Well I am all packed and ready to go. It's 11:25 PM here and I am so excited that I won't be able to sleep a wink tonight.
I'll be leaving in about 6 hours anyway, so I'll just go things around here until then.
The whole trip almost came to a screeching halt because of the State incompetent blunders. I fill out a claim form every two weeks, which I have done many times, and five days later I get my check. I have the whole claim filing periods and pay dates mapped out until March of 2010 on a spread sheet. I put it in the mail every Saturday afternoon and they receive it first thing Monday morning. Then every Tuesday morning I call the automated Check hotline to verify that my check has actually been issued. Well the 29th of September there was no check issued, but I didn't panic right away I just waited until the next day. Well the 30th came and gone and no check issued, then the first of Oct, second of Oct and no check issued.
Then I started calling the only number that the state of California has for unemployment benefits. Imagine that, 3,000,000 people unemployed in this state, and 35,000,000 people living here, they only have one phone line for everyone. I started calling, and calling, but I either get a "I'm sorry but we have exceeded the number of calls at this time, please call back later", or you get to go through the automated number crunching until you get transferred to a customer service agent only to be told, "Were sorry, but due to the number of callers waiting to speak to a representative, we cannot handle your call at this time, please hang up and try again."
I called about 60 times that Friday, and 30 times on Saturday.
Then at 8:00 AM I started the same routine over, and over, and over for the entire week. No can get through.
Then I receive a form letter stating that I have been schedualed for a phone interview on November 3rd. Ok, that's over a month away, what am I supposed to do for a month without any money.
Come to find out they reversed two of the most important questions you can answer. They entered that No, I did not look for work, and Yes, I refused work that was offered to me.
It was marked Yes, I did look for work, and nom, I didn't refuse any work.
The same thing happened to my friend John David, but luckily he new the city councilman, and county supervisor. We contacted them and they started things rolling. We then called our state Assembly Member and our State Senator to explain what was going on and she finally got the error corrected and we started getting our checks again.
So thanks to Christine Kehoe (our state senator) and Lori Saldana (our State Assembly member) for making it possible for me to meet you all in Las Vegas. Without their assistance, I wouldn't have the money to attend.
So you see, sometimes government works for the people.
See, I told you I can't sleep
hope everyone has a nice evening.
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Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 7:23 am -
Fingers crossed though, there's still hope... I really do not want to miss this, I've been looking forward to it for months!! So I'm not giving up just yet...
