bureaucracy

[redbird]

The Unemployment Insurance people are getting weird again. Back when I was working part-time for the legal publisher, they wanted to know why I'd had a week when I didn't claim benefits, followed by one when I did. There's a form to fill out, after which they bother the employer in question to confirm what you tell them.

This time, they're asking why I had a week in which I didn't earn any money, after one in which I earned some but still claimed benefits. Never mind that (a) if I'd been working five days a week, I wouldn't have claimed anything in the first week, even if I'd made $3/day; and (b) the week they're questioning included a national holiday, on a Thursday so many people treated it as a four-day weekend.

I don't mind the five minutes and a stamp it's costing me: I mind that they're going to bother the person I'm working for. You'd think they don't want me working less than full-time.

Comments

Being unemployed is a full-time job ...

[brisingamen.livejournal.com]

And I thought that unemployment bureaucracy was a uniquely British phenomenon. It's been years since I had to sign on but I was struck even then by the layers of bureaucracy, the endless to-ing and fro-ing from office to office, and always in difficult-to-find, out-of-the-way places, the rapid institutionalising of the unwilling participants ... and the general lack of common sense being applied to the situation. I still occasionally have nightmares about the week when they sent my cheque to the wrong place because they didn't read the form properly, and the month it took me to get hold of it.

M.

Re: Being unemployed is a full-time job ...

[redbird]

It's not that bad: the same day's mail that contained that letter, contained the check for the week it was asking about.