Claiming your unemployment benefits in New Jersey

Step 1: Bend over.

Step 2: Drop pants.


Seriously, this is the largest onslaught of total bullsh*it with which I have ever had to deal. And whomsoever designed the Unemployment Call Centre should be CLUBBED TO DEATH. Like a seal.

So I filed for my first unemployment check yesterday. I was denied. And the NJ Dept of Labour declined to give me a reason. This leads me to believe that there is no reason. I am perfectly eligible for unemployment because 1.) I worked in NJ full time for well over 18 months, and 2.) I was laid off from my last job.

In order to rectify this, because my bank account currently has like $25 in it, and my savings account is at $0, I tried calling the NJ Dept Labour first thing this morning. I have been calling roughly 3 times a minute since 9.30 am. I get the same message every time: Due to the high volume of calls waiting, we cannot take your call at this time. You can call back again later." And then they actually HANG UP.

You can't even wait on hold listening to horrific lite music while waiting three hours for a real person. Nope. Not in New Jersey.

I've spoken to a few others who have had to deal with this in the good ol' Garden State. They said that, in their opinions, the "Call Centre" does not actually exist, because none of them ever managed to get a live person on the phone. This means I will actually have to drive down to Hackensack and harrass them in person.

For those of you lucky enough that you've never been to Hackensack, let me sum it up this way: EW. It's basically all the filth of Camden, Trenton, and Newark combined; minus the crime rates and plus a lot of overweight, middle-aged, upper-middle class twits who think they're hot shite because they work in the Seat of Bergen County.

This is why people go into their local government buildings with machine guns and blow the feckers up.