Bureaucracy. Learn how the world works, already.

The ex was by today and the good news is that as long as I deign it acceptable to give him some of the garden produce (more on that another day) he will continue to do the weed eating of my yard. Which, honestly I could give a shit about but I guess I can grudgingly agree that it does look better once he's done it. Even if it never got done, though, I think my yard looks pretty good. He did it and I said thanks.

But anyway, while he was here today he told me his usual story of woe. He was $100 short in paying his bills this week. Poor guy. And it was all because of that one unemployment check that those bastards at the state never sent. What a bunch of jerks. Can you imagine? They set up some rules and then, (gasp!) they actually expect you to follow them! What on earth??!!??

Now, I've avoided learning the rules in detail thus far but I promise you, hand to god, that if/when I should ever get laid off, heaven forbid, the first ding dang thing I will do is memorize the rules the unemployment people want me to follow in order to get a check from them. If they want me, on every third Thursday, to entertain their dog, call their mom and fill out form 594-F, I'll buy some balls, call mom and do a 594-F. I'll learn the rules and follow them. How hard can it be? Every blue collar person and their brother and their uncle knows how the system works and they work the system. Seems like alls a guy would have to do is listen to his friends and that might be enlightening in and of itself. In fact, the ex even said to me that the people at his work all said that they had to report that one week's worth of work and then call in and report when they didn't work that other week. But since he found that to be stupid, by god, he wasn't going to do it!! You reap what you sow, dumbass.

Now, see, if this were the first run-in he'd had with the unemployment folks, I might feel bad and in fact, when it all first started there was a brief second where I actually considered learning the rules just for him so I could help him apply for benefits on-line. I did help him get his user name and password all set up, heaven forbid he should have to actually deal with the complications of that. "I DID this part already!!" "Yeah, but it didn't accept it because, see there, the rules are that your password has to be 8 characters long and include a number." "Well that's stupid. I'm using this one." type type type (new password, 8 letters, no numbers, website rejection) "What the HELL?? I typed a new password. Goddam this machine!! It never gets anything right!" "Did you include a number in your password?" "What?"

But I got frustrated and thought to myself, self, his friends from work all know exactly how the system works. My frustration stems from 10 years worth of me having to handle everything. 10 years worth of me having to be the one who reads the instructions, the one who knows how computers work, the one who has to tell him how things are. But even back then I thought, you know what? I'm done with that... I didn't get laid off, why should I have to know all this? His friends know how it works, let them educate him. Except, of course, he did not believe them and found what they told him to be "stupid." And hence, did not apply for unemployment during the correct week, back in November, when the layoffs first started. When he did finally call to apply, the lady on the phone told him that he was suppose to apply the previous week and he made up some lame explanation of why he hadn't, which he proceeded to contradict within three minutes. She did not buy it and all his work friends started getting unemployment payments right away, while his did not kick in for weeks. This was long after I'd decided that I was on my own financially, so while it didn't affect me or my bills/debts directly, I did have to listen to him rant about what a poorly run system it was and how "stupid" the people and the system are.

And so, you see, he's got a history of this. Everyone, it seems, is out to get him. It's very complicated, after all , this system of technology whereby you call on the phone and beep beep beep enter all your information. Fuck up one number and the lady might think you're trying to fraud the system. Which is stupid anyway. Damn bureaucracy. He's a victim of stupidity, that's for sure. Just try to figure out whose.