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22
Jun 10

Thoughts on job hunting

This is from “Tales of Mere Existence”:

This is from “I Can Haz Cheezburger”:
employable

This is from FOUND:
12jobs

I’ve been putting a little extra effort into finding a job this week. Several of the people who care about me have suggested that it’s not the smartest idea in the world to just tell the EDD to &%#@ off when they call me in a few days. I can see the wisdom in letting cooler heads prevail, but it doesn’t make me happy.

In short, I have what equates to a part time job right now. The freelance writing is going pretty well, for someone who hasn’t even been doing it a year yet. However, Shawn, (he who understands how to balance a checkbook, how much the bills cost, and other numerically related things that my dyslexic brain cannot comprehend), tells me that the pittance of random money I am occasionally getting from the EDD is something we actually need. Which means, if I am going to be able to tell the EDD to stick it, I’d have to find a second job.

Now, it would only have to be a part time job, but this still doesn’t please me. I, like the character in the video above, started thinking about what kind of job I could likely get. Mostly, this is making me depressed. When I was in college, I worked three jobs at the same time, while taking classes, and was always exhausted and miserable. Back then, I told myself that this was temporary. Once I got my degree, I wouldn’t need to work multiple jobs to get by anymore. That was the whole point of getting my degree. Now, here I am, with a degree, hoping that I can pick up a second part time job in order to survive. The difference? I’m not a student anymore, and I’m much older now. It’s depressing.

So, as I said, I started thinking about the kind of job I could likely get, like the guy in the video above. Teaching is a dead end, especially now that it is summer. I used to work in a bookstore, so I went into a small, Christian bookstore recently, to see if they might hire me part time. Nope, they aren’t hiring at all right now. In fact, the worker I spoke with seemed a bit miffed that when she asked me if I needed anything, I asked for a job, instead of a book, or DVD, or CD, or something that I was going to purchase.

When I was seventeen, I used to bag groceries. So, I called up a local grocery store, to see if they were hiring baggers. This is a corporate owned chain, so I basically got Colonel Klink on the phone (“I Know Nott-ing!”). I was told I could go online, search through their website, and fill out an application. This, I know from working retail, is code for: “No, we aren’t hiring right now, but Corporate doesn’t like it when we tell people that, so we are going to give you this vague, “corporate speak” answer, and string you along, instead”.

My biggest fear is that whatever part time job I get will result in very bad things. I am afraid that they will require me to work on the days that my husband has off, and that we will never, ever, again get to spend any time together, or do anything fun together. Or, the part time job will mess up my allergies, (most workplaces manage to do this), and I will once again be too sick to do anything fun on my days off. The alternative to that is to pump myself full of allergy medication in order to make it through the workday, and go back to being a zombie. (Which makes my brain work just like the brain of the person who wrote the unfinished list from FOUND).

If I become this sick, or this drugged, it will be impossible to do any decent writing. Which means that the supplemental part time job that I don’t want will result in me losing the part time writing job that I really enjoy, and hope to make a career out of.

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21
Jun 10

California is out of money

The State of California is screwed. The Powers That Be over here have resorted to absolutely insane tactics in order to save a buck or two.

Like, for example, canceling visits at the prisons. The San Luis Obispo Tribune has an article called California prisons suspend inmate visits to save money. This article was published June 17, 2010. Yes, they are serious.

* “State corrections officials said Thursday that canceling visits at the 33 adult prisons June 26-27 will save about $400,000 in overtime costs.”

Everyone knows how much employers hate having to pay overtime to their employees, and it seems the State of California is no different. I’m troubled by a few things here. First of all, this is a really blatant example of how saving some money is more important than the quality of people’s lives. No, I’m not actually talking about the prisoners, although I am certain that their lives are a bit nicer when they are allowed to see friends and family. I actually mean the lives of the friends and family that cannot go see their loved one that weekend. It’s not the fault of the loved ones that their family member is in prison, yet they are the ones who are going to be hurt by this.

The other thing that troubles me has to do with the overtime. California has one of the highest unemployment rates right now. Solve the overtime problem by hiring a few more people! But no, no… that would be logical. That would actually make sense.

