became unemployed for the second time. I had all kinds of free time, a large cleaning project in front of me, and no worries about “can I do this and still make it to work tomorrow?” There was no work tomorrow, or for the conceivable future! I had nothing to lose by giving my home a sorely needed cleaning.

So, that’s where things started. Now, as I write this, it’s about a month later, and I haven’t gotten off the “cleaning kick”. I find I’m actually happier when the house is clean. I’m buying Swiffers every time we go shopping, and going through them like someone with hay fever goes through kleenex. I find I get better results if I get down onto the floor and scrub the dirt away by hand, using the swiffers at first. After that, it’s easier to maintain it with the swiffer mop. I do windows. I’m running out of windex from using it to clean the dust off of all the little knick-knacks that we moved from one part of the house to the other. I have been washing the walls.

I seem to have gotten myself into this routine. I feed the birds, and, when they are all fat and happy and sleepy, I remove the food dishes from their cage for a little while. Why? So I can sweep up the kibble, and have a nice clean floor for a few hours. I spend a little while writing, or going through my google reader, or playing one of the addictive games on facebook, and then I go clean something. Now that we are done moving furniture, and everything is settled, it’s much cleaner. After some experimentation, I think I can manage to get most of the house clean on Wednesdays, while Shawn is working.

I’ve attacked the bathrooms a bit as well. (Although, now that I think of it, those are due for another cleaning). On one of our trips shopping for groceries, I found this little hand held scrubber, that I threw into the shopping cart, as I told Shawn I had to have it. I used it on the bathroom floor, and was thrilled by how well it worked! When I realized that I was actually excited and happy about how clean I could get the bathroom floor, I knew it was too late.

I was becoming a hausfrau.

Never in my life would I have expected this particular turn of events. I’ve always been good at cleaning. I learned a great deal about how to do it well from my Gramma that spoke a bit of German. Having a clean house always has made me feel better, physically, because less dust means less allergic reactions. Perhaps this was inevitable, and all I needed was enough time off of work to make it happen.

If you could go back in time, and tell the “Me I used to be”, the young woman who was working three jobs and struggling to get a teaching degree, how my life is now, she would be severely disappointed. Back then, I would have considered a life where I stayed home all the time taking care of the house, where I didn’t have a job of my own, and where my husband was the “breadwinner”, to be a failure. Now, years and years later…. I’m surprisingly happy about this new life.

Being unemployed sure has some strange side effects.

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14
Jan 10

California and the IOU

I just read this article on the San Luis Obispo Tribune. It has a very interesting title : “Attention IOU holders: California wants to give you back your money”.

Read the article for full details. In short, a while ago, the State of California ran out of money. Oops! Hate when that happens. But, instead of having to pay some huge finance charges at whichever banks it was using, (like, you know, everybody else), California had a different idea. It asked (rich) people and (well to do) businesses, to let the State borrow some more money. In return, the State of California issued a bunch of IOUs. Yes, actual IOUs, (although, the article states that the piece of paper the IOU came on was not worded quite so clearly as that).

It’s like being in elementary school all over again. Where your bestest friend forever forgets his or her lunch money, and asks to borrow some of yours. The lined notebook paper comes out, and the friend hastily scribbles an IOU and and adds his or her signature, and then you both nom some super greasy pizza from the school cafeteria. Remember people doing that back when you were a kid? Now, try and recall what happened to those IOUs. Go ahead. Take a minute or two. Give up? Here’s the answer to what happened to most of those: they got lost, and forgotten about, and you never ended up getting your money back. Most of them got disintegrated in the washing machine when your mom did the next load of laundry, and threw in a few pairs of your grungy jeans.

Same thing is happening right now, with the State of California. Lots of individuals, and a bunch of businesses, all over California, have unclaimed IOUs right this minute. And, just like the notebook paper IOUs, back when you were a kid, a bunch of people lost track of where their IOU ended up at, and then forgot all about them.

So now, California has this bizarre problem. It has the money to pay back the IOUs, and, unlike your BFF back in the day, California is trying to notify the people who are holding the IOUs, so they can come claim their money.

* “Across the state, 89,000 residents and businesses — including 2,315 here in San Francisco alone — are sitting on some $50 million in uncashed IOUs from the state, a souvenir of California’s most recent, but by no means its last, budget crisis.

If, sometime back in July, you lent California a bunch of money, and you just can’t remember where you put that silly little IOU…. then, in my opinion, you probably don’t actually “need” the money in the first place. And you didn’t need it then, either. In other words, the State of California, the state that has an incredibly high number of unemployed people right now…..somehow has a bunch of money, and is doing it’s best to make sure that this money goes back into the hands of…. people who are already wealthy. The deadline to claim your IOU is sometime in September 2010. All the rich people have plenty of time to go figure out which bank vault that IOU is in, or which vacation house they left it at.

Yes, I realize I am being incredibly sarcastic. And yes, I understand that this money was a loan, and loans are meant to be paid back at some point (with interest… let’s not forget the extra money the IOU holders are getting back). I get that. All I’m saying is that this article is making me ask a few questions.

How did the State of California manage to gather together enough money to not only pay back all it’s outstanding IOUs, but to do so with interest? Does this have something to do with all those mandatory Furlough days it was requiring state employees to take? (For those of you that don’t know, Furlough days happened at least once a month (generally more than that), where all the workers were forced take a day off, for ZERO pay).

Why on earth isn’t the State of California using that money to create jobs? If it did that, it would have less unemployed people. Less unemployed people means that more people can go out and buy things, (and pay State taxes on each and every item), and be good little Capitalists once again. More people paying a bunch of (already existing) State taxes means that the State of California would be able to collect more money, which it could then use to pay off the IOUs to the people who aren’t struggling to keep their houses and feed their children.

Priorities, State of California, Priorities! Time to take a look at yours.

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13
Jan 10

A Few Updates

About two weeks ago I posted a little something. In that post, I had recieved an Unemployment Insurance check from the EDD that was for a whole, whopping big amount of… twenty five dollars. I lamented that this was what I could expect from here on out, and wondered how on earth a person could manage to live off of twenty five dollars for two weeks.

I am happy to update that on Monday, January 11, 2010, (two weeks later), I got another UI check. This one was for the “usual amount”, instead of the paltry twenty five dollars I was afraid it would be. It seems that the amount of hours I worked at the part-time job that I still had at that time was the reason for the severely reduced UI check that I got.

This new check came with the usual Continued Claim form, which I can mail off in about two weeks, like usual. So far, so good. I’m extremely relieved with how this turned out. I couldn’t get the check into the bank fast enough, so to speak.

Previous to that, I wrote something else about some lottery scratch off tickets that I got for Christmas. No, I am not writing to let you know I won something. I only wish that was the case! I had two scratch off tickets that each said I was a winner of…. another free ticket. But, so far, I haven’t managed to find anyplace to turn them in at. If I do, I will report back, and tell you if the new scratch off tickets were lucky enough to win me some money.

Also, the losing tickets were entered into the second chance drawing, but I’ve not heard anything about how they did. This must mean we were not winners. I am not surprised.

I recently wrote something long about job stability, where I pretty much announced that I had decided to try my hand at seeking work as a freelance writer. At this point, I figure I have nothing to lose by trying it. As I write this blog tonight, I can report that I have sent off a resume and some writing samples to not one, but two, potential freelance writing employers. Both of them responded by email to say something along the lines of “Hey, we got your resume. Your writing looks good at first glance. We are still deciding. Get back to you later.” It’s not “later” yet. But someday… it will be!

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