I started working a "real" job when I was 16. I worked most of the way through high school and began full time work in the summer of 1994, when I took a job with a construction company in Salem, Oregon.
There have been a few gaps in my working life since then.
The last six weeks have been the longest and most stressful moments I can remember in recent history.
Of course that's not saying much. My memory lives in a Google search algorithm now.
On Friday I'll get a paycheck for the first time in six weeks. To go back, we didn't really have a nest egg or an emergency plan in place since we purchased our house a year ago and it ate up anything we did have saved up.
In six weeks we lived off Cheryl's earnings at Applebees until she left at the end of October. We lived off the sale of various household items we needed to get rid of for our move to Anchorage, and we lived off the sale of our second car.
What amazes me is the fact that we made it through a very rough spot. Families are like small countries. They're not easy to run, and they cost twice as much as you think they should to run.
But it wasn't the money that helped us get through. It merely smoothed out a rough road. It was the friendships, prayers, thoughts and words of wisdom provided by some very dear friends and family.
And I mean those who really understood how hard it was at times.
It's very easy to say, "I knew things would work out for you," from the comfort of your reinstated 401k, salaried and glass-enclosed comfort zone.
I know it's difficult to empathize with people in difficult situations at times and that it is sometimes hard to know what to say. But saying that "you're so talented, I knew it wouldn't take you long to find a job," has all the Halmark ring of a belated get-well card when you're trying to figure out how to make a $500 stretch for you-don't-know-how-long.
And I'd be over it, but I have a few friends who are still in the same boat I was rescued from recently. Adrift with few prospects, it's easy to throw them an, "I know you'll find something soon," as you walk up the gangplank of your hallelujah boat.
Lord, help me to remember what it's like to walk through the dark times so that I may never forget those who are walking the same pathways today and tomorrow. Help me be a light to those who are downtrodden and suffering. Let me not look over the edge of dispair and offer nothing more than words with half meanings. Let me remember the dark places so that I may be used to help guide others along the way. Make me a mapmaker, a cartographer of sorts. Let my experiences, both good and bad, serve as a book, a story, a route to follow. As much as I prayed for guidance and the clean foot prints of others to follow. Let me leave my own behind.
Amen
Showing posts with label collecting unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collecting unemployment. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Try a little perspective
 |
| At least two-days worth of growth |
My wife's reaction was harsh. She can't look at me without giggling, and she'll have nothing to do with me until my face grows back, as she puts it.
Change is rough on families. Our middle child, Carson, is feeling so much stress related to the possibility of moving to a completely foreign place, that he made himself sick this last weekend. The other two kids are feeling it too, but they are better about verbalizing their feelings, which in turn helps us process better with them.
Aside from my bad judgment regarding my facial hair, I have been playing the perspective game with my wife and kids the last few weeks. Yes, our situation is bad, but we've got a house over our heads and food in our refrigerator. No, I don't have a job yet, but if we need to go live with grandma and grandpa, I'm sure they'll be fine with that. (that's cool right, mom and dad?)
Nothing does the trick like taking their minds off the bad things and transferring them to good things or even new adventures on the horizon. Playing the there-are-starving-children-in-Africa card has never worked well on my kids, but understanding the complex set of issues around getting laid off has allowed us to communicate things and set goals.
We put the house up for rent this weekend, then my wife and I had a late talk one evening where she expressed sadness at knowing that all her dreams for this place, the color schemes she picked out, the decoration projects for the kids' rooms were all going away. Yes, we'll still own the house, but someone will rent it from us.
I can understand this. She waited a long time for me to get comfortable with the idea of buying a house. Somewhere last year before our closing date, I murmured the term, "watch us buy this place and then I get laid off." Harmless, seemingly innocuous, something everyone says when they buy a house, right?
It's a house, not the house we've always wanted, but it was our own for a little while. Just enough to start to get creative. We actually painted the mud room and made a flagstone patio. still, it's just a house, probably one of several we'll own in our lifetime together.
Perspective.
