Posts Tagged: Unemployment Insurance

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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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8
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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6
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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3
Jun 10

Feeling harassed

Another envelope arrived in my mailbox today from the EDD. No, it’s not a check, either. I now hate the very sight of anything that has the EDD logo printed on it. Just looking at the outside of these envelopes makes my mood instantly plummet from normal and happy to irate and depressed.

Today’s horrible news from the EDD is a one page letter informing me that I have been assigned to go through yet another telephone interview. This would be my third one in the nine months since I signed up for Unemployment Benefits. I am feeling harassed, and angry, and extremely disappointed in how the government treats its citizens that need financial help due to loss of a job.

This third godforsaken telephone interview will take place on June 8, 2010. It is said to happen sometime between 1:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon. I am likely to experience the same anxiety that I did for the first and second telephone interview, which starts… well, now, actually, and will not let up until after the telephone interview is over. This is detrimental to my health, both physical and mental.

Again, I have no idea what the EDD wants from me this time. Shawn and I were speculating about what on earth it could be this time around, and really didn’t come to any concrete conclusions, because that just isn’t possible. Shawn had a good point. He said something like this:

When you get on Unemployment, they pull you into their game. But, no one ever tells you the rules for the game, so you never know if you are doing the right thing, or the wrong thing.

That is really how it is. From the first moment you file for Unemployment Insurance, you understand that it is going to be a temporary thing. You soon are informed that you must continue to look for work in order to continue to be eligible for Unemployment Insurance benefits. So, you look for work, and, if you are as lucky as I have been, you find what equates to a part time job. You are told that you must report your income from that part time work to the EDD on your Continued Claim Forms, and so you do. This is what I have been doing. I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to do.

As a reward for following their directions, I am being harassed. I get mail from the EDD with more bad news in it at least once a week, sometimes more often than that. This is the third telephone harassment I will be subjected to.

The first telephone interview seemed to be so that they could judge if I was worthy of receiving Unemployment Insurance benefits in the first place. I had to actually fax them the letter I got that said that I had lost my job, before they would believe me.

The second telephone interview seemed to be because the EDD did not understand what on earth “piecework” was, despite the fact that it said in their Blue Pamphlet of information that if a person is getting paid by the piece, or by the product, instead of hourly, that they should write the word “piecework” on their Continued Claim Forms. I told the woman who conducted the second telephone interview that I was doing freelance writing for the company I am working for. Somehow, the EDD managed to not understand that either, and this resulted in the EDD sending the company I am writing for a form asking them to pay for my Unemployment Insurance benefits. Which they, of course, declined, because I am not their employee, I am a general contractor. Which is what I told the EDD in the first place, a few times over now.

My best guess is that this third godforsaken telephone interview is either going to be about the EDD asking me, again, about the work I am doing as a freelance writer. Or, it might have something to do with them asking me about The Evil Bookstore, since that former employer appeared on the Form Of Mystery I’ve already written about.

In short, it seems to me that most of the harassment I am receiving from the EDD is due to the fact that I did what they told me to do: I found work. I think that if I instead decided to play World of Warcraft all day, never look for work at all, and simply wait for the Unemployment Insurance checks to arrive, I would have had a much easier time than I have been having.

I really, really, really, want to tell whatever unfortunate minion of the EDD that calls me exactly where I’d like him or her to stick their Unemployment Insurance benefit checks. I just want this madness to end. I haven’t done that so far because I thought I needed the money that comes from the EDD in order to help pay bills.

And then I realized that the EDD hasn’t actually been sending me money for most of the time I have been on Unemployment Insurance anyhow.

Let’s take a look:

* I first applied for Unemployment Insurance benefits September 25, 2009. I did not actually receive any money from the EDD until after the first telephone interview, and after they deemed me worthy of their help. The first check didn’t arrive until November 2, 2009, 38 days later. I got zero dollars from the EDD for the entire month of October, 2009.

*I got checks on November 2, 2009, November 16, 2009, and November 30, 2009.

*I got a check on December 12, 2009, and on December 26, 2009. (Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!) The check that I got on December 26 was for $25.00, (possibly because I had picked up a part time job, and they reduce your benefits in relation to the money you earn from working).

*I got a check for the “usual amount” on January 11, 2010.

