Two months unemployed

[illusionofjoy]

It was two months ago on this day that I spent my first full day without a job. July 15^th was my final day of work at what had been seven-plus years of employment at the Federal Reserve Bank. Also with a few hundred others, I was "downsized" as the organisation consolidated operations into fewer offices.

In this time I have been trying to keep busy and maintain some sort of routine so I don't either go insane or completely degenerate into a useless complacent mass of biomatter. The obvious solution is to find a new job, however I have minimum employment requirements that must be met by any potential employer and thus far I've yet to find anything which wouldn't be a step down from being unemployed. They say the economy is improving, but I don't think they know what they are talking about.

I have come into some frustration regarding Pennsylvania's Department of Labor & Industry. While the current unemployment compensation I receive is adequate, I have been entertaining the idea of cashing out my pension fund in order to loosen the fiscal vice a bit and provide a greater monetary cushion in case the jobless streak lasts much longer than expected.

As with most states, Pennsylvania has laws on the books stating that certain pension payouts may affect the level of unemployment compensation one may receive. However, certain circumstances are not considered deductable. The Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Handbook list the following regarding pension payment as not deductable: "A lump-sum pension payment, if you did not have the option of receiving monthly or periodic payments." One of the options my former employer listed regarding my pension was to take the full amount as a lump sum to do with as I pleased. If I do nothing, monthly payments from the account will begin when I reach 70 years of age.

As such, this leaves the statement in the handbook as somewhat vague. I will not have the option of receiving monthly payments for another 40 years. This leaves the statement open for interpretation: since I do not have the option of receiving monthly payments now, does this mean that taking a lump sum will not affect my unemployment compensation or does it mean that because I will eventually have the option of taking monthly payments, it will? Frankly, I am hoping for the former, but I want to be completely certain before taking any action.

Quite frankly, calling the unemployment office to get this matter clarified was a waste of time. It would have been one thing to get an answer which ran counter to what I think the handbook implies, but to get no answer whatsoever runs the gamut from frustrating to infuriating.

It took me twenty minutes on hold to speak to a representative. I asked the woman on the other end of the line the same question I posited here. She referred me back to the handbook and gave me a series of non-answers, most of which quoted the reminders I'd been listening to during my time on hold.

"If you do decide to cash out your pension, make sure you report it," I heard on the other end of the line. I imagined that the woman saying this was filing her nails while leaning back in her chair, nonchalantly glancing at her script on a computer monitor.

"I'm aware of that requirement, but what I need to do is if doing so will affect on my unemployment compensation," I replied.

"I don't get to make that judgement; you'll have to decide whether to live off of your unemployment compensation or your pension."

If my read of the handbook was correct, this shouldn't be an either/or situation. In fact, the last thing I want to do is endanger my unemployment compensation as I attempt to pad out the financial blow of job loss. However, the tone struck by the statements of the woman on the other end of the phone was almost like a nasty dare; she may as well have said, "Go ahead and cash out your pension and see what happens; I bet you won't like it."

I probably should have stayed on the phone and told the woman that if she couldn't answer my question then I wished to be transferred to someone who could. The more I think about it, the greater the desire grows to call back, endure being on hold and get myself transferred to a supervisor or someone higher up the line who can actually answer my questions. If someone gets to "make a judgement" then someone knows what will happen in this situation. Compounding my annoyance is that there is no physical unemployment office in Pittsburgh where I could speak to a representative directly and look this person in the eye.

So, two months unemployed...life is full of transitions and this is merely another one. However, there is no reason for anything to be as frustrating as it is. Given my experiences when I did have a job and my continued frustrations with so-called customer "service" centers, I'm adding "cut through bureaucracy" to my list of life missions.