I stood talking to a friend after church on Sunday when I felt someone stuff something into my back pocket. I thought it was one of the kids stuffing the church program in like they usually do, but when I walked out to the car I reached back and pulled out a wad of cash. We're not broke yet, but we've felt the pinch of having only a few weeks of expenses left in our bank account. A friend felt our need and blessed us with enough money to pay some remaining bills and provide a little breathing room.
Perspective.
Whenever I'd get the E-mailed goodbye notes from other friends laid off from the journalism field, I'd inevitably get depressed all day after finding out. But a day would pass, and I'd think about their situation less and less. A lot of those feelings came rushing back at me when I was laid off. It's a thin line between having a job and looking for a job.
When a friend was diagnosed with brain cancer a few months ago, we felt bad. The struggle for hope is something most people can only watch from the sidelines.
Getting laid off is a big hit to one's ego. It's a big hit to one's finances and a hit to family stability. It's a big deal.
Last week doctors gave my friend nine months to live.
Perspective.
Tim
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Job Interview
Normally I'm the one asking questions. Sometimes I design the questions, and at other times I let them come to me as we explore the interview topic together. I don't often think about being on the receiving end of hard questions.
A job interview is a different beast altogether.
I used to tell my journalistic comrades to apply for jobs periodically simply for the purpose of perfecting their interview skills. Most journos I know don't like to talk about themselves at all, with a few exceptions of course.
The easiest job interview format is the E-mail interview. Almost no one does this, for obvious reasons. But to have what amounts to an eternity to carefully craft your answers is a beautiful thing. Second to the E-mail interview is the phoner. This interview style is live, so you have to be quick on your feet. Not only can anything go wrong, (like your cell phone dying mid-interview) you are at the mercy of voice inflection and bad connections. The Internet age has ushered in the now-popular use of Skype and Google Chat for video interviews. For me, this remains the most awkward form of job interview.
During one interview a few years ago, I had to look at three people out of a panel of seven who were interviewing me. Body language is a huge issue here, as you tend to forget that the interviewers can see everything you do. Picking your nose mid-interview is a sure-fire way to not get a call back. I'm not saying I did this, but you become super self conscious when you're on a Skype call in the living room of your home.
The last interview style is the face-to-face interview. If you made it this far, you're usually in good shape. However, this is where everything can crumble. You can have a lot of confidence during a phone interview, and there are tricks to buy a little time when answering a difficult question. But a good interviewer can read you like a book when you're sitting across from their desk or at a dinner interview. If you feel nervous, you'll generally look nervous. What sounded great over the phone can make you sound like the village idiot when you're stammering in front of your would-be boss.
This is especially true when you're interviewing in groups. Four or five of what could be your future co-workers, subordinates or bosses can throw a huge kink in your well-polished interview technique.
In dealing with jobs related to digital and social networking, you can't always assume that everyone is on the same page. You can't go for total digital geek when the potential employer is looking for well-rounded and balanced. And you can't go too general, for fear the next person they interview is better at explaining complex digital practices that are for all intents and purposes still theory.
After nearly four weeks in the unemployment line, (still without receiving a single unemployment check) it's comforting to be back in the interview process again. Just knowing that there are potential employers out there on the other end of phone conversations is a huge boost to moral, not only for me but for my family as well.
The kids are hugely involved in everything I do at this point. They often help me process a call and decided whether I did well or not. They'll ask me every day if I talked to the vice president of this or that, or if I was offered a visit for a face-to-face interview.
I don't know where they learned this, but it's nice to have a little support network like this at home.
We're well past the initial E-mails and even the phoners at this point. It's time to prepare for my first face-to-face interview, a proposition that can make or break this opportunity.
My wife and I will fly out to Alaska on Saturday to check out an amazing opportunity in Anchorage. I know the kids will expect a phone call each night to update them on how I did and to give me advice on the next steps.
Everyone should be so lucky.
Tim
A job interview is a different beast altogether.
I used to tell my journalistic comrades to apply for jobs periodically simply for the purpose of perfecting their interview skills. Most journos I know don't like to talk about themselves at all, with a few exceptions of course.
