Cushion of Free Money

My wife and I were talking last week about how I can make some sort of money while searching for a job. I'm now hesitant to search for temporary employment for two reasons: 1) Even though I feel like it will be a long time until I'm permanently employed, I'm afraid of starting up work somewhere and immediately having to quit 2) I'm also afraid because of what happened with GE in October; they wanted to fly me to their location for an interview, but I had another interview that day and asked to reschedule, and they then told me they weren't interested. If I have a job, this sort of thing could happen again, and it's scary.

Anyway, another solution we came up with was unemployment money from the government. I was hesitant because, like many others, I didn't want to be taking money from hard-working people to feed myself while I did nothing. I looked into it and it isn't exactly like that. It doesn't pay a lot, there's a time limit, you have to verify every week that you are jobless, they force you into this job-finding program, and so on.

I tried to register for unemployment benefits Thursday, but the website was telling me I needed to call. The lady I talked to said that I wasn't in her system, as if I had not had a job in the past 15 months. If I wanted to correct this, she told me, I'd have to come down to the office.

I just got back from the office. I guess I was only there for two hours, but it sure seemed to take longer than that, most likely because of how uncomfortable I was there. There was that nagging feeling about the kinds of people who are on unemployment, that I was surrounded by them and that I was soon to be one. I waited in the one, slow line, was told to fill out different forms, filled out the forms, got back in line.

I was denied benefits because I was a student. They don't give benefits to people who were students, I guess. I'm not sure whether the lady understood that I went to classes AND worked full-time, or if she just heard the word "student" and wanted me gone. I should've called myself a "graduate researcher" or something.

It was sad. I had high hopes that that money would see me through to finding a job. As it is, I have high hopes for tomorrow; February 3rds have always been interesting days for me on which many strange and great things have happened.