I’ve blogged before about the infamous “Furlough Days” that government employes have had to take. I’ve mentioned before that I was having extreme difficulty getting through to the EDD, and to CalPERS, (the group holding onto my “retirement” money), in part because of these damned Furlough Days. In fact, the recorded message at CalPERS specifically stated that the reason why I couldn’t get through to them was because of the Furlough Days. (This was another way of saying “Don’t blame us! It’s not our fault that no one is answering the phones!”)

In case you don’t know what that means, let me explain. A Furlough Day is a day when an entire office is closed. This generally takes place on a Friday, and can be once a week, or once every two weeks. The employees are required to take a mandatory day off on those days, without pay. I think the idea was that the money saved from not paying the hourly government workers was supposed to somehow help with California’s massive debt.

No one likes the Furlough Days. Workers don’t like making less money than they expected to be making, due to a forced closing of the entire workplace several times a month. Citizens don’t like that they cannot get the help that they need, (help that can only come from that particular government office), because it’s closed on a weekday when it should be open. No one likes how jammed the phone lines get on the days when these offices are actually open. Just because those offices were closed doesn’t mean that people will magically not need any help anymore! There has been a lot of controversy as to the legality of these forced days off without pay.

Well, it looks like the dreaded Furlough Days are a thing of the past! The San Luis Obispo Tribune has another article called : Friday is final furlough for California State Workers. According to this article, the Govenator has decided not to extend the Furlough Days into the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, 2010.

Here’s some quick facts about the Furlough Days:
* “The workers have been furloughed a total of 46 days since Schwarzenegger issued the order, which took effect in February 2009.”

* “The furloughs translated into a pay cut of about 14 percent for workers.”

* While the administration is saying that the Furlough Days have saved about $1 billion dollars in the general fund, and $2.2 billion dollars in overall savings, other government agencies say that California actually lost money due to the Furlough Days.

* The Franchise Tax board thinks California lost $652 million dollars due to the Furlough Days, because staff had fewer hours to work to collect outstanding debts, and to initiate audits. The Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes (seriously, that exists!), noted that since prisons have to be staffed around the clock, they couldn’t just close the prisons for Furlough Days, so they didn’t.

Ok, so, the Furlough Days are gone! Yay? Don’t celebrate yet. Here’s the new plan:
* ” Schwarzenegger previously said he didn’t plan to extend the furloughs into the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Instead, he was asking unions to support salary cuts and increase the amount employees contribute to pension benefits.”

Yep. Instead of reducing workers pay due to Furlough Days, the Govenator has decided to cut workers pay. He is going to cut their salaries AND take more money from their paychecks to put into the pension benefits. In other words, his plan is to add to the high number of workers that are under-employed.

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17
Jun 10

Now, they want them twice a month

I’d like to start off this blog with a few definitions.

According to the Free Online Dictionary:

Harassment: ha·rassment n.
Synonyms: harass, harry, hound, badger, pester, plague

These verbs mean to trouble persistently or incessantly. Harass and harry imply systematic persecution by besieging with repeated annoyances, threats, or demands: The landlord harassed tenants who were behind in their rent. A rude customer had harried the storekeeper.

Hound suggests unrelenting pursuit to gain a desired end: Reporters hounded the celebrity for an interview.

To badger is to nag or tease persistently: The child badgered his parents for a new bicycle.

To pester is to inflict a succession of petty annoyances: “How she would have pursued and pestered me with questions and surmises” (Charlotte Brontë).

Plague refers to a problem likened to an epidemic disease: “As I have no estate, I am plagued with no tenants or stewards” (Henry Fielding).

According to U.S. Law Books dot com, the legal definition is:

Harassment:
The Modern Penal Code section 250.4(MPC) defines harassment as a petty misdemeanor if with purpose is to harass another, he:
1) makes a phone call without a legitimate purpose; or
2) insults, taunts or challenges another in a manner likely to provoke violent or disorderly response; or
3) calls at inconvenient hours or in offensive language; or
4) subjects another to offensive touching; or
5) engages in any other course of alarming conduct serving no legitimate purpose of the actor.

Today, I got letter from the California EDD. No, it wasn’t a check. I highly doubt I will ever see a check from them ever again. This letter was to inform me that they have decided to assign me to yet another telephone interview. This would be the fourth telephone interview I’ve been required to put up with since I got on Unemployment Insurance benefits in September. This would also be the second telephone interview I’ve been required to put up with this month.