*The next check did not arrive until February 18, 2010. This check was late. The checks are supposed to arrive every two weeks. Instead, this check arrived 38 days after the previous check. Note: At this point I had been on Unemployment Insurance for four months, and the EDD decided to stop payments for two of those months. Actually, if you count a month as 30 days, then the real total would be closer to two and a half months out of four that the EDD withheld payments.

* I got a check on March 1, 2010.

* April 8, 2010, I got my next check. My payments had been stopped, once again, due to the assignment of the second mandatory telephone interview. This check was to cover the weeks ending March 6, 2010, and the week ending March 13, 2010. This means that our running total is three and a half months (out of seven) that the EDD withheld payment.

* April 16, 2010, I got two checks. One was for the normal amount, and one was reduced, based on work I had done. This, I hoped, meant that the EDD was trying to catch up the payments it owed me, and that things were back on track. I got another check around April 26, 2010.

* I also got a check on May 12, 2010. This is the last check I have received from the EDD. Today is June 3, 2010, and I have learned that the EDD has decided to withhold my payments because they decided to assign me a third telephone interview. I should have received a check from the EDD around May 26, but did not. This means that this check is currently a week late. And counting!

In other words my belief that I needed the money from Unemployment Insurance to live on isn’t entirely correct. If you add it up the amount of time that the EDD dragged it’s feet before sending me the checks, it adds up to about four months. I have been on Unemployment Insurance for about nine months. And yet, we have survived! Maybe it is time to tell them to stick it, and end the harassment, the mind games, and the anxiety attacks once and for all!

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2
Jun 10

More mysterious mail

I got another mysterious letter from the infamous EDD the other day. It arrived in my mailbox slightly before the Memorial Day three day weekend. It has taken me a while to write about it because I was hoping that I would eventually understand just what it means. I still don’t know.

It came in one of those envelopes that doesn’t look like the colorful, happy envelopes that contain checks. This envelope was thick, which is never a good thing.

The first page had the expected logo of the EDD at the top. The next line reads “NOTICE OF STATUS OF WAGES”. Beneath this ominous sounding title is a chart, containing my information. Here is my name, there is my address, over there is my social security number. This…. whatever it is… was prepared by “F618″. That’s a strange sounding name! The name must belong to one of the slow moving robots that compiles paperwork for the EDD.

Next is another chart of information. The first box reads “Employer”. The employer listed is not the company I am doing freelance writing for. It is not the school district who I worked for until my job disappeared, and I needed to file for Unemployment Benefits on September 25, 2009. No, the employer listed on this form is the company I was working for before I took the job as a teacher’s aide for Special Education.

I have taken to referring to this workplace as “The Evil Bookstore”, rather than name the company outright. If you know me well, then you know exactly which company I mean. Also, it’s not exactly a secret, or anything.

In any case, the name of the company listed on this form is not important, except for one reason : This is NOT the company I was working for when I filed for unemployment. Next are a series of boxes, filled with numbers, and it seems to be a tally of the wages I made from working at The Evil Bookstore in 2008. In other words, this is data from at least a year before I became unemployed.

Now, when I first filed for Unemployment Benefits, I was asked for information not only about the job I had just lost, but also about where I had worked for the previous couple of years. Where did I work? The Evil Bookstore. I’ve been on Unemployment Benefits for approximately nine months. I worked as a teacher’s aide for approximately nine months. Am I to assume that my work as a teacher’s aide has… “run out”, for lack of a better term, and that the EDD is now going back to the company I worked for previous to my work as a teacher’s aide? Does the timing have anything to do with it? I have all these questions, and zero answers.

Underneath this chart are two frightening phrases, next to empty boxes. One says: “Your claim for Unemployment/Disability Insurance is INVALID“. The other one says “Your claim for Unemployment/Disability Insurance is VALID.” Neither one of these two possibilities has a mark in the empty box that sits next to it. My claim is not valid, and it is not invalid.

I am reminded of that scene in the Alice in Wonderland Disney cartoon, where Alice is faced with two door knockers that talk. She wants to know if the door behind them leads to where she is trying to go. One door knocker always tells the truth, and the other one always lies, and Alice has to figure out which is which. Here I sit, with two possibilities from the EDD. One must be true, and the other must be a lie… but I cannot tell which is which.

