Unemployment

It is the only "free money" that depresses rather than uplifts. It's like a failure fee. For every week I fail, I get a stipend that pokes at me with a sharp edge. It's called unemployment insurance. If you called a radio station and won a thousand dollars, you'd be prim and upbeat. But get $1,200 a month from UI, and you want to crawl under a rock.

Contrary to the viewpoint of some out-of-the-cosmos conservatives, these stipends don't encourage you to fail again the following week. Quite the contrary: Every time you "earn" one, it's like the embodiment of the system, some malevolent beast, is grinning at you one more time. I think he looks rather like the Grinch.

So in this twisted, topsy-turvy, chilling economy in the Year of Our Lord 2012, I yet again sit on hold with UI in the District of Columbia, waiting for a human, because my benefit has been turned off. Frankly, the people there are fine once you get to one of them. They know the system and they know how to flick the "on" switch and they are thoughtful and professional. It's not the people that raise your blood pressure - it's the wait time on hold.

I think we were smarter as a society when we just got a busy signal. I don't think call waiting or waiting rooms or touch tone menus have helped us. I think they've only benefited the pharma companies that sell heart patient medications.