623,000 file for first-time benefits this week. This is better than last week, but worse than predicted.
Feb
12
Now, more than 25% of those who apply for unemployment benefits are being challenged by their employers. If you’re fired due to misbehavior or you quit, you’re technically ineligible to receive unemployment benefits. Employers are fighting back in an attempt to retain the lowest unemployment insurance rates possible, because their rates are affected by the number of former employees who claim unemployment.
Determining eligibility can be a long enough process as it is. With these employers now attempting to deny these claims more often, which is their right, the process becomes even more grueling for the formerly employed.
What resources do the recently unemployed have to fight back versus a company with an HR department looking to save even more money after completely eliminating a position. The appeal process takes time, and with more and more employers fighting benefit claims the process becomes even longer.
How many employers are hunting for reasons to terminate employees rather than laying them off just to save money on their unemployment insurance rates? How many of these recently unemployed understand the process and have the resources to fight back?
Feb
11
I asked people to tell me about the interesting times when they were fired. Here is the verbatim email with full, sender anonymity, followed by my take on it along with whoever else has an opinion.
“Lol dude… I have had jobs where I got fired, rehired, then quit all in the same day.”
- Joe Willy Neckbone
Depending on how many Burger King and Taco Bell franchises are in your town, I’m sure you can find something else. Besides, who wants the burden of collecting an unemployment check?
You’re a quitter!
Feb
11
This is the very first response to my request for “Why I Got Fired” stories, verbatim…
“once i shit in my pants at work and got fired for it due to the fact that it was running down my pantyhose as i walked the miracle mile to the ladies room.”
I believe her. I think I believe her. I’m not sure why anyone would make this up. She is probably one of those women that wears way too much perfume to work so that her scent permeates the office and works its way around your cubicle walls and burns your nostrils. She crapped in her pantyhose, and then got fired. That’s an amazing day.
You’re fired!
Feb
11
I asked people to tell me about the interesting times when they were fired. Here is the verbatim email with full, sender anonymity, followed by my take on it along with whoever else has an opinion.
“First, that’s totally miscategorized in “Free” … but I’ll share my story. My first “real” job I was on a crew in a remote tourist trap (restaurant, lodging, general store, gas station) where staff was housed on-site in very small rooms, with too-thin walls.
A few months into this job I made a love connection with a girl who was on the road with her girlfriend. She was VERY vocal and enthusiastic in the bedroom, apparently keeping the rest of the crew from sleeping so much that their work stated to suffer. Two weeks into this I was fired for an “Unauthorized Guest”
Best job loss ever.”
The girl was “on the road with her girlfriend” and yet this went on for two weeks? What does that even mean? If any of this really happened, you’d be warned first by your superior – forcing you and this VERY vocal girl to hook up in your car, rickshaw, tent, wheelbarrow, or whatever it is that people like you have.
If what you’re saying is true, then you need to work on telling your true stories in ways that don’t make you sound like a truth fabricator.
You’re fired Chuck Woolery! And you’re a liar!
Feb
11
The world hated my father’s rat-tail. I hated it. My mother hated it. Even Tom Adams, the mailman, he hated it. I used to say, “Cut that damn thing off” and “You look like a fag” and “I hate your stupid rat-tail!” My mother said things like, “Your hair embarrasses your son!”
I guess the rat-tail is considered a hairstyle. Only an adolescent boy could pull off, but only because you can’t blame a kid for the way his hair looks, you blame the parents. I mean, the rattail is like a wheel chair, a birthmark that covers half of somebody’s face, or one of those metal hooks where a person’s hand should be. You see somebody with a rattail and you feel sorry them and their family.
People looked at my father like he should have been floating in formaldehyde. They looked at me like I was the son of a disfigured man. They looked at me like they thought I never got gifts on Christmas. They looked at me and I knew what they were thinking. “Jesus Christ, the world has it out for that poor fucking kid.” That’s how my father’s rattail made me feel.
I remember the first day I saw it. He met me and my mother at the soccer field. It curled out of the back of his head. It sprouted overnight like a mushroom. The rat-tail was stubby and in it’s early stages, but there was certainly a Christmas ribbon-like curl to it already. Just by looking at it, and my father’s eyes, I could tell the rat-tail was going to grow and grow. The rat-tail was my new baby brother; a part of the family; something I’d be sharing my life with. I figured it’d end up wearing my hand-me-downs, probably get a spot on my soccer team, maybe even go out for my position and probably take it.
My father’s on-the-side girlfriend gave him that rat-tail. She trimmed the length in the back; left a spot in the middle, some strands, shaved the sides up, got the top, and left him with the rat-tail. They decided on it together, I was sure of that.
My father’s haircut was worse than Shawn Buckler’s, who was bald except for a small tuft of buzzed hair his mom always left untouched, just above his forehead. It was worse than Jay Harris’ hair. He had the Batman symbol etched into the back of his head, which was bad to begin with, but it looked more like the mouth of a jack-o-lantern. I wouldn’t have known it was Batman if Jason Harris hadn’t told me.
During my soccer games I yelled and took my rat-tailed anger out on other players, especially Frankie Jagers. He picked his nose in the backfield. “Frankie quit picking your nose!” I’d yell at him all game long. Frankie would creep up his face with his finger. “Kick the ball!” “Stop picking your nose!” “Don’t turn your back on the ball!” “Run!” “Get your finger out of there!” But none of that was as bad as watching that rat-tail bob around on the sideline.
My father started saying things like, “You don’t like it? Good.” and, “Next haircut is going to be even better.” and, “I am just doing it to piss your mother off.”
My parents stayed married until my father had zigzags shaved into the sides of his head, near his temples; his on-the-side girlfriend’s attempt at lightning bolts. The rat-tail grew. It lolled along the back of my father’s neck and underneath my skin.