Under this riddle sit twelve possibilities for the “Reason” why…. one of the two boxes in the riddle were marked with an X. Since neither one was marked, I figured it would be impossible for any of the twelve choices to be the “Reason” why it was…. um… marked, but not marked, but marked? I’m so confused!

The “Reason” choices are all marked with a letter. The box sitting next to the letter K has an X in it. It says “See the attached investigation report”.

The bottom of page one, under the margin line, says “SEE PAGE TWO FOR YOUR RIGHTS TO APPEAL THIS COMPUTATION“. I assume I am supposed to feel the need to appeal something at this point… but, I’ve no idea what that could be.

I expect page two to be a list of rights, or the investigation report that was mentioned. Instead, I see a list underneath the word EXEMPTIONS. None of them are relevant to me. I’m not:
* a minor, employed by my parent
* a worker in a church, or organization operated primarily by religious purpose
* someone whose services were “preformed under federally funded work relief or a training program”
* a student, working at a school where I am enrolled and attending classes
* someone who earns tips
* someone who is still owed vacation pay from a previous employer
* or someone who is still owed sick pay from a previous employer

Next, it says “Other”. These lines are left blank. No answers here!
The “Date of Mailing” is interesting. It says that this particular form of mystery was mailed on June 03, 2010. That would be tomorrow. According to this part of the form, I haven’t actually received it yet.

It then has my social security number, again, and the date that I first filed a claim for Unemployment Insurance. The date is a few days off from when I actually filed. I’m still confused about just what all this is supposed to mean.

Under this are two sections. The first one says PROTEST. There are two statements here, next to unmarked little boxes. The second one says APPEAL RIGHTS. One of the two statements under this part does have a box with an X in it. That one says “You may appeal the wage adjustment to an Administrative Law Judge of the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board within 20 days from the mailing date of this notice.” The form continues to advise me that if I want to file a form, I should send the “enclosed appeal form (DE 1000M) by mail, to the address listed on this page.

Page 3 has the EDD logo, again. Under that is has a bunch of stars centering the words “DE 1153 Investigation Reply”. It has my name, and social security number. It says my employers name is The Evil Bookstore. Next, it lists what I think might be two different QTR, with an amount of money sitting under each one. I can only assume that this is the amount of money I made working at The Evil Bookstore for whenever those two QTRs were.

Then it says something I do not understand at all:
“Response: Wages allowed per employer records. Additional wages not allowed. Additional amounts are vacation pay paid on/after separation date, therefore not considered wages for unemployment Insurance purposes.” This is followed by a section number of the California code of something or other. The department representative involved was named A LIN, and A LIN completed this on May 25, 2010.

The next page is a form that I assume I am suppose to mail to the address on the other page, if I had any idea what it was that I was potentially wanting to appeal.

Ok……?

My best guess as to what this all could possibly mean is that the EDD has decided to change the amount of money I would be getting every two weeks from here on out. This has something to do with the money I earned working at The Evil Bookstore, who did not fire me, lay me off, or take away my job. I quit that job in order to take the job as a teacher’s aide for Special Education. Somehow, the EDD is…. having The Evil Bookstore company pay for the rest of my Unemployment Benefits? Is it allowed to say “no”, and cause me to not get anymore benefits?

Exactly how different will the amount of money I get from the EDD be from here on out?

There are too many unknowns in this ominous looking mystery mail.

I mailed the Continued Claim Form that was due to be mailed out Sunday, May 30, on Tuesday, June 1. No mail is picked up or delivered on Sundays. No mail was picked up or delivered Monday, May 31, because it was the Federal Holiday called Memorial Day.

I can’t figure out if all this confusing paperwork means that I will be getting another check… or if this means I can’t get any more checks… or how much said check is going to be.

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27
May 10

Making me feel bad

Not too long ago, I went to the mailbox, expecting my Unemployment Insurance benefits check to be waiting for me. Instead, I found a letter from the dreaded EDD in an envelope that looked quite different from the letters they send that have checks inside them. My hand started shaking as I reached for it, and I resisted the urge to open it right there, next to the mailbox, to see what doom it was bringing me this time.

I now have small panic attacks each and every time I get anything from the EDD. Like I said, my hands shake whenever I see something from the EDD waiting for me in my mailbox. My heart rate increases, and I don’t realize that I’ve started holding my breath until my lungs force me to exhale, before I die.

