On Monday, April 26, I wrote a diary about the fact that as a 99er, my unemployment had completely been exhausted.
After the news yesterday that 12 Democrats had voted against cloture on the unemployment/jobs/medicare/state aid package which is trying to make its way through Congress, I thought of a new strategy for finding work, which I implemented today.
Follow me to Washington, DC.
I'm continuing to look for work. I'm in dire financial straits. Two and a half months late on my rent, trying to fend off having utilities interrupted, you know the drill. Oops. In the context of the Gulf, that's a bad metaphor, isn't it?
So, even though the unemployment extension Reid is trying to get to the Senate floor wouldn't apply to me, I'm friggin' terrified about what this is going to mean to so many thousands of people. And I'm tired of not working. Not being considered for work. Not getting work.
(As an aside, I'm waiting to hear on a job early next week, while continuing to look.)
I decided maybe I should just go to work in Washington, DC, so, I wrote this letter to the senators who voted against cloture (or have made other ridiculous spewings about the long-term unemployed) on this important bill.
The letter went to:
Evan Bayh
Mark Begich
Russ Feingold
Dianne Feinstein
Orrin Hatch
Mary Landrieu
Joe Lieberman
Clair McCaskill
Bob Menendez
Ben Nelson
Bill Nelson
Mark Pryor
and
Jim Webb
I copied The President, because I thought he might be interested in knowing that I'll be arriving for work in DC next week.
Dear Senator (personalized name):
I’ve been following the issue of extension of unemployment benefits very closely. I’ve even called my congressman, and my senator’s offices about it (Quigley and Durbin). You see, I’m a ‘99er’. My unemployment benefits expired at the beginning of April. I asked my representatives to do something to extend benefits again. They don’t have a ‘position’ about that.
I noticed that you have some questions about whether people receiving extended unemployment benefits are really interested in working, and that you are among 12 Democratic senators who voted with Republicans to prevent cloture on the jobs/tax/unemployment bill Senator Reid is trying to get through the Senate.
As my last employment came to an end, my mom was terminally ill, so I took time off work to care for her in her last months. After that, I found contract work for about 6 months, which ended in August of 2008. Since then, I haven’t found work. I’ve sold what I could on Ebay and Craigslist. I’ve had an ad up for tutoring Spanish, for months on end. I’ve only had one client. People just don’t have the disposable income they have in the past. In the past, I've worked as a medical interpreter (Spanish/English), but now, you need a certificate that you've taken a 40 hour training in order to qualify for the job of medical interpreter. The test and training cost between $400 and $700. Since I don't have that money, and haven't been able to find financial aid to take the training I could probably give myself, I haven't been able to pursue that kind of work.
I’m looking, and on average, I send out about 30 resumes a week. I go to job fairs; I’m registered with countless staffing firms. A couple weeks ago, I had an interview. The first one I’ve had in over a year. I’m still waiting as the company finishes interviewing other candidates. The employer is concerned, because I’m seriously overqualified for the position. The salary is about $27,000 less than I earned on my last job, but it has good benefits, and it’s in my field, so I’m really hoping they choose me. Oh yes. I don’t have insurance either. It’s a struggle every month to put together enough money to buy the medicines I need, which aren’t many, but they’re important.
I’ve been applying to a lot of local, state and federal jobs, because, at 54, I figure ‘the government’ is my best bet for not being discriminated against because of my age. At my age, with arthritis, I’m not as physically able to do some of the work I did when I was younger, like waitressing. If I could, I would.
I have a master’s degree. I speak three languages. I’ve got experience in education, start-up businesses, privately held companies, multi-national corporations, federally funded grant programs, and my greatest accomplishment, has been raising my daughter, by myself, with little or no physical, emotional or financial support from her father since she was 18 months old and we divorced. She’s a rousing success; admitted to selective admissions schools from the time she was in pre-kindergarten, and now on a full, 4 year scholarship to one of the top 10 liberal arts colleges in the country. So you see, I’m experienced, accomplished and responsible.
Funny, I always envisioned my empty nest years as having more freedom to do what I postponed in favor of my responsibility to my daughter. Instead, I’m a virtual prisoner in my (now unpaid for) apartment, because I have to calculate whether I’ll have enough gas to go to the job fair, the employment agency, the interview, etc.
Here’s a funny thing, Senator (name). My daughter, that smart one on a scholarship? Since we’re poor now, she qualifies for the "Put Illinois to Work" program. Can you believe it? She can’t even get any employers to hire her even though they wouldn’t have to pay her, since the State of Illinois pays her directly when she reports her hours worked. Can you believe that? Employers don’t even want to hire someone they don’t have to pay!? Someone with little experience, it’s true, but with significantly above average employability skills for her age range. Employers are just so unused to and wary about hiring people, they won’t even hire someone who will work for them for FREE!
So, Senator, since you seem to think there’s a recovery on which includes actual jobs, and that people are just getting complacent and lazy, because there are unemployment benefits rolling in; since you apparently think that if unemployment benefits ended, suddenly everybody would just miraculously find work; since you think (even though economists don’t) that controlling the deficit should be priority number one, I thought I would come to work for you. Oh, and by the way Senator Orrin Hatch’s idea about drug testing to qualify for unemployment (IF I were still eligible for unemployment benefits)? It’s insulting, but since I’ve never used an illegal substance in my life, or abused a legal substance, since I have never smoked, and rarely drink alcohol, I guess it would be a small insult compared to all the others which confront poor people.
I can be in Washington DC on Monday, June 21. I’m 2.5 months behind on my rent, and I don’t have a security deposit any more, but I’m pretty sure that I could borrow enough from friends for gas money to get to Washington. It’s only an 11 hour drive. I have food stamps, so that would tide me over till I get my first pay check. You won’t mind, I’m sure, that I’ll have to take my daughter with me. But don’t worry. Her idea of nirvana is to spend time in the Library of Congress. I’d bring a portable bed, because I’ll be needing to stay in your office till I have enough saved for a security deposit and rent for a place in the DC metro area. But that’s ok. I don’t need a lot of room. When you come in to the office in the mornings, you’ll never notice that we’d been there overnight.
To Evan Bayh:
I know you’re going to be leaving office in January, but I figure that in the next 6 months, you can probably connect me with a different job in which I can put my skills to work.
I’m not proud, any work in which I can be productive and useful is just fine with me. I really like Washington a lot. I’ve visited there several times with my daughter, because she has a profound interest in history. I’m pretty sure I could be happy living there.
So Senator, please let me know who I should check in with to get me started on my job assignments. I’m looking forward to meeting you.
Sincerely,
I wonder if this will work any better than any of the other hundreds of job applications I've made over the last year+?