I was fired from my first job after graduating college. I mean, at the time they tried to make it sound less cruel: "we are consolidating two positions, and Tina has been here longer, so she gets to stay..." But really, it was because the general manager and I just didn't get on right. I know this is the case, because a year later (after the GM was subsequently let go) I was invited to this small publishing house's Christmas party, which was always a big deal in Boulder back in those days, and the people I did make friends with told me outright why she had fired me. When I was fired, I was three months pregnant, and yes, they knew. I was able to keep my health insurance through Cobra, and if I recall correctly, I only did that because my parents paid the premiums for me.
I remember being overwhelmed by the unemployment system. In pre-internet days, it was all done by paper, through the mail. Each week I had to apply to five different jobs, and write down who I sent the resumes to on a card that I mailed back. Finding enough job listings that even vaguely matched my skillset was hard enough on its face. Doing this while pregnant and having no idea how undiagnosed lupus was dragging me down added complexity and robbed me of spoons I didn't know I needed to save. I went to more horrible interviews and was insulted by more prospective employers than I deserved to encounter. I could never tell how many recognized my baby bump, but it felt like a lot of them were intentionally horrible to me in order to avoid hiring a pregnant woman who would want time off in five+ months.
I avoided trying to collect unemployment forever after that. I most likely could have done it every time the air force moved us and made me leave the jobs I had at each base. I couldn't face it again. It was just too traumatic.
Now that the next great depression is looming, and they have decided to include self employed people and gig workers in the emergency unemployment, my employing broker has suggested on multiple occasions that we should apply. None of us had a high enough income, nor a long list of clients already under contract, that we could turn up a chance to get our bills covered while in-person real estate was actively discouraged. Monday, the first day we were allowed to try, I filled out the form online. I submitted my 2018 taxes, the year in which I had all of one commission before falling ill with cancer. The website said I qualified for roughly $200 a week in unemployment, and that is honestly better than I thought it would say (I expected to be told to take a hike). I couldn't tell at first whether they were actually going to pay.
Today, a debit card arrived in the mail. I haven't activated it yet, but it is sitting on my lap now, bringing up long-repressed stressors. I don't know how much is on this card. Is it just the 200 bucks, minus the taxes I asked them to take out? Is that other 600 on there, or will that come later, when they figure out how to disburse the CARES stuff? Do I qualify for that too? I'm a little afraid to spend it yet. Do I go ahead and pay a couple regular bills with it? Spend it at the grocery store? Save it for a few weeks and see what happens in the world? For now, it is comforting to know it's there.
Now if I can just convince the Mr to go on the IRS website to chase down our relief/stimulus money. Maybe then my stomach would fully unclench.
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