Unemployment Training

“You have been selected to attend this reemployment orientation session because you have been receiving unemployment insurance benefits for at least a month now, which means you are doing something wrong.”

This was the warm welcome I and 39 other unemployed individuals received from our orientation facilitator the morning of Sept. 27, yet his rehearsed delivery made it clear many other unfortunate souls have received the same greeting. You see, I was mandated by the Arizona Department of Economic Security to devote one to three hours of my Monday for a training session “which will provide you with comprehensive information about reemployment services available to you.”

The notion that in this job market and national economy, which has Arizona at an unemployment rate of ten percent, one month of unemployment would certainly be our fault. None the less, I was called to serve and so I did mainly because if I elected not to my unemployment insurance benefits would be discontinued.

Yes, it is very important that I use this time to have a greater understanding of what the State of Arizona offers to assist me in finding work instead of, oh…I don’t know…actually look for work. According to my summons, DES records identified me as being one who could benefit from these services. Services such as Basic Computer Classes, Resume Writing Lab, Networking, and “Boomers & Beyond”.

I was greeted by the lovely gentleman who would turn out to be my session facilitator with a thundering, “May I help you?”

This guy was in his late-20’s/early 30’s, dressed in slacks and a button down straight from Kohls, sleeves rolled up, his belly filling the shirt enough to see he didn’t exercise but wasn’t really fat. And clearly he had all the answers. When he was not welcoming all of his guests/hostages, he was discussing at full volume the experience of consuming raw pumpkin with a fellow front desk receptionist about.

“I have an appointment,” I replied.

“With who?”

Dude had me with that question. I pulled my referral form out to see if there was a name. There wasn’t.

“I have no idea.”

“Fill out these two pages and hand them back.”

Seriously. That was the exchange. This guy knew what the drill was and obviously was anticipating forty-plus people to arrive between 9:30 and 9:45. One would think he could lead with “Are you here for the orientation?”, but no. He had the job and clearly liked being the big man in a room full of people battling confidence issues in some manner.

So, I sat down and quickly completed the “two pages” he handed me, mostly questions I have already answered multiple times in the last six weeks as part of my filing for unemployment. I got up to hand my forms in when a gentleman directly in front of me was shouted down by our host for not filling out the back side of the second form. I wanted to correct the guy by letting him know that there are actually three pages, not two, but I didn’t want Time Out in Unemployment School before it even got started.

The general session ran about 45 minutes and included a 20 minute presentation from a gentleman handling Veterans employment assistance. We had two Vets in our group. Two out of 40. Sure glad we all got to get the rundown of benefits that only 5% of the room could qualify for. We were also told great pearls of wisdom such as “You must have a resume to find a job in today’s job market” and “You have to know how to use a computer and the internet to look for the jobs.” At this point, I was wondering aloud, “What freaking record does the Arizona DES have that would indicate this session would benefit me?!?”

We were then shuffled into a computer lab-type room where would log into our Arizona Workforce Connection profile, update our information and create a virtual resume. My profile was filled with my information from my last period of unemployment – 2001.

This lab room was cold. I mean, the state could easily being going bankrupt simply from refrigerating this space. I swear each computer terminal had its own 15 SEER, 4 ton air conditioning unit (I know these unit specs only because we were the recipients of a new unit for our home this past week). It was cold.

By groups of four or five, people were called to have their one-on-one interviews with their Reemployment Counselors. I was the second to the last called. During this time, I was encouraged to check the super-duper, double-secret, unavailable-anywhere-else job bank that does an exact match of skills to my resume. I got one match: the Director of Sales and Marketing for the Arizona Grand Resort. Keep in mind this is a job for which I have zero experience in either sales or marketing. Good match.

Once called, a kind gentleman took me back to his cubicle where he introduced me to another lady and announced, “We’re training.” I had no idea who was training whom here, but two hours of my morning were now shot, so what the heck. It quickly became apparent that the lady in the chair operating the computer was the trainee and I was picking up the process of virtually establishing my profile at a rate vastly superior to her. Perhaps she could benefit from one of the Basic Computer Classes.

She asked for my resume and the man asked what kind of work I’m looking for.

“I’m looking to continue the community-based project management type of work that I was doing while at ASU,” I said.

The lady looked blankly at her trainer and asked, “How do I enter that?”

Oh boy.

The man then asked me if I had any interest in any of the Employment Center’s classes, juggling some M&Ms as he spoke. I did my best to suppress a response of “Are you kidding???” and just smiled and said “No thanks.”

“So, should I enter ‘Not interested’ here?”

“Ummm…no,” he said to his trainee. He then looked at me and said, “You’ll be quick.”

Thirty minutes later, I was out the door, defrosting and satisfied that my benefits were intact.

And the moral of this story…I directly encountered at least seven people during this experience who all had jobs and over the course of three hours they went from telling me I was handling my unemployment improperly to there was nothing they could do for me. It was a productive morning.

The Training Log

This past week was not the most productive in terms of number of rides, but the quality was tremendous. I did spend the morning of Sept. 25 digging trenches for the kids’ school’s garden, but I have no stats for that.

• Wednesday, Sept. 22 – Hard, long ride from Cactus/92^nd St. to Bartlett Lake and back. This is a training route that Lance Armstrong and the Postal Service Pro Cycling team used to do. Good climbs out from the lake and a stiff headwind on the return trip. 76 miles, 4 hrs 39 mins, 4171 Kcalories, 149 Avg HR, Avg Speed 16.2, Avg Cadence 85.
• Sunday, Sept. 26 – A lovely ride to Le Grande Orange with my wife as Nana had the kids for a sleepover. Very low intensity for me, but hard on Vicki. 30 miles, 2 hrs 27 mins, 775 Kcalories, Avg HR 90, Avg Speed 12.1, Avg Cadence 62.