I opened this particular envelope from the EDD as soon as I got inside the door. I figured that this way, if the news inside the envelope was completely horrible, at least I could freak out without the neighbors watching. Then again, I live in a mobile home park, and at least one of my neighbors has a tendency to “go off”, ranting and throwing things, on a regular basis. Who would notice if I went crazy by the mailboxes, anyway? It wouldn’t even matter.

I knew that this envelope would not contain the check I’d been waiting for. Instead, it contained a mostly blank piece of paper. There was the usual address and logo of the EDD at the bottom. The top, which is usually perforated, but was not this time around, said that I wasn’t receiving a check because I had reported “excessive earnings” on my last Continued Claim Form. This, though disappointing, wasn’t unheard of. There have been a couple of times when I did not get a check, because I had earned too much money from a part time job during that two week period.

Interesting fact: The EDD thinks “excessive earnings” means that I have earned about half of what I would need to live on in a two week span of time. Somehow, this tiny amount of money that I have earned from a “part time / freelance type” job is “excessive”. Most people would consider “excessive” earnings to be something closer to what Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or whoever the latest famous pop star or athlete is making.

The most disturbing part of this particular letter from the EDD was that the center was entirely blank. It should have contained a Continued Claim form for the next two week period. Instead? Nothing! Nothing at all! I took this to mean that the EDD had decided to dump me, but didn’t actually have the balls to say so, directly. Instead, I get a nearly empty letter, symbolizing the emptiness of my hope of continuing to get the rest of my Unemployment Benefits. I started in September of 2009, and the benefits are supposed to last until September 2010. It’s not even June!

Shawn and I waited, thinking that maybe some form of explanation would arrive. When nothing arrived, we eventually had a conversation about what I should do about this over lunch one day. Should I attempt to make contact with the elusive EDD and see if my benefits have been cancelled? How long should I give it before resorting to that desperate and doomed measure?

That same day, not one, but two envelopes from the EDD arrived in the mailbox. Shawn handed them to me, and I stared at these toxic envelopes as if they might bite me as I accepted them. Neither one of these envelopes looked like the kind that have checks inside them, so I knew this could only be more bad news.

The first envelope contained a form letter that I have seen before. In short, this letter was telling me that the EDD had finally understood that I was doing freelance work for one of the companies that I have been doing freelance work for since January. I’d been reporting the income I got from this company, and from the other places I did freelance work for, on each and every Continued Claim form I’d received since I started doing freelance writing. It took the EDD until the middle of May to figure that out. Clearly, the EDD isn’t the brightest crayon in the box.

What scared me about this letter was not the letter itself. In the past, a letter like this one would arrive, and then my benefits would mysteriously be cut off, and then I would get another letter informing me that I’d been assigned to have another dreadful mandatory telephone interview. I’ve already been through two of them, and wasn’t looking forward to having to go through a third. There are many things I’d rather be doing, than having another unwanted telephone interview with the EDD, things like drinking bleach, or attending a Nickelback concert

The second envelope also was not the kind that contained a check. This one contained a Continued Claim form that looked normal, but wasn’t printed on the usual paper these forms come on. Strange, but it seems to be a valid form. It is for the week ending May 22, and the week ending May 29.

Oh, look. I am required to mail this particular Continued Claim Form back to the EDD on my birthday. Happy birthday to me! Here is a concrete reminder that I am unemployed, and pushing 40. If I spiral into a MidLife Crisis, you’ll all know exactly what lit that fuse.

Then I got an email from the one of the places I do a lot of freelance writing for. It was the same company that was named on the letter I got from the EDD. Getting email from this particular company is normal. This is how I get my assignments, and how I send back completed assignments to them. The content of this email was unexpected.

In short, the EDD contacted this company, and asked them to pay unemployment benefits on my behalf. The company declined, because I am an independent contractor, and not an employee. And this is true, I am an independent contractor and not an employee of this company. They reported that to the EDD, as they should have. I believe this company handled everything correctly. I have no problem with this.

What I do have a problem with is that the EDD contacted them at all. This was not the place I was working at when I lost my job back in September. I have been filling out Continued Claim forms each time I get one, telling the EDD that I am doing “piece work” for this company. I spoke with a woman on the phone during my most recent telephone interview, and let her know that I was doing freelance writing. Given this information, I fail to see how the EDD could reasonably conclude that I was now an official employee of this company.

