Tag Archives: unemployment

When the pandemic hit, I knew my day job doing customer service was going to be affected. And it was affected in stages. First, my hours were cut in half (same as my salary). That went on for a little while. And when that was happening, it was only me and my manager working. My manager did work a little more than I did, but we still pretty much were working together as a team.

Then, my manager had to take leave. I’m not going to go into why because that is her business, but she let me know that she wouldn’t be working and it was going to just be me. And when that happened, my hours and pay got cut even more. I was down to working only 3 hours a week (1 hour a day for 3 days a week) and my pay was cut even more. It was less than my hourly pay would be for 3 hours, but I also understood that the company wasn’t bringing in any money because all of our locations were closed down. So any payments that I could get was nice. And it wasn’t too hard because we also didn’t have a lot of customers. But even though my manager wasn’t working, she would still log in to our chat system to keep me company and to help me out when I needed an extra set of eyes to do some research.

And that’s what my life has been like for the past few months. Minimal work, but I also was collecting unemployment (you can collect to make up what you aren’t earning if you have reduced hours). It wasn’t ideal, but it was what it was and I was grateful to have some schedule and sense of normalcy.

Then things changed again.

Last week, I was put on hold from my customer service job. My manager was going to take over the hours that I was doing (which does make sense as she is the manager and there are some higher-level things they are going to try to work on now). And I was technically out of a job. I do still have my other job doing research, but that is limited hours to begin with. Fortunately, I’m not going to be losing money since I will get it in my unemployment now instead of my paycheck (although we did lose the $600 bump which is something I really needed). And I am going to log into the chat system for the hours I was working to be there for my manager the way that she was there for me. I’m technically not working when I’m logged in, but I’m there so she’s not alone and if she needs help looking something up in the ticketing system I can do so. And just like I was grateful for the limited hours I had to make things feel a bit normal, I’m grateful to be logging in so that I feel like I have a schedule and responsibility.

The owner of the company did tell me that the plan is to hire me back as soon as they can. But we don’t know when things will be back to normal again. It’s hard when our shows are large crowds in a room sitting at tables together. It’s exactly what you aren’t supposed to be doing right now. There are a few cities that are open and have shows because their case numbers are low enough, but it’s a fraction of what is normally open. But I do feel grateful that the owner said that he was planning on bringing me back. I don’t feel like I was fired. I’m just on hold until I can return to work. I still consider myself an employee of the company and there is no reason for me to think that when work starts up again that I won’t be coming back.

I’m really hoping that the unemployment bump returns because that will make me feel much more comfortable about my situation right now. I am much luckier than most people because I do have some money saved that I was hoping to use for something fun or for a future down payment on a condo, but I can use it for rent and bills if necessary. I also know I can ask my parents for help if I really need it. I’m so grateful for those options, but I hope that I don’t have to use them.

I did work on my resume and update it (and used a new template to make it look better) and I probably will look into other remote jobs that have openings right now. I don’t necessarily want to find a new job, but unless I know the unemployment bump is coming back I will need to figure out how to make money. Maybe I’ll luck out and find something that is remote and temporary and I can go back to my customer service job when that is back. I know there are jobs right now for grocery stores or delivery services because those are needed, but because I do have a higher risk of getting sick I don’t feel like taking one of those would be the best thing. So I’m only looking at openings for remote work.

I know I will get through this time. This is temporary. Things will be reopening again and my job will be coming back. I would love to know exactly when that would be happening or to have an idea of how long this will last, but we really don’t know. I doubt any of us expected to still be in this situation in August. Especially with it being worse than it was before. But eventually, it will be better. And I’ll be back to work and so will my co-workers. I do miss working with them and I can’t wait until we are virtually reunited and back to what we are used to.

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With so much going on in my life lately (workouts, eating right, family stuff, the 5K), my life has almost felt like it was on autopilot lately. I know when I need to do things and when I have to get in my car to drive to something. And of course I know when I need to focus on work.