They just called me on Tuesday, June 8, 2010. You can read all about how that went. This next telephone interview is assigned for June 24, 2010. From what I can tell from this letter, they are going to ask me the exact same questions that the previous minion of the EDD, Michael, asked me when he called a few days ago.

I am feeling harassed, by an agency of my own government. I believe, with all my heart, that the EDD is doing this to lots and lots of people. I’m angry, and outraged. It is completely unacceptable for a government agency to resort to increasing forms and instances of harassment to one of it’s own citizens, who has never committed a crime. The money they were supposed to be sending me all this time, (which they avoided sending me each and every time they could come up with the flimsiest of excuses), is mine. It is what was taken out of each of my paychecks from the time I was fifteen years old and got my first job, until I lost my job as a teacher, at age thirty-six, half a lifetime later.

It’s no secret that the state of California doesn’t have the money to actually pay for… well, much of anything anymore. I believe these bullying tactics from the EDD are specifically and intentionally being done for two purposes: They are desperately trying to avoid having to pay the thousands of people who became unemployed after the State of California erased their jobs, and: they desperately want to have it look as though the number of unemployed people has gone down.

If they can find a loophole that will prevent a person from getting Unemployment Insurance Benefits, then that person won’t appear in the statistics next month. Or, if they can harass enough of the people who are already under extreme stress because they don’t have a job, to the point where they tell the EDD worker exactly where they should go, then that person is also out of the system. Do this to enough people, and you can essentially “cook the books”, and make it look, on paper, as though there are less people who are unemployed.

The correct way to reduce unemployment is to create real jobs that a person can actually live on, that provides decent benefits. You know, like most of us had before the economy tanked, and took all our jobs with it. Before I needed Unemployment Insurance Benefits, I was working full time, in the field that I earned my degree in, and making a decent amount of money. I did not quit my job as a teacher, it quit me. If that were not the case, I would never have had the need for Unemployment Insurance Benefits, because I would still be working there!

I have decided that I am done with the EDD. To me, it feels like I have spent more time waiting for late, missing, and withheld benefit checks to arrive than I have had weeks where they actually paid me on time. Of the weeks where I was sent a check on time, it was often a reduced check, because I had been working. On more than one occasion, a piece of paper would arrive telling me I had earned too much money, and I was to surmise from this that no check would arrive, at all. Based on the past behaviors of the EDD, I believe it is logical to assume that they are going to simply drag their feet, and passively aggressively end up not paying me any money until the time period for my Unemployment Insurance claim ends. Yes, there is still money leftover. I am certain they are aware of that.

Therefore, when the next minion of the EDD calls me, I am going to tell that person that I am tired of the harassment. I am tired of them withholding my checks, with no warning. I am tired of them sending me confusing mail that I cannot understand, but fear the meaning of. I am tired of their increasing phone calls. I am going to tell them to end my claim, and leave me the hell alone!

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16
Jun 10

Saw that one coming

Remember a few months ago, when “economists” were gleefully proclaiming that the unemployment problem was getting better, because of all the new jobs that were added that month? They were specifically talking about the jobs that were added because the government needed a bunch of people to go door to door, and make sure everybody filled out their census papers. They also needed people to compile those statistics, and stuff like that.

I blogged about it when that was in the news. I commented that none of these “economists”, whoever they were, seemed to be able to see what I knew we were going to be facing a few months down the road. It was obvious to me that the thousands of people who found employment as a direct result of the census were actually “seasonal hires”, not people who had found a reliable, consistent, and well paying new career. Which meant that they would be unemployed once again, in a few short months, and adding to the statistics about how many people were unemployed. To me, it seemed that the census jobs were not a solution. Instead, they were a band aid, slapped over a hemorrhaging wound. How could anyone have thought that seasonal work was going to fix things?

Well, it looks like a writer for the Huffington Post had the same thoughts as me. On June 4, 2010, they posted an article called Unemployment: U.S. Economy Added 431K Jobs In May, But Vast Majority Came From Census Hires. Go read the article for full details.

In short, things went exactly as I predicted they would go. The need for census workers dried up, tons of people lost their jobs, and the unemployment rate increased. American businesses still aren’t hiring, in part because they don’t trust that the economy has recovered enough for them to safely afford new workers. There are people who have been unemployed for so long that they have given up looking for work, which means that they aren’t even included in the unemployment statistics.