It would have been entirely possible for this company to conclude that I waited until I started working for them to file for Unemployment Insurance Benefits, in an effort to scam them, so I could get more money, or something nefarious like that. The actions of the EDD might very well have cost me the freelance writing job that I have been getting the most work from since I became unemployed. I am irate that the actions of the governmental agency that is supposed to be supplementing my income until I get full time work, (or until September 2010), is attempting to get me fired from the job I was able to luck into.

Fortunately, the company didn’t decide to drop me. I have been given another assignment from them, and am about a third of the way done with it at this moment. I got lucky.

Since this all happened, I have had this lingering feeling that I have done something wrong. Like I screwed up somewhere along the line, but can’t quite identify how. In reality, I didn’t do anything wrong at all. I informed the EDD about my income. I sent all the Continued Claim Forms in on time, and filled out correctly. I found work, and am continuing to work, for a company that has sent me complementary emails about my work. I haven’t done anything wrong at all, but, the actions of the EDD are still making me feel like I’ve messed up. It’s not fair. I really need this psychological warfare to end, but I can’t just tell the EDD to end my benefits yet, because I simply am not making enough to live on yet.

And now? Back to the waiting game. I will fill out this current claim form, and mail it on time. Two weeks after that, I might see a check. Or, I might get a letter telling me that my benefits have been cut off until I do a third telephone interview, or, perhaps, permanently. There is nothing I can do to change that fate.

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9
May 10

Another reason to hate Wal-Mart

Anyone who knows me is already aware that I hate Wal-Mart. I don’t like the way they bully companies into handing their products over to them for so low a price that the other company can’t really make much of a profit. I didn’t like hearing in the news, years ago, that at least some Wal-Mart stores were making a practice of hiring overnight janitors who were, in fact, illegal aliens, specifically so Wal-Mart could pay these people much less than they would have had to pay workers who were American citizens.

I was outraged a few Novembers ago when one Wal-Mart decided that they didn’t need to pay the extra expense of hiring security on the day after Thanksgiving, despite their massive advertising campaign broadcasting details of their sales, and the obviously huge crowd that gathered outside. No, this particular Wal-Mart decided that a very reduced amount of workers could handle this crowd, on their own, without the help from security or police.

What happened? The crowd went into a frenzy, actually broke down the door, and stampeded into the Wal-Mart. One of the workers was trampled to death when this happened. This man died while doing his job. But, he wasn’t a fireman, or a policeman, or in the military. No, he was working for a retail giant that could have easily afforded to pay for some security people to assist with the massive crowd, before they got worked up enough to resort to breaking down the door.

Wal-Mart basically decided that the money they were going to make that day was more important than the life of one of their workers. Now, before you start thinking something like: “Well, most of the time, crowds don’t actually go crazy like that while waiting for the “doorbuster” sales the day after Thanksgiving. So, maybe Wal-Mart really didn’t know that would happen. It was an unfortunate accident. Wal-Mart doesn’t really think that money is more important than a human life.” Think again!

This same Wal-Mart store did not close after the man died. The store remained open, and ambulance crews had to fight the crowds in order to get to the man. This Wal-Mart store remained open the entire day, so they could continue to make money from the huge crowd lured there by Wal-Mart’s massive advertising campaign.

I hate companies that mistreat their workers, and value the Almighty Dollar over the people who work their buts off to make those dollars for the huge company they work for. For a company as affluent as Wal-Mart to intentionally and consistently make the kinds of “cost-cutting” choices that abuse their workers is, simply put, immoral. Wal-Mart is evil!

This week, The Peoria Pundit published an article about how Wal-Mart is abusing it’s workers who are senior citizens. Read the article for full details. I’m just pulling out the highlights here.

Wal-Mart has been firing many of it’s workers who are senior citizens, and lying to them. Wal-Mart is targeting workers who have been working at Wal-Mart for enough years to finally be earning what verges on a living wage. Since Wal-Mart is one of the many companies that starts workers out at the lowest hourly pay that it is legal to give a worker, this means that it takes years and years before someone is able to make $12.00/hr. Which means that the people who have been there long enough to make a decent wage are now senior citizens. Again, this is another example showing that Wal-Mart values money way more than people.