The easiest job interview format is the E-mail interview. Almost no one does this, for obvious reasons. But to have what amounts to an eternity to carefully craft your answers is a beautiful thing. Second to the E-mail interview is the phoner. This interview style is live, so you have to be quick on your feet. Not only can anything go wrong, (like your cell phone dying mid-interview) you are at the mercy of voice inflection and bad connections. The Internet age has ushered in the now-popular use of Skype and Google Chat for video interviews. For me, this remains the most awkward form of job interview.
During one interview a few years ago, I had to look at three people out of a panel of seven who were interviewing me. Body language is a huge issue here, as you tend to forget that the interviewers can see everything you do. Picking your nose mid-interview is a sure-fire way to not get a call back. I'm not saying I did this, but you become super self conscious when you're on a Skype call in the living room of your home.
The last interview style is the face-to-face interview. If you made it this far, you're usually in good shape. However, this is where everything can crumble. You can have a lot of confidence during a phone interview, and there are tricks to buy a little time when answering a difficult question. But a good interviewer can read you like a book when you're sitting across from their desk or at a dinner interview. If you feel nervous, you'll generally look nervous. What sounded great over the phone can make you sound like the village idiot when you're stammering in front of your would-be boss.
This is especially true when you're interviewing in groups. Four or five of what could be your future co-workers, subordinates or bosses can throw a huge kink in your well-polished interview technique.
In dealing with jobs related to digital and social networking, you can't always assume that everyone is on the same page. You can't go for total digital geek when the potential employer is looking for well-rounded and balanced. And you can't go too general, for fear the next person they interview is better at explaining complex digital practices that are for all intents and purposes still theory.
After nearly four weeks in the unemployment line, (still without receiving a single unemployment check) it's comforting to be back in the interview process again. Just knowing that there are potential employers out there on the other end of phone conversations is a huge boost to moral, not only for me but for my family as well.
The kids are hugely involved in everything I do at this point. They often help me process a call and decided whether I did well or not. They'll ask me every day if I talked to the vice president of this or that, or if I was offered a visit for a face-to-face interview.
I don't know where they learned this, but it's nice to have a little support network like this at home.
We're well past the initial E-mails and even the phoners at this point. It's time to prepare for my first face-to-face interview, a proposition that can make or break this opportunity.
My wife and I will fly out to Alaska on Saturday to check out an amazing opportunity in Anchorage. I know the kids will expect a phone call each night to update them on how I did and to give me advice on the next steps.
Everyone should be so lucky.
Tim
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Art of Fathering
The Art of Manliness is one of my favorite web sites. I've written for them before, and I like their take on the restoration of manliness from its tarnished reputation to full luster on the current lexicon. But there seems to be a bit of a debate lately on what manliness actually looks like.
After three weeks at home, some patterns have already been established in our house. We've been a two-income house for quite a while, and my wife's choice to work evenings so as not to have to put Gabrielle in day care means that we've had a slightly different house management style than most of our friends.
On a typical week Cheryl's only weeknight off has been Monday, which is the only day we take care of cooking, dishes and putting the kids to bed together. The rest of the week these chores are mine, even if I had a terrible day at work. My days were often 16 to 18 hours without much down time. I'm not complaining though, the value of raising our kids ourselves as opposed to paying someone else to do it has been tremendous.
I started cooking for the household back in college as a way to deal with the stress of studying. It helped me separate my school life from my home life. Cheryl is a great cook, a real meat and potatoes girl with a flare for the traditional. But my creativity with limited resources gave me the starting job as home chef.
And while I don't like doing dishes any more than any other guy on the planet, I have a pretty firm policy about cleaning up one's own mess. And I can't stand starting with a messy kitchen.
I'm still not allowed to do laundry, and I believe this stems from my inability to distinguish certain fabrics and their individual temperature settings. My wife's domain is the huge laundry pile downstairs, and I don't think I'd trade her anything for it.
The boys clean their own toilet, as we didn't want to send them off into the world without the knowledge and ability to clean the porcelain throne. And I'm largely responsible for outdoor projects that don't involve design work of any kind. I cut grass and move rocks around for the most part.
These tasks have always seemed good to me, and I find joy in them. I would say the same is true for my wife, but I think she actually despises the laundry pile downstairs and secretly wishes it would just disappear one day for good.