In other words, no matter how much the Federal Government hoped, it is simply not possible to solve the unemployment problem by hiring thousands of seasonal workers for a few months. We need real jobs! We need jobs that pay well enough for a person to make a decent living from, without having to pick up a part time job for supplemental income. We need jobs that lead to actual careers, that come with health benefits, retirement plans, and paid sick days. We need employers who value employees who work hard, are reliable, and good at what they do more than they value new, untrained, high schoolers who they can pay much less per hour.

It is not acceptable for the government to hand out what basically equates to a “summer job”, in an effort to try and trick people that the economy is getting better. Census jobs = a big fat FAIL!

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12
Jun 10

Perceptions

It’s interesting how this current epidemic of unemployment has affected people’s perceptions about jobs and the kinds of people who work them. How quickly we got used to seeing stores close, forever, in the blink of an eye, laying off tons of employees, often with no notice.

There is an excellent blog called Not Always Right , which makes me laugh. Workers send in their experiences dealing with rotten, stupid, or completely confused customers, who are “not always right”. Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to work retail, or with the general public in some other line of work, will relate to this blog, and laugh…. and then cry.

Lately, I’ve noticed a few posts on that blog that deal with the perceptions that people have about work that I found surprising.

Supermarket

Yep, only “old or retarded” people work at the supermarket. What kind of parent teaches that to their young child? Apparently, the same kind of parent who thinks that the word “retarded” is not at all offensive. Let’s hope the parents of this kid don’t lose their jobs, and end up bagging groceries. Oh, and years later when this kid is old enough to try and find a job…. good luck getting him to take one at a supermarket.

Closing

“Wow, they didn’t tell you yet?” How sad is this? We have gotten so used to seeing stores disappear that a clearance sale makes people question how long the store will remain in existence. Also, it isn’t unusual for a company to be closing, and to specifically hide that information from it’s employees.

Dropout

In a world where people with college degrees cannot find work, how can this person possibly believe that her Pharmacist is a high school drop out? Oh, wait.. she doesn’t believe in Pharmacists. Crazy.

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11
Jun 10

Well… I got paid

Today, I got another letter in the mail from the EDD. This time, the envelope was one of those brightly colored, happy envelopes, that does not contain doom and stress. This envelope contained a check, and a continued claim form. This check was for the week ending May 22, 2010, and the week ending May 29, 2010. This check was not for the amount I should be getting, but I am certain this is because I reported income for the weeks that this check was supposed to be for. Why? Because I earned income, and I am required to report that to the EDD. I think the previous check was withheld because I had, in the opinion of the EDD, made “too much money”. Which means I think I am actually caught up, once again.

How much money is too much money? It turns out that if you earn more than $300.00 in a two week period, the EDD thinks that you are making too much money, and they will refuse to send you a check for that timespan. Yes, that is right, they think $300.00 is “too much money”, and that a person can easily live on that for two weeks, and does not have need for a supplemental check for Unemployment Insurance Benefits.

This check came with a Continued Claim Form that I will need to make sure I mail on (Sunday) June 13, 2010. This form is covering the week ending June 5, 2010, and the week ending June 12, 2010. I can hope that this means I will get my next check on time, but, as I have learned from experience, there isn’t actually any way to be certain of that happening.

I had my third godforsaken telephone interview with the EDD earlier this week, on Tuesday, June 8, 2010. Today is Friday, June 11, 2010. There is absolutely no way that this check arrived so quickly as a result of that telephone interview. We all know that the EDD is just not that efficient. So… somewhere between the time that they assigned me the telephone interview, and the actual telephone interview….. this check was in the process? I am now concerned that they are going to send me a letter next week, demanding the money back from this check.

As far as what I have called the “mystery mail”, I still have no answers. I cannot, as of yet, point to any one thing that seems different now because of the mystery mail. I just don’t know.

