The first weekend after I lost my job I didn’t want to deal with any of the mess I had to deal with. It was Halloween (my favorite holiday) so I tried to have fun anyway. So Monday morning hit and I wanted to get right on to all the paperwork that needed to be filed. It was so weird going into my old office. I felt like I had to be “fake nice” with all my former co-workers but truthfully I just looked around at them hating them. I wondered what they were thinking “will I be next?” Of course every Monday morning there is a meeting to discuss the business and where it’s going. My boss mentioned that a group had been laid off and of course everyone freaked. They asked if they should prepare their resumes and, of course, he said no. My advice to anyone that is currently working in a company that just did lay offs. DON’T BE STUPID! See the writing on the wall and get your resume together and portfolio prepared. I was reassured many times my job was safe and low and behold I was blindsided and laid off without warning.
Anyway, back to the paperwork, so really it was a fairly simple form. I really didn’t realize that it would be so simple just to file for unemployment. A couple simple steps and I was officially a government case. I found it really awesome that so much could be done online. No office visits or phone calls. Theoretically I wonder if you could make someone up and just start claiming unemployment.
So when I lost my job my boss said that he thought that my unemployment would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 90% of my salary. HA big mistake, try 70%. Now you may be saying that is a lot but when you really break it down that is not much at all. I started factoring in all my expenses, $600 for rent and $825 for school loans are my significant costs every month. That doesn’t count electric, car costs, or groceries. So my $1288 per month for sure wouldn’t cover that. I had to do the unthinkable and ask my parents for a loan for my loan! Thankfully they have a lot of savings and are able to help me out for the moment. I was thinking to myself as I was crunching these numbers what would anyone do if they didn’t have someone to bail them out!? I don’t have a family, house or anything (I mean besides one cat) but if I did really I don’t know how I would get through this. I know thousands of people all over the country are doing this but wow it would be so hard.
One thing that my boss omitted from me when I lost my job is that he canceled my insurance the DAY after I lost my job. I had a dentist appointment scheduled for that week actually and thank god I didn’t go. Yet another reason my former boss really sucked. If you are going to blind side someone by laying them off without severance or an additional paycheck why cut off their health care right away as well! I didn’t have the time or resources to get something else set up. Another dick move but thank god I don’t have a lot of health problems. I had worked for him three months without any kind of health coverage so it would stand to reason that the health coverage would continue three months after you left that job. I am not sure of the legality issues here but seems a bit sneaky. I checked into what other options were for health care and it was horrible! $300 a month for the shittest service ever. I actually just heard that there is a lot of government aid available directly through hospitals. You can check into financial counseling at your nearest hospital and see if they can help you out. One of my friends mentioned having some huge back surgery and being in the hospital for 4 weeks. His bill was $800,000 and he didn’t pay a penny! The hospital took care of it. Look into it!
Setting up unemployment seemed to be the simple step, I didn’t realize that really there was a lot that wasn’t mentioned in the beginning that I had to learn the hard way.
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