It's very easy to overlook the Department of Labor's office in New York City all together. The office is located in Harlem on 125th street and sits directly above an OTB. The irony is blinding. Now, the desperately unemployed can collect their free government money and invest it wisely on the horse races, all without having to leave the block. It could be worse, I suppose. There could be a liquor store next door (instead, there's a McDonalds).
Like all recently laid off people, I am here today for a mandatory meeting. If you lose your job, and you've worked long enough (at least two financial quarters) and made enough money (sorry, that $6 an hour internship won't cut it), you can collect unemployment for up to 26 weeks. Usually, if you've been working at the same place for a while and with a pretty consistent salary, the government will end up giving you about half of your weekly salary, up to $405/week, which is the maximum amount anyone can collect. These numbers are all higher than they would have been last year thanks to the stimulus package.
Before I was laid off, I really had no notion of what unemployment would be like. The only image in my mind was of George Costanza on Seinfeld being perpetually out of work and frantically trying to make up businesses where he had interviewed. I started to think of what glorious business I would make up. (Maybe something like Canopy City, an organization that teaches city dwellers how to climb trees in central park?)
As it turns out, however, Seinfeld was very much pre-Internet. Today, there is very little human interaction required. You file your weekly unemployment claims online, search for jobs on Craigslist and other specialized sites and receive e-mails from your contact at the Department of Labor with potential jobs. This is a mixed bag, I think, because it is good to interact with real people and have a mandate to leave your cave.
In any case, you do have to show up for one mandatory meeting. You are told to approach the meeting like a real job interview - dress nice, show up on time and have a resume with you. When I get there, I am ushered into a large classroom filled with 50 of the most multi-ethnic, multi-generational people I've encountered in one space. For a moment, I feel nostalgic. We are sitting in crappy chairs with a fold-able arm to write on, just like in college. Then I remember I just graduated college a year ago and feel eager to get on with this orientation.
We fill out some forms to enter us into a Workforce system that will notify us of job opportunities. Every once in a while, I hear one of the instructors critiquing someone's form ("Sir, we don't use alpha; we need numbers." "Maam, we need your name and birthday and everything else, please.") I look around the room and see the many interpretations of "work attire." There's the denim lady (yes, both top and bottom are denim), the group of boys wearing hoodies and, of course, the woman in yoga pants.
After I learn about available programs that can remake me into a successful EMT or Bank Teller, I am called out of the room with a small group for our personal meetings. I wait outside in the hall and stare at the Yoga woman. She looks to be in her early 30's and has a rolled up blue yoga mat slung over her mint green cotton summer shirt. She makes pleasant small talk with the teenage mother-of-two next to her as though they're in line at Trader Joe's. Finally I am called in for an interview which lasts 45 seconds where I'm told there's nothing they can do for me. Then I'm allowed to leave, back to my cave.
On the way out, I pass the one person there wearing a full business suit, talking to a bearded man who looks like a lumberjack. "I want to say I have better things to do today than this," the suited man says, "but really, I don't." The lumberjack nods his head and says, "It still sucks though." To which the suited man says, "For sure."
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