Wednesday, July 25, 2012

In Forma Pauperis

Before becoming unemployed, I laughed when people told jokes about the waste and stupidity in government.  Tee hee, how funny that we're ruled by the monkeys who were smart enough to escape the zoo!  Working in the State's Attorney's Office, though, I was really only involved with government employees who were hard-working and, for the most part, pretty damn intelligent.

Then I became unemployed, and the government jokes became a much more morbid kind of humor.

When you're unemployed, you have to get a bunch of information to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.  The main way to do this is by applying online.  That's where the problems start.  The application tries to be helpful, with little question mark links next to all the words that might be confusing.  There are a lot of question marks.  However, clicking these links does not take you to a definition, or even an FAQ page.  It just opens a new tab that goes right back to the IDES website homepage.  If I had hope left for government, I would say this was intentional, and you are supposed to use the little search box at the top of the page to find the definition yourself.  But the search feature isn't very good, and I don't think even the government is stupid enough to think that all people are smart enough to do that.

Then, after you apply online, if there are any questions about your application, they have to get in touch with you.  They do not do this through email.  They do this by sending a letter to your house.  One letter for every issue that comes up in your application.  So if you have three issues, or contests (which I did), then you will get three letters.  Only it's not just one letter saying, "Hey, we need to talk to you about something."  They also send you a separate letter that contains a survey.  This survey tells you to fill it out and send it in to IDES, where it will help them figure out your issue.  Only that's a lie, because the survey is just a repeat of information you've already given IDES in the online application.  I'm serious.  It's a printout of the questions you answered online.  No fucking joke.

Not only is the paper survey redundant, it's moot.  It's useless.  Because if you have an issue with IDES, they will send you YET ANOTHER LETTER letting you know that they will call you at a particular time.  That's right.  Don't call them, they'll call you.  And if you send them those surveys, all nice and filled out, they don't give a shit about them because they're already scheduled to call you and talk to you in person.  So you didn't have to take the time to fill out those surveys and send them in.  Even if you did, it doesn't actually make any difference or help you in any way whatsoever because they do not look at them.  The lovely caller lady I talked to in my first call said she didn't even know I had returned the surveys.  And for fun, just to add insult to injury, the letters do not come with return envelopes.  That's right, you have to supply both the return envelope and the return postage.  Seriously?  Wow.

Thank you, IDES, for killing an entire forest for no good god damn reason.  You fucking wastes of oxygen and humanity.

And now, you've reached the point where the fun STARTS.  Let's look at the academic employment issue.  Because I worked for Kaplan (test prep company) for about one month, they refused to give me benefits until they had verified that I was not a teacher requesting unemployment during the summer break.  I filled out my survey and sent it in (I didn't know any better at the time), then completed a phone call, and then got a letter saying that the issue was cleared.   

So I had gone through the process and fixed the problem.

Then I got the same letter again.

This time, I did not fill out the survey.  I waited for them to call me.  To be fair, I was already kind of mad when they called, so I picked up the phone and identified both myself and where the call was coming from and told them I was prepared for my interview.  This left the person who called me speechless for a few minutes.  I guess when you expect stupidity and get angry intelligence, it kind of throws you.  She repeated what I had already told her, about the call being scheduled to clear up the academic contest.  I then told her that the call had been misscheduled, as the issue was already cleared and the call was not necessary.

She then told me I was wrong.

That is not a good idea.  It is really not a good idea.  That is a Bad Thing, and you should not do it.  It is so far from being a Good Thing, or a Correct Thing, or even a Helpful Thing, that I doubt this particular idea even knows what a Good Thing, Correct Thing, or Helpful Thing is.

. . .

DO NOT TELL ME I AM WRONG YOU WORTHLESS LITTLE EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING, BECAUSE I AM CORRECT AND I AM ALREADY PISSED OFF AND THIS IS NOT HELPING.  V E R Y  B A D   I D E A.

Etc.

. . .

Of course, I hit mute on my phone and screamed all of my obscenities while she was double checking my information in her computer.  It took long enough that I was almost out of my favorite choice combinations of four letter words by the time she came back.  Then she told me that the call was not necessary, that it had been misscheduled, and she apologized for wasting my time.

I hung up.  I punched the wall.  My hand hurts, but it made me feel a bit better.


But hey, look at the bright side!  Thanks to the supreme idiocy of the IDES, you lovely folks get to suffer through two journal entries in one day!  How delightful!


But for now, I'm going to peace out and try to find something intelligent to make me feel better.  


Meowfully yours,
Marley


3 comments:

  1. What a waste of time. Ugh. I need to find a way to streamline that kind of stuff :(

    ReplyDelete
  2. I vote for Intelligentsia Coffee for something intelligent to make you feel better. I mean the name says it all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How I wish we had an actual Intelligentsia Coffee down here. We get some of their stuff, but not nearly enough!

      Delete

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