Month: September 2011

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The EDD Saga…

I started writing this yesterday, but I was way too worked up to be able to complete it.

The State of California denied my claim for a 2 week period. They were apparently really pissed off that I didn’t mail my claim on time.

This is typical of how California works.

Since I’m part of the group that has been working, contributing, paying my outrageously high taxes, and the outrageous car licensing fees I’m penalized because…

I told the truth!

I misplaced the freaking form. 

The EDD never answers their 800 number so I couldn’t even report that I’d misplaced the form or ask for a new one.

In retrospect I should have LIED my ass off. But I’m not wired that way. I don’t think to lie first. Well I guess when dealing with the State I need to get into the habit!

OK fine… California is upset… I was a horrible, rotten, fuckwad and deserve to be punished. And they want their pound of flesh. Whatever…

The real problem is this.

Their letter is ambiguous. It tells me I have the right to appeal their denial. OK! Whatever you mother fucking EDD assholes say!

But due to it’s ambiguity the letter could be interpreted to mean that now all future claims will be denied too.

UHHHH WHAT????!

Now I’m freaking out and PISSED off as all HELL!

See, I have a real problem with “official” documents that are ambiguous. I feel that any documentation should be simple and to the point. The reader should never have to wonder what was meant, what was intended, or if the information applies to them.

The fact that the EDD letter was subject to interpretation left me frustrated.

Am I screwed completely or just a little? What should I do now? How do I resolve this?

Add the fact you can’t get these assholes to answer their phones and… well the walls close in!

Suddenly I felt completely overwhelmed and that I had no recourse or clear instructions to follow. That leads to a deep anger that my brother and I call berserker rage.

This “berserker” probably worked very well in battles of old. It must have worked great when disputes were settled by the swing of a broadsword or a battle ax. Even as the weapons changed it still helped, it gives us unbelievable focus in a fight.

The kind of focus I’m talking about is physical in nature. It’s hunter / predatory  mostly visual and eye hand coordination.

The few physical altercations I’ve been in during my life I didn’t start… I can say with certainty that the    berserker element of my personality finished them. I was the one standing when it was over and people were usually more than a bit shocked at the outcome.

In this bureaucratic world there is no clear enemy. Without a target, the berserker is not particularly useful. In a world of bureaucrats, paper, rules, “not my job” attitudes, where with a keystroke your life can suddenly be made miserable, there is little use for the berserker.

Now, a survival adaptation thats served well for centuries has become a liability. Without a target, the rage that fuels a berserker has no place to go. With no outlet, the rage turns inward and prevents you from thinking calmly and rationally.

It’s a problem that I’m working on. I don’t want to lose the berserker, I just need to keep it reined in when dealing with bureaucrats.

Yesterday, I dropped the reins. As I’m pacing and yelling,

In steps my better half… Quoting Arthur Dent, “I’m English… I know how to queue.” (I was so proud…)

I responded… “I’m German… we invade and impose order.”

6 or 7 phone calls later…. all of them to local field offices instead of the useless 800 number California prints on all their documentation, and we have an answer.

My better half had to tease little bits of information out of these offices. Nothing useful was volunteered and it really was a matter of asking the right questions.

It turns out, I’m only losing the payment for the period in question. I’m supposed to be receiving some additional claim forms which should catch me up.

Why couldn’t that have been clearly written in their letter? Better yet how about including the forms WITH the letter? Then even though the letter itself was ambiguous I’d have been able to figure out what they meant.

During the phone calls we discovered that there are other options to report continued claims. Really?

Apparently, one can phone a claim in, or even use the internet. Both bits of information might have been nice to have. It would have prevented my ever ending up in this position in the first place.

It turns out the EDD website operates differently if you access it using a Mac vs. Windows. The difference is subtle and deadly.

If you use Windows, menu items are visible that are not visible when using a Mac. These menus link you to things like how to set up phone continued claims, how to set up internet continued claims, make information requests, you know… Minor details!

So the major crisis is, for the moment put to bed. The adrenaline rush from being so pissed off and a small sinus problem left me exhausted.

As I was intermittently napping on the couch I was thinking about how California Unemployment Insurance treats the folks that are collecting like we’re on the clock or something.

Folks… IT’S INSURANCE!

