The Spanish Prisoner

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I just started a new job. I am working in a processing center. In my younger days, this type of place was called a “warehouse”, but in these days of verbal inflation one has to use the prevailing terminology. I basically work as a shipper. It’s easy work, but surprisingly tiring.

Today I went to a company orientation. This is required of all new hires. There were about six of us in a conference room. A woman from the Human Resources department had each one of us introduce himself or herself to the group. We each had tell about something interesting we had done during the summer. I said that all I had done all summer was look for a job.

The woman then showed us a video of the company CEO. He told us that we were not employees, but “team members”. He also said that we didn’t have managers, but a “leadership team”. He then talked about how much he liked to fish. He said that fishing made him realize that we need to conserve our rivers. He then showed pictures of his family, including his photogenic daughters, which was nice.

The HR woman then divided us into groups. Each group had to take some objects, such as string, paper, etc., and construct something that would float on water. The purpose of this exercise was to teach us about teamwork. I remember that when I was at Coca-Cola, the company would periodically make us do these sorts of teamwork exercises. We would be divided into groups, which would then have to construct things or carry out certain tasks. A lot of companies seem to be doing these sorts of things nowadays. It’s not clear to me why they do this. I can only guess that it’s deprogramming for people who read Ayn Rand novels. (One can imagine how Harry Roark would react to one of these exercises. He would break out the dynamite.) I’m proud to say that the little raft my team made floated. Of course, it would have been hard for it not to, considering the materials we were using.

The HR woman then showed us a video about safety. The advice it gave was pretty sensible (lift with your legs, never twist your body, hold things close to your body when carrying them, etc.). We each then had to sign a document saying that we had watched and understood the video. The HR woman then went over an informational booklet about the company. I did the best I could to stay awake.

Afterwards a woman who attended the orientation with me drove me back to the warehouse – er, I mean processing center. She had recently graduated from college with a degree in geology. She was a single mother with two children. Like me, she had spent months looking for a job. She told me that she must have sent out over a hundred resumes. She took a job at the, uh, processing center because she was desperate. She didn’t seem to care much for her job, pulling product from the shelves. She called it “robot work”. I tried to console her by telling her that the company treats its employees – er, team members – better than other places I’ve worked for. Indeed, some of the places I’ve been at treated people very badly. This didn’t seem to make her feel any better. And when I thought about it, I realized there is now reason why it should.

I started a new job this week. I figured I’d collect my last unemployment check and be done with the Oregon Employment Department. Little did I dream that the OED would find one more way to fart in my face.

I usually file my claim on Sunday, and it goes into my checking account on Wednesday. If there’s a holiday that week, it goes in on Thursday. I checked my account this past Wednesday, and the money hadn’t gone in. Since Monday was Columbus Day, I figured that must be why it didn’t go in. When I checked on Thursday, however, it still hadn’t gone in. I didn’t have time to call the OED that day, so I called them this Friday morning. I was put on hold for twenty minutes, during which time I listened to the same recorded messages over and over again. (One of them said something about this being a period of high unemployment, as if I didn’t know. It’s gotten so my brain automatically tunes out when I hear these things.) Finally, a man answered. After confirming my identity, he asked me how he could help me.

“I want to know, where’s my check?” I said.

After a moment, he said, “Your check will be mailed out today. You should get it on Monday.”

“Wait a minute, why are you mailing it out? I’m supposed to get direct deposit.”

“It didn’t transfer.”

“Uh, what do you mean, it didn’t transfer?”

“It didn’t transfer. Your next check will be direct deposit.”

I had a feeling it would be futile to pursue this topic.

“I filed my claim last Sunday. Why has this taken so long?”

“There was a hold on your claim. It was lifted yesterday.”

“Why was there a hold on my claim?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have any idea why they would put a hold on my claim?”

“I can’t say.”

“I talked to a woman last week. She said she had set everything up for me.”

“She did. It shows it right here. You talked to her on October 6th.”

“So, why was there a hold put on my claim?”

“I can’t say.”

“Who put the hold on it?”

“I don’t know.”

At that point I ended the conversation. I can tell when I’m pounding my head against a wall.

I was really depending on getting that check this week, since the OED, in their infinite wisdom, only paid me $16 last week. I won’t get the first paycheck for my job until the 21st, so, once again, I will have to ask my relatives for money.

I spent the last six months unemployed. It was a hellish experience. Anyone who thinks people like living on unemployment is an idiot. There are people in this country who have been unemployed for over two years. How these people keep their sanity, I don’t know.

My unemployment check this week was $16. That’s right, $16. I thought surely this must be a mistake. So I called the Oregon Employment Department. I spent twenty minutes on hold, listening to the same recorded messages over and over again, mostly telling me how to notify the Department of a change in address. When I finally got through to somebody, I told her what had happened.

