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Thread: Giving yourself the highest chance to receive unemployment benefits

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    Albuquerque's #1 Attorney Alvin Finklestein's Avatar
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    Giving yourself the highest chance to receive unemployment benefits

    Hello, everyone. It had been awhile since I last posted here, but the Ken Scalir appearance on Judge Judy brought me out of lurk mode.

    One important note: There is no evidence that I am a real attorney, and you should not take any of the below as professional legal advice.

    Another important note: I am also NOT advocating any kind of fraud or deception in order to get these benefits. However, as your approval or denial will often hinge upon some very arbitrary factors which will depend upon the way you describe what happened, it's important to know what they're looking for. Many unemployment benefits are unfairly DENIED due to the incorrect perception that the employee got fired on purpose. This guide is for those looking to prevent that incorrect perception, NOT to encourage scamming or dishonest acquiring of undeserved benefits.

    Use this advice at your own risk! It is not guaranteed to work, and I take no responsibility if you get denied.

    One frequent question I receive is, "I just got fired from my job because they claim I violated company policy. Can I still get unemployment benefits?"

    Another question I receive is, "My job is terrible and my boss hates me. Is there any way to just end things there and still get unemployment benefits?"

    This varies from state to state, but in most cases the process is fairly uniform.

    First off, you need to understand what unemployment benefits actually are. It's actually "unemployment insurance", and your employer pays for it for each employee.

    Your employer does NOT decide whether you receive this benefit. Investigators with the state determine whether or not you're eligible. However, your employer DOES have feedback into the process, and gaining their cooperation is helpful (though not essential).

    Next, you need to understand what makes you eligible or ineligible.

    Simply put, you are usually eligible for unemployment benefits if you did not consciously choose to lose your job. That is, if you did not intentionally lose your job, then you are usually granted the benefits.

    However, this is a complicated and vague situation. As state unemployment insurance investigators cannot read your mind, how do they know if you intentionally lost your job or not?

    This is determined by a common-sense decision after interviews with both you and your employer.

    It does not matter much if you were a lousy or incompetent employee. That is not what is being determined here. In fact, in many cases it's better to paint yourself as someone who just couldn't handle the work, and your employer fired you.

    I will list some hypothetical situations where you would or would not receive unemployment benefits:

    1) Quit your job. NO BENEFITS, as quitting is voluntary.

    2) Repeated unexcused absence from work. USUALLY NO BENEFITS, unless you have a valid medical or emergency reason for it. This is because it's impossible for the investigator to determine whether you intentionally didn't show up in order to get fired, so by default it is assumed you intentionally stopped showing up, and therefore it's deemed equivalent to quitting. If your absences are numerous over a long period of time, you may be able to talk your way into benefits (see later in this guide).

    3) Poor job performance or incompetence. BENEFITS ARE TYPICALLY AWARDED, unless you inexplicably went from competent to incompetent, which again might signal the assumption you did this intentionally to get fired.

    4) Poor behavior with customers, co-workers, or superiors. VARIES, based upon the situation. The investigator will determine whether or not they believe you intentionally caused trouble to get fired, or if you were just an unpleasant person in general. If it was determined that you were just a general jerk, you will usually be awarded benefits.

    5) Habitual lateness. VARIES, depending upon how long the lateness has been going on. While this is counterintuitive, a usually-punctual employee who suddenly always shows up late will usually be denied benefits, whereas someone with a months or years-long history of being late will be given benefits This is because the former seemingly indicates intentional behavior (no benefits), while the latter simply indicates a bad employee (benefits granted).

    6) Laid off / position eliminated. BENEFITS ALWAYS GRANTED.


    If you are considering leaving your job due to issues there, but would like unemployment benefits, DO NOT QUIT. Instead, approach your employer, and ask if they could classify your departure as a "mutual resignation".

