pandemic risk-taking vs income
29 Jun 2020 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimoreneBeen waiting for the program where the career counselor helps you get a useful work practice, not least because participating in an activity prescribed by Finnish social security is the one way to circumvent the otherwise 4-month no-unemployment-money period I became subject to again when I got kicked off unemployment for not answering the unsolicited and unexpected job offers that the unemployment agency mailed to my old address after the address change was no longer in effect because nobody told me that the unmployment agency is the sole agency of the government that doesn't automatically receive updated addresses when you register them with the magistrate/post office.
The nice social worker and employment bureau case manager that I met with later couldn't find anything that could actually help or appeal this because there was a built-in appeal period and after it was over, that's final! But I didn't know about it because the two letters from Finnish social security that would have notified me about this looked exactly like all 500 other letters from Finnish social security that everybody gets that just notify you after the fact that they've sent you a payment or that your application has been received and you never have to do anything about them and they're always the same, and this happened when my mother in law had just died and I was camping in the midst of towering piles of garbage and trying not to faint from anxiety about the sudden apparently unsurmountable debt, Wax was having constant panic attacks, and both of the cats were having sudden Is-It-Gonna-Die? scares from their longterm illnesses while one of them was constantly peeing on the bed and we didn't have a washing machine. So, not so surprisingly, these letters got lost unopened in piles of papers and junk around my desk and I completely failed to remember that they even existed. I have executive dysfunction issues, and this is something that could even happen to me without any special emergencies. As it was, last fall I just didn't have a single braincell to spare. All they had to say was that "It really is important to open letters from the government promptly." I know that, and I knew that but I DEFINITELY know it now! Too bad that didn't happen what with all those emergencies! Sucks for me! "But it really IS important, VERY important. You just really have to do that." WELL I GUESS YOU DO AND NOW I'LL ALWAYS RESPOND TO THEM WITH AN INSTANT PANIC ATTACK, SO AT LEAST I SHOULDN'T HAVE THIS SAME PROBLEM AGAIN!!!
Anyway, you have to repeat the initial copay period which you get when you first register for unemployment which applies, I forget exactly, but depending on how long you were employed or how long you were unemployed before that, or something. And that is four months. But you can skip right over it if you participate in one of the employment bureau's employment-promoting activities, like a job fair or a short course from one of the staffing agencies etc, or in a work practice placement, but also because of the pandemic it was not a good time to try to work in retail. There were no substitute long-distance options and the unemployment workers were inundated and probably actually drowning in phone calls because of all the people who have been laid off or put on recesses without pay, so good luck getting hold of one.
So in principle it's good, at least financially.
But what's not good is that when the consultant called me, he started with "Now that this corona-virus situation is over..."
Here in southwest Finland the cases have been very low for a month or so, and the one outbreak in that time has been contact-traced and contained to some dock workers from the Turku harbor. So perhaps scheduling a course in early August is reasonably safe, but I find it hard to believe they can't manage long distance for this stuff, which in my experience is usually interviews with case workers of various types, power point presentations, and filling out forms with help. Also they're planning to put clients in a room together seven weekdays in a row, with hand-washing rules and a one-meter distance from everyone else. Their invitation warns that it's much safer to come in a taxi or a car, but Wax can't take off work to drive me there and back seven days in a row and a taxi from here to Turku - half an hour - is prohibitively expensive. OTOH, the commuter buses from out here in the archipelago tend to be extremely lightly populated, unlike some local buses. Finland (5.5 million) had 63 new cases in the past week. The sewage tests showed small amounts of the virus in Turku and bigger amounts in Helsinki, none in the samples from the rest of the country. Finland has also never updated their recommendations to not wear masks because they won't help that much and will just confuse people, even after the WHO did; the goverment has remained pretty stolidly "you might touch your face and then it would be WORSE than no mask!!" along with the bogus alarmism propagated in early spring by so many irresponsible Western medical authorities, and unlike the others, haven't reversed that in light of the piles and piles of new research and evidence to the contrary. So I would be entering this small air-conditioned room with a bunch of people who are probably not prepared to be that careful and won't be wearing masks.
So anyway, it might be safe to go there, and I'm not really in a risk group, but I'm one of those people that always gets a cold or flu every year (minus this year because I haven't left the house...) and I can't help being alarmed by all this. Plus they want to hold these classes in what are probably air-conditioned rooms, which is also not great for air circulation. I'd feel a lot better if they were planning to meet outside. But is the risk high enough for me to voluntarily postpone participation, essentially losing income for another month?
