The Times, They Are A Changin'... and so is this blog.

NOTE: The text of this article was originally set to publish September 30^th, but I couldn't publicly announce a few things until after a phone call I had just last night. I've changed some dates and updated a few events to reflect the change in publication date, but this is the article that should have gone here. The last few weeks have been incredibly busy for me, but I've managed to keep to my rigorous 5-day a week publication schedule here. This past weekend, I took the Foreign Service Officer Test, and next week I recertify to return to work with troubled kids in a therapeutic day school. I will be shortly rejoining the workforce, while I go through the process of trying to get a government job. This would normally be the place where I announce that this blog will be shuttering its doors and joining the many, many sites that don't make it a full year once life gets in the way. I promised way back here that I wouldn't be doing that, and I meant it. My studies and responsibilities have limited my time to read and comment on other blogs, and for that, I'd like to apologize to longtime supporters and faithful readers. I hope to make some time real soon, but things are going to get worse before they get better.

My XBox Live Avatar, inpiration for this site's FavIcon.

I have to make a few changes. For one, I'll be swapping to a different template for the blog to make it look a little different. Bloggers who have played with the new "Dynamic Views" have a pretty good idea of what this page will look like in the near future. The title "Unemployed Geek" will be kind of inaccurate by next week, so I'll be keeping "What's Next?" but changing the rest shortly, and I'm open to suggestions, though I'll muddle through if I don't get anything that really grabs me. I also will have to adjust my self-imposed publication schedule, as five days a week while holding down a day job and preparing to transition to a new career isn't realistic. I've had a few articles where I felt I kind of "phoned it in," and I don't want that dip in quality to become the new norm. I'll be shooting for Monday-Wednesday-Friday as of 10/10 and will see how that works, and if I absolutely have to, I'll move instead to Tuesday/Thursday, but I'd like to avoid that if I can.

I started this blog on a very personal note, nearly all text, before I figured out that pictures break up walls of words nicely and that my writing was at its best when it was about a subject with wider appeal than...well, me. In the last seven months I've had two guest posters, 165 articles and almost 100,000 pageviews, and I learned a lot from working on a project that was originally something I thought no one would read. I started it to, as the URL says, "Get my head on straight" and maintain some sort of schedule and preserve my sanity while figuring out what to do next. This post feels like a goodbye, and in a way, it is. I've figured out what I want to do, I've started doing it, and this blog has to change along with me if I intend to make good on my promise to keep doing it. I've also recently started putting up shorter articles as a writer over at Technorati.com (my first published one is here,) but writing for another site doesn't affect this blog in any significant way. Eventually, I plan to add a custom domain address, but continue to host and publish through Blogger.

I imagine the site will look something like this sometime next week.

Starting over this coming weekend, October 8-9, I'll start rolling out visual changes to the blog. (Safety Tip, this site looks weird in a few of the dynamic views, but I think it looks AWESOME in "Magazine".) I may not officially change the title until I go in for my first day of gainful employment to give myself the longest possible time to get it right. I also will likely do something I haven't done at all since starting this site back in February. I may take a week off. Then, content-wise, we're back to business as usual with tabletop roleplaying, board games, video gaming, fantasy novels, comic book, tech and science fiction/fantasy/horror TV and film reviews all turning up, just a few less times per week. To not risk offending anyone by leaving them out, I won't be too specific in my thanks, but I'd like to thank everyone who has turned up to read this blog since the start, and hope you'll bear with me as things shake up a bit.

Sincerely,

Josh "Docstout" Brown – The Unemployed Geek, October 2011.

The current "classic" layout for the site, for posterity. Let me know if you prefer this to the
slick site redesign. It may not change anything, but I'd like to know.

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Blog Gadgets

From the Trenches: The Unemployment Office and Finding Direction.

Getting a letter from the Department of Employment Security is never fun. They don't write you ever to tell you “Everything's going fine, just checking in,” or “Surprise! You have a job now!” Usually, every envelope from that office contains a week's worth of stress and anxiety. Frequently, the letters themselves are sufficiently panic-inducing, as they seem to be cobbled together automatically by a computer cut and pasting various sections that seem relevant onto a single page, even if the various sections contradict one another. If you need information, the letters direct you to call your local office for more information. This is a bad joke told by someone with a particularly dark sense of humor. For my local office, at least, you'll navigate an automated menu, sit on hold for 15 minutes, hear the phone ring, and then get a voicemail box after 5 rings. This is, of course, assuming the system doesn't just hang up on you mid-call.

