Wonkette
Well here is some cheerful news for a Thursday! Everybody and their mom likes to file unemployment claims these days, on account of the no jobs anywhere, but the claims take forever to be processed because everybody at the unemployment office got laid off due to lack of funding.
This just goes to prove that exactly two (2) sectors of our economy still thrive after a year of relentless economic downturn: Netflix and the Super Bowl. These are the last two healthy business enterprises in the entire country. Everything else, including support and services to unemployed people, has been completely wiped out, even though the nation’s supply of unemployed gets bigger by the second.
This is horribly ironic and sad, but also WTF, we all pay into unemployment and should get timely access to our munnie$! Maybe Barack Obama will slip another crazy frivolous bit of pork into the stimulus bill about supplying adequate funding to local government offices so that jobless people don’t become homeless people while they wait for their checks.
Deluge Is Holding Up Benefits to Unemployed [Washington Post]
Big sale on f’s today, Sara?
I am throwing Netflix and Rhapsody under the bus next month. So there.
The republicans have said all along that they want to return the world to the way it was before the New Deal. Welcome to the 1930’s everyone! This should be even more bitchen than the last time, because now, more people than EVER have automatic weapons! SWEET!
This is horifffic.
…the unemployment office people are umemployed?! Isn’t this like a life guard drowning?
More Obama fail.
Worst. President. Ever.
Layoff and you get unemployment- Fired and you get a big dick sandwich. Read that employee handbook kiddies and don’t be late!
bitchincamaro: …when people start to cancel their “I-Tunes” accounts get ready for the rapture!
What, is that like Catch SF72 Stroke 1?
AngryBlakGuy: Or WOW accounts.
bitchincamaro: You can guess what the extra “f” is for.
A friend of mine stood in line for 40 minutes<i? to interview for a job at Trader Joes. There were people in suits and ties in line. There were men in their 40s with briefcases, which seemed to surprise the sad hipsters that rolled out of bed for the interview, and probably assumed getting a TJs job would be easy. Meanwhile, there was a line around the block at every Denny’s for a free Grand Slam the other day. People had to have stood in line for hours to eat spongy pancakes, grade F bacon and rubbery eggs. These are scary times. I’m so fucking thankful for my job. Maybe that’s what scares me the most. The country is turning into some kind of post-apocalyptic zombie movie.
A good investment would be in a Bong Manufacturing Company, as all the teenagers will be aping the America Hero who swims, whatever his name is.
AngryBlakGuy: True, but I’ve cut waaaay down on them ’specially thanks to their (former) DRM policy. emusic however, has me by my TruckNutz and won’t let go.
“Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.”
Luckily, I invested in the recession-proof “handjobs for crack” sector.
NoWireHangers: the attraction for employment at Trader Joe’s is the cool Hawaiin style shirts that the workers get to wear while on the job.
orbit222: Fired (or quit) and you get a big dick sandwich.
Unless you rent a P.O. box and a phone number and list yourself, under an assumed name or company, as your new former employer. It’s been done. Just sayin’. Also.
“Does this job come with benefits?”
“Why yes. It is a job.”
Sad truth: if I was in the earlier part of my twenties, I would probly just join the military. I mean, at least dying in Iraq happens ON TIME, y’know?
The unemployment office laying off people; how meta. Next HUD will start kicking its employees out of their homes.
Larry Fine: NoWireHangers: My roommate just started shopping at Trader Joes and going on about the virtues of unprocessed food. He plays video games all day and night, wakes up at 1 after noon, and is always high, which makes him, technically, a slob. I love having a job, but sometimes it also makes me ‘the lame one’.
There is a rumor going around that some company’s are not letting their employees sit at their desks and play on the internet.
AllHat: If a few mid to high level executives get a 2% tax cut, then fuck HUD. Let’s get this apocalypse party started! WooT!
Jobless and homeless.
John McCain?
You know what these people need? Some big fat tax breaks on the money they’re not making anymore!
You mean you pay into unemployment–I’ve had three part time jobs since I lost my full time one & used up all my unemployment. You know what the unemployment benefit is if you lose a part time job?
You get to look for another one, and if you get it, they’ll pay you. I might also add this isn’t easy if you can’t pass a piss test.
Thus ends my morning bitterz.
My current favorite evil corporation is IBM. They are currently promoting their humanitarianism based on their new policy of shipping AMERICANS to INDIA to work. Yes indeed, if you are QUALIFIED for a position in INDIA they will pay to move you and will do the admin BS to get you your visas and such. Of course, there is a catch: they will only pay you the prevailing wage rate for working that position in…INDIA…which I imagine is about 50% of what you would make for that job here…at best.
Oh, and the kicker? Like other companies doing similar pogroms…errr…I mean programs…if you do not take the position offered then you could be ineligible for severence and…unemployment benefits since you are refusing a job offer.
NICE!
At least we’ll all be hobos together.
AfghanVet: But do you have to learn to speak Indian?