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10
Jun 10

We are all unemployed

Turns out, this is not the only blog out there that was created as a result of someone losing his or her job. No, there are lots of unemployment related blogs out there. Here are a few more you can check out:

Unemploymentality

Unemploymentality is the brought to you by John Henion, and Tania Khadder, both of whom are unemployed. Their about page describes “unemploymentality” as “a transformative state of mind that is the result of a sudden loss of a job.” This blog contains some incredibly useful information about dealing with the EDD, which has helped me. There is also a healthy mix of humor, (like the video about the stormtrooper who lost his job).

UnemploymentHaiku

Unemployment Haiku combines the difficulties that one experiences while unemployed with the ancient art of haiku, (I love haiku), and a snarky cartoon illustration. I’m not sure if this blog is still being updated or not, but it is definitely worth checking out.

UnemployedInIowa

Unemployed In Iowa is a blog that tells about one family’s experience with unemployment. Jen Green blogs about what happened when her husband, Shawn Green, became unexpectedly unemployed, and how this affected their family. They have four children, all under the age of seven. I’ve only read part of this blog, but I find it extremely interesting.

These should give you plenty of interesting reading material the next time you are stuck waiting for your mandatory telephone interview from whatever the governmental organization that handles unemployment benefit claims is called in your state. Take comfort in the fact that you, the unemployed person reading this blog, are not alone in your struggle. Far from it! Or, on the other hand…. one could look at the many blogs about unemployment, created by people who do not have and cannot find a sustainable job in this economy, and be frightened about how widespread the damage really is. I guess this is where you get to decide if the glass is half full, or half empty.

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08
Jun 10

Godforsaken Telephone Interview 3

As I type this blog, the clock on my computer says it is 12:23 in the afternoon. This means I have about 40 minutes to go, before the EDD will call me. Oh, wait…. since they can call anytime between 1:00 and 3:00 … I could be waiting around for quite a bit longer than 40 minutes or so. I am anxious, and depressed, and just want this all to be over and done with.

I did not sleep well, which does not surprise me. Although I cannot remember clear details from the nightmares I had, I am certain of one thing. All of them had something to do with the world crashing down around me, and me desperately trying to take control of things, and make them right again, while being woefully unprepared and unqualified to do so. I woke up feeling stressed out. I feel like nothing I do will matter, because the EDD is going to whatever the hell it wants to do, regardless of it is right, or moral, or just. It feels like the world is about to end.

The thing I hate the most about being on Unemployment Insurance is that I have no control over my financial life anymore. Will I continue to get benefit checks? How much will they be? Will these checks arrive on time, or will the EDD decide to hold them back, again? All of this is pretty much up to the whim of whatever minion at the EDD that happens to come across paperwork that has my name on it. It doesn’t matter if I do everything they ask, and do it all correctly. Being honest is not guarantee that I will ever see the benefits I am due.

It is now 12:35, and I am listening to podcasts, and writing, and trying not to go crazy while I wait for doom to find me, via telephone call. Shawn is making lunch, cooking burgers and veggies on the grill, and it smells great. Unfortunately, I have been extremely anxious for too many hours in a row (even while sleeping), and the result could be that I will become sick shortly after I eat. I resent that the EDD feels it has the right to ruin for me what could have been a perfectly lovely day.

Now it is 12:47. I have been distracting myself by working on a bit more ofnthe current freelance writing assignment I have been given. What is normally a pleasant and rather easy task has become difficult. I am distracted by thoughts about what I will be asked by the EDD today, and I find myself constantly checking the time.

It’s 12:51, and Shawn tells me that the food is done. Will I be able to eat, or am I too anxious? The EDD might very well call, and interrupt what would otherwise have been a nice meal.

The clock now says it is 1:41 in the afternoon. I managed to eat, and the food was good. Shawn and I talked about the EDD. We came to the conclusion that I am going to be asked a bunch of questions over the phone today, which the worker will plug into the computer. It is the computer that will decide if I am worthy of receiving the benefits that I have earned, not the worker. Computers, after all, are incapable of experiencing things like compassion, and they have no concept of fairness. Shawn summed it up quite well: the worker is basically the closest thing the EDD can get to a worker drone robot, and they are only using people to make the phone calls because their computers are incapable of doing that themselves. Someday, if the EDD ever manages to upgrade it’s computers from the ones they have now, the ones still using floppy disks, we are certain it will fire all the human workers.

We watch an episode of Deadliest Catch while we eat. If you ever think your life is hard, watch these guys pull crab out of the Bering Sea in the middle of winter. This provides some perspective.

