Unemployment! Week 1

So I'm on Unemployment beneifts now. I will keep a weekly log of my benefits just in case the one guy who reads my blog (or the aliens that discover the last working linux internet server walled up in a crumbling office building a thousand years from now) needs to know how unemployment works. Basically, the office is doing everything it can NOT to pay you these benefits. It asks you to fill out forms. Attend meetings. Stop fapping off in the gas station off of i-90. Jump through hoops. And if you can't jump through hoops on command it wants a valid doctor's note explaining why. in triplicate. For every guy that gives up in despair, it saves TONS of money that can line the politician's well-lined pockets.

For those of us who are legitimately out of work because our boss mishandled the business so badly that it can't afford to pay us anymore, well, that just sucks. I started working on my job search pretty much on the ride home from work on the day that I got laid off. I don't expect to have an issue finding a job, but I am prepared to be in it for the long haul. If I get a job the second week I am off, great, and if it takes a year, fine. I view this whole jumping through hoops process like the DRM on most gaming CD's. A hacker who pirates the game can be playing it in 15 minutes after it's released. Guys like me, who purchase it legally, have to wait 5 days for customer service to email me back about a missing CD key that wasn't included when I purchased my digitized collector's edition issue with the included world map (and figurine!), only to be told that the collector's item CD keys are all invalid and I need to refund my purchase and re-order it through another company that will take 15 business days to walk it to my house via an old guy with a bad limp. You're only screwing over the good people.

So the first hurdle I easily leapt over was the whole debit card issue. Now, last time I was on unemployment, oh, ten years back, we didn't have these things, I don't think. Basically, unemployment can pay you via debit card. In order to check your funds, access your card, or you know, actually use the thing, there can be FEES. Yea so how this works, and forgive me if I sound a little jaded here, but I've seen this too many times to be surprised, basically the bank gets money every time you need to use your card in a certain way. My guess is, the bank pays a portion of those fees, or perhaps a hefty bribe, to the unemployment office in the first place, and then they recollect that fee from YOU, the poor sap who is ALREADY out of work, short of cash, screwed out of your medical benefits, and now you have to pay a bank just to check and make sure you have enough money to feed your kids this week. I tell ya, if I had kids, I'd kill them just to save them the trouble of dealing with these jagoffs. Lucky me, I have a bank account. Everything goes into that. Hurdle one done with.

This coming week's hurdle isn't what it should be about. It SHOULD be about finding a job. That would make sense. But it's not. This week's hurdle is about FINDING the unemployment OFFICE so i can attend some stupid seminar and have a meet and greet with some schmuck who's going to tell me that i'm out of work and i need to look for a job. NO SHIT DUMBASS. But the meeting's not the problem. I'd love to go back and get some additional schooling in my field, and sure i'd love a few pointers on some hot jobs out there. Mind you, the unemployment place doesn't HAVE these things. They have resume writing seminars, and cover letter writing seminars and seminars on how to properly tie your fucking shoes if you've never been on an interview before in your entire fucking life, and yes, I know, there are some fucking morons out there who need these things. No offense to any morons out there, but I don't need those things. It's like sending a genius to remedial math to relearn adding 1 and 1. TOTAL WASTE OF GODDAMN TIME. But if i don't go, and they say this every time they want me to jump through a new hoop, it's "FAILURE TO ATTEND MAY RESULT IN SUSPENSION OF YOUR PAYMENTS." Yea, fuckstick. I get it. If I want to eat this week, I have to attend your sleepy little tard-meet. Got it. But I digress. The meeting is not the problem. I can sleep through that.

The problem is... the office doesn't EXIST. Yea. They give me an address... which, according to google maps, is nowhere NEAR a corner. I look up the address. There's nothing there like what is described in the directions to get there. THEN, they tell me that it's ON a corner. On the corner of fucking MAIN street, no less. yea, exactly. Google maps shows no corner, no main street, and nothing even remotely resembling what is described IN this letter that the dept of labor sent me. Also, it says right IN the goddamn letter that my GPS isn't going to be able to find it.

Wtf is this shit? Am I heading into an open field with a bunch of other lost jobless folks, driving around, getting stuck in the mud, while some moronic asswipe is sitting in a coffee shop down the street with a pair of binoculars, watching us and laughing his goddamn ass off, while i futz around trying to find this nonexistant place? Whose goddamn idea at the dept of labor WAS this shit? Were they all standing around the water coolors last week, going "Where do we host the next unemployment seminar? That gay biker bar again?" "HAH! That was a good one! Oh wait I know, let's host it at the Mickie D's that gets robbed every other day!" "Dude! That's genius!" "WAIT! I've GOT IT!!!! An EMPTY FILED!!" "Dude... you rock. You are my god." "Yes. Yes, I know."

I swear, it's no damn wonder my state is millions (or was that billions?) of dollars over budget. Moe, Larry and Curly could run things better.