Category: Job Search

Got a letter from California Employment Development today.

Looks like they’re going to pay me my unemployment via a debit card.

It’s only slightly more convenient than if they were paying me in gold nuggets.

For those of us that actually have a bank account and who pay our bills via that account, a debit card is problematic.

For example

My Mortgage, Car payment, credit cards, and utilities are all paid out of my credit union account. Without a constant flow of REAL money going through that account in short order I’m going to be in default on a lot of my financial obligations.

I suppose that I can reroute the payment to the California issued Debit card but there’s since I don’t know how much is going to be available from week to week on the debit card that doesn’t really work either.

Especially since I was planning to use my unemployment check to supplement my savings and thereby be a responsible if unemployed person. In that  I WOULDN’T DEFAULT on my obligations.

Now what do I do?

Cash out the debit card each week and then deposit the cash into the account I need to have it in?

I thought about trying to phone in payments to my various debts but I know that at least a couple of those businesses charge a hefty fee to do that. (One organization charge me $25 bucks once to process a payment from a debit card.)

All of this leads me to wonder what were they thinking?

Direct deposit or a check makes much more sense from the perspective of someone with bank accounts, and a regular payment schedule.

California claims this is to save them money in postage, but they’re still sending me  the little form to fill out and sign (which used to contain the check for the previous 2 weeks) So what are they really saving?

Then there’s the Bank of America who administers the card. They’re making a ton of money on short term interbank loans, and they’re also getting a % on each and every transaction. What a racket!

Well, I’m hoping that more information is forthcoming when I get the damn card.

I see the potential for another complication that I wasn’t expecting.

Apparently, the California Employment Development Department is much too busy and far too important to actually make good on their promise of sending me a packet in the mail within the time they specified.

Not that I’m terribly surprised…

The Unemployment people are just as screwed up as the DMV. I do find myself asking why I’ve been working so hard to pay my taxes when frankly I get none of the benefits.

Bad roads, terrible commutes, people whining about the “poor” (many of whom do not deserve benefits because they’re not citizens), no police coverage…

Yeah you read that right. No police coverage, at minimum they’ll get to town oh… sometime… maybe…

Oh course that’s if you can actually speak to someone at 911. Most of the time you get a recording to hold and I’ve personally been on hold for 10 minutes trying to report an accident.

Yes all of this is about Californias budget.

What I can’t understand is the philosophy in Sacramento.

When I don’t have money… I DON’T SPEND MONEY!

I start by cutting ALL un-necessary spending.

I focus only on paying the bills and I terminate all services that I can no longer afford.

So applying that logic, why the hell doesn’t the state stop pissing away money on social services that we KNOW are prone to abuse and fraud and concentrate on the core services that they’re supposed to provide?

You know, Roads, Schools, Government services… oh like answering the Damn phone!

I don’t care who’s responsible… Grey Davis, Arnold, Brown, they’re all the same…  They’re all figure heads who were or are being castrated by a house and senate that has not adjusted to the new realities of the RECESSION!

Yes I fucking said it! A RECESSION is what we’re in and you know what?

The sooner these morons in Sacramento AND Washington admit it, the sooner realistic actions can be taken to get us back on track.

Today is the last day that I can take advantage of a school that I think I’d like to attend. The problem is that said school costs 1500.00 and while I’d really like to do it I’m a little wary of the cost at this time.

See it’s not just the cost of the school, it’s the cost of accommodations while I’m at the school too.

Plus this isn’t the only class that I’d like to take. I’d also like to head to Ft Lauderdale and take one class from a dive school to determine if I want to invest a lot of cash to become a resort dive operator/dive instructor. I’m looking at that as a pathway to a new career.

I can drive to Ft Lauderdale. I can probably afford the one class, it’s again the accommodations that present the major expense.

Then there’s the trip I’d like to take up the coast to add photos to my portfolio.

All of these things require cash & time. The cash I have more or less, the time is questionable.

Since the company has put us on furlough it’s really put a monkey wrench in my travel plans. How can I take off without knowing if I’ll be called back at a moments notice?

It would be the real shits to be attending a 5 day class in Ft Lauderdale and suddenly find out that I have to be at work here in California the next day. Unfortunately, my company has that kind of planning… Everything is mandatory,  (I’m reminded of The Princess Bride. “I don’t think that word means what you thing it means”) and the expectation is that the employees are always sitting in their cubes available for instant spur of the moment meetings.

I guess I’m playing it too safe. Maybe I need to just say fuck it and go live, instead of hanging on tender hooks waiting for one of the upper management morons to decide what the fuck they’re doing.

After all they’re not paying me right now are they?