That’s right. Sixty five days of unemployment. Tons of fun. I suppose I will start off with the latest in the unemployment saga just because it’s probably the most exciting part of my life as of late. As of Monday of last week, we still had not received any word from Medicaid or unemployment. I was particularly frustrated with Medicaid because we are getting ever so close to Crystal’s due date and I really was not looking forward to receiving a ten thousand dollar bill for our hospital stay. With that in mind, I had been calling daily requesting the status of our application with absolutely no response. Sometimes the operators would generously pull up our case number and let me know that our status was still pending, but when I explained to her not only is our baby due any time, but that we had applied nearly sixty days ago after being told to expect a maximum of forty days processing time, I was simply passed on to a voicemail. Honestly, I must have left messages to four or five different people over the course of two days. By Monday I felt like I was suffering from déjà vu as I left another assortment of messages to an assortment of various departments. Each message I left presented the urgency of a decision based on the fact that my wife is on the verge of giving birth. Sadly, nobody seemed to care.With the unemployment office, I was faced with a completely different challenge; complete disregard for my situation. My frustration with them stemmed from several different issues. First, their phone system. When one calls the line for assistance with an existing claim, there is a good possibility that you will be greeted with a message that states that all representatives are currently busy. That seems typical enough. However, the greeting also tells you that because nobody is available, you will have to call back another time! That right – no “please hold for the next available representative”. Just a short message telling you to call back later. Wonderful. Second issue: When you actually do call and there is somebody who is available, one should still expect a minimum of a sixty minute wait on hold. That’s just for tier one assistance! Issue number two and a half: The hold music is horrendous and is only a thirty second snippet of music that loops over and over. Issue number three: None of the “support staff” knows anything about my file and each time I call I receive a different answer. It’s as if they are making it up as they go along! For instance, one call I made garnered the response, “I will send an email to the appropriate department and have them call you back in the new few days… There is no reason there shouldn’t be a decision on your file by now.” A second call made two days later resulted in, “No, four to six weeks isn’t an accurate figure. The redetermination department really doesn’t have any set turn time on files. You’ll just have to wait longer.” Can you believe that?
At this point I was about to just give up. I was out of ideas and had nobody else to call. Fortunately, my dad decided to suggest that I write my congressman. At first I thought, “Who does that anymore?”, but figured I had nothing to lose so I might as well give it a shot. So last week I wrote a nice lengthy letter to Congressman Doug Lamborn as well as to Colorado Senator Mark Udall explaining my situation from beginning to end. From being shafted by my former employer to my current status, I explained it all and sent it off via email not expecting a thing in return. Surprisingly, the next morning I received a call from a member of Doug Lamborn’s office who was going to try and help me resolve my Medicaid issue. She said she had a few numbers for people in that office and would see what she could do. I reiterated my situation to her and she made sure she understood all the facts and then told me she would call me back with any details she might discover. No more than an hour later I received a call from one of the people with Medicaid that I had left a message for more than a week before, profusely apologizing for the delay. She also told me that the entire family had been approved for coverage and that as soon as our ID numbers (needed to claim benefits with a doctor) were generated she would call us back and provide them to us. Wow. Someone must have been reprimanded. Crystal and I were ecstatic to finally have a response. When the Congressman’s office called back to follow up all I could do was thank her for whatever she did to get something moving.
The unemployment situation came to close to the same result. Later that afternoon (still less than twenty-four hours from the time I emailed the Senator’s office) I received a call from one of the Senator’s representatives, who wanted to know my social security number so they could pull my file from the unemployment office. I provided that to her and she said I would hear something soon. About an hour later I received an email that essentially said, “Someone will be calling you on this. If they don’t, let me know and they WILL.” Wow. I was loving this.
Another hour or so passed and I received a call from one of the directors of the redetermination office. He was extremely apologetic and said that basically, due to “gross incompetence” on the part of the unemployment office, all of the paperwork I had submitted six weeks prior for the redetermination of my unemployment status had been completely and totally lost (W2′s, a year and a half of pay check copies, a lengthy and detailed letter of explanation of my former employer’s shenanigans, etc.). Fortunately I made copies of everything I had sent them for my own records and offered to fax them directly to him. He was glad that I was so particular in keeping records and said he would personally attend to receiving my file and ensuring that it was placed in the appropriate hands. With that, I had to find a fax machine. The first place I thought of was the church, as it was the closest to home and least likely to charge me a per page fee. I gave Jim, the minister a buzz and fortunately found that he was at the building. He said it would be no problem to use the fax and to come on over. The fax machine at the church was a little archaic; it languidly processed each page of the forty four page fax I had to send. Including a couple of paper jams, it took about two hours to get it through. But, Jim was nice enough to hang out with me and chit chat about anything and everything – something that I surely have needed lately, especially with the disquietude of life I have been experiencing.