So, what is happening is that Wal-Mart is firing these elderly workers for no reason at all. Wal-Mart then hires several younger new workers, and pays each of them a pittance. This saves Wal-Mart money.

It gets worse. Wal-Mart managers then tell these newly unemployed senior citizens that they cannot apply for Unemployment Benefits, or else they will lose their Social Security Benefits. This is a flat out lie! It’s possible that a person’s Social Security Benefits will be slightly reduced as a result of receiving an Unemployment check, but one cannot “lose” their Social Security Benefits as a result of being on Unemployment Insurance. It works more like how things are going for me. I am getting Unemployment Insurance benefits, and my checks are reduced in relation to how much freelance writing work I pick up.

Wal-Mart then implies to these newly fired workers that maybe, when the economy picks up again, they might be able to re-hire the person. Now, people who are senior citizens right now may be operating under the assumption of how large companies used to work. Here is a worker who has worked hard for this company for many, many, years. The worker has never been a problem, has always had good reviews, and shows up to work on time, every day. So, when Wal-Mart managers tell these seniors something that sounds like “I’m so sorry, but we have to lay you off for a little while. But, when the economy picks up, we can hire you right back, so don’t worry”, the senior citizen believes it. Why? Because back in the day, large companies used to actually take care of the workers who invested their lives into making the company into a success.

Which means that these unemployed senior citizens are sitting at home, waiting for the phone to ring, calling them back to work. They aren’t filing for Unemployment Insurance Benefits, because they fear losing their Social Security Benefits, which is now their only source of income. They don’t realize they need to start looking for another job, because their company told them they would be hired back.

Instead, Wal-Mart has no intention of ever hiring these people back. If, by some fluke, the end up re-hiring these workers, it will be for whatever the current minimum wage is, and not for what the worker was making before their job disappeared.

Now, what is Wal-Mart’s motivation to lie to the senior citizens they fire? Once again, it’s Wal-Mart’s way of saving a few dollars, at the expense of the quality of people’s lives.

“He later learned that employers don’t have to pay unemployment benefits to former workers if they wait longer than a year to apply for benefits.”

Wal-Mart is actively misleading the senior citizens they fire, by using scare tactics and lies about being re-hired soon, specifically so Wal-Mart doesn’t have to pay for Unemployment Insurance Benefits for the people they fire. Shame on you, Wal-Mart! Shame on you!

If you are reading this blog today, and have recently become unemployed, make certain that you file for Unemployment Insurance Benefits right now. Don’t wait around, and procrastinate about it, and lose out. The money you get from Unemployment Insurance Benefits is actually your money. It is the money you earned while working all your life, and it was set aside specifically for you to use in the event you become unemployed. Don’t let your greedy former employer weasel out of paying what it is legally required to.

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16
Apr 10

Back on track

Today I got not one, but two, letters in my mailbox from the EDD. I received them, as always, with a mixture of anticipation and trepidation. Carefully holding them in my hand, and moving slowly and cautiously, I give them a quizzical look before I dare open them. I’m always halfway certain that if I make one false move, one or both of these pieces of mail will bite me.

Earlier, I blogged about getting two continued claim forms at the same time, as a result of the dreaded and much undesired telephone interview. They of course, in usual EDD fashion, arrived a few days after I was supposed to send them. I estimated that I would receive the checks connected to these forms somewhere around April 19, 2010.

Well, I was wrong. Both the checks arrived today, to my complete surprise. Today is April 16, 2010. I was off by about four days, three if you count days that the post office actually delivers mail.

The first envelope contained a check. It was rather small, but this was to be expected. When you have a part time job, or, in my case, a freelance type job, the EDD reduces the amount of money it sends you in relation to how much you earned from working. This is to be expected.

The strange part of this letter was what was attached to the check.

There was the usual perforated part at the top, telling me that the EDD took out some money for taxes before sending me this check. Yes, I told the EDD to do that, so I wouldn’t end up paying back a huge amount of money, someday, when I’m finally done with this whole Unemployment Benefits thing. I expected this.

It let me know that my benefits were reduced for the week ending March 20, 2010, and also for the week ending March 27, 2010, because I worked. I’d already figured out that part.

Then there is text reminding me, once again, that I can check one of the boxes on the continued claim form to let them take out taxes. Um… already doing that. Thanks!