It is now 1:45, and the EDD has not called me yet. When I had my first godforsaken telephone interview, the man from the EDD couldn’t be bothered to call me within the assigned time frame that the EDD selected. No, he made me wait from 1:00 to 3:00, and then called me after that. I believe they do this to emphasis that we, the people who need the assistance of Unemployment Insurance benefits, are not important, and that our time has no value.

Too anxious to be able to focus enough to work on my writing assignments, I resort to playing Farmville, while I continue to wait.

The phone rings at 1:58. I grab it, and answer it without looking at who is calling. The voice on the other end of the phone sounds very pleasant, and friendly, and I know right then and there that this could not possibly a minion of the EDD. It is someone from Shawn’s work, and I hand the phone to him. So much for that.

At 2:00, the EDD has wasted one entire hour of the two they demanded I set aside for them to call me. A neighbor is doing yard work that involves some kind of cutting device, and I can smell cut grass and tree parts floating through my window. Looks like I will be talking to the EDD while experiencing allergy symptoms today. Joy. I am now playing Cafe World on facebook, and trying not to sneeze. I never want to have to work flipping burgers ever again, and I don’t enjoy the prospect of bussing tables for tips. Somehow, though, the game version of that sad reality is fun, and entertaining.

2:07 Still no call from the EDD. I have started sneezing. I am afraid to take my allergy medication until after I am all done dealing with the EDD today. No need to make things harder by having a fuzzy head full of antihistamines.

2:30 Nope, they haven’t bothered to call yet. The EDD has now wasted an hour and a half of the two hour time span that they demanded I set aside for them. One would think that if it was important enough for them to send me a threatening letter informing me about all the bad things that would happen to me if I was not available to take their call…. they would, I don’t know…. actually call me. Oh, wait.. that would be logical, and it would make sense. We all know that’s now how things work at the EDD.

2:46 I am now back to being irate. It’s their fault. All the had to do was either not assign me a third telephone interview, or, call me when they said they were going to. I resent having to wait around for them to call me.

2:50 The phone rings. Finally! This minion of the EDD introduces himself as Michael. After making sure he is, in fact, speaking with the right person, he asks “Did you get the letter informing you of the telephone interview?”

“Yes,” I answer, “I have been waiting for you to call”.

Michael asks where I used to be employed. “I am CURRENTLY EMPLOYED at (name of the company I write for). Nice of him to start out this phone call already implying that I am sitting at home, not working, waiting for the handout from the EDD.

Michael wants to know about the company I am doing freelance writing for. He says “It says here that when we contacted them, they said you were doing some kind of contract work for them. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” I respond, through clenched teeth, “I am doing freelance writing for them, and I have stated this before.”

“Ok, that’s fine… then we need the name of your last employer.”

I start to give them the name of the school district I worked for, and then stop. “Wait, do you mean the place I lost my job from that caused me to be on Unemployment Insurance, or the job before (The company I do freelance for)?”

Michael wants the job I had before this one. That would be the answering service I worked at for about a month, the same one Shawn works for. Michael wants the name of that company, and their address. Funny, all that information is on the forms I sent to the EDD when I was reporting the money I made from that job. Somehow… they just don’t have that information. I end up spelling out the name of the street, because Michael wasn’t spelling it correctly, and I have to give him the zip code twice.

“What is the reason you are no longer working there?” he asks.

“I didn’t make it through the training.” I inform him. “The training is really difficult, and not everyone makes it through.”

Before Michael gets off the phone, he tells me that they will be sending me my benefits for May, and he lists off the dates of the two payments that they have been holding back. I ask him when those should arrive to me, and get a vague answer.

In short, the EDD elected to harass the company I am currently doing freelance writing for, in an effort to make them pay for my benefits. When this company declined to do so, because I am a contractor, the EDD decided to harass me. Next, they are going to harass the company I spent about a month working for, before it became obvious that I could not make it through the training.

2:58 The phone rings again. The caller ID had the letters EDD in it. Why on earth are they calling me back?

It’s Michael, again. Now, he wants to know my last date of work for that company. “Hold on,” I tell Michael, “I will try and find out.” Let him be the one waiting, for a change! Shawn and I scramble around to try and figure out when my last day was. We discover it was most likely December 24, 2009. I tell this to Michael.