I think I'd be happier waiting in lines like this if there were coffee and donuts, and if men still wore cool hats.

Recently, I got one of these letters. It was filled with scary sounding words and cryptic phrases. I'm the sort of person who can puzzle out most legal documents, I've had to decipher written communication from people with terrible penmanship, a limited grasp of language, even mental and cognitive deficiencies which make effective written communication difficult. I pride myself on being able to discern the meaning of all these esoteric and confusing pages of text. The letter I got made no sense. In one sentence it states that it has been found that I haven't worked since August of last year. Further down, it shows my earnings from wages for 4^th Quarter 2010 and 1^st Quarter 2011. It tells me I am not eligible for benefits, further down it says that a new benefit claim has been automatically filed on my behalf, and yet further it tells me how much I can receive, but only if I contact the local office RIGHT AWAY.

Any hope of assistance online or via phone is foolishness, so I have to prepare to physically go down to the local office. I've been down there once before when a clerical error told the State that I'd never worked at my last job, so I was dreading the process. The office is crowded, dirty, filled with people who are stressed out, worried and confused. Not a single person in that building, staff included, seems pleased to be there. The atmosphere is one of desperation, shame, sadness, a resignation to the idea that things are bad and don't seem to be improving any time soon. I was prepared for a long wait, a confusing time explaining what is going on without really understanding it myself, and possibly wondering where any money is coming from in a few weeks. I looked around the office, saw all the other people there, many seemed vaguely uncomfortable, as though they felt guilty at anyone, even someone else going through a rough patch, seeing them there.

Not a fun door. Even less fun than the DMV, but it beats starving.

I am pleased to report that this particular story had a good resolution for me. The wait was shorter than I'd feared (meaning I overpaid for parking) and I explained my situation to one of the most competent and friendly people I've ever met dealing with this agency. Several moments on the computer, and I was told: “You're all set.” My eyes bulged from their sockets in surprise. “There will be a wait week where no benefits will be paid, but after that, you'll receive more.” Turns out, the cryptic letter was based on something called a benefits year, where the government has to recalculate benefits based on a more recent period of wages. If you made more in the more recent period (as I had,) you've paid more into the system, so they have to pay more out to match. I left the office with the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders.

In the time I've been out of work, I've applied for hundreds of positions. I've tried every field I've had experience in, every related field I could think of, and had friends and family keeping an eye out and an ear to the ground. I've tried to get in to new fields such as private investigation, process serving and warrants. I've written in for jobs I knew I wasn't qualified for, and others I knew I was overqualified for. The only up-side to the complete lack of response has been that I haven't had to waste a ton of expensive fuel to run the car out and about. My diverse set of experiences and skills in some cases works against me, and I've been searching for that one position that uses all of them and I think I may have found it, but getting this job will be the most difficult thing I've ever attempted.

With a background in improvisational acting, convention management, employee supervision and training and crisis intervention, it seems like there isn't a single job that could possibly use all those skills. I've also taken between one and three years training in the following languages: Spanish, Japanese, German, French and Russian. I can barely speak a word of any of them having not used them in nearly a decade, but I pick up foreign tongues quickly. I wish I'd thought of this sooner. Yesterday, I registered for the exam for the US State Department's Foreign Service Office – Public Diplomacy Division. I am going to start the process to become a diplomat for the United States. I've read a lot about the qualities they look for in a candidate, and they describe me nearly to the letter.

I don't think I can count decades playing this game as "relevant experience,"
but damned if I won't use skills practiced whilst playing.