    A mutual resignation is essentially an agreement between the employer and employee that things aren't working out, and that both agree things should end. This is legally different than the employee simply quitting (no unemployment benefits), and it's also different from a firing (employee can sue for wrongful termination). A mutual resignation allows for unemployment benefits, but denies you the right to sue for wrongful termination, so both sides gain.

    Some employers will agree to do this, and others will not. It is more likely they will agree if it's a smaller company, and if you are leaving on at least somewhat good terms.

    If the employer agrees, have them rehearse with you what will be said to the state investigator. Nobody should lie or be asked to lie. Simply come up with a real reason that there was some problem at work (don't lie -- actually come up with an actual problem occurring there involving you), and have the employer state that they were unhappy with you and both of you decided it was best to end things, in order to prevent a termination down the road. If this is said by both parties to the state investigator, you will almost surely receive benefits.

    If you quit, don't bother applying for benefits. You will get denied 100% of the time.

    If you get fired, you should always apply for unemployment benefits, unless you have found another job right away.

    At this point, it is unlikely your former employer will cooperate, and they may actually fight you receiving the benefits. Do not worry about this.

    You just need to come up with a proper framing of what happened.

    It is important to rehearse a story regarding your firing, which paints your behavior as routine, which suddenly resulted in your termination after a long time.

    Do NOT paint it as a one-time screw-up, unless it's something which could certainly be determined an accident.

    For example, say you worked at a call center and you were caught intentionally hanging up on Dan Druff when he was repeatedly demanding a $10 credit on his bill. Upon investigation, it was found by your employer that you hung up on 3 other customers that day, as well, and they fired you.

    WRONG: "I was just really stressed out that day and hung up on anyone who got me frustrated. I don't usually do that, but that one day I flipped out and kept doing it because I couldn't cope."

    RIGHT: "We get a lot of calls from abusive customers, and I just didn't have the personality to take the verbal beatings every day. Eventually I noticed that it was better to just hang up on the customer when they got too aggressive with me, as that made the job easier and less stressful. I was doing this for the last 6 months, and I guess they decided to start getting rid of the customer service people who were hanging up on customers."

    Amazingly, the second story above usually WILL get benefits, while the first story will only get them sometimes. Again, you are going for demonstrating consistent bad behavior over a long period of time, rather than a one-time change in behavior.

    Same goes for routine lateness or missing work.

    If you suddenly go from punctual and reliable to late and absent, you will not be granted benefits.

    If you've been unreliable for a year and finally your company had enough, then you WILL be granted benefits. It's important to state in such cases that you were missing work (or late to work) for a long period of time, and it seemed your employer was okay with it. State that you were surprised when they actually fired you for this after such a long time of seemingly tolerating it.

    I advised a client who was habitually absent over a period of 18 months to tell the investigator just that. The investigator then interviewed the employer and asked if the employee had been missing work often for the past 18 months. The employer verified this to be true, and my client was granted benefits.

    In another interesting case, I had a client who was fired for engaging in racist behavior. He used the dreaded n-word in an argument with a co-worker, and was promptly terminated for it.

    Normally such outrageous behavior would be considered "intentional" and benefits would be denied.

    However, I asked my client about the history with this co-worker. Apparently the co-worker was bigoted herself, and had also made anti-Semitic remarks to and about my client in the past.

    I asked my client if he had reported these remarks to his superiors, and he said that he had.

    This was the out he needed. I told him to state to investigators that he was repeatedly subjected to anti-Semitic attacks at work by this woman, and one day he finally lost his cool and called her the n-word. The investigator called up the workplace and asked if this was possible. The employer denied that they had any proof of these anti-Semitic remarks, but acknowledged that the two employees had a history of arguing with one another and getting into heated battles. That was enough for the investigator to believe that this was not an intentional job sabotage, but rather just an ongoing pattern of two employees who couldn't get along. Benefits were granted, and my client profusely thanked me.


