Your Bureaucracy at Work

It's a good thing I'm in a good mood today. My most recent encounter with the government on any other day may well have evoked a temper tantrum.

During the last week in December, I was given a special assignment by a local small business. It was a tedious, mindless project but it required 15 hours to complete. As a result, I earned about $400 more than is allowed by the GA Department of Labor's Unemployment Insurance laws without them deducting that amount, dollar for dollar, from my weekly benefits payment.
Well, call me crazy, but for some reason that information, although written in clear English on the web page used to certify for weekly payments, just seemed plain wrong. Surely they can't mean that they expect me to work 15 hours to earn almost the same amount as they were sending me for doing nothing at all!

As usual, I tried to get around the fact that also written in that same plain English on that same web page "We have received your information but we cannot pay your claim. You must report to your local Unemployment Insurance office." Nah, I thought, that can't be right. Why would they make me drive the 8 miles to the office, wait in their stupid lines, fill out forms that don't really apply to the situation, and endure another round of so-called "orientation.?"

So I wrote an email to the local office explaining my situation, thinking that by doing so I would be able to avoid what I felt was an unnecessary trip. This was on a Sunday evening. I was shocked to see a response in my email the very next morning. The message, while very pleasant and very apologetic, assured me that it would indeed be necessary to appear in person.

So, yes, in their infinite wisdom, our state government has created a circumstance that discourages citizens from seeking intermittent opportunities to earn a few dollars while they continue to search for permanent, full-time employment by not only yanking their benefit for the week, but also by punishing them for doing so by forcing them to spend two hours jumping through their horribly hostile hoops. Nice.