We take a pretty split role when it comes to raising the kids. Discipline is handled by whichever parent discovered the sin, and that parent is responsible for handing down swift punishment. Though this is often discussed at some length, as it is felt that I am too lenient on one very cute little girl, whose finger I'm apparently wrapped around. I tend to disagree.
I usually get up with the boys and make sandwiches for their school lunches on weekdays, while Cheryl keeps tabs on their homework so I can focus on getting dinner ready in the afternoons. Really it's pretty economical and fair.
Being laid off has thrown a bit of a kink in our well-oiled machine as of late. Because I'm home during the afternoon when the kids are out of school, I have been getting hit with homework questions that are quite beyond me. I will admit it freely, I'm not smarter than a 5th grader.
While standing in the kitchen with a dirty apron on stirring a pot of simmering vegetables, I was asked to solve an algebra problem. My bowels quivered momentarily as I thought back to Mr. Nordhagen's 7th grade pre-algebra class. You'd think I was being asked to solve the question on a board for all the students to mock. I was sweating and cursing to myself while my 12-year-old, who doesn't think he's cooler than me, he knows he is, looked on with a raised eye brow.
No doubt looking and sounding like a mad professor straining over a calculation for some chemical concoction, I handed back the scratch paper with my answer on it. My son looked it over and checked it in the back of the book. It was wrong, of course.
My solution was that he should just ask his mother, who is much better at math than me. But I found some redemption at dinner when my 5th grader asked a question about a historical matter for which I was well prepared. You see, I excelled at history, and my sons looked on as if I was a professor of history bequeathing a veritable treasure trove of wisdom buried in the sands of time.
We're not confused about our roles, and I'm not uncomfortable doing roles that are traditionally described as womens' roles. I would in fact do laundry if I was allowed, and lord knows I've cleaned a toilet or two in my life, not to mention all the diapers I have changed from raising three kids.
This Newsweek article called "Men's Lib," suggests that men need to buckle and take on more of the parenting and chores often associated with stay-at-home moms. The idea is that in the wake of disappearing manly jobs like construction worker, logger, empire builder, men need to be equal in the home and in child rearing and domestic duties as well as jobs that haven't been traditionally associated with manliness like nursing, social work or teaching.
But what about the American business model for the middle-aged male? Well, there are a lot of us laid off right now who are deciding what to do with careers that have gone seemingly nowhere. The skies are the limit, and if what this article says is true is, well, true, then men can become nurses, social workers and teachers. Indeed, they are becoming these things.
But I would argue that the type of the career really has nothing to do with it. If becoming a nurse is important to you, then you should pursue that. But if building things with your hands and creating words and sentences on paper is important to you, then those are noble things you should pursue. Raising kids won't change just because men are finding themselves in jobs and roles traditionally belonging to women. Neither will it make for a more reasonable and understanding generation to follow.
Being a better father simply means being a better father. It means carving time out of a busy schedule to create moments for fathering. Things like answering a history question at the dinner table or showing your son how to grill chicken are as effective as game nights and father-son camping trips. All are important, and government induced work leave benefits, as the article mentions, might encourage more of this type of behavior, but most men simply need to understand balance in their lives.
I'm no expert on this, but having the last three weeks off has shown me the importance of balancing my own desires and responsibilities when it comes to my role in the home.
I know the whole nature versus nurture argument, and I do believe men and women are gifted differently in various roles, but I also believe a lot of what we do and why we do it has been established by society for as long as we've been forming societies.
To recap, it's easy to get lost in a gender argument or the imbalance of life when you're out of work. One is inclined to become lazy or grab responsibilities from their partner as one compensates for the loss of income. But if we're going to become better fathers, it doesn't revolve around how much time we spend at home or what activities we do with our kids, it's far more about finding balance between what we love to do and what we have to do.
Tim
After three weeks at home, some patterns have already been established in our house. We've been a two-income house for quite a while, and my wife's choice to work evenings so as not to have to put Gabrielle in day care means that we've had a slightly different house management style than most of our friends.