Sometime later today, Michael, or some other minion, is going to call a company that I spent about a month working for….. about half a year ago, if I worked there. He will ask someone who may not even remember me why I didn’t make it through the training. The harassment continues.

I won’t believe Michael’s words until I have the missing benefit checks in my hand. This had better be the end of the godforsaken telephone interviews!

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08
Jun 10

Thoughts on the night before

It is after midnight, and I am awake. Later today, in about… thirteen hours or so, I have to put up with yet another mandatory telephone interview with the EDD. I am anxious, and angry, and deeply resenting the fact that I have to do this third telephone interview in the nine months since I have been on Unemployment Insurance Benefits.

I have not yet decided if I am going to verbally destroy whichever minion of the EDD is unfortunate enough to call me up and harass me via telephone in a few hours time. Every fiber of my being is urging me to just rip them a new one. However, the logical side of me warns that it is not advisable to say anything on a recorded phone call with a government worker that could be in any way considered a threat. In about half a days time, we get to find out which side of me wins out. I may have to resort to giving them one word answers, and trying extremely hard to not make that one word be something profane and obscene.

If I sleep, I will just end up having nightmares, and wake up even more stressed out than I am right now. I will dream that the EDD has decided to cut off my benefits, with no warning, leaving me scrambling to try and replace the small amount of money they occasionally would give me. I will have nightmares that the EDD has decided that I wasn’t eligible for benefits in the first place, and is demanding that I pay them back the money they sent me, all of it, right this second. Sleep is futile.

Instead, I am online, writing this blog, and surfing the net, trying to distract myself. Here is an article from my local newspaper, The Tribune. It has the cheerful, and hope giving title of: For many, recovery means lower expectations. As always, I recommend you read the article to get the full story. For this article, it is especially true.

This article points out that the Federal Government has been saying for months now that “the Recession is over”. This is being said as if it is a good thing. It seems to me that the members of the Federal Government who have been saying such nonsense are unaware that the reason that the Recession is over, and has been over for many months, is because we in a Depression.

This article tells story after story of people who worked hard, went to school, and got their degree, their masters, or learned their trade. These people all lost their jobs, many with no warning, and have been struggling to avoid homelessness ever since. Many of them have families with young children to care for. All of these people have had to lower their expectations, and take jobs that pay much, much, much less than a person who has earned a degree should have to take. These people are working hourly jobs, that offer no benefits, and pitifully low wages.

A man with a masters degree in business is now bagging groceries. A chiropractor has had to settle for a job in a museum, that only relates to his field of study in the vaguest possible way. A welder who was earning enough to have a large home for his family to live in loses his job, has to sell the home, and has to move the family into an apartment where the children share rooms, (and beds), and the parents sleep on the floor. His wife has gone from being a stay at home mom to working at a car wash, for a low hourly wage. A man with a degree in advertising ends up stocking shelves at a big chain retail store. It’s enough to make a person want to cry. There still aren’t enough jobs to go around. The jobs that exist are bad ones, that will not pay a person enough to live on. Forget getting health insurance, paid sick days, or a retirement plan. That seems to be a thing of the past.

This blog is from a man named Danny, who lives in Chicago, Illinois. He succinctly describes how impossible the Illinois Department of Employment Security has made it for people to file for Unemployment Insurance. Apparently, this particular governmental organization hates Mac computers, and has a phone system that is as frustrating as the one here, in California. To me, this is one more example of how the Federal Government is going out of it’s way to intentionally make it as difficult as possible for it’s citizens to get the help they need, from the money they paid into the system for years and years and years.

I still look at the jobs on Craigslist. People are becoming so desperate to find work that they are using the job list as a place to post their cries for help. They write down what they are qualified to do, and what skills they have, and hope someone out there will be able to hire them.

Here is the latest example of that. The job title is “Need a Nanny?”
“Looking for a quality person to take care of your child/ren? I have 4+ years of nanny experience, and am a mom of a 16 month old boy myself. I am a former teacher, experience teaching grades K-8. Since I am a mom, I understand completely what a huge decision it is as to whom you choose to entrust your child/ren to during the week while you work. I’ve been a stay-at-home-mom for the past 16 months and would continue to do things like take the kids to the beach, park, gymnastics (it’s open gym) and pool. I would be willing to come to your house, as long as you would be ok with me bringing my 16 month old son with me. I’d be available to take care of your child anytime M-F, whatever hours necessary. Price would factor age and how many kids, hours, etc. If you’re interested, please email me at (her email address was here) and once I find out a bit more about your situation, I can give you a price quote. I’d also be happy to email you my resume and references and meet in person.

