Rant #2,454: You Can't Always Get What You Want

Today's blog entry is going to be pretty much short and sweet.

I posted a good part of  it on Facebook yesterday morning.

Even if you are gainfully employed--and I hope that all of you are--it bears worth reading if you haven't already done so.

So take a minute or two and read my post, which I have reprinted here, but be aware that there is a P.S. to this story.

"The accelerated unemployment payment ended this week, so those like myself and my son return back to the old rate, which is better than not receiving anything for our unfortunate situations.

My son continues to be on furlough, with no work return date in sight.

Me, I guess you can call me "chronically unemployed," having been in this situation for more than nine months now with my unemployment theoretically running out in a few weeks and with my retirement registered, okayed, and agreed to begin in September, but with payments beginning at the end of October.

I have to say that the extra payments were a godsend, allowing me to build up my savings, which gave me a chance to breathe a little.

But that is over, unless Congress gets together and extends some type of extra payment plan for those out of work.

Having been there, done that, I can only hope that they do this, but I am not going to hold my breath.

And to those of you who are fortunate to be working through the pandemic and still holding onto your jobs: don't knock people who are out of work now. It is completely impossible to find suitable work during a pandemic, where so many jobs have been completely lost, never to return again.

Sure, I know some people have taken advantage of the situation--some people actually made more money per week being unemployed than if they were employed--but I would say that most people who are without work have been looking for a new job since they lost their jobs.

I have been looking feverishly for work since day one and even prior to that, but due to a variety of reasons==including my age, a supposedly old and crusty 63 years young--there simply is nothing out there, no matter what we are being told about the increase in new job creation and the lessening of unemployment.

Happily, in several weeks, I will be done with this utter waste of time, and move seamlessly into retirement, but what about people like my son, who are clearly in an impossible situation?

What about others, who cannot find work, but have absolutely no fallback options like I do? I worked with a few of those people, I am still in touch with them, and honestly, I do not know what they are going to do--and they are in their early 40s yet, with young children at home.

Congress should act quickly, although history tells me that they won't."

But, now for the promised P.S. to this story.

Late yesterday afternoon, the federal government announced that there was a glitch in their payment system, and that the accelerated unemployment payments were still in force.

The glitch prevented people like myself and my son from getting our accelerated payment when we normally do, on Tuesday mornings, and that the glitch had been corrected, and we will be receiving this payment sometime this week, presumably on Wednesday morning.

The report did not go into what the glitch was or how it held up millions upon millions of payments, sending shivers up the spines of all the out-of-work people who were impacted.

Honestly, I thought I had figured wrong about these accelerated payments. I figured we had one week left on these payments, and that week would allow me to reach my dollar goal in my savings, as I have been going each and every week to the bank and putting money into my savings as a cushion on when my unemployment runs out--in about a month--and when presumably filed for retirement--which I did and I know there is going to be a gap of money coming in.

When the payment from the government was not made yesterday, I figured that I had made a mistake on my thought of how long these accelerated payments would continue, but alas, I was correct all the time.

But honestly, I am almost scared to go into my account and see if the payment was made to myself and my son, wary that if it isn't in there yet, that it won't ever get in there.

I will look a little later. I still have things to say here, so maybe this won't be such a short blog entry after all.

Accelerated payments or no accelerated payments, times are not just bad, they are terrible.

What is supposed to be the best time of my life has been nothing but a nightmare, and it has been that way since October 10, 2019, the day my company went out of business and myself and five others--all the employees we had left--lost our jobs.

The youngest of us are in our early 40s, the oldest of us are in our early 60s.

I have been in contact with some of them, and to my knowledge, not a single one of us has found a job.

Nine months and counting ...

At least I have something of an out, something I did not want to do but something I had to do.

Like I said in the post, what about those I worked with who are in their 40s ... what are they to do?

I do think about these people a lot, I really do.

I would not want to be in their boat, because their boat has so many holes in it right now.

These are talented people, people who worked their way up from nothing. I am not going to go into their individual stories, but they made themselves successful out of sheer will, sheer need and sheer intelligence. And they have now been cast off into the wind.

Shameful, truly shameful.

I often wish that there was something I could do to help them, but heck, I am in the same type of boat, but at least mine has a paddle.

And then there is my son, who has borne the brunt of what the pandemic has done to his work situation more heavily than anyone might imagine.

It was a stroke of luck that he got this job, and it appears that it will also be a stroke of luck that he retains his job.

It is a job he loves, but he is anchored to the couch right now, with nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, and nothing much to do.

My wife and I have tried to boost his spirits in any way we can, but there is only so much my we can do.

He has had absolutely no contact with the outside world--with the exception of a counselor and his mentor--since this situation began. He has had no contact with his peers, those who were in his bowling and basketball leagues, his main social connections.

Nobody has called him on the phone, no one has had a Zoom meeting with him, nothing.

He is very quiet, and I don't know if he has reached out to anyone, but to my knowledge, he has not seen or heard from these people for months.

His birthday is coming up--he will be 25 years of age at the end of August--and the best present I can wish for him is for his life to return to some form of normalcy.

So to the people I worked with, and to my son, I wish only the best for you guys.

I really, really wish I could do more than wish, but this pandemic is completely out of our control.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know, because the lessening of our weekly unemployment payment--even if it didn't in fact come this week, but it is coming--gave me time to pause, and reflect a bit on my own situation and those of the others I mentioned.

And it is a pause that although I knew it was coming, I really wish that I did not have to make.

I think all of us have been through enough pauses during the past several months, don't you?