Unemployment Stories
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| Thu, 10-08-2009 - 9:10am |
I used to be a road warrior. I worked for a contract management company, where I jumped from city to city on federal projects.
Contractor work always stops and starts, so when my last project ended in August, I wasn't too worried. I got the maximum $250 unemployment check per week, so I said, hey, all right. At the time, Tennessee's regular benefits lasted 13 weeks.
Eventually ... I don't know, you just start to realize something's different this time, you know? Then all the stuff with the banks happened. Everything was falling apart. Unemployment checks came, then they stopped. Then they came again. I don't even know how many weeks I've gotten in total. It's like a rollercoaster.
I ended up applying for food stamps, which was really difficult. I just sat in the office and cried and cried. I recently got another 13 weeks of unemployment, which is great. But it also means I can't get food stamps anymore.
I've now sent more than 1,000 job applications nationwide and even overseas. It seems with so many out of work, employers can choose from the cream of the crop. I just don't know where that leaves me.
I'd run out of jobless insurance for the second time in a few years last October. I was first laid off in 2006, and it took me until February 2008 to find another job in technical sales -- it lasted only two months. When I turned 63, I applied for Social Security. Every penny of it goes to house payments. It would have been ideal to wait until I was 65, but that wasn't an option.
I was laid off from my job as an executive assistant in April 2008, a day before I was scheduled to have major surgery. Everything fell apart. My two kids had to move in with their dad full-time. It was very stressful.
My benefits ran out last February, and I was lucky to get two part-time jobs. But combined they don't pay as much as my unemployment check, and I sometimes commute 100 miles a day. Neither job guarantees my hours per week.