Several hours later I received a second phone call from the unemployment office who let me know that he had received the fax and would be personally sending the file to the person responsible for reviewing my initial file from six weeks earlier. Approximately one hour later I received another call, this time from Thurman, the man who would be (and apparently was previously) working on my redetermination. He asked me several questions pertinent to my employment status and then gave me the opportunity to ask him any questions I had. Obviously, I made it clear that I was curious as to the expected turnaround time for any benefits to begin. He told me I would be looking at approximately four or five more weeks before anything changes!
I tried to explain that his response was unacceptable – I have gone two months without any benefits! He explained that because the documents had just hit his desk, he would have to start the process of redetermining my status over. The next thing they would have to do, now that they have been able to review my W2′s, pay stub copies, and other submitted documentation, is to send a letter to my former employer to see if they would respond. Thurman also mentioned that neither of the two companies I worked for were listed with the State (furthering my belief that my former employees were certainly cheating the system) so they would have to enter them manually before sending out the letter to them. This step alone would take approximately two weeks. I explained to Thurman the situation I was dealing with regarding my former employers – most specifically the fact that I had requested a case be opened against them with the State of Colorado Department of Revenue as well as with the IRS and Social Security Administration. He didn’t seem to think that made a difference in the matter. I persuaded him to provide me with his direct line and left the conversation at that. I decided I would take advantage of the correspondence I had with the Senator’s office to see if I could get anything else taken care of. So I quickly put together a note explaining the lack of interest in expediting my file at the unemployment office and sent it off.
The next morning I received a quick note from my “helper” at the Senator’s office. It said in part, “Ok—help is on the way—your case has been given a priority and we have two really good top folks working it.” That was five days ago. I decided to see what the unemployment office would do to make things happen before I started getting whiny again.
This afternoon I received an email from the Senator’s office. It said, “Just got word that it looks like your UI will be released today in the amount of $3,409.00. UI will verify that the release has actually occurred tomorrow morning. Effective Sunday you can apply for the past 2 weeks. Let me know when the money is received.”
Wow. How awesome. I wasn’t really expecting to get back benefits right away. I was more concerned about getting the ball rolling on current benefits, but this is amazing! I haven’t officially received anything yet, but seeing that I’ve had such tremendous success with the Senator’s office so far, I can’t imagine that the unemployment office is going to mess around with me at this point! Hooray!
The moral of the story? You’re never too old to listen to words of wisdom from your father. Seriously.
When I’m not trying to figure out my unemployment status or medicaid information, I have decided to do a little to get myself in better shape. I have taken up jogging. Just a little bit really. I actually started with the Couch To 5k Program, as a means to get myself going, but have modified it a bit to better suit my physical condition. At first I thought I would have to follow the plan exactly as it is presented, especially after completing day one. For those who didn’t check out the site, it consists of a five minute walk, a two minute run, and another five minute walk. Unfortunately for my self-esteem, Crystal and the boys were with me when I decided to complete the day one run. After the two minute run I was a complete wreck! My legs ached, my lungs were wheezing and tight… My entire body just felt miserable. My poor wife and boys had to see first hand how out of shape their husband/dad was. Ouch. However, I have stuck with it and have made great strides in my ability to jog. I have been going out every other evening after the boys go to bed and have progressed over the last four weeks to the point where I can continually jog for approximately one mile. I have kept myself at this point for an extended time because I want to improve the time it take me to do it before moving on to longer distances. As of yesterday, I was able to jog an eleven minute mile – not bad for a guy who has never done any physical exertion in my entire thirty-two years of life. Maybe there is hope for me after all! If nothing else, my lungs have felt spectacular and better than they have in as long as I can remember. I have dealt with exercise induced bronchial spasms for quite some time but the more I am out doing some jogging, the more I wonder if it was simply associated with being out of shape. I’m thinking so because most traces of the tightness and discomfort I formerly dealt with have gone away. We’ll see if I can stick with it. I certainly hope so.
With that, I should call it a day. I’m sure there is plenty more to discuss, although none of it is worth writing about at length. Although knowing how easy it is for me to write and write about the most meaningless of topics, perhaps I could get wordy on other topics… But I won’t.
I do have to mention that my wife has some awesome friends and our church is pretty awesome too. Crystal had an awesome baby shower on Saturday and the guests who attended (most of which were from our church) were exceptionally generous to us which in turn will make life a whole lot easier as we deal with unemployment as well as the last sixty days of income-less life. We’ve also received some very generous offerings from other people who really didn’t have to and even some help from a couple we have never even met. It’s been amazing and I am truly thankful to God for putting my life in perspective. Perhaps this is just something that I needed to have happen to me. It has made me appreciate things in a different perspective, that’s for sure. I think it’s just another step in my spiritual growth, which is an awesome thing.