I was getting angry about high pay to incompetent executives, but then ran into this piece by the most incompetent executive of all time, Carly Fiorina. I think she makes a good case that paying for non-performance is good for America:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/05/fiorina.pay/index.html
All of these ironic governmental things need to be compiled into a book so we can have something to chuckle over while we’re warring with rival communities for possession of vital natural resources. Sort of “The Lighter Side of the Government’s Fiddling While Rome Burns”.
http://thesebastards.blogspot.com/
You guys are, like, totally harshing my mellow.
Colander: AH! My roommate went through that phase! In a few months, (if you’re lucky) he will have a breakdown, start looking for jobs, then go on a week long meditation retreat to “find himself.” It’s the Los Angeles way.
Larry Fine: crap…I’m a goner.
Larry Fine: I’ve really been having anxiety about my relationship with internet. Not enough anxiety to cut my ties, but enough to cause a mild panic attack whenever my boss calls me.
I keep telling myself, “You work for a non-profit. You’ll be okay. You work for a non-profit. You’ll be okay.” Just crossing my fingers and hoping that the university I’m attached to doesn’t decide that it can do what we do cheaper than we do it.
NoWireHangers: I passed by Macy’s Herald Sq. a couple weeks ago; there was a line the length of 34th street, up 7th Ave. and around the corner and out of sight on 35th. I thought, goodgod, Macy’s is hiring post-holiday retail?? Wtf? Later discovered it was a free handout of cosmetics, part of a price-fixing penalty for all the vendors on the first floor. Haha, there were GUYS on the line going back for seconds for foundation and rouge. Fucking New York.
bitchincamaro: Well, Valentine’s Day is next week. Doesn’t matter if the entire male population of Manhattan is unemployed; if they don’t make with the swag, they wimminz is gonna make ‘em sleep in the gutter.
Cool. For once, I’m ‘trendy.’ Not only did I watch the Superbowl, but I signed up for NetFlix like, a month ago. I think I’ll try and skip the ‘unemployed’ part of the trend, however.
Well, gotta go. A cool, trendy guy like me can’t just sit around yakking all day; I’ve got a NetFlix account, y’know!
(So much Star Trek, so little time.!)
Has anyone tried the ‘Fight Club’ gambit yet? Where, on the verge of being fired, you beat yourself up in the presence of your boss and then they pay you your full salary to stay away from the office? That seems like a good strategy in these hard times. Plus, I have my eye on some buildings that deserve to be demolished.
tehbenton: Aren’t all our businesses currently on their way to non-profit status?
Article about IBM:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/outsourcing/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=213000389
AfghanVet: Wow.
Live abroad! See the world! Earn pennies on the dollar!
WTF, we all pay into unemployment…
No we don’t. It’s funded by the employer. But soon there won’t be any of them, either. Just saying.
From the article: “The problem is compounded by a simultaneous decrease in federal funding, which has reduced staffing at some local government offices. The result is that the District and many states, including Maryland and Virginia, are failing to meet federal guidelines that require timely processing of unemployment claims, appeals and benefit payments, the records show.”
Not meeting federal guidelines?
Well, we’ll just have to lay off more unemployment staffers!
JamesMichaelCurley: Speaking Hindi would be tough enough, but reading it? Forget about it. Plus, the whole head swivel when you speak thing can be tough. I’ve been there twice and if you could live right, it is a beautiful country…just not in the inner cities.
I’d suggest we unemployed march on Washington but it’s too cold there and there are just too many of us. How about local rallies in Citibank branches?
Unemployment just makes you lazy and unmotivated. This will just make people more motivated to get off their fat asses and find work. That is, if there was any work to be had.
bitchincamaro: As one of those guys who went back for seconds, you keep off my ass about how I earn my mad money, you!
Another reason to hate IBM, if you don’t have one already, is that they have never apologized for creating the punchcard system to help the Nazis keep up with all those pesky Jews and Gypsys during the Holocaust.
Mr Blifil: Fuck, right. I’m doomed. Pass me my tin plate and my hobo beans.
They laid off 12 people from one county office of Job & Family Services here in Ohio last week. It is taking well past the 30 days mandated by federal law for people to get their benefits applications processed. There are so many people laid off that they recently crashed the state’s unemployment phone system.
Of course, this keeps me in my job, so I guess I shouldn’t complain…
I worked for a few days at a job services center in TN last month, between bouts of eating hobo beans in my freezing dilapidated shack, and people were calling about how to apply for unemployment, because they couldn’t get through by phone, or even access the Web application page!
More than a few said, “Well, no wonder unemployment dropped a bit last month. Nobody can get through to apply for it!”
I had one guy walk in, saying he’d driven 9 hours to get here, because he’d been trying to get through for, like, months.
It’s bad out there, y’all. Sorry to be all unsnarky.
I am one handsome cat…err, dog? Lets start banging pots and shootin guns, it chases the evil away! 42 years old, kid, married, unemployed. My brilliant former company filed my UE benefits with DC…enough said? Been trying to get through since last Weds.