On a typical week Cheryl's only weeknight off has been Monday, which is the only day we take care of cooking, dishes and putting the kids to bed together. The rest of the week these chores are mine, even if I had a terrible day at work. My days were often 16 to 18 hours without much down time. I'm not complaining though, the value of raising our kids ourselves as opposed to paying someone else to do it has been tremendous.
 |
| Gabbers learns how to cook pasta with her dad. |
And while I don't like doing dishes any more than any other guy on the planet, I have a pretty firm policy about cleaning up one's own mess. And I can't stand starting with a messy kitchen.
I'm still not allowed to do laundry, and I believe this stems from my inability to distinguish certain fabrics and their individual temperature settings. My wife's domain is the huge laundry pile downstairs, and I don't think I'd trade her anything for it.
The boys clean their own toilet, as we didn't want to send them off into the world without the knowledge and ability to clean the porcelain throne. And I'm largely responsible for outdoor projects that don't involve design work of any kind. I cut grass and move rocks around for the most part.
These tasks have always seemed good to me, and I find joy in them. I would say the same is true for my wife, but I think she actually despises the laundry pile downstairs and secretly wishes it would just disappear one day for good.
We take a pretty split role when it comes to raising the kids. Discipline is handled by whichever parent discovered the sin, and that parent is responsible for handing down swift punishment. Though this is often discussed at some length, as it is felt that I am too lenient on one very cute little girl, whose finger I'm apparently wrapped around. I tend to disagree.
I usually get up with the boys and make sandwiches for their school lunches on weekdays, while Cheryl keeps tabs on their homework so I can focus on getting dinner ready in the afternoons. Really it's pretty economical and fair.
Being laid off has thrown a bit of a kink in our well-oiled machine as of late. Because I'm home during the afternoon when the kids are out of school, I have been getting hit with homework questions that are quite beyond me. I will admit it freely, I'm not smarter than a 5th grader.
While standing in the kitchen with a dirty apron on stirring a pot of simmering vegetables, I was asked to solve an algebra problem. My bowels quivered momentarily as I thought back to Mr. Nordhagen's 7th grade pre-algebra class. You'd think I was being asked to solve the question on a board for all the students to mock. I was sweating and cursing to myself while my 12-year-old, who doesn't think he's cooler than me, he knows he is, looked on with a raised eye brow.
No doubt looking and sounding like a mad professor straining over a calculation for some chemical concoction, I handed back the scratch paper with my answer on it. My son looked it over and checked it in the back of the book. It was wrong, of course.
My solution was that he should just ask his mother, who is much better at math than me. But I found some redemption at dinner when my 5th grader asked a question about a historical matter for which I was well prepared. You see, I excelled at history, and my sons looked on as if I was a professor of history bequeathing a veritable treasure trove of wisdom buried in the sands of time.
We're not confused about our roles, and I'm not uncomfortable doing roles that are traditionally described as womens' roles. I would in fact do laundry if I was allowed, and lord knows I've cleaned a toilet or two in my life, not to mention all the diapers I have changed from raising three kids.
This Newsweek article called "Men's Lib," suggests that men need to buckle and take on more of the parenting and chores often associated with stay-at-home moms. The idea is that in the wake of disappearing manly jobs like construction worker, logger, empire builder, men need to be equal in the home and in child rearing and domestic duties as well as jobs that haven't been traditionally associated with manliness like nursing, social work or teaching.
But what about the American business model for the middle-aged male? Well, there are a lot of us laid off right now who are deciding what to do with careers that have gone seemingly nowhere. The skies are the limit, and if what this article says is true is, well, true, then men can become nurses, social workers and teachers. Indeed, they are becoming these things.
But I would argue that the type of the career really has nothing to do with it. If becoming a nurse is important to you, then you should pursue that. But if building things with your hands and creating words and sentences on paper is important to you, then those are noble things you should pursue. Raising kids won't change just because men are finding themselves in jobs and roles traditionally belonging to women. Neither will it make for a more reasonable and understanding generation to follow.
Being a better father simply means being a better father. It means carving time out of a busy schedule to create moments for fathering. Things like answering a history question at the dinner table or showing your son how to grill chicken are as effective as game nights and father-son camping trips. All are important, and government induced work leave benefits, as the article mentions, might encourage more of this type of behavior, but most men simply need to understand balance in their lives.
