Tales of Strude

Gen-Xer ... Social Distancing Before It Was Cool

Unemployment

Four Weeks Unemployed

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So, what do you write about when every freaking day is the same … besides bitching about how every freaking day is the same?

Too late.

So, The Wife and I are now in our fourth week of unemployment. We still have not received any unemployment money from the government. What savings was left, after getting into possibly the most ill-timed house purchase in the history of anything, is disappearing. I am constantly trying to do the math of how long I can continue to pay child support or, you know, buy food.

Now, granted, we have received such generous assistance that doomsday is further away than it would have been. Still, every day is the worst math story problem ever.

We have already turned off all of our non-essential expenses. Do you know how fun being quarantined is without things like Netflix, Spotify, or XBOX Live? We have called the folks holding our car loans, student loans, personal loans, etc. and have arranged for anywhere from two to three months of forbearance.

Our mortgage is another shit show entirely. Since we just purchased the house, our mortgage has not finished its journey to the folks who will be handling it, so we can’t even ask for a forbearance yet. Well, we can ask, and we did ask, and were told no. Meaning in just a couple of days, another chunk of change goes out the door without anything coming in.

It could be worse. I mean, I do have a house for which I can bitch about having to pay the mortgage despite Orange-45 saying I will be fine. Some might not even have that. Right? I mean, we have all heard stories of worse. I am grateful I am not one of those stories.

Still, one should not be able to easily count the hours it has been since one last cried. I have more fingers on one hand than those hours.

S.N.A.F.U.

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Brace yourself. The statement I am about to make is bold, original, and earth-shattering. Are you ready? Are you really ready? Okay, sit down, hold on to your socks and pull.

The government is a confusing cluster-hug in the best of times. Right now, with the country being led by an incompetent narcissist spewing out contradictions and outright lies, with millions of Americans filing for unemployment, hundreds of thousands getting COVID-19, and thousands already dead, it is just more clear than normal that the situation is normal: it is all f’ed up.

Original, right? Rich and compelling.

The Wife and I filed for unemployment on Monday. Yesterday, we both received a notice from DC’s Department of Employment Services. Both notices were identical, telling us that there was nothing in our applications that disqualified us (a weird way to word it in the first place) and the amounts we qualified for are zero dollars. WTF!

The reason we were approved for zero dollars? They can’t verify our income from our quasi federal employer, which is another confusing aspect of this.

When we were hired, it was made very clear to us that we were NOT federal employees. Absolutely not. When the federal government shuts down, we keep going because we are not federal employees. However, when it comes time to apply for unemployment, then we are suddenly federal employees and have to file as such. Again, WTF!

Because of this, our sometimes federal employer is not required to file wage disclosures to the DC government. This means when the over 1,000 of us who were laid-off or furloughed filed for unemployment, we were all told we would be getting zero dollars because our wages are not on file. This did not come with an explanation or instructions on what to do to resolve this. Just a “congrats, you get nothing” letter in the mail.

Well, our HR must have received a crap-ton of emails, including from us, because they just sent out an email explaining why we are all getting told we are getting nothing, and that we just have to wait longer. You know, information that would have been good to know days ago, rather than after we all freaked out.

It’s just S.N.A.F.U.

Day One

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Yesterday was the first official day of our unemployment. The end of our last pay period was last Sunday, so Monday was the first day we will not be getting paid for.

Monday was also the first day we were allowed to apply for unemployment, which we did. Guess I shouldn’t be shocked that a government-run website is a piece of crap. First The Wife filed, then I did, and our experiences were very different.

There were way too many instances of, “What did you put for this question?”

“I didn’t get that question.”

Then, early this morning, we both got emails saying they would be mailing us their decision through the mail. You couldn’t throw it in the email you just sent? What year is this again?

So, we’ll see how this goes.

A Gentleman of Leisure

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The state of Maryland has been under an official stay at home order from the governor for 5 days now. N and W’s school classes have all been online this week. There are fresh plexiglass barriers separating me from the cashier at my favorite essential business: the liquor store. And the number of people in the grocery store this past week, scavenging empty shelves, who are wearing some sort of mask or scarf over their faces, has grown expotentially.

Now, my family had already been living the new normal before the governor’s order. We had already been following Maryland’s and DC’s guidelines for two weeks: working from home, social distancing, only going out in public for necessities. Schools and dance classes had already been canceled for the 14 days it was going to take for the country to get over this.

Ah, those were the days.

Today, however, everything feels real for the first time. It feels like we are just starting this … whatever you want to call it: shelter in place, mandatory stay-at-home, quarantine. And, of course, the only thing that has changed is The Wife and I are now unemployed.

As such, for the first time during all of this, we really have nothing to look forward to. We are just here. Part of me, the Gen-X-introverted-I-hate-everyone part of me is kind of excited. I mean, I get to do what I would rather do each day anyway: sleep in, watch movies, draw, write a little, play video games, play board games, avoid people, etc.

And now it all comes with the perfect excuse for day drinking 😉 .

Yes, I am worried about my job and my future prospects of being able to bring home the bacon. Yes, I was hit with a surprising wave of emotion as I placed my Funko Pops and PEZ holders in a box in the basement because I couldn’t leave them on my desk at work and have nowhere to put them.

But part of me is excited. So let’s focus on that for the moment.

I am now, and shall for the duration of COVID-19 be referred to as, A Gentleman of Leisure.

Furlough

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In a cold and grey Washington place, another IT man was placed … on furlough.

In the style of The King.

Today was the final day of The Wife’s and my employment. We are now furloughed. What’s the difference between being furloughed and being laid off, you ask? Well, let me tell you, Sonny Jim. A furlough is a mandatory leave without pay. We do get to keep health insurance, so that is one plus. And, should our employer return to full strength and vigor, we get our same jobs back … well, not exactly. Same titles, less money. Win-win.

So, thanks COVID-19. Honestly, I don’t know whether the COVID of COVID-19 is supposed to be capitalized or not. I see it printed differently depending on which news outlet I am looking at. And, man, if we don’t even know how to type the damn thing, how are we going to fight it?

I think our employer–we both work for the same place–only put us all on furlough because they honestly don’t know what they are going to do to not only get through this but survive into the future. However, since they didn’t have time to figure it out, they placed 60% of full-time staff on furlough to buy time to figure out who will end up getting laid off and who will come back. In the end, I think a lot of us now on furlough will end up being laid off eventually.

This begins my renewed effort to blog and record this weird time for literally tens of people who will get lost on the information superhighway and find themselves reading Tales of Strude: a quaran-journal. A completely original idea.