    In general, when fired, you need to craft a story (one which does not veer too far from the truth) which paints you as a longtime undesirable employee, rather than one who engaged in unusual behavior.

    Of course, when possible, it's best to blame a poor fit with the work environment, rather than actual bad work. For example, if fired for being rude to customers, it's better to simply state that you are not really a people person, and that a customer service position probably wasn't right for you. It's also fine to state that many employees at work personally disliked you due to personality clashes, and that it led to a toxic work environment, causing your employer to finally terminate you.

    I hope that this guide is useful, and will result in many lazy weeks sitting at home, posting on forums, and engaging in degenerate online gambling.
    Last edited by Alvin Finklestein; 01-19-2018 at 02:52 AM.

  2. #2
    Gold SetofKs's Avatar
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    TLDR, but jesus fucking christ. This site just hit a new low, I assume

     
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      JimmyG_415:

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    Albuquerque's #1 Attorney Alvin Finklestein's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SetofKs View Post
    TLDR, but jesus fucking christ. This site just hit a new low, I assume
    I am not sure what you mean by that.

    This is very helpful advice to receiving unemployment benefits for those who might need it.

    Mr. Ks, I am aware that you are a degenerate who has never held a real job, but please do not look down upon helpful free advice I am providing to the working man.

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    Gold SetofKs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alvin Finklestein View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by SetofKs View Post
    TLDR, but jesus fucking christ. This site just hit a new low, I assume
    I am not sure what you mean by that.

    This is very helpful advice to receiving unemployment benefits for those who might need it.

    Mr. Ks, I am aware that you are a degenerate who has never held a real job, but please do not look down upon helpful free advice I am providing to the working man.
    I'll bet you anything that I held a job within the last 2 years. You are right about the degenerate part tho. And I didn't even read yer post, I was just talking shit. I'll read it right now though.

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    Plutonium sonatine's Avatar
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    im not reading anything in this thread but i skimmed the first half of ops post and im going to save everyone like 10 minutes of their lives:


    to get on unemployment;

    - dont ever quit

    - when they ask why youre no longer employed, always say "they said i was unable to fulfill the job requirements and then they let me go".

    - if you get denied, always appeal. always. UI benefits eligibility is always determined by an actual person, who handles dozens of cases a day and has more job security if they put more people on UI. make it easy for them to do their job and they will. if someone denies you and you havent given them an obvious excuse to do so (aka deviating from the script above), the person after them will usually just assume it was a personality issue or the other person didnt do their job and green light your benefits.

    - avoid at all costs bringing conflict from the workplace to the table. dont play the 'my boss was a dick to me' card. give them a very small amount of information to work with, and make sure its the right information.

    after your interview they may or may not reach out to the employer to compare notes. if they do and they get conflicting info, its not the end of the world, you can say 'thats not what they told me at the exit interview and i just signed whatever they told me to sign because i needed that severance check'. at this point you are 50/50 to get approved. throw in the appeals process and the odds are even better.

    enjoy your vacation, use it to learn to code.
    "Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness." - Alejandro Jodorowsky

    "America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers." -- William S. Burroughs

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    Gold Charham's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    im not reading anything in this thread but i skimmed the first half of ops post and im going to save everyone like 10 minutes of their lives:


    to get on unemployment;

    - dont ever quit

    - when they ask why youre no longer employed, always say "they said i was unable to fulfill the job requirements and then they let me go".

    - if you get denied, always appeal. always. UI benefits eligibility is always determined by an actual person, who handles dozens of cases a day and has more job security if they put more people on UI. make it easy for them to do their job and they will. if someone denies you and you havent given them an obvious excuse to do so (aka deviating from the script above), the person after them will usually just assume it was a personality issue or the other person didnt do their job and green light your benefits.