I'm no expert on this, but having the last three weeks off has shown me the importance of balancing my own desires and responsibilities when it comes to my role in the home.
I know the whole nature versus nurture argument, and I do believe men and women are gifted differently in various roles, but I also believe a lot of what we do and why we do it has been established by society for as long as we've been forming societies.
To recap, it's easy to get lost in a gender argument or the imbalance of life when you're out of work. One is inclined to become lazy or grab responsibilities from their partner as one compensates for the loss of income. But if we're going to become better fathers, it doesn't revolve around how much time we spend at home or what activities we do with our kids, it's far more about finding balance between what we love to do and what we have to do.
Tim
Monday, September 20, 2010
Apparently the recession ended in 2009, but someone forgot to tell the economy
According to some strange committee with an exceedingly Soviet-era name, the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the recession actually, officially ended in June 2009.
Let's see, in June 2009 I was three months into a new job for which I had received a $10,000 raise. For the first time in our lives we actually talked about buying a house, and the cars had their first oil changes in almost a year.
I spent the remainder of 2009 learning how newspapers don't work, at least under the current system of trying to sell ads into something with a shrinking circulation and free online advertising, if you know how to get it.
I watched mills close down, which was actually good for business, because everyone wanted to read about how this mill closure would affect our mountain community. Car dealers couldn't sell cars and Realtors acted more desperate than usual.
Ripple effect. Apparently Missoula isn't anywhere near the center of the pond, therefore a rock, in this case, the recession, makes waves that won't hit us for many months, and which will continue to hit us for many months after the pond has settled.
But there are almost five million people on some form of extended unemployment insurance in America. Did someone forget to tell the economy that the recession is over? Why are employers so reticent to hire?
Why are malnourished newspapers still cutting their workforce and cannibalizing their future in reactionary measures tied to quarterly earnings?
Identity.
Who are we?
I remember growing up in the waning years of the Cold War. We had Ronald Reagan and Star Wars and warheads pointing at Russian satellites and cities. We were Americans working hard because we had freedom and a dream with no limits.
It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but we had a national identity. We had a purpose and a common enemy in Communism.
Today we have two wars and a murderous idealism as an enemy. But you can't bomb that out of caves, as we have come to learn. And you can no more force freedom on people than you can force Communism on them.
Our identity is no longer that of automaker, iron worker, mill worker, logger, empire builder. I see mill workers learning how to become IT managers in school, government retraining for their lost jobs.
Our leaders won't create health care reform, because we don't know we're sick. Our schools are suffering, because we've invested in everything else under the sun except for our children.
We're in an identity crisis of epic proportions. But then nearing 300 years as a national conscious is a long time when you're at the top of the food chain. If struggle shapes your identity, perhaps we haven't struggled enough lately.
Tim
Let's see, in June 2009 I was three months into a new job for which I had received a $10,000 raise. For the first time in our lives we actually talked about buying a house, and the cars had their first oil changes in almost a year.
I spent the remainder of 2009 learning how newspapers don't work, at least under the current system of trying to sell ads into something with a shrinking circulation and free online advertising, if you know how to get it.
I watched mills close down, which was actually good for business, because everyone wanted to read about how this mill closure would affect our mountain community. Car dealers couldn't sell cars and Realtors acted more desperate than usual.
Ripple effect. Apparently Missoula isn't anywhere near the center of the pond, therefore a rock, in this case, the recession, makes waves that won't hit us for many months, and which will continue to hit us for many months after the pond has settled.
But there are almost five million people on some form of extended unemployment insurance in America. Did someone forget to tell the economy that the recession is over? Why are employers so reticent to hire?
Why are malnourished newspapers still cutting their workforce and cannibalizing their future in reactionary measures tied to quarterly earnings?
Identity.
Who are we?
I remember growing up in the waning years of the Cold War. We had Ronald Reagan and Star Wars and warheads pointing at Russian satellites and cities. We were Americans working hard because we had freedom and a dream with no limits.