I have no illusions about how difficult this will be. This is going to be the ultimate test of everything I think I'm good at, and that is scary. I will not be surprised if even after weeks of preparation that I find that I'm not ready. Jobs in the Foreign Service tend to attract a lot of people just like me, well-read in a lot of areas, fairly bright and personable, with a wide range of skills and talents. The competition for a spot isn't against a pack of directionless young folks looking for their first job, some of the people I'll be up against will have degrees in political science, sociology or economics. I fully expect to be smeared on my limited proficiency with the languages I've studied. I need to brush up on US policy, economics, current events, terms and practices concerning media... I've read some sample test questions and tips on surviving essays and oral interviews, and what I've seen terrifies me.

However, even if I don't make it the first time around, this is what I want to do. This might answer a part of the question I've posed to myself from the first day I started this blog back in February. “What do I want to be?” "What's Next?"  It took me almost six months to figure it out, now I have just under two more to prepare for my first opportunity to make the cut. If I could coast through completely on by verbal and written communication skills (which are decent,) it wouldn't be so scary. That's not enough. I have to review all my training materials for Verbal Judo, which is the program that got me through working with troubled kids and generating voluntary compliance with words. I have a LOT of reading and studying to do. Best get to it.

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Blog Gadgets

Collection Agencies: Predatory, Unethical and Often Illegal Practices Pursuing Money We Don't Have.

This afternoon, I got a painful reminder of the lengths unscrupulous debt collectors will go to attempt to squeeze blood from a stone, whether or not debts are legitimate. With the global economy in trouble, collection agencies are doing a booming business, even if their specific practices frequently fall outside what is allowed by law. The blatant scam and con-artist tactics used to attempt to extort money from those ignorant of the laws protecting them are just one piece of the puzzle. As the collection industry becomes more powerful, they apply political pressure and sink a whole lot of money into getting the legal system to interfere on their behalf, and the burden of proof falls on the public, many of whom are down and out, desperately trying to hold on as it is. A word before I get further into this. I've had debts in the past both legitimate and not. I ask readers to not assume anything about my financial responsibility when I write about this, and the standard disclaimer that I am not a lawyer is appropriate at this time as well.

Even both Scrooges (Ebenezer and McDuck) never stooped to the level
of many of these companies.

Advice concerning what is legal and what is not, and what the recourse for someone targeted by this sort of activity is tricky at best. For one, the laws vary wildly from country to country, and even if you are in the United States, both the laws themselves and how the courts choose to interpret them is often different at the State level. It is also worth noting that unless someone is well-versed in Fair Debt Collection Law and willing to file court paperwork themselves, many of the fines are small enough that hiring an attorney to fight to assert your rights in a matter like this is more expensive and stressful than it is worth to the average person. Illegal or quasi-legal tactics used by debt collectors is part of a numbers game. They count on ignorance of what is legal and/or hassle of defending yourself to make it profitable enough to collect from those who cannot or will not fight that the few willing and able to defend themselves do not affect the bottom line.

In the United States, there is a law called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. This law was put into place to protect the public from unscrupulous practices by collection agencies, and the specific restrictions of this law are frequently ignored. The law requires a collection agency to provide written proof that a debt is valid, they are not allowed to contact a person by phone at inconvenient times, and they cannot threaten violence or any legal action they do not intend to take. Further protections are in place to keep a collection agency from harassing an individual, including a prohibition on abusive or obscene language and restrictions on who may be contacted regarding the debt. Many of the tactics commonly used by collection agencies violate one or more provisions in this law, and the debt collection industry is keenly interested in weakening it as more people become aware of how to use it to protect themselves.

Important legislation, but not a "one size fits all" sword and shield against legal action.
Understand it and how it is used for you locally before assuming it can or will protect you.

Particularly angry or legally savvy individuals have taken advantage of the FDCPA to countersue collection agencies over violations of the act. Damages awarded typically include legal fees, money lost as a result of an illegal debt collection plus $1,000 per FDCPA violation. The time, expertise and expense in pursuing these cases as an individual makes it a difficult proposition for the average person. Also, in certain states, the courts are more friendly to debt collection companies than they are to the consumers, so proper research and documentation is a must when considering legal action. Cases like this are becoming more and more common, however, as the unemployment rate holds at a fairly high rate. People with a lot of time on their hands and not much money to “pay off” unscrupulous companies are more likely to file these sorts of lawsuits.

