After weeks and weeks of no unemployment money, I called the state to find out what was happening. After dealing with a surprisingly helpful and professional person, I found out that my lovely, darling, incompetent former employer completely misinformed me as to when I would be eligible for unemployment, even after I asked if they were certain given that I was to be paid through August. No matter how many times I asked, they assured me that I was eligible as soon as my contract ended. I should have known not to trust them. Their HR department is by far the worst I have dealt with, and I am certainly not the only person to have issues with them. The upside is that if I don’t have work by early September (shoot me, please), I will be eligible for benefits until early March. And if I don’t have a job by then…I shudder to think.
It’s hard for me to forgive their incompetence and sheer idiocy when they tried to hit me up for cash mere days before my contract ran out. As you can imagine, I can think of many unpleasant and unsavory things they may go suck on vigorously.
Also, it’s hard for me to get past this when the only news I get on the job front is bad news. I struggle to negotiate the balance between optimism and realism, but I can’t let myself drown in self-pity or anger. At the same time, it’s hard not to feel as if I constantly draw the short straw at every possible opportunity.
I really need to get a job so that I don’t have so much time to dwell on things.
If nothing else, at least you can look forward (or, er, hope?) that this is the last act of Former Employer’s incompetence that you must hurdle. (I’m guessing that your tax forms will be cut and dried the way mine are, and beyond the reach of HR idiocy.)
As I recall, I went about six months without a paycheck in the doldrums of diss write-up: DOU disbursed TA salaries once a semester, and I didn’t get a TAship for my final semester of grad school. That meant that I couldn’t even apply for unemployment until a month after I was technically no longer employed, even though I hadn’t been paid for many months before that. And it was a month after the start of unemployment that I even picked up piecemeal work.
Shit sucks, but shit gets better, hon. I promise. *hugs*
Oh, shit…They could find a way to botch the tax forms, I’m sure. Come February I am sure there will be some unpleasant surprise to work around. Damn it all!
I look forward to better days.
Keep on hanging in there! Can you believe that someone you’ve never met is really pulling for you every day? (This hints that the Universe is really on your side even when you don’t realize it, eh?)
I am so grateful for people like you. Truly.