That means I’m making a claim, if the claim is valid (i.e. I’m unemployed) then pay me the money I’m due just like any other insurance policy. I don’t see why California sees fit to punish what are effectively it’s customers.

What I can say is this…

I’m angry. I plan to take my FULL measure of payments and benefits out of California and when I’m done I’ll decide my next move.

I’m thinking it’s time to find a new place to live, a new career, and take my earning potential somewhere else.

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The Work Saga…

Gather ’round my children and you will hear… (Opps wrong mental channel. Click. Click.)

I’ve mentioned the work situation a couple of times, I figured I’d elaborate on it a bit.

Four years ago I joined the Military Industrial Complex. I did this after having diligently avoided Government / DOD entanglements for my entire professional career.

The draft had ended when I came of age. I registered, but never did military service. I didn’t volunteer because I knew I didn’t take orders well and would probably have spent my term of service in a brig somewhere.

Had I chosen a service it would have been the Marines or the Navy.

I went to work for a government contractor.

I was proud of this decision especially in light of 9/11, our ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and that I could have a chance to contribute to the safety of our troops and by extension our country.

I was even dedicated enough that I took a hefty pay cut, figuring that I was embarking on a career with a company that I’d be able to retire from. Biting the bullet in the short term meant an opportunity for some security, a decent pension, and great healthcare. In short, it was a worthwhile tradeoff given my longer term goals.

At my age I’m looking at the whole retirement thing. I don’t want to be eating cat food and pushing a grocery cart.

A lot of the businesses I’ve worked for in the recent past have not only off-shored much if not all of their work. They’ve used off shoring as a threat to engender fear in the remaining employees about loosing their jobs.

At the same time these companies have systematically reduced benefits, and essentially told the employee suck it!

That’s another story for another time. I will say this… I think off-shoring is tantamount to treason and should be punishable.

If you can fling your business across the fucking Pacific Ocean, you can fling that business to the heartland of America and put our out of work Citizens BACK TO WORK.

At the same time we’d  reduce pollution and our dependency on oil by eliminating commuting.

Apparently this simple logic escapes most of the extremely well educated elite who control government and industry. They’d rather see us all driving Priuses which cost as much as my “Luxury”  German Auto and aren’t nearly as nice or fun to drive.

I digress…

So I bit the bullet and I was good with it. I went to work in a slightly different environment than I was used to. I’ve spent a large part of my career testing software, the difference here was the official nature of the testing.

Things move along pretty well during year one. I even managed to take a vacation! Wow been a while since I had the time or the money to do that.

Years 2, 3, & 4 Just as summer begins, we have all hands meetings. In each of these meetings Management starts ringing this layoff bell. Each year the layoff warning bell gets rung a little earlier.

Each year the employees are asked to take vacation time. The managers explain that by doing this we’ll be protecting each others jobs because vacation pay comes out of a different budget.

The first couple of years people did as requested. After all, it was a team effort and in general we all want to protect each other. The last year we were asked if we could take unpaid time to help out. It was during this time that upper management saw fit to hire an intern.

So lets review, Management says our project is having funding issues and people are going to be laid off. They ask employees to take vacation time and unpaid time off, AND THEY HIRE AN INTERN! WTF?

Needless to say we all said NO Fucking way and all of us stopped pissing our vacations away and taking unpaid furlough days.

Strangely, no layoffs happened. But managers did get their bonuses managers always got their bonuses…which seemed odd.

This year, the layoff bell started ringing very early.

As I mentioned in a previous post this year it was for real, in fact the project that I was working on was effectively terminated. With no other projects to move to… So was I.

The signs of impending doom were all around. Most of the time they were written in flashing neon on the walls.

