I had the unfortunate luck of becoming unemployed in October 2006 when I was working for my Tribe's casino in Coarsegold California.  As fate and fortune would have it, with a strong dose of politics, greed, corruption and finger-pointing to boot, I was fired within two weeks of being disenrolled from the Tribe.  The disenrollments had been gearing up for the year before I was given the "thanks for stopping by" treatment, but being forced out of work on top of it was horrific.

I lucked out and was able to collect unemployment right away because the Casino management team knew what was going on. They could have tried the usual tricks by stating that I had been fired for some obscure rule violation which would have automatically placed my claim into an appeal process that usually takes several months to finish.  I was lucky on that point.

However, those 26 weeks went by in a blur in retrospect.  I sent out resume's, I talked to people in person and yet I just didn't seem to get anywhere.  By October of 2007, I had only one interview and that was over the phone.  I also had to collect food stamps for the first time in my life during the summer.  It was something that took me two weeks to actually go to do because I was so embarrassed by the predicament I was in.

Anyone who feels that people who are getting a helping hand from the "welfare" system is nothing better than a bum has never had to experience the humiliation that the people in the county assistance office put our group through.  For $129 in food stamps and $200 in cash aid, you were expected to make three job applications a day, regardless of whether you had transportation or where you live in the county.  If you didn't have a car, they would provide bus passes.  If you didn't live near the bus lines, that's your problem.

And, naturally, you didn't get the cash aid until it was approved at a follow up appointment in two weeks to see if you had applied to 45 jobs by then.

So, on the day of my appointment, I brought in my paperwork showing where I had applied to.  Fortunately for me, I still had my internet connection paid for by relatives so I applied online to 45 different companies whether they had jobs posted or not.  However, the county employee told me that making these applications in that manner was unacceptable and that she would have no choice but to deny me any aid, including food stamps.

Here is where the irony rubs the keyboard--the majority of the places that I applied to were provided within the paperwork that I was given the first day I applied for help.  In fact, one of the requirements of continued participation (which means eligibility) was that I be registered through an online service for employment.  Now, here was this women shouting at me telling me that I was just being lazy and that I was trying to bend the rules and she wouldn't have it.

I, as politely as I could muster, told her that I followed the rules as outlined in my guide, and that I would not be treated like a beggar at the back door, and that she could stuff those papers somewhere....well, you get the idea.  I went home feeling like I had been kicked in the nuts while crawling to shore from a shipwreck.  I drafted a four page letter detailing what had transpired and sent it to the County supervisor, who surprisingly enough, actually acted on it.  I got one check and one food stamp month.  I didn't reapply because I just would not let myself be subjected to any further episodes such as the one I had already experienced.

It was sometime in mid-2008 when Congress and the rest of the system started to realize that financial meltdowns weren't just happening at the banker's house, they were happening everywhere.  By this time, I had already lost my car, I had already cashed out my 401K (now I owe the fed's $10K in penalties so I didn't have to move to the street corner), and I had sold everything that I thought I could live without, just short of my dignity (which was starting to waiver considerably by then).

Thus the first of three extensions became available, with their payments broken up over the next year or more.  I am on the third extension and this one, like the county aid program, requires a work search record be submitted with each claim form.  This isn't too difficult to manage, but finding someone who is hiring certainly is.  In a job market where there is one job for every six unemployed persons nationally, or in one like Fresno, CA where that is more like one job for every eleven people unemployed, its a serious challenge to find a nibble out there.

Well, after a long haul, I got a nibble from Olive Garden's management recruiter.  We had an interview on July 11, 2009.  I wrote down on my job search that I had an interview (which is requested under the "results" tab), and sent in my claim form.  When the check came, it was 50% less than it was supposed to be with no explanation on it.  There was also no continued claim form attached.  I started to get a little ancy about this, you know...what could be wrong here?

I tried calling the EDD offices, but I am pretty sure that I would have a better chance of connecting with Obama before I got them on the line.  However, I didn't have to wait long to find out what happened.  I got another claim form in the mail with a note that said I was scheduled for a phone interview on August 17th, 2009 to determine further eligibility.  This would be one month from the date that I got my last check.  It said to read the back for more information.

As it turns out, the questions are concerning whether I turned down the job I interviewed for, if I was told the conditions of the job, and why I would have turned in down.  Hmmm, I know that state employee's have pretty secure jobs once they pass their probationary periods, so whoever thought that having an interview equates to getting hired has obviously not been out looking for a job in quite some time.

In fact, I have yet to hear any word from the recruiter either good, bad or otherwise.  This company has a relatively lengthy hiring process so that they are sure that they are hiring the right people.  I worked for them before in 2000 and it took over six weeks, two interviews and a 300 question test to get hired!

So, here I am in the meantime, cut off from funds for the next six weeks so that the EDD can ask me why I didn't take a job I wasn't offered. 

I guess if I had a bank in my name, I wouldn't be waiting for the money to come in now would I?

It's too bad that America treats American's so poorly, especially when we've been kicked in the gut by the financial system's irresponsible behavior, yet the care seems to still favor the fools don't they.