The strange part was below the perforated portion. Instead of a continued claim form, this space was mostly blank. In the center of the page it read:

“DO NOT COMPLETE OR RETURN THIS FORM. DISREGARD THE PRE-PRINTED TEXT ON THE BACK.”

It would be impossible to fill out this claim form, since it isn’t actually printed out for me to fill in.

Then it said the same thing in Spanish:

“NO COMPLETE O REGRESE ESTE FORMULARIO. NO PONGA ATENCION AL TEXTO PRE-IMPRESO EN EL DORSO.”

… just in case I didn’t get the message the first time. Ok, then!

The second envelope also contained a check, which had also been reduced based on the amount of freelance work I did. There is the same information about how much money they took out for taxes, and the same reminder to …. let them take the money out for taxes. Just in case I missed that piece of information, I suppose. There is the usual, ever subtracting total of the amount of money I have left in my Unemployment Insurance. This check was for the week ending April 3, 2010.

This new continued claim form is for the week ending April 10, 2010, and the week ending April 17, 2010. I am to put it in the mail on April 18, 2010, which is a Sunday, and therefore impossible. So, it will go into the mail Monday, April 19 instead. This continued claim form didn’t require the use of a time machine to get it into the mail on the printed date!

So, for now, I am back on track with my Unemployment Insurance Benefits. While I am hoping that things will continue as they are supposed to, with no hassles, and no added frustrations from here on out… I don’t entirely believe that will be the case. For all I know, they are planning on cutting me off once again, without warning, for yet another unexpected godforsaken telephone interview, and this whole mess will start over again. I don’t really trust the EDD to do what it is supposed to do, in a timely fashion. They’ve given me so many reasons to doubt them.

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8
Apr 10

Just a little late, again

When I had the previous Godforsaken telephone interview with the EDD, I was told that I would be receiving my Unemployment Insurance check, and the missing continued claim forms. I was told that these items were in Sacramento at that time, Friday, April 2, 2010. There was no estimation given about when these things would arrive.

Today, Thursday, April 8, 2010, these important items made it to my mailbox. The check that was for the week ending March 6, 2010, and also the week ending March 13, 2010 is finally here. While I am extremely thankful to have this check, I am frustrated by how long I had to wait for it. This check is about a month late. The last time the EDD sent me a check was around March 1, 2010. It’s defiantly been more than a month since I’ve been paid my Unemployment Insurance Benefits.

The continued claim form attached to this extremely needed check is for the week ending March 20, 2010, and also for the week ending March 27, 2010. This form says that I am supposed to have mailed it back on April 5, 2010. Today is April 8, 2010. Once again, the EDD thinks I can somehow turn back time, and put this continued claim form in the mail days before it ever arrived to me, somehow. The best I can do is to take this continued claim form to the Post Office downtown sometime tomorrow.

I also got another envelope that contained another continued claim form. Mysteriously, this one only covers one week, instead of two like all the other continued claim forms do. It is for the week ending April 3, 2010. That would be the day after I had my second telephone interview, oddly enough.

If the EDD would have continued sending me my checks while I was waiting for this interview that I had no desire to participate in, they would have avoided having to send me all this stuff all at once, and none of it would have been overdue. It would have been entirely possible. Instead, the EDD prefers to screw with me, and make me wonder if I would ever see another Unemployment Insurance benefit check. I hate places that play mind games with people, simply because they can, and I despise inefficiency in governmental organizations. I’m not impressed with the EDD, not one little teensy bit.

This strange continued claim form is only for one week. The place on the form that I would normally fill out for the second week has dozens of upper case, bold, Xs all over it. It’s almost disturbing to look at.

So, tomorrow, I will send both of these continued claim forms to the EDD. Anyone want to guess when I will be paid in full for the three weeks that the EDD arbitrarily decided to delay paying me for? I am guessing I will see one of these checks in my mailbox on …April 19, 2010. Let’s see what happens!

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2
Apr 10

God forsaken telephone interview

Here I go again!

It is just a few minutes before 10:00 in the morning. I am writing this blog while waiting for the EDD to give me a call. Today is the day they have scheduled a telephone interview, my second one since I signed up for Unemployment Insurance.

I am not looking forward to this one bit. I’m convinced that they are going to decide to stop paying me, despite the fact that the amount of money they told me I would get isn’t even halfway depleted, despite the fact that they said I had until September before they would stop.

