Back To The DOL We Go

I’m going to take us back to my second DOL appointment now.  Remember I said that I was given job search logs at my first meeting? I had four weeks to do 160 hours of job searches, 40 hours a week, and I was doing them, along with my housing logs. The first week wasn’t too bad although I had Dolly with me all day, but after the first week the boys were out of school. I’d spent a few days running back and forth to their schools for end-of-the-year performances, field days, school parties, and things like that. It was a lot of driving and a friend had lent me money for gas so I was good to go.

Trying to squeeze in housing logs and job search logs was tough, although I did them, sort of. The housing logs got done, all 30 calls; the job search logs, not so many. I only had about 17 hours of searches by the end of the week and it was all done via the Internet. It wasn’t what was asked of me but I didn’t care; I did the best I could with what I had. Then I had all three kids home with me, for a few days. When I went to the first appointment I’d been told that DOL would pay for day care or day camp. I called the people in charge of that department and got a list of day camps that take the DOL payment.

I got the kids enrolled in the approved day camp around the corner from the shelter and continued doing my job searches every day in the quiet of my room. Then I found out the rules changed. Betty told me about it; we were still friendly at that time. She said that shelter residents were now exempt from participating in DOL activities, but since nobody from DOL had officially told me not to do the job searches I continued doing them. I wasn’t about to get myself sanctioned for lack of cooperation.

On the day of the appointment I headed to the DOL after getting my kids to camp. I waited in the waiting area of the DOL for what seemed like forever although it was only about an hour. I’d been told that I’d be called to the back with a group of people for the class. What class? I wasn’t told anything about a class. I didn’t have time for a class; my kids got out of camp at 3:00. Regardless, I waited along with everyone else and we were finally called to the back.

When we got into the room we were instructed to sign in on the clipboard; our name, address, phone number, case number, and a box at the end to check whether or not we lived in emergency housing. I checked ‘yes’, of course. And I sat at the long conference table with about 12 other women/girls who’d also been told to be there for the class. I still didn’t know what class, but I did see a bunch of the other women with blank job search logs. Come to find out that the class I was supposed to attend that day was an instructional class on how to fill out the job search logs. I almost fell off the chair. Why was I wasting my time going to a class to learn to fill out forms I’d been filling out for a month? Stupid fucking rules.

I was sitting there waiting when a lady came out and called my name; I had to go back to her cubicle. She proceeded to tell me that since I lived in a shelter I was exempt from participating in any DOL activities for the summer and that I was free to go. What the fuck? I couldn’t believe I’d wasted an entire month working on those stupid job searches only to be told I didn’t need to. Now Betty had told me that but she’s not my case manager so I couldn’t listen to her. I grabbed up my belongings and went back to the shelter to report to the case manager that I was cut free from DOL for the time being.

The kids had been in camp for three weeks and only had a week to go, with a big party at the end of it. It was the first time they’d ever been to camp and they loved it so I was going to leave them there. About halfway through their last week I got a letter from DOL saying that I had to take my kids out of the camp because DOL wasn’t paying for it. Isn’t camp supposed to be paid in full at the beginning of the summer? I thought it was so I didn’t pay the letter any mind. Fuck the NYSDOL!! I wasn’t about to disappoint my kids yet again simply because of a change in the rules. I left them in the camp and left the problem with DOL. They’d wasted my time so now I was going to waste their money.

The whole issue of me having to go the appointments, stressing over the possibility of missing my son’s graduation, trying to squeeze time in to do housing logs and job search logs, and then returning only to find out that I didn’t have to participate made me sick. Someone had to know at my first appointment that the rules were changing, since they changed only two weeks after I began, yet I still had to comply with their bullshit. It’s almost like it was a joke on me.

I knew I’d have to return to the DOL after school started again in the fall but I put it in the back of my mind for the time being. I certainly wasn’t going to stress over something that wasn’t going to take place for weeks. Turns out it didn’t take place for months. I didn’t have to return until the end of January. Imagine that. School started in September and it was almost five months before I was called back into the DOL. That time they meant business, but I had one on them, and I won in the end. Fuck ‘em.

Until next time…peace to all.