A Good Day

Today was a good day.

Having stewed about my claim denial from unemployment for two days, I was feeling ready to deal with it without ripping anyone's head off.  I pulled out the forms to dispute the decision and started to look them over before deciding I should make clean copies of them first.  I figured I'd scan them into my computer since I didn't really need them unless I screwed something up.

I scanned the first two pages with no problem but on the third page I received an error message stating that the driver software could not be found and the program was shutting down.  Then my scanner stopped working.  I took a deep breath and decided to make regular copies instead.

After copying the pages I started looking for a paperclip, which means I had to look in my desk.  You cannot begin to imagine how many distracting things are in my desk.  I pulled out old receipts, looked them over, threw most of them away, pulled out business cards, tried to decide if they were important, found my screaming flying monkey slingshot...played with it...attempted to video tape the flight of said screaming flying monkey...the monkey of course refused to scream on camera.

Okay, I finally put away the monkey and the camera, stapled my papers together (I never did find any paperclips), and got back to business.  I started to fill out the papers again when I remembered that I had never updated my address with either of the companies I worked for in Florida last year and I needed to do that to get my W-2 forms.  I googled Michael's, found their number, called it, found out I had to email or fax a request to get them to make the change.  I don't have a fax machine so it was going to be email.  Slight problem.  They require a signature.  Which means I needed sign my request and then scan it.  Scan it.

The scanner still wasn't working.

Back on trusty FaceBook (where I had been wasting a fair amount of time in between activities) to ask if anyone knew how to fix my scanner.  I got the tried and true advice to restart the computer, which, of course, worked. 

Once again ready to get things done, I wrote a request for my address change, signed it, scanned it and emailed it.  Whew.  One thing done.

Next, I had to call Wachovia.  I talked to one of the girls I used to work with down there and, after chit-chatting a bit, she gave me a number to call, which, after going through a whole lot of automated nonsense, turned out to be the wrong number.  I was given a different number where I went through some different automated annoyance and finally reached a human who transferred me to a human who changed my address. Deeep breath.

Back to the unemployment paperwork.

I looked the paperwork over again and then decided I should call and talk to someone before doing anything.  Twelve long minutes later, I spoke to a representative who said, regarding my denial,  "Oh don't worry about that.  That's the first notice.  That one always says that."  She then told me to fill out one of the forms and fax it in with my last paystub and told me they would review it from there.  I managed to thank her and get off the phone without screaming.

Thankfully, I had cleared yesterday's snow off my car first thing this morning so I jumped in the car and went to the "Career Center" to fax in the paperwork and, finally, at nearly 3:30 this afternoon finished the task I had set out to do at around ten this morning.

In my world, I count that as a productive day.