CHAPTER 186 LABOR DEPARTMENT BLUES
I decided to get signed up at the Labor Department for unemployment. Delaware is different than most states. First of all, you don’t become eligible for unemployment until the severance runs out. Wilmington trust gave me two months severance, which didn’t last two months because I felt I needed to take care of some immediate concerns. I figured if my official last day was September 21, I would be eligible on November 21 for payment. I would get the top rate, which was $315 a week before tax. It was now mid-November; I might as well get the process started.
forms all filled out, but I had a question that the person on their hot line wasn’t able to answer. I decided to go down to the place and ask. That’s all. Just answer the question and then I’d mail in the form (if ten pages of questions can be called a form). Finally I get to the counter and ask my question. I never really got an answer, but I had to stand there while this clerk asked me all her questions and redid the form. What a waste. Then I was told I had to go to another area and do some stuff on a computer. I went there and they said there wasn’t enough time left to do the computer thing, I’d have to come back.
So I had to make a second trip to the Labor department to do this computer thing, which was just putting my resume in a database and signing on a job search engine. Then I had to talk to a counselor, who said the Manchester resume format would never work and gave me this other format, which was ugly to look at. I was told a determination would be made and I would get something in the mail.
Well instead of something in the mail, I get a phone call. “Mr. Meredith?”
“Yes?”
“I’m so-and-so from the Department of Labor Employment Services.”
“Yes?”
“We contacted Wilmington Trust to confirm the information you put on the claim form.”
“Yes.”
“You stated you received two months severance.”
“Yes.”
“Wilmington Trust said you received 26 weeks severance.”
“No, I only received two months.”
“We will need some kind of proof of that.”
Oh great. If I had 26 weeks of severance, I wouldn’t be eligible for unemployment until sometime in April 2002. Worst, I could be accused of fraudulent statements on my claim, which could result in fines and/or jail time.
So I called Katie at WTC. Oh, she would prepare a letter. I would have to come pick it up. Oh goody, another trip I didn’t need.
the Labor Dept. I had to file every week to prove I was looking for a job and what contacts I had made. They had given me four cards and then checks were supposed to start and a new card would come with the check. But no check and no card came. I had to go to the Labor department and get new cards. I thought I’d just stop in and pick up some cards and go home. Oh no, you once again had to pick a number and talk to a counter person to get a card.
I was steamed. I had a lunch meeting in Wilmington at 1:00 and I had to pick up Lois at her work at noon and take her home first. I waited until twenty of twelve, and then had to leave. That meant I had to go through this wait again another day.
I got there before they opened next day. I was still number 13 in line (Number 13 – utt oh). I got to the counter and they said the counsellor needs to talk to you, please sit over there. I waited some more. A counselor came. She said things had been straightened out about my severance, but I had to reapply for my claim, so we sat there and I did the form for the third time. But I wasn’t eligible for the $315 dollars a week anymore, because I had taken my pension and they deducted for that, so I would only get $79 a week. You know what to this day I never received one cent in unemployment from Delaware, even though I was out of work five months.
Now the pension. Remember I had passed on that, but when the unemployment snafus began, I realized I had to get some money flowing in. I called Katie and asked what would be the difference between me taking my pension now or waiting until I was 65. You know what it was? About $100 a month. Okay, I said start it up. (This was in late October.). Oh, well, we can’t start it until December now. We need two weeks notice. Okay, fine. I wanted it November 1, but what can you do.
The next day she called back. Here’s what they could do. They could began it as of November 1 and pay me two checks on December First. It would reduce my amount by about $7. Never mind, just go with December 1.
A recorded message from an operator came on. “That number has been disconnected. No alternate number has been given.”
I went to the phone book and called the customer service line, waited for a representation and asked my question. “Oh you have to call the IRA department. (So much for our touted central customer service). “Wasn’t there a number on the letter they should have sent you?" “Yes, there was, but it has been disconnected.” I wonder if that form letter has ever been fixed.
And thus I found myself living on my pension and my IRA
savings, receiving no unemployment and heaven knows what my tax bill will end up being. I expect I’m going to have to increase my home equity loan this year to survive.
A couple asides:
I went into the cafeteria often for
I wanted to be able to call some people in at WTC, but realized I didn’t know their phone numbers. So one day I had to go in to meet my old Manager, Bill Shinn. We were going to do lunch, I stopped at the Plaza early, got my coffee and then I broke security. I followed some people leaving the cafeteria to the elevator bank. The cafeteria was public and on the first floor, which was really the first floor because the first floor was the street floor. Security guards had a station on the street floor you had to pass, but not on the first floor. On the first were doors where you needed your id card to swipe to release the lock. Now I had my ID, but it had been deactivated in the system, so it wouldn’t work, but I just followed some people through the doors. (One of the things in the security policy I helped write was people were to not let people tailgate in behind them.
These people didn’t let me tailgate. Oh no, they stepped aside and held the door open for me. I had to do the same thing on the Sixth floor, where I used to work, because here be more locked doors. Same result. Somebody got off the elevator and held the door for me. I went to my old cubicle. It was a little before nine, so Sherry wasn’t in yet. I did a couple things. One, I opened my old binder bin, took the internal phone book and put it in my backpack. Then I made some phone calls. Think of what I could have done if I was a saboteur or a bad guy?
I then pinned an Irish Curse upon the bulletin board. I can’t remember the dire things it promised upon WTC. It was written in Gaelic, but in my opinion the case did come true considering what happen to Wilmington Trust s few years down the line. Essentially it may saying, “pot mo thoin!”
After Sherry arrived I talked with her awhile before I left. When I went to meet Bill Shinn in headquarters I broached security again. It isn’t hard in the lobby because the security guard never questions people going in there being that public cafeteria on the first floor. Once at the elevators I just rode up to the Sixth Floor (same floor, different building). I got out and though: oh no, they have renovated the floor. All the doors here now had the swipes installed to unlock them. But after a bit some one came out of Accounting and I noticed the door shut very slowly, so I was able to grab it and walk in. There wasn’t anyone at the receptionist desk, so I just wandered on back into the work area to Bill’s office.
I sent an email to the person who had headed the security committee saying that security still needed tightening. I didn’t tell them why I said this.
so maybe they didn’t need it anymore, or maybe Bill got terminated. Who knows? At this point I didn’t care if that database crumbled to dust.
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