I don't know, but I'm having a limited-symptom panic attack about it! And if I changed my mind and "can't" participate I'm supposed to notify them "immediately". So.
The nice social worker and employment bureau case manager that I met with later couldn't find anything that could actually help or appeal this because there was a built-in appeal period and after it was over, that's final! But I didn't know about it because the two letters from Finnish social security that would have notified me about this looked exactly like all 500 other letters from Finnish social security that everybody gets that just notify you after the fact that they've sent you a payment or that your application has been received and you never have to do anything about them and they're always the same, and this happened when my mother in law had just died and I was camping in the midst of towering piles of garbage and trying not to faint from anxiety about the sudden apparently unsurmountable debt, Wax was having constant panic attacks, and both of the cats were having sudden Is-It-Gonna-Die? scares from their longterm illnesses while one of them was constantly peeing on the bed and we didn't have a washing machine. So, not so surprisingly, these letters got lost unopened in piles of papers and junk around my desk and I completely failed to remember that they even existed. I have executive dysfunction issues, and this is something that could even happen to me without any special emergencies. As it was, last fall I just didn't have a single braincell to spare. All they had to say was that "It really is important to open letters from the government promptly." I know that, and I knew that but I DEFINITELY know it now! Too bad that didn't happen what with all those emergencies! Sucks for me! "But it really IS important, VERY important. You just really have to do that." WELL I GUESS YOU DO AND NOW I'LL ALWAYS RESPOND TO THEM WITH AN INSTANT PANIC ATTACK, SO AT LEAST I SHOULDN'T HAVE THIS SAME PROBLEM AGAIN!!!
Anyway, you have to repeat the initial copay period which you get when you first register for unemployment which applies, I forget exactly, but depending on how long you were employed or how long you were unemployed before that, or something. And that is four months. But you can skip right over it if you participate in one of the employment bureau's employment-promoting activities, like a job fair or a short course from one of the staffing agencies etc, or in a work practice placement, but also because of the pandemic it was not a good time to try to work in retail. There were no substitute long-distance options and the unemployment workers were inundated and probably actually drowning in phone calls because of all the people who have been laid off or put on recesses without pay, so good luck getting hold of one.
So in principle it's good, at least financially.
But what's not good is that when the consultant called me, he started with "Now that this corona-virus situation is over..."
Here in southwest Finland the cases have been very low for a month or so, and the one outbreak in that time has been contact-traced and contained to some dock workers from the Turku harbor. So perhaps scheduling a course in early August is reasonably safe, but I find it hard to believe they can't manage long distance for this stuff, which in my experience is usually interviews with case workers of various types, power point presentations, and filling out forms with help. Also they're planning to put clients in a room together seven weekdays in a row, with hand-washing rules and a one-meter distance from everyone else. Their invitation warns that it's much safer to come in a taxi or a car, but Wax can't take off work to drive me there and back seven days in a row and a taxi from here to Turku - half an hour - is prohibitively expensive. OTOH, the commuter buses from out here in the archipelago tend to be extremely lightly populated, unlike some local buses. Finland (5.5 million) had 63 new cases in the past week. The sewage tests showed small amounts of the virus in Turku and bigger amounts in Helsinki, none in the samples from the rest of the country. Finland has also never updated their recommendations to not wear masks because they won't help that much and will just confuse people, even after the WHO did; the goverment has remained pretty stolidly "you might touch your face and then it would be WORSE than no mask!!" along with the bogus alarmism propagated in early spring by so many irresponsible Western medical authorities, and unlike the others, haven't reversed that in light of the piles and piles of new research and evidence to the contrary. So I would be entering this small air-conditioned room with a bunch of people who are probably not prepared to be that careful and won't be wearing masks.
So anyway, it might be safe to go there, and I'm not really in a risk group, but I'm one of those people that always gets a cold or flu every year (minus this year because I haven't left the house...) and I can't help being alarmed by all this. Plus they want to hold these classes in what are probably air-conditioned rooms, which is also not great for air circulation. I'd feel a lot better if they were planning to meet outside. But is the risk high enough for me to voluntarily postpone participation, essentially losing income for another month?
I don't know, but I'm having a limited-symptom panic attack about it! And if I changed my mind and "can't" participate I'm supposed to notify them "immediately". So.
(no subject)
Date: 29 Jun 2020 05:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30 Jun 2020 01:51 am (UTC)ALL THE HUGS
(no subject)
Date: 30 Jun 2020 05:52 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 30 Jun 2020 01:33 pm (UTC)