Another disturbing manipulation of the legal system by these sorts of companies has led to the modern day version of the Dickensian debtor's prison. A debtor's prison was the practice of incarcerating an individual who would not or could not settle a debt, typically indefinitely as it is difficult to raise funds to settle a debt from a cell. Officially, the practice was outlawed in the US in 1833 as a form of cruel and unusual punishment, but legal loopholes have brought the concept back. Since 2010, collection agencies have, even without proper documentation to prove validity of debts, won warrants to have debtors arrested and held until payment was either made in full or a payment plan could be arranged. Funds used toward bonds have, in many cases, been forfeited to collection agencies towards payment of debts without benefit of a process to dispute the validity of the debt itself. Public outcry over these practices has motivated states to look into the callous manipulation of the legal system, and at least one major company specializing in holding public debt has stopped the process of seeking arrest warrants. Still, thousands of these warrants have been issued under the justification of being “the only way to get some people in to settle their debts.”

Can't pay rent, don't get income, go to jail. Who knew Monopoly was training Life Skills?

Personally, I've never been subject to legal actions as a result of these sorts of practices, and have declined to file lawsuits in instances where I am certain collectors have committed FDCPA violations. Without a growing number of people willing and able to defend their rights, and others voicing their displeasure over uneven enforcement of these sorts of actions, it will continue to remain profitable to skirt the line of what is legal and what is not. I'm curious to hear the perspective of readers outside the US about whether these sorts of vultures exist in other places where people are struggling financially. What do debt collectors do in your country? Is it all legal, and if not, what can be done about it. Let me know in the comments.

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Blog Gadgets

Virtual Currencies – From WoW Gold to Bitcoin, with a stop in Second Life.

It is difficult to talk about currency in any form these days without the whole topic getting muddled and mired into politics. The economics surrounding the behavior of companies and governments and the attendant problems and crises are on everyone's minds, and they extend in particular to this blog. (After all, if not for unemployment, I'd just be the “Geek.”) However, there's one place where we don't have to worry about taxes, inflation, volatility of currency, government regulations, interest rates and the global banking community. The internet. Sure, there are a few places that you might have to pay sales tax online depending on where you live, and if you make money online you're probably taxed on that, but our day-to-day transactions online, whether they are in gold pieces in an MMORPG or credits on any number of websites... surely those are free from the standard economic worries and the politics that come with them. Or are they?

So I have to fill out form 1099-WOW and append it... can I claim my non-combat
pets as dependents?

There has been a bit in the news recently about a virtual currency that on its surface doesn't have much in common with a gold piece picked up from the purse of a dead virtual orc. Bitcoin has surfaced in reports several times in the last week with the United States Congress taking an interest in the system in light of its connection to buying and selling drugs, and a user recently reported that a hacker compromised a system he was storing bitcoins on to the tune of $500,000USD gone in a flash. The interest in the virtual currency has gotten a lot of attention, with attention comes people doing research, getting excited and participating, which increased the value of the coins in the system. Though highly volatile, each bitcoin is currently (as of June 2011) worth about twenty dollars in US currency. The upward trend attracts speculators, which drives the value up further.

So what is it and how does it work? Each bitcoin is a piece of code with encryption designed to prevent counterfeiting or duplication or other fraud, including transfer fraud. The verification of transactions using coins are distributed across the peer-to-peer network, making all transfers of coins public and verifiable, but the addresses of the people making the transactions secure and private. Without a centralized authority, currency goes from one person's hands to another without fees or regulations, and no government or bank can devalue the currency by injecting more into the system to create inflation. Libertarians, cryptology geeks, conspiracy theorists and criminals love the idea. It is like a digital version of briefcases full of cash. Governments and bankers aren't so keen on it. Individual coins are created by “mining” where the computing power to create the blocks of code in a new coin are purchased from any user running the mining program, rewarding the miner with a brand new coin after a lot of work on a powerful PC. Each coin takes exponentially longer to create than the last, so the amount of new coins entering the system is controlled and stable.