“The sixteen dollars was what was left in the balance on your claim,” she explained. “I’ve set up your new claim. You’ll start receiving the checks next week.”

“Can’t I start receiving the checks this week?”

“No, because the balance on your old claim has to go to zero before your new claim can begin.”

“Do you really expect me to be able to live on sixteen dollars?”

Silence.

After a moment, she cheerily informed me that with my new claim I will be getting an extra $10 a week. I didn’t bother asking her why. I have given up on trying to understand the arcane and Byzantine rules that govern unemployment insurance in Oregon (although I consider myself an expert on how to notify the OED of a change in address). Last summer my unemployment insurance was taken away from me and then restored without any real explanation as to why.

In a situation like this, it’s tempting to vent one’s anger on the other person on the phone (and I must guiltily confess to having done this in the past). However this woman that I talked to was probably getting paid a shit wage. (What’s more, Oregon requires state employees to take unpaid furlough days.) This woman probably spends a good chunk of each day listening to people who are angry, frustrated or just depressed. The people on whom I should take out my anger are all inaccessible to me.

That’s capitalism.

The Oregon Employment Department offers this service called iMatchSkills. It’s supposed match a database of your job skills to job openings. Sounds great in theory, but in reality I have found it disappointing. It keeps matching me with commissioned sales jobs. I have never done commissioned sales work. (I have done retail work, but that is different.) When you look at the job description on the web page, you’re given a choice between an “interested” button and a “not interested” button. This is accompanied by an ominous warning that you can lose your unemployment benefits if the OED doesn’t feel that you’re making a serious effort to find a job. I always take this as meaning I should click on the “interested” button. As a result, I have had to waste time applying for jobs I knew I wasn’t going to get.

Case in point, I applied for a job with a cruise line. The job title was “Vacation Planner”, but it was basically a commissioned sales job. After filling out the online application, I received an e-mail saying that I was required to come to one of the company’s open houses. Their office building is located in an office park out in the middle of nowhere, so I had to drive out there, using up gasoline. There were about twenty other people there for the open house. In the company’s lobby, they had huge models of two of the company’s cruise ships. I thought that was kind of neat. After a while a woman came out and told us to follow her. We went past this huge display showing the history of the company and the different cruise ships they have. Since you can’t see this from lobby, I’m not sure whose benefit this is for. Maybe it’s supposed to inspire the employees. We then walked into this enormous room with a high ceiling. There were rows of work stations with vacation planners working at them. These people don’t even get their own cubicles, they sit side by side with one another. The woman led us all the way to the back, where there was a small meeting room.

A man and a woman came out and introduced themselves. They were from the human resources department in Miami. The man spoke briefly about the job and what was involved. Then the woman got up and told us about the benefits. After one year, you get to go on a free cruise, along with one guest. Discounts are available for yourself and for your relatives. There is medical and dental insurance, a 401K plan and a pension plan. You can buy stocks in the company at discounted prices. She told us that there is a recreation area on the second floor, as well as a cafe that serves gourmet food.

After that we were divided up into groups of about five or six people each. The group I was in was led to a small conference room, where we sat around a table. While we were there, a middle-aged woman and a much younger man started talking. It turned out they had both worked at a call center for a rent-a-car company. I was interested in this because I had applied for a job at this very call center. After a lengthy phone interview I was turned down. The woman said that this company often overbooked (which is often the case with these rental companies). As a result, they were always getting calls from angry people. Hearing this made me feel glad I didn’t get the job at that place.

The man from Miami came in. He told us this was a preliminary interview; those who did well would be asked to stay for more in-depth interviews. He told us he would ask us questions, and we would each answer the same question in turn. Most of his questions had to do with our work experiences. I could see that these questions had no relevance to any of my experience. When it came my turn to answer, I told him about some things that happened to me at my retail job, and I tried – unsuccessfully – to try to make it sound that they were relevant to his question. I noticed that there were two guys among us who had over twenty years of sales experience.

The man then got up and left the room. After several minutes he came back and asked the two guys with twenty plus years of experience to come with him. (Why did this not surprise me?) A woman then informed the rest of us that we could leave. She thanked us for our time. She led us out the way we cam in. It was a strange feeling walking past those same people we had passed on the way in. I wondered if they saw us as the reject line.

A couple of things about this experience puzzle me. Why did the woman from the human resources department go into such detail about their benefits, when they knew they were only going to hire a few of us?
And why didn’t they just look at our applications and pick out the guys who had twenty plus years of sales experience? What was the point of making the rest of us waste our time like that?

I hate being unemployed.