2004-09-28 - 10:29 a.m.
A Day at the Unemployment Office
[It’s gray and windy this morning. Talked to Cher early this morning and I told her how the wind was blowing the trees outside my window—that made me think of Tom Waits. Tom Waits who provided wind and grayness to my teenage years (even when it was sunny outside.) So, Tom Waits is playing as I write this. I think that’s fitting for this entry.]
Yesterday, I went to apply for unemployment. The office opens at 8:30 am. I took my time drinking my tea and was out of here at 9:00. Hopped on my bicycle and, because I was unsure of where the place is located, I rode to 80th and Stony. Turns out that’s not where the office is located. I asked a guy who was walking down the street. “It’s, like, seven or eight blocks down that way,” he said. “Keep going that way and when you get to Popeye’s, it’s right there.” I rode south down what seemed like the longest blocks on the planet and found the place, which was right where he said it would be. Stood in line and when it was my turn, a man told me that I needed my social security card. I should’ve known that would be an issue from the sign on the door that reads “You MUST Have Your Social Security Card and State I.D. with You Every Time You Come Into This Building.” I had other things with my social security number on them, none of which were acceptable. “Even if you have an I.D. with your social security number on it, you still need your social security card,” the man said. He gave me a piece of paper and said to go to 67th and Cottage and they’d give me a copy of my social security card, which I lost a long, long time ago.
While character building, I’m sure, a bike ride to 67th and Cottage Grove, isn’t like a bike ride to, say, Glencoe or Highland Park. So I rode back to my parents’ place to get my car. My father said there’s “a place” in Indiana where one can get the same thing amid better surroundings. So I got in my car and went down Hohman, just like he said, to “the place” that’s “right after St. Margaret’s hospital.”
As I passed St. Margaret’s, I realized that, aside from looking for a building that looked like a place where one could get copies of a social security card, I had no clue what I was looking for. “It’s right after St. Margaret’s? But that depends on the direction in which you’re traveling, doesn’t it?” The farther I went, the more confused I became. I finally stopped and asked a mail man. “Go back to Douglas and make a right, and it’s right there.”
The first building I came to at Douglas turned out to be the Hammond, Indiana’s federal building, and the rent-a-cop who stopped me directed me to the building a half block away. Got into the building, took a number, and sat down. Eighty. I had number eighty. “Sixty-four,” someone called out. “Number sixty-four?” I regretted not taking a book with me, and I had to listen to people have horribly dumb conversations. Brittany Spears’s marriage, breakfast at the IHOP that morning, people coughing—this is what one hears while waiting in a social security office. Although there were signs posted everywhere telling people to refrain from using cell phones inside the building, the guy sitting behind me, with the Don King fro, talked like he knew he was going to permanently lose his voice.
Two old people walked in and the man shouted to his wife, “WHERE DO YOU WANT TO SIT?” “I DON’T CARE,” his wife answered. I hoped they would sit next to me, as I figured two nice old people on one side, balanced out the coughing, 400 pound woman in sweat pants and cocked baseball hat, two seats away, on the other side. Boy was I wrong. They were nice enough, but the old man, who sat directly next to me, also coughed a lot. “We should have come later,” the woman said.
“We’d still have to wait,” the man replied, looking at me and smiling. “You always have to wait,” he said to me.
I thought of giving them my number, but then I thought that that was their plan all along. They’d figure that some sap would give them his number because they were old. “I’m on to you two,” I thought. They talked a bit more and the man’s breath smelled like milk— old milk, which is not a good smell. He also stuck his tongue out quite often, resembling a lizard or a turtle. His hands were wrinkled and spotted, which made me think that even more.
I can’t believe how many people don’t understand that when someone calls number sixty-eight, the person who has the number sixty-eight should say “Here” or acknowledge that he or she has that number. Because more than one person did this, the wait became longer than it should have been. A number pretty much looks the same in Spanish as it does in English, so even if someone yells number sixty-eight and someone thinks that the person yelling has some sort of disorder that causes them to randomly shout, the board hanging from the ceiling that shows “68” should be a dead give away that it is time for “68”to walk up to the window.
After what seemed like days, I was finally called and the process was simple. “What do you need?” “What’s your social security number?” “Address?” “Phone number?” “Father’s name?” “Mother’s maiden name?” Etc. I grew paranoid thinking that government knows far too much about me than I care for them to know.
“Shoe size?” “Type of underwear?” “Cut or uncut?” “Dress left or right?”
Okay, while most of my friends know the answers to those questions (whether or not they wanted to know), I don’t think the government should. Whatever.
After the social security ordeal, it was off to the unemployment office again. I expected that to be worse than the social security office and was quite surprised when it wasn’t. “After presenting my I.D. and social security info, a man gave me a stack of forms and instructed me to fill them out. I did and, within fifteen minutes, he called me to his desk and asked a series of lame questions and instructed me what to do. “Keep track of everything you apply for on this form...Establish your mailbox via the telephone…” Everything is pretty much done by phone these days.
“You are eligible to receive the maximum that anyone can get—three hundred and twenty-six dollars every week for a maximum of six months. I see you want taxes taken out of that. Smart move. Any questions?”
I asked if I could work while on unemployment. “As long as you don’t make more than three hundred and twenty-six dollars, before taxes, every week. If you do, you void your benefits and you’ll have to re-establish them. But you can do that over the phone. Anything else?”
“Great. No. Thanks for your time.”
After taxes, I’ll get two hundred ninety-something dollars a week. I’m told it’s nice, but I’d rather have a job near my friends. Cher and I discussed how our place of employment became more of a hang out than a place to go and, um, work. Cher was there. Max was there. Joey was nearby. Papa Fazul. Mrs. DLH and Effie. It’s not the work I’m gonna miss, it’s hanging out and seeing my friends that I’ll miss. It’s the romanticized abstractions a job promises that I’ll miss. It’s the sentiment that pervades Tom Waits songs that I’ll miss.
“Well I don’t mind working
cause I used to be jerking off
most of my time in bars
I been a cabby and a stock clerk
and a soda fountain jock jerk
and a manic mechanic on cars
It’s nice work if you can get it
now who the hell said it
I got money to spend on my girl
but the work never stops
and I’ll be bustin my chops
working for Joe and Sal…”
