Our financially broke State of California has impacted my life in a number of ways in the past year. No doubt I’m one of many, but I’d like to share my story to illustrate that the cutting of services or whatever else the state is doing to keep itself financially solvent is hurting real people.

The prologue to my story is my short stint working for UCSD. I had previously consulted for them (when another company wrote my paychecks but my day to day job was working with UCSD staff) and I had a VERY positive experience. I liked UCSD so much, in fact, that I moved to San Diego to pursue a full time job with them.

A little over a year later, I was offered the job. Because it took them so long to hire me (it took 6 months from my first interview to my first day of work) I had gotten another job to pay the bills. The position UCSD offered me was for $30,000 less than what I was making in my other, identical position. But I took the UCSD job anyway, figuring that I could always quit later if it didn’t work out.

The UCSD job was short-lived, however. I found out that people who were less skilled than me were making more than me, for one thing. And our team was constantly understaffed because few other sane, rational people would accept a job that paid tens of thousands of dollars less than it should. Clearly the losers in this equation were the people of California, who had our team at UCSD constantly handicapped and less able to do our jobs by our shortage of qualified employees.

Between the money and the frustration of working on an understaffed yet overworked team, I left the job after a few months. I took another identical job with a private company, this time for $30,000-$50,000 (depending on bonuses) more than UCSD had been paying me. The job was mostly good – with one major problem: my boss.

I was hired by a wonderful woman, who turned out to be my boss’s boss. She loved me. Her immediate subordinate, my boss, hated me from the first day she laid eyes on me. Well, maybe the second day. But it didn’t take her very long. Ultimately she fired me for unfair and perhaps illegal reasons. That’s a long story that doesn’t need to be told here.

So here’s where my complaints about the State of California and its inability to serve its citizens begins. Following my untimely job loss, I filed for unemployment. That was March 5. I received a letter in the mail that I would have an interview on March 18 at 8am. This is the part where I screwed up. I accidentally spaced out and went for a lovely hike in the mountains on March 18 at 8am. I missed the interview.

I tried calling EDD repeatedly. You CAN NOT get through. If you call, the message tells you that due to high call volume, you can’t talk to anyone. Then it hangs up on you. If, by some lucky chance, it doesn’t hang up on you, then you go through all of the button pressing and options until it offers to transfer you to a human being. And THEN it tells you that due to high call volume nobody can talk to you – and it hangs up on you.

If you call on a Saturday, you can get through. But, what’s funny is that the people who answer the phones on Saturday don’t have access to the computer system so they can’t actually help you.

Ultimately, I received a letter rejecting my claim and offering me an appeal. I filled it out immediately and sent it in. It was received weeks later, on April 20. I was promised a hearing, but I heard absolutely nothing from EDD for a long, long time.

In the meantime, I was instructed to continue filling out the forms and sending them in every other week, reporting whether or not I was able to work, whether I looked for work, and whether I had worked. In Wisconsin, these forms are filled out online. In California, we use snail mail. I filled out the first four week’s worth of forms and sent them in. One of the weeks was the last week that I worked, March 1-7, so I can’t expect any money for that week. I should get $450/wk for the other 3 weeks.

Then I got the next 2 weeks worth of forms – and I lost it. Oops. I thought that it was just $900 down the drain and that the state would send a form for the next two week period when the time came. No forms came, however. Finally, in late May, I sent EDD an email asking where the forms were, and could they please send them to me.

Again, I got a snail mail letter promising me a phone call on a given time and date. This time I was home for it. The person asked me why I didn’t fill out the form that I lost, and I told him I lost it. He asked why I took so long to contact EDD and I said that I thought they would automatically send more forms every 2 weeks, and I didn’t get in touch until I realize the forms weren’t coming.

A few days later I got a letter. They began sending me the forms again, starting with the date of my email. I couldn’t get any forms for the weeks before that, nor could I get any unemployment money for those weeks. If I wanted to, I could appeal. Are you kidding? I was already waiting on appeal #1! How many times do I have to go through the same miserably slow process? So I didn’t appeal.

Around this time, I found a short term temporary job. It paid $500/week – a mere $50/week more than unemployment would pay – but because I had no guarantee that I would win my appeal and my Visa bills were adding up, I took the job. That’s part of my complaint with our slow system. After you win a hearing, you may get back pay but the state won’t do anything to help you with whatever credit card interest you may have accrued during the time you were without unemployment.

So, two more forms (each for two weeks) arrived in the mail. I filled both out. I should get $900 for two of the weeks. During the other two weeks, I was working. I noted that it was a short term job and requested that they continue sending the forms. EDD did not continue sending the forms.

On July 22 I had my appeal – nearly 5 months after I lost my job and applied for unemployment, and 3 months after my appeal was officially received. I won. The judge agreed that my boss was an evil bitch who fired me for no good reason, although he didn’t quite use those words. He promised me a decision in the mail within two weeks, which now takes us into August before I begin receiving money that has been owed me since March.

Today, I got an email from EDD in response to my request that they continue sending me forms. My short term job has ended as of a week or two ago, and I would like to continue receiving unemployment. I’m broker than broke and I’ve got a $2000 Visa bill. I can’t afford my car insurance so I’m uninsured right now. Forget health insurance. I’m paying for some of my prescription drugs out of pocket, I’m just not taking some, and I got some for free from Planned Parenthood. I don’t really know how I’m paying the next month’s rent or car payments. This is all very scary.

The email from EDD said that my claim was closed because I had taken the short term job. If I wanted to re-open it, I must fill out an online form. They provided a link to the form, which I clicked. I answered a few questions and clicked Continue. The next screen told me I couldn’t fill out the form online – I had to call EDD. And, of course, you can’t call. Well, you can, but not if you want to talk to a human.