Unemployment

This year, because of Covid19, I filed for unemployment for the first time in my life and holy cow am I disheartened about this system that is supposed to help people. I am very lucky that I have family to rely on if and when I need help and the only reason I had filed for unemployment was because this was more than “needing help,” this was “a global pandemic took the job I had just landed and now I need to be able to pay my bills for the foreseeable future.” So I filed in mid March and proceeded to await payments while in the meantime having zero money to pay bills other than with credit cards and thankfully having a few extensions from bills for which some would still eventually come due. At the end of April I received a letter saying that I was disqualified from receiving any payments because I had voluntarily quit a job in 2019 (but I had worked jobs since then and according to the law I should have been requalified so I decided to file an appeal) and here is where literal hell begins.

First I would like to say to those who would argue “well you should have just gotten another job after Covid took yours”… do you understand the concept of shutting a society down to fight a pandemic or do I have to spell it out for you? This is completely counterproductive, we are literally trying to reduce unnecessary contact and if we’re just going to tell everyone who was sent home from their job to go and find another job then we are literally accomplishing nothing. It’s not even like there were enough essential jobs for every person who needed a job at that time to have had one so just… no. Anyway, so now here I am with no money, unnecessary credit card debt, trying to get ahold of the Employment Security Department(ESD) to check on my court date after filing for an appeal. Anyone who was trying to get ahold of ESD at that time will understand my pain. I literally called 120 times in an hour once without ever getting through because there was no putting it on hold, there was you either got through or you didn’t, it would say “sorry we’re busy” and literally hang up on you.

I waited and waited and waited to hear anything about my appeal and nothing. I finally found myself having to move in late May because the place where I was staying became a very toxic living environment. I was stressed out, had no money, and was about to drive across the country to live somewhere that was anything close to a healthy living situation. I changed my address with the post office before moving but didn’t think to change it with the ESD specifically because honestly at that point I was lucky that I could remember to brush my teeth. Well it turns out that in the two weeks between me moving and finally remembering to change my address with the (ESD) the letter about my appeal date was sent out to my old address, so guess what I never got and subsequently missed? What is even worse is that I didn’t know I had missed it because I couldn’t get ahold of the ESD to find out anything; the online portal did not tell me of said missed court date.

I didn’t find out till another month later what had happened because the last time I had gotten ahold of the ESD they told me it could take up to a month and a half to schedule a court date so I didn’t call again until that time had passed. They also told me that I didn’t have a court date set at that time even though my date had already passed. Honestly at this point I had lost track of time because as we all know 2020 has been GREAT for mental health and so when they told me of how long scheduling a date would take they also told me the date that I had filed my appeal (for which I based my waiting on) and I think that they had the date wrong and I didn’t think to double check them. So when I finally realized what had happened, I was shocked and immediately filled a petition to have another court date. Well now it’s December, I filed that freaking petition in July. I just had my court case on the 14th and you know what they decided, they decided that since I didn’t change my address with the ESD immediately, that they won’t even hear my appeal, so now I have none of the money that I needed to pay those bills and I am just… so… fucking… done.

Honestly looking back, maybe I could have tried harder, maybe I could have believed harder that something would eventually happen because at times I was sure I was forgotten about, but you know what, why the hell is this system set up like this? I am one of the more fortunate ones; compared to others’ situations my mental health probably wasn’t the worst and I did have people to fall back on if I needed it. I can’t believe that people in any kind of worse situation would have to go through the same soulless system to freaking survive. It simultaneously breaks my heart and makes me want to burn every government building to the ground. This government does not serve its people, I most certainly don’t feel served, I feel exhausted and like all the government could do was try to tell me the many reasons I did not deserve help in a time of a global goddamn pandemic. It shouldn’t have been at all about turning me down for the smallest of mistakes I made, it should have been about helping me and everyone… that’s it. We are so afraid of not helping people who “don’t deserve it” that we actually don’t help millions who REALLY NEED HELP. My heart goes out to all the people that our system has utterly let down and probably made to feel like absolute garbage. I am here to tell you that you are wonderful, and it is our system that is an absolute piece of not worth the words I am currently writing dinosaur shit.

Well I hope you enjoyed that fun tale as much as I enjoyed living it. As is obvious with the point of this post, I am broke as absolute yeet and have a donation option on my about page. I may start a go fund me to make up for what the government lacks in compassion. I am so tired of this system; if it was a person it would be a selfish POS that literally no one would like. I am ready for a change and hopefully I am on the right path to be a part of that change. In the meantime I love you all and will see you next week. ❤