hoping others will post their ideas and stories here too! we might as well try to enjoy this predicament and I wanted to share the laugh of the day with you! Well, I have to laugh. By the way, Walgreen's has Kellogg's on sale 2/$5 or even $1.99/box, beans 2 cans for $1.00, I just stocked up.

I think that the worst part of being unemployed, besides the uncertainty and wondering if one will EVER work again, is dealing with what seem to be reasonable rules to the employed but to those of us laid off, scream "idiocracy". First, there was the recruiter last week. I do not feel that it is unreasonable to request a Word copy of my resume after viewing on Monster.com, but I was in the unfortunate state of not having any electricity at that time. (Note to others: make sure you have a printed copy of your res, and one on a floppy, or stored in a yahoo or hotmail mailbox just in case.) Of course I did not have this. I had to email back (from unemployment office where you can do this free) and explain that I could not get at it since my electricity was off and the only place I had a copy was on my hard drive. For simplicity going forward, let's call this response #1.

He writes back, "well then can you fax me a copy?" I write back, <response #1>

He writes back, "well how about putting it on a disk and taking it to another computer?" <response #1>

I then suggested that I could email another recruiter whom I had recently emailed my res to (of course no copy is in my outbox due to yahoo's space limitations) and forward on to him ... I did this. Of course, he then wanted the resume tweaked to fit his job description <response #1 modified>

arrghh after a few days of trying, I found that the library has Word, but on the downstairs floor, and you can't email from there, upstairs you can email but not do word ... after several trips up and down finally managed to do this.

Yesterday he emails wanting a phone conversation. I write back, "My phone has been disconnected, I can't make any calls." This is response #2 ... anyway he and I had ALREADY spoken last week before my phone was disconnected. Oh did I mention that this is a 3 month temporary job that pays by the hour! And not a lot by the hour, either.

this goes back and forth for a few more emails. Today I received email that they want to set up a phone interview for this job <response #2> and chat with me first <response #2> ...

Meanwhile, I decide to try to solve my problems which all stem from not having received any unemployment checks for the past three weeks. They don't let you use phones there but they do have pay phones. Of course, I didn't have enough change yesterday - you have to first put in 50 cents even though it is just a local call, the money will be returned and you then pay 25 cents for first three minutes, but need the 50 cents to get started. I came back today with enough money. several calls later, finally went up to the desk and they let me use THEIR phone to call the state unemployment office where I could check on status of a claim.

Guess what? After finally getting a human voice on the phone and getting to explain my problem, that I have not received the June 2 check nor any checks subsequent, the woman told me: "You need to call back from the 917 number on record". I said, "I can't, that's a cellphone, the service was shut off because I couldn't pay the bill because I never got the check that I am calling to ask you about now!"

She said "Can you go to someone's house that has a 917 number and call from there?"

I said "NO! there is no such thing! all 917 numbers are for cellphones and anyway I don't know anyone."

She then said, "Well you are not even supposed to use a cellphone to register for benefits" and I asked, "Well what do you recommend, I don't have a home phone, I can't use the office phone SINCE I AM UNEMPLOYED ..."

Makes you want to scream, but really, I just have to stand back and kind of laugh, it is kind of funny, and anyway, adversity is supposed to be good for you!!!!

Two good things did happen though just to balance it out - I got an early distribution of retirement funds in the mail today and my bank, with which I have had altercations with in the past, was decent enough to let me deposit as cash so it is available right away. And, even though I moved into this house almost 2 years ago, I never cashed in the coupons I got for free wine, pizza, flowers and so on so now am living high on the hog! And of course there's that sale at Walgreen's, I hit two stores, too bad they don't have AAmerican Airlines coupons on the boxes though.

OK, anyone else have a story to share???



[This message has been edited by CozumelJen (edited 06-18-2002).]