There aren't a lot of places to spend these coins for real world goods, at least not yet. There are virtual currency exchanges set up to turn regular money into bitcoins and vice-versa, and websites that allow purchases to be made using them. The anonymous and secure nature of the coins means that some are used to buy illegal goods online, such as the Silk Road marketplace that sells illegal drugs online, or for money laundering. Currency proponents insist that legitimate uses outnumber illegal uses for bitcoins, and they are no different from cash in what they can be used for or by whom. Governments, especially in the United States don't like currencies involved in untracable, untaxable transactions, and the future of the currency may well rest in its decentralized, peer-to-peer system's ability to resist governmental interference. (If the same strategy that makes it nearly impossible to stamp out piracy in P2P is effective in this, things could get interesting.)

This isn't the first time that a virtual currency has attracted the interest of powerful people who would really prefer you use the currencies they, not coincidentally, already have a lot of. The online game Second Life and its currency, the Linden Dollar gained a lot of attention from around 2004-2007 based on the idea that the currency could be traded for “real” money through a currency exchange using PayPal, and businesses could be run in-game to earn more Linden Dollars, including trading in real estate in-game and playing the currency market as a speculator. The fact that the company that ran Second Life explicitly retained ownership of all these credits and they acted as a combination central bank and clearinghouse for all exchanges and markets drew criticism concerning whether or not these Linden Dollars were currency at all. With regard to taxation, European users were charged the VAT (Value Added Tax) on certain Second Life transactions, including some dealing only in Linden Dollars.

I messed with Second Life for a while, off and on. A lot of it looks like the Sims, with a lot
more elves, catgirls, winged angels and porn. Hard to describe.

With the established value of virtual currency as something that can bring real, non-internet wealth, thinking about taxation and tracking of income is changing. Many online gamers know about the “gold farmers” who play MMORPGs to earn virtual currency for sale in online semi-legal or illegal transactions. In China, where many of these operations were run, the issues concerning running many virtual black markets up to and including theft of in game currency and property made it to real-world court systems. In 2009, China limited transactions concerning virtual currencies and how they could and could not be used to interact with “real money trading.” South Korea has ruled virtual currency the same as any other currency, and taxation on virtual goods as a policy is being floated throughout Asia.

New Class - Certified Public Accountant.

Are we inevitably heading towards a world with some sort of taxation on the transfer of digital goods and whenever gold pieces, credits, or coins change hands? Some economists say that we are, and there is no reason why we shouldn't. I wonder about the possibilities inherent in having to report gaming income, or on the flip side, being able to pay bills and buy groceries with currency I got by blowing up monsters in a fantasy world. Will I be able to write off repair costs for broken armor? Will we see prosecution for ninja looters, indictments for insider traders on the Auction House? When do the walls between the game world and the real world come down, and when does reasonable economic policy cross that line into the absurd? I expect many attorneys will make a lot of money answering these questions, and I further assert that they won't be taking their fees in gold pieces, Linden Dollars or Bitcoins.

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Blog Gadgets

Thinking Outside the Maze – A Rat's Perspective on the Race.

When you are out of work for more than a few weeks, thinking about the system and its implicit promise of a stable place in society in exchange for hard work and a willingness to follow the society's rules is natural. As population swells, technology modernizes and eliminates certain jobs and people live and work a greater number of years in developed countries, the system strains a bit. Rather than play the blame game, or fish for “hang in there's” that I don't really feel I need at the moment, I want to talk about what some other people have done in trying to “opt out” of the traditional school-work-retire-die plan that society tells us to expect. Let's try to understand that plan first.

A cliché image, maybe. An appropriate visual metaphor for sure.

Some of the criticism of the system here in the United States comes from the feeling that choosing a “default” path leads to massive debt which requires repayment in such strict terms that most people are forced to take whatever work they come by that is enough to keep themselves solvent. These careers are often taken independent of personal goals, individual aptitude, skills or training; leading to job dissatisfaction, lack of personal growth and stagnancy. The people trapped by this “gotta pay the bills” mentality represent well over half of the American workforce, and low morale keeps productivity only high enough to not lose jobs that workers need, but don't want. The critics of this system have termed it “wageslavery.”