It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but we had a national identity. We had a purpose and a common enemy in Communism.
Today we have two wars and a murderous idealism as an enemy. But you can't bomb that out of caves, as we have come to learn. And you can no more force freedom on people than you can force Communism on them.
Our identity is no longer that of automaker, iron worker, mill worker, logger, empire builder. I see mill workers learning how to become IT managers in school, government retraining for their lost jobs.
Our leaders won't create health care reform, because we don't know we're sick. Our schools are suffering, because we've invested in everything else under the sun except for our children.
We're in an identity crisis of epic proportions. But then nearing 300 years as a national conscious is a long time when you're at the top of the food chain. If struggle shapes your identity, perhaps we haven't struggled enough lately.
Tim
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
My view from the unemployment line
The view from the unemployment line is the view from my kitchen table. My little office space I carved out in our home since I was laid off from the newspaper a few weeks ago.
When I'm confused over some bureaucratic issue involving the now-online claim filing process, the computer screen stares blankly back at me. Which is probably the same look I'd get if I spoke to an actual person. I'm basing this solely on my past experiences with the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles.
The process of filing an unemployment insurance claim is not that bad, though like most government forms these days, the main goal seems to be figuring out if I'm a documented citizen who is able to work in the United States. I can't tell you how many different ways I was asked this question with little digital check boxes to assure them I'm indeed a red-blooded American able and allowed to work here.
God forbid one of my wonderful foreign friends working in the United States on a green card ever gets laid off. I just don't see how you'd ever navigate the system.
Like most government entities, the single phone line at the Montana unemployment office is always busy. I've found that asking other unemployed people questions about earning freelance wages on top of what I get from unemployment insurance to be the best way to navigate the system.
And there is no shortage of people who have a lot of experience figuring out unemployment in this town and across the country.
I think the best thing about my view from the unemployment line is that my four-year-old daughter is sitting right next to me learning how to write her name while I figure out the claim and fill in my job hunting requirements for the week.
Bureaucracy is somewhat more tolerable when a cherub-faced little girl asks you to help her write her Gs, then the sustained sadness of a place synonymous with downcast men in fedoras and trench coats since the 1930s.
In some ways, the digital process makes it feel a bit more unreal. Lines are real, forms are real, bureaucratic-minded workers who are always five minutes from their next break are all too real. Telling a form that I'm American and can work here and have been laid off and where the next screen flashes your approved amount almost instantly still is a bit unreal.
But I'll take it, process and all.
See you in the unemployment line next week.
Tim
When I'm confused over some bureaucratic issue involving the now-online claim filing process, the computer screen stares blankly back at me. Which is probably the same look I'd get if I spoke to an actual person. I'm basing this solely on my past experiences with the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles.
The process of filing an unemployment insurance claim is not that bad, though like most government forms these days, the main goal seems to be figuring out if I'm a documented citizen who is able to work in the United States. I can't tell you how many different ways I was asked this question with little digital check boxes to assure them I'm indeed a red-blooded American able and allowed to work here.
God forbid one of my wonderful foreign friends working in the United States on a green card ever gets laid off. I just don't see how you'd ever navigate the system.
Like most government entities, the single phone line at the Montana unemployment office is always busy. I've found that asking other unemployed people questions about earning freelance wages on top of what I get from unemployment insurance to be the best way to navigate the system.
And there is no shortage of people who have a lot of experience figuring out unemployment in this town and across the country.
I think the best thing about my view from the unemployment line is that my four-year-old daughter is sitting right next to me learning how to write her name while I figure out the claim and fill in my job hunting requirements for the week.
Bureaucracy is somewhat more tolerable when a cherub-faced little girl asks you to help her write her Gs, then the sustained sadness of a place synonymous with downcast men in fedoras and trench coats since the 1930s.
In some ways, the digital process makes it feel a bit more unreal. Lines are real, forms are real, bureaucratic-minded workers who are always five minutes from their next break are all too real. Telling a form that I'm American and can work here and have been laid off and where the next screen flashes your approved amount almost instantly still is a bit unreal.
But I'll take it, process and all.
See you in the unemployment line next week.
Tim
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