During the tail end of the project, we were asked to choose between furlough (unpaid) and outright layoff. The higher-ups  wanted us to take the furlough because they thought there might be another project waiting in the wings. I took the furlough because I was hoping for that new project and by doing so I would have medical insurance until Oct 1. 
By the time they finally admitted that there was in fact no new project and that we were really being laid off, management had 3 months to plan for the day. They had time to collect all the information that was necessary to process us all out smoothly and efficiently and yet… They were mostly un-prepared.
This was consistent with the way management had behaved for the entire four years I worked for the company.  While I was hoping that at the end they would have at least done us the courtesy of planning the day, I wasn’t terribly surprised to learn that no-one had bothered to train the person handling the exit process.
I no longer have any illusions about why we have 200,000.00 toilet seats, or how more expensive airframes that are still on the drawing board are selected for our military over airframes that are in fact ready and have already been test flown. 
Equally I’ve had a glimpse into the workings and mentality of the military industrial complex, and by extension the government.
For those of you wondering why the government is as much of a mess as it is, I suggest that you rent the movies Pentagon Wars it’s a comedy. 
Unfortunately it is far truer than anyone would like to admit. In particular the descriptions of the characters careers at the end of the movie is worth reading.

I once remarked that if what I was seeing at the company was occurring anywhere outside aerospace/defense industry there would have been heads rolling down the halls.

Of course I was told “this is how we do things…”

My retort was “Doesn’t make it right. “

I’ve learned my lesson, If something doesn’t seem right regardless of assurances like “We’ve always done it this way” I should stick to my guns… attempt to change the process or procedure for the better, and failing that… immediately look for a new job.

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From the “You have to be Fucking Kidding me” pile

I was a BAAADDDD BOY!
 
Or so the California Employment Development Department thinks.
 
A couple of weeks ago I misplaced the form you’re supposed to fill out and mail to them so that you can claim your unemployment payment.
 
I lost my mind trying to find that damn piece of paper, praying that I hadn’t shredded it by accident and knowing that I couldn’t reach EDD by telephone to ask for a replacement. I was debating if I should go on the EDD web site and try to reopen my claim.
 
When I did find the form, I immediately filled it out and mailed it with great relief.
 
Today I get a form letter from EDD that says the want to have a phone interview between 1pm  and 3pm.
 
OH SO NOW WE CAN TALK ON THE PHONE?
 
This letter is dated 9/8/2011 and probably didn’t go out until 9/9/2011 & I received it Today… the date of their desired conversation. 
 
They’re very official and apparently concerned about my tardiness.
 
They printed interview instructions on the back of the letter…

And here is where I’m such a BAAAADDDD Boy! I’m as much annoyed by the poor use of English as I am by the silliness of this whole thing.

“During the interview you may be asked some or all of the following questions: 

Not mailing you claim form within the required time limits.    

     When did you mail your claim form?    

     Why did you send it in after the return date shown on the form?“

 
WTF?
 
The form always says it is to be mailed on SUNDAY. Really? Since the US mail doesn’t run on Sunday, the form is ALWAYS mailed after the date specified.
 
As to when I mailed it… well that may be legitimate as a quality control measure to make sure that they’re not losing mail in their mail room.
 
My points are these… 
 
I know I can’t get EDD to answer their fucking phones. 
 
There is little one can do to communicate with them except by going to one of their offices and spending all day waiting to speak to a representative, who probably can’t or won’t answer your questions.
 
I have yet to find any information about what one should do if you’re out of the state for more than two weeks, for example if you were driving to Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Minnesota, and Texas to attend a number of interviews in those states.

This scenario is quite possible since High Technology companies and workers are LEAVING California as fast as they can. As one of those workers, I have to follow the employers.

 
This doesn’t even begin to address what one should do regarding any specialized training. For example, I’d like to attend a SCUBA school in Ft Lauderdale, FL. The School is 2 months or more long, how the hell do I file unemployment forms from there?
 
EDD claims that their electronic payment system is more efficient and cheaper to implement, BUT they are still dependent on the unemployed person physically being at home to file a claim and they’re still sending little pieces of paper.
 
As usual, California is attempting to SCREW the citizens that have paid for the services. Meanwhile giving free and easy access to those same services to people who have contributed little or nothing to the system.
 
And the games that they play increase defaults and foreclosures instead of helping Californias stumbling economy.
 
This is why FOR years I have wanted to get the fuck out of this state. I’ve stayed out of respect and love for my better half. But it’s coming down to a decision between my personal survival and the relationship.
 
You know what?
 
I’ll choose my personal survival, EVERY FUCKING TIME.
 
In most relationships the individuals survival is not at odds with the continuance of the relationship. Since apparently I do have that conflict… perhaps there’s a message there.