For many positions that pay what American society would call a “living wage”, individuals are expected to have a college degree, as competition for jobs makes secondary education as a condition to “thin the herd” of applicants seeking a particular job. In the United States, this means that young adults are likely to start with significant debts to pay back through educational loans, without any guarantee of a career capable of doing so. As jobs become more scarce due to the inevitable march of technology, homes also become more scarce due to an increase in global population. More private loans are needed to finance homes whose prices are driven higher by supply and demand. Well before getting into any of the economic problems with credit or the recent mortgage crisis and housing bubble that caused an economic recession, it is little surprise that some people want to look for alternatives to the path society assumes adults will take.

Moments before head explosion from financial worries.

Some people have dedicated themselves to the concept of sustainable living, popularized as far back as 1978 along the fringe of American culture. The book “Possum Living” by Dolly Freed (18 at the time of writing) talks about her experiences living for five years with her father on a half-acre lot outside of Philadelphia without traditional sources of income. The book describes a life of living off the land, raising rabbits and chickens for meat and growing produce, making much of what is necessary for life, and trading for a lot of little luxuries that cannot be self-produced. Despite some unusually bad (and illegal) advice concerning resolution of disputes with “city folk”, the book, and the philosophy that followed it make for an interesting read. The life presented is very similar to, and some ways better than, a typical middle class lifestyle, providing that one is willing to eschew technology beyond trips to the local library for internet access. Perhaps not the best choice for the modern geek.

The life of the entrepreneur calls to others who want to drop out of the “rat race”, and starting personal businesses, making money online and developing as many streams of income as a person is able defines this strategy. Many, many books have been written on this subject and more than a few blogs are dedicated to nothing but this. It is difficult to separate the true success stories from wishful thinking and those who want to make this life a reality by selling promises of how to achieve success. Professional bloggers would fit into the category of the modern entrepreneur, as would those lucky few artists able to make a reasonable standard of living from their creative endeavors. The downside to this approach is easily apparent, with a lot of competition and great personal discipline required for any measure of success. It takes a lot more than writing a few hours a week and tossing around buzzwords like “SEO Optimization” and “Online Content Marketing” to make income capable of supporting a family like this.

No offense to the legit SEO/Marketing bloggers out there, but some people
seem to think that there are magic words you put on a webpage, and people give you money. 

Science Fiction titan Robert Heinlein wrote “There Ain't No Such Thing As a Free Lunch” in his 1966 novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and criticism of those who write in dissatisfaction of the current state of the world says that people expect something for nothing. Libertarian sci-fi from the 1960s aside, I think that application of the Law of Unintended Consequences producing a large disaffected working public is more likely than a majority of people harboring an unrealistic set of expectations. People in general seem to be willing, even eager, to put in effort and time in exchange for financial security, but a complex set of problems denies many that opportunity, and even more are denied the opportunity of a career that is fulfilling in addition to “just paying the bills.”

I've done a lot of reading and thinking about this, one really interesting article from a professional blogger (who falls into the “entrepreneur” category, naturally) named Steve Pavlina way back in 2006 discusses the merits of a non-traditional income here. I wonder how many different ways there really are to be 'unemployed' but capable of living without collecting unemployment or any other sort of financial assistance, and if one of these ways is right for me. Is anyone out there making a living using one of these, or a method like it? Maybe you know someone who does or did. If nothing else, it is something to ponder and dream about while looking for a new place back on the traditional mouse wheel.

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Blog Gadgets

Jumping Through Hoops – Unemployment Benefits

Today before sitting down to write, I wanted to check on the status of my accounts. Before joining the ranks of the unemployed, I suppose my income put me solidly in the category of the “working poor”. We lived check to check, but I look around, see 2 computers, video games and an iPod for my wife and I, and don't feel too bad about where we were, from a wider perspective. That said, keeping an eye on remaining funds when you know you could run them out is an important maintenance task. Ironically, since I've been out of work, frugality and the lack of a commute (with these gas prices) has put my wife and I less on the edge, money wise.

I checked the status of the unemployment funds on the state website, and it looked like I had a deposit settled today. Great. I go to check the balance on the debit card issued me for these funds... no money. There was a brief moment of panic, not because I'd starve or have a utility turned off without that money RIGHT NOW, but when your financial future is in doubt, the small amount of funds you do have access to is vital, and potential interruptions of those is scary. So, I go to call the Illinois Department of Employment Security. Busy signal. More light panic, but I persist, get through, wait on hold for a seeming eternity and eventually determine that all is well. I just need to wait a few days for normal processing that I likely never noticed a delay in before.