For a long time, between customers at my day job I was applying for another part-time job. I know that this job isn’t enough to support myself on and I need to find something else to do either around my work hours or between customers at work.

The past two weeks, my between customers or before/after work time have been filled with other things. I kind of forgot about my job search. It just wasn’t the focus of my day and whenever I thought about it, it was when I was already in bed or while I was working and then I got a customer that needed a lot of help. It’s not that I was avoiding it, it’s just that life took over.

But I need to get back into that ASAP. While I’m doing ok for now with bills and things, my savings are getting smaller and smaller. And I am still collecting a little unemployment now (I’m technically underemployed and make less with my job than my unemployment claim is worth so I get the difference), but that is going to end in the next few weeks.

It’s not easy job hunting. Not only do I need something flexible, I want something to work around my current job because I don’t want to leave this job. Something like writing, editing text, data entry, or virtual assistant work would be perfect because most of those things can be done around my own hours.

So I’m back to searching online and trying to search through all the “work-from-home” scams out there (and there are a ton!). I’m also back to asking friends if they know anything that would work for me (just like how I’m asking on here if you all know something). I know that I will find something eventually, but this in-between time of waiting to find that perfect second job is tough and making me nervous.

So if any of you know of any good and flexible jobs (either based in LA or work from home), please share them with me. I really need to expand my searching and asking for help is one way to get more eyes out there on the job search for me. Thanks in advance for any of you who comment or contact me with any job ideas!

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I know that I can’t be too frustrated about my employment situation yet. I was just laid off from my one regular part-time job on Monday afternoon. But still, I’m getting really tired of what the trend is like now for jobs.

First of all, let me say that if I could find a “normal” full-time job that was open to letting me take some time off here and there for auditions (which means only having about one days notice about the time I’d need to take off), I’d be more than happy to take that job. I probably wouldn’t love working a job that much, but I would totally do it. But most full time jobs either need someone with a master’s degree or the ads are very specific and say “no actors”. I’m not going to lie about being an actor (and pretend that my auditions are doctor and dentist appointments like I know some people do). I’d rather be up front and honest, and most past employers have appreciated that.

But the situation I’m in now is having so many different jobs but none of them have guaranteed work from week to week. The box office job is the most stable, but even that one might only be 8 hours a week (if I’m lucky). When I emailed the box office about my open availability, they didn’t know if they could even get me on the schedule before September (which is what we agreed upon before).

The survey coder job is also not reliable in terms of hours. Right now it’s pretty decent because I’m in training, but once that’s done, there will only be work to do when they need the help. I have no idea what that means in terms of hours per week, but I’m sure that there will be some weeks with a lot of hours and possibly some weeks with no hours at all.

And that’s kind of what all my jobs are like right now. I guess there could be a long-term substitute teaching job at some point, but in all the years I’ve worked for my school district, the longest sub job I’ve ever seen was 3 days long. While that would be awesome, I need more than that.

And I just got hired with another job, but it’s kind of like an on-call position. There is hourly pay (although it’s pretty low) but it’s independent contractor work. So pretty much 30% of what I make has to be saved and paid during tax time (I’ve been told 30% is as high as I could owe so I’d rather save more money than not have enough).

I’m trying not to be a little crazy about all this. It took me a while to find the assistant headhunter job so I need to give myself time to find another day job that has some stable hours. And I did re-open my unemployment claim so I will hopefully have a little extra money (although with the hours I’m working graveyard right now, I might only get about $20/week from my unemployment claim).

The one thing that is going my way right now is my friends. I’ve been very open about how I need a new job and people are keeping their eyes out for anything that they see that I might be right for. While I’m not applying to everything they send to me (I know some of them either don’t pay enough or won’t be flexible at all), I’m so appreciative every time I get an email/text/tweet/FB message about a job that might be right for me.

There are so many people pulling for me right now, and that’s something that I’ve never felt before. It’s awesome and I know that I can’t let everyone down. So I have to keep searching and applying for tons of jobs and hopefully the next perfect day job will come my way soon.

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