Mallory's Camera

The To Do list item I put off doing for 10 days because I knew how utterly disheartening it would be involves my unemployment application.

I tackled it yesterday, and as I suspected, got utterly nowhere with it.

Backstory: I worked for Schlock last winter, so I'm entitled to unemployment. Schlock expects me to file for unemployment—it's actually part of their business model. But waaaaaaay back in the time of COVID, some asshole attempted to file for unemployment using my name. They didn't have access to my social security number, so they never managed to weasel any money from the State of New York. What they did manage to do somehow was enter a phony mother's maiden name—which I am trying desperately to correct because mother's maiden name is an essential part of setting up an unemployment PIN number.

I filed a fraud report in early June. The nice people in the fraud call center do answer their phones and advised me that (a) who knows when the fraud investigators will actually get to my fraud claim and (b) the hotline set up to walk people without Internet access through the application process are the only people who can change my information in the database.

Except nobody ever picks up that phone! We're sorry, but due to a large volume of calls, we cannot complete...

It is utterly maddening.

I am the victim here!

Why isn't someone trying to help me?

###

I camped on that phone for five hours yesterday. I had nothing else to do. The Extreme Heat Wave made it impossible to leave the house—at 2pm, the exterior temperature hit 100°F. Because of the humidity, the "Real Feel" was something like 115°.

It kinda felt like we were back in the pandemic!

Finally, I called Neighbor Ed for guidance. Before he retired, he was a muckety muck at some big state agency, and often undertakes Don Quixote-like battles with the Bureaucracy on behalf of clueless pals.

"I'm thinking I should just drive up to Albany and show up at the Department of Labor office," I said.

"Bad idea," said Neighbor Ed. "Call your State Assembly person. They're supposed to assist constituents with things like this. State legislators have a liaison at every agency. Their job is to make legislators happy by solving constituent problems so the state legislators don’t do something petty regarding that agency's budget."

So, I did.

The Assembly critter's office assistant was snippy and condescending, but she took my info, promised to pass it along and have somebody call me.

"But it has to be the right person," I said. "That's been the problem all along."

"There is a process," she snapped. "We have to follow the process."

Right.

And I am supposed to call the Assembly critter's office back in a week.

Sigh.

This means I'm gonna have to answer all my spam calls in the coming week.

###

What else can I do? I thought of calling the unemployment assholes out on social media—that actually works when you're dealing with private companies—but the New York Unemployment Facebook page blocks posts and private messages.

I suppose I could go to Ulster County Office of the Aging and pretend to be a clueless little old lady tearfully grateful for whatever assistance you smart young people can give me with the scar-yyyyyyyy Internet!

What else?

I don't need the money right away. I'm not starving or anything. It's the money I'm going to use to move in September or October.

###

Anyway, very unsatisfying day.

I should have been filled with righteous wrath, but instead I was a sniveling mess.

Mercury's in retrograde, so of course shit like this is happening—though a phone call that did go through managed to lift some credit card's bogus late payment fee from my account. ("Why did they charge me this? Check your records! The payment was made on time. Here's the confirmation number.")

###

I didn't remember till the end of the day that it was the one-year anniversary of the day I found out Brian died.



In retrospect, this photo—taken a few weeks before he died in the same café where I hosted his memorial—seems sadly prescient. In fact, I snapped a number of photos in those weeks that could be seen as portents if one was looking for them, I suppose. Brian stooping beneath round light fixtures that looked halo-like or posing in front of chariot-shaped clouds...