All this got me thinking about the process of getting these few dollars. I've talked about what unemployment isn't, and who pays for it, but not really about what it means to go through being on it. Making a claim for unemployment benefits is, mercifully, easier than it once was, at least in the state of Illinois. Rather than having to wait in line in an office or even on hold on a call center's line, making a claim and certifying for individual weeks of benefits can be done online. There is an application and several questionnaires to fill out, best started right after a job is lost, and frequently benefits may be placed on hold if there are any eligibility questions that a phone interview or supplemental paperwork is required to resolve.

For all my complaining and ranting... this is what it used to be like to get a few bucks for groceries.

After a waiting period, either a direct deposit (which I should have done) is started, or they mail you a debit card and there is more waiting. Every two weeks, you load up the archaic, almost quaint website that refuses to work in browsers other than Internet Explorer (more on that in a moment) and answer a number of questions about your situation that mostly will not change unless you've come into some money or something unusual happens that could affect any payments. Name changes, deferred payments, change of address, payments from social security or other disability or any number of other uncommon events that I check “No” to weekly. Then, within a few days you will receive funds averaging about 30% of what you used to make, plus a small additional sum for dependents.

Any changes to this process are difficult, as the bureaucracy involved is typically sprawling and byzantine, they prefer to communicate through the mail, as I presume their carrier pigeon service has been discontinued, but they are working on mastering the telephone. But they have a website you can turn to for help! It is optimized for Internet Explorer 6. I didn't mistype that last number, or accidentally flip it upside-down somehow. I try not to ever use IE unless a website makes me, but I don't think I EVER had IE6 installed on this machine. I learned about the issues with the website the hard way when I tried to switch to direct deposit, I had to fill out a series of online forms, and at the end of the process, got an “oops, can't save your changes” error.

High Technology, from the crazy future world of 2001.

While you fight with a website that is barely a generation above a Geocities page from 1996, get archaic forms presumably penned with a quill from the local post and collect the few dollars they'll give you for the trouble, you have to do a few things. First, register on another website that asks you to input your skills, experience and desired work schedule, salary, etc... a process that takes a few hours. The skills match website takes all your hard won life experience, calculates it... and tells you there are no jobs because the economy sucks. I half expected a “Please Try Again”, like you find on a yogurt lid when you haven't won a contest. Also, you have a form to document your search for gainful employment with no instructions on the expectations for its completion and vague fields to fill out. I can only guess that no one ever looks at 99.999% of these, even though you are required to keep them around for a year after you're done claiming unemployment. Every once in a while, I'd guess they pick a name at random and ask for these forms for laughs, as the instructions are so vague that just getting picked to be checked up on, I'd guess, means you're screwed.

So, this is a part of my adventure that doesn't involve swords or lightsabers, but does sort of involve shadowy cabals, scrolls with arcane symbols and the fickle hand of fate. I'll jump through hoops while I keep at it, and admit to myself that a whole lot of people have it a whole lot worse. Anyone else on “the dole” from a different place with maybe very different hoops to jump through? Tell us about it.

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Can We Please Stop Confusing Unemployment With Welfare?

I'm not going to get political here. Believe what you want about welfare, its role in society, etc. That's not what I want to talk about. These pages have, lately, been all about geeky stuff, and not at all about being out of work. Honestly, that's because the unemployment posts I've put together seemed... well, boring. A lot of them fell into the “weepy LiveJournal” kind of stuff I don't want to write, and no one wants to read.

Talking about video games, comics and tabletop RPGs is way more fun than whining.

That said, a way to write about something and make it somewhat interesting is to get good and riled about it, and I am. I have, in the last few weeks, read far too much about “people collecting unemployment on my tax dollar.” I've read blogs, forum posts, and tweets/status updates about it, and it pisses me off. Ignorance is something I have a short fuse for anyway, but when it is used to paint a group I fall into with a wide brush as lazy thieves, I approach meltdown. I'm going to say this once, using the smallest words I know to express it. IN THE US, A PRIVATE CITIZEN'S TAXES DON'T FUND UNEMPLOYMENT.