A former teacher with four years of experience as a nanny cannot find work. There is another person posting that he is able to translate signs and flyers, (as well as anything else a company may need) from English to Spanish, if only someone would hire him.

The rest is filled with absolute crap.
* “Become a SURROGATE MOTHER and Earn up to $45,000″ This appears in the job list often. I believe they are serious, because they list details about the age and health of the woman they are willing to pay to do this.

* SALES REP OPENINGS
NOW HIRING

MARKETING SERVICE INC now has seats available for the best. For local and long distance company Come join the team, must have some sales experience and want to make money.
If this sounds like you,come show us what you’ve got
paid weekly, hours m-f
Submit resume and hours available

The pay for that job is listed as “hourly on a sliding scale”
Translation: They want someone to work as a telemarketer, and do cold calling, and who is gullible enough to believe that they can reach the impossibly high sales quota that is necessary to hit if they stand any hope of making more than minimum wage.

* Help a Couple Fulfill their DREAMS of Parenthood – Become an EGG DONOR” This seems to be a different company than the previous one that wanted egg donors.

*TUTORS NEEDED
This is the same tutoring place that keeps advertising, as if it was a good job. As near as I can tell, Grade Potential pays it’s workers based on how many students they are able to tutor. There doesn’t seem to be any guarantee of hours, or rate of pay, or even that there will be pay. This company has a booth at the local weekly Farmer’s Market. I have often wondered if the result of applying for this job is to end up sitting in the booth at Farmer’s Market, handing out flyers.

All those jobs were posted today. The Federal Government may have deluded itself into believing that things are getting better, but, all the evidence I can find says it is getting worse.

Knowing this, I cannot imagine what I am suppose to say to the EDD minion who calls me in several hours time, when he or she asks why I haven’t found a full time job yet. They should be calling to give me compliments, because I have been working what essentially amounts to a part time job for most of the time that I have been on Unemployment Insurance, something few people are lucky enough to have done. Instead, I have a feeling they are going to try and make me feel bad because I am not teaching. I think they are going to try and make me feel as if the freelance writing that I have been doing since January isn’t “real work”, and that I am lazy and stupid for not getting something they consider “better”. Better doesn’t exist. “Real jobs” have gone extinct.

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06
Jun 10

Random

I decided to post a few random things that I’ve been meaning to post here. All of them have to something to do with unemployment.

Here’s one I “borrowed” from Post Secret
librarynote

Watch the United States rot, like a piece of moldy bread:

That is one striking visual aid, showing just how bad things have gotten.

The Northwest Herald published an article called Algonquin man charged in fed benefits case. Algonquin is a town in Illinois. The Northwest Herald is an Illinois newspaper.

In short, this article is about a 36 year old man who is one of eleven people who have been charged with “fraudulently obtaining unemployment insurance benefits”. Each of these people (allegedly) “lied about their eligibility for benefits”. They claimed that they were unemployed, when they were not. These people actually had jobs, that to me, appear to have been full time jobs. One was a bricklayer. Two of them worked for the U.S. Postal Service. And now, they will be going to court, and quite possibly to prison.

Ok, first of all, it’s clearly wrong to lie about being unemployed, in order to get benefits that you aren’t eligible for…. because you have a full time job! What kind of people choose to do that? The bigger question, in my mind, is this: How come the Illinois version of the EDD didn’t catch the fraud when it happened?

Two days from now, I have to go through my third telephone interview with the California EDD, to continue to prove to them that I have been telling the truth about when and where I worked, and how much money I made. I’ve been reporting all of that to the EDD truthfully, and still, this is the third time in nine months that the EDD has decided to withhold my benefits, so I can appease their paranoid little souls, once again. How come those eleven people in Illinois were able to just get unemployment benefits, (that they did not deserve), without having to deal with all of the harassment that I, an honest person, have had to deal with?

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