Day 4 - The Unemployment office

So, today was my first visit to an unemployment office...technically, this is an outplacement resource center focused on getting people into new work, but they are tied into the state, so it counts. You have to keep logs of who you contact for work and how you do that. They offer assessments and classes to build skills you may not have. Very nice thing.

What I found most enjoyable was being the only smiling face in the room. Another noob was ahead of me when I got there and he had a lot of questions and wanted to sign up for a lot of classes, so I ended up waiting for about 10 minutes or so before I got any help. I asked some questions about how to get my benefits (call in Sunday night and set up direct deposit, though for last week need to do it tomorrow), what I need to do to keep the bennies coming (maintain the log and be active in my searches), how to follow up with the Navy (no can do, just gotta wait)...that kind of thing. All the while taking down notes and being really friendly.

Now, I got there at about 10:15am...by 10:45 when I finished my questions, there was a line of very frustrated people behind me...another person was just getting to the front desk to help out, but I noticed that the air in the room was very negative...not surprising given that everyone in the room is out of work. But even the people working there are affected by it, so I decided to be upbeat and treat the front desk like a happy person and it worked! Got a smile and a non-pat answer from her and watched as she started paying it forward to other people. Bit of sparkle when she spoke to her regulars, more patience in her voice. Was really cool to watch the transformation.

I popped outside to look atthe class offerings while they both cleared the line down then hopped back in and signed up for three classes. Front desk woman was very happy to help and got me signed up lickety-split and gave me as many tips as she could cram into six minutes. I left happy to get started on the process and to hopefully have made a positive impact in some one else's day.