For clarification, I'm not talking about the “extended unemployment” offered by the US Federal Government, I am talking about the checks I am currently receiving, issued through the state. The way it works is that employers pay into an insurance fund for every employee they have, and if one of them becomes unemployed and qualifies for benefits, those benefits are paid from that fund. The fund keeps a surplus because not everyone qualifies for benefits, and quite a few people have another job (or something else) lined up when they leave a position, and the funds paid in for them are never used. No tax dollars. Don't believe me? Here. Or... Here. (First source is an article/overview, second is from an employer advocacy group, two sources as different as I could find.)

When I see someone yelling about how they are paying for me to sit on my ass, this is what I see and hear. DEY TUK OUR JERBS!

I've read articles recently (and am now wishing I'd bookmarked them so I could link) blasting the people who have chosen to not spend 8 hours per weekday looking for jobs that aren't there or worse, taking a job that will have a negative impact on their work and salary history in the future. There are people openly debating whether it is right for the unemployed to be happy in their situation. Why is this even a question? It isn't wrong to be happy, period.

There aren't so many people writing articles that display this level of arrogance and ignorance, forgetting that they or someone they care about are one corporate decision away from the same fate, but there are a LOT of commenters who feel this way. It makes me mad and a little physically ill to know that the expectation of quite a few of my fellow citizens for the pittance I receive that they did NOT pay for is: to be miserable daily, trudging along and willing to take the first foodservice or call center job that will take me.

Fair warning, strawman ahead.

I know there are a few people desperate enough to hold to this arrogant line of thinking that respond to the facts about how unemployment compensation is paid for that can take it a step or two further. Forgive me if I straw man a little here. The continued argument against unemployment says that if employers didn't have to pay into unemployment insurance, the extra funds could be passed on to employees. I understand this line of thinking, but respectfully disagree. The amount of compensation to employees has historically been determined by two factors. A federally mandated minimum wage, and what percentage above that minimum is the least a qualified applicant with specialized skills or training will accept to do a job that they are needed to perform.

I'm not sure where such anger and venom comes from. I suspect that there is a perception that there are a large number of people gaming the system and living like kings while sitting around doing nothing. In an extended time of high unemployment and strained financial conditions worldwide, this perception becomes less and less accurate as the weeks and months roll on. That is, if the perception was ever accurate. They took our jerbs, indeed. My apologies to non-US readers, back to geekery tomorrow.

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Once More, From the Top

Getting my head on straight was harder than I thought it'd be.

When I was called into the office, it was a surprise. I had no idea that it was even a possibility, but when I saw my boss's boss... his very friendly but somehow sad demeanor, almost apologetic, and then the woman from HR, I knew.

The last time I'd been in this situation, I put up a very good, very professional front, but I was devastated inside. Thirty-four years old, a married man, choking back tears. But not this time. The same two people, same office, same reason. I was getting laid off. Not because my performance wasn't exemplary. (It was.) Not because I wasn't well liked or respected for how I did my job. (I was.) I was getting laid off for the second time in six months because three year's senority wasn't enough, and cuts needed to be made. I congratulated myself on how well I was handling it this time. I wasn't upset, just listened and asked appropriate questions and calmly discussed my options, resolving to call once I'd made a decision. The two sympathetic people in the office thanked me again for my astounding professionalism and service, given the circumstances, and I collected my belongings and left.

I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be coming back.

This is where it started, and I don't know where it is going. I write about a situation that a lot of people have found themselves in lately. At a crossroads, trying to figure out "What the hell do I do with my life from here on out?" "How do I keep from feeling worthless?" "Can I really balance the desire to not take another job I'll hate just because it is there against the possibility of becoming unemployable?"

I've been thinking a lot about those questions and others. I'm going to write a little bit about where this is all taking me. It won't be all gloom and doom. It won't be all sunshine and roses, either.

It'll be me, writing even if no one is reading, about a 34 year old man, suddenly unemployed and dealing with it. Maybe writing about it will help me get my head on straight.

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