Shawn bought me a chai tea latte, and a banana muffin, which makes things just a little bit better.

My sister in law asked me the other day “How’s your Un-enjoyment going?” I told her I was going to use that. “Un-enjoyment.” This is the perfect description of what it’s like to be on Unemployment, and at the whim of the EDD. That’s perfect.

It’s now 10:03. They may call anytime between now, and noon, assuming they are on time. I have almost two hours ahead of me of waiting, and nervousness…

And, the phone rings. …. It’s them!

I just talked to Margaret from the EDD. She was actually nice, and had a thick accent that I could not place. Korean, maybe? She has just a few questions for me.

The first thing Margaret said, after we established that I was the person she was supposed to talk to today was “I’m gonna do your interview, ok?”

I, of course, said “ok.” It was kind of Margaret to give me the illusion that I had some kind of choice in the matter.

“When did you start freelance writing, what date?”

“Um, in January. The last week of January.” I answered.

“Last week of January…ok…. How many hours do you do freelance writing a week?”

“Um, about 20 a week. It’s freelance, it’s not like McDonalds where you get a set amount of hours.”

“Ok, about twenty.” Margaret repeated. “Are you writing a book?” I detected a hint of disapproval in Margaret’s tone, but just a little one.

The truth is, I am writing a book. I’ve been spending about a week or so putting together the sequel to my first haiku book. However, this isn’t something I’m getting paid to do. Instead, I gave Margaret the answer she seemed to be looking for.

“No, no. For this company, I’m writing content for websites.” I said.

“Oh, for websites!” Margaret sounded really happy to hear that. Note to self: writing a book is unacceptable, but writing “content” for websites is something the EDD approves of.

“What kind of work did you do for the past two years?” was Margaret’s next question.

“Well, right before I got on Unemployment, I was a Teacher’s Aide for Special Education, until I lost my job.”

“Oh, Special Ed. Ok!” Margaret sounded delighted. “How long were you are teacher’s aide for Special Ed.”

“Um… about a year…..”

“Ok, a year…” Margaret cut me off.

“Well, I guess about nine months.”

“Oh, ok, nine months. ok.” Margaret must be filling this into a form somewhere over there at the EDD. “What did you do before teacher’s aide for Special Ed.”

“Before that I worked retail”.

“Oh, retail! Ok, retail….. for about how long?” Seems I just so happened to have worked in two fields that the EDD completely approves of. All US Citizens should work in retail, or in Education, apparently. Lucky me, I happened to have the correct work history.

“If somebody offered you full time work, you would take it, right? I mean, you could do your writing at night.” Margaret asked me.

Inside, I was cringing. Holding back what I really wanted to say, I instead responded with “Yes, I would take it, as long as I was qualified for the job.” Margaret made sounds of approval, as she filled in whatever form she was using. Clearly, I managed to say the answer she was leading me towards.

In reality, no, I can’t “just do my writing at night”. I tried doing it that way, for years. What happens is I come home too exhausted or too allergic from my job to be able to write anything worth reading. Also, I resent the EDD implying that writing isn’t a “real job”. But, I managed to keep myself from telling this to Margaret.

Then Margaret asked me something I never expected the EDD to ask me.
“Do you have any questions for me?” She actually waited for me to give her an answer!

After determining that this was real, and not a dream, I asked her the question I’d been dying to know the answer to:

“When will I start to get benefit checks and continued claim forms again?”

Margaret said they were coming from Sacramento today, and that I will get the continued claim forms for March and April. “Just put them all in the same envelope, so you get caught up.”, Margaret said.

And that was all!

This went much better than the first one. Relief washes over me. They didn’t cut off my benefits after all, to my complete surprise.

Maybe now my nightmares will stop. I’ve been having dreams about working in a huge, but vaguely defined, retail store. I keep getting asked to go to the stock room to get something, only to find that the stockroom is, in fact, a gigantic warehouse. I end up getting lost, and then yelled at for taking so long to find whatever the thing was that I was sent back there to find.

Or, I have this nightmare about working in a day care center, where the children are completely out of control, and the other workers are expecting me to handle everything, while they sit down and talk to each other about how much noise the children are making.

Maybe now the nightmares will stop.

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