    - avoid at all costs bringing conflict from the workplace to the table. dont play the 'my boss was a dick to me' card. give them a very small amount of information to work with, and make sure its the right information.

    after your interview they may or may not reach out to the employer to compare notes. if they do and they get conflicting info, its not the end of the world, you can say 'thats not what they told me at the exit interview and i just signed whatever they told me to sign because i needed that severance check'. at this point you are 50/50 to get approved. throw in the appeals process and the odds are even better.

    enjoy your vacation, use it to learn to code.
    you have a gift for writing!

    One piece of advice I will add, don't wait until your severance runs out to file. You can receive unemployment and severance at the same time. People usually wait until after severance runs out to file, that is a big mistake.

     
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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    im not reading anything in this thread but i skimmed the first half of ops post and im going to save everyone like 10 minutes of their lives:


    to get on unemployment;

    - dont ever quit

    - when they ask why youre no longer employed, always say "they said i was unable to fulfill the job requirements and then they let me go".

    - if you get denied, always appeal. always. UI benefits eligibility is always determined by an actual person, who handles dozens of cases a day and has more job security if they put more people on UI. make it easy for them to do their job and they will. if someone denies you and you havent given them an obvious excuse to do so (aka deviating from the script above), the person after them will usually just assume it was a personality issue or the other person didnt do their job and green light your benefits.

    - avoid at all costs bringing conflict from the workplace to the table. dont play the 'my boss was a dick to me' card. give them a very small amount of information to work with, and make sure its the right information.

    after your interview they may or may not reach out to the employer to compare notes. if they do and they get conflicting info, its not the end of the world, you can say 'thats not what they told me at the exit interview and i just signed whatever they told me to sign because i needed that severance check'. at this point you are 50/50 to get approved. throw in the appeals process and the odds are even better.

    enjoy your vacation, use it to learn to code.
    Not sure which state your experience comes from, but in California, this advice will get you denied.

    They ALWAYS check with your employer, and if your story is different, they usually believe the employer and use their version to determine your eligibility based upon that. Many times that's bad news.

    Appeals are not 50/50 either. It's worth trying but you're probably failing again, especially if you admit you signed exit documents which weren't true "just to get the check".

    That wouldn't fly here.

    Being vague also does you no favors. They will keep asking you details and will assume the worst if you won't provide answers.

    People often compare the process to an interrogation.

    In short, if you lost your job, it's better to take the 5 minutes to read the Alvin essay and understand what they're looking for, than to get your benefits denied.

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    Plutonium sonatine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    im not reading anything in this thread but i skimmed the first half of ops post and im going to save everyone like 10 minutes of their lives:


    to get on unemployment;

    - dont ever quit

    - when they ask why youre no longer employed, always say "they said i was unable to fulfill the job requirements and then they let me go".

    - if you get denied, always appeal. always. UI benefits eligibility is always determined by an actual person, who handles dozens of cases a day and has more job security if they put more people on UI. make it easy for them to do their job and they will. if someone denies you and you havent given them an obvious excuse to do so (aka deviating from the script above), the person after them will usually just assume it was a personality issue or the other person didnt do their job and green light your benefits.

    - avoid at all costs bringing conflict from the workplace to the table. dont play the 'my boss was a dick to me' card. give them a very small amount of information to work with, and make sure its the right information.

    after your interview they may or may not reach out to the employer to compare notes. if they do and they get conflicting info, its not the end of the world, you can say 'thats not what they told me at the exit interview and i just signed whatever they told me to sign because i needed that severance check'. at this point you are 50/50 to get approved. throw in the appeals process and the odds are even better.

    enjoy your vacation, use it to learn to code.
    Not sure which state your experience comes from, but in California, this advice will get you denied.

    They ALWAYS check with your employer, and if your story is different, they usually believe the employer and use their version to determine your eligibility based upon that. Many times that's bad news.

    Appeals are not 50/50 either. It's worth trying but you're probably failing again, especially if you admit you signed exit documents which weren't true "just to get the check".

    That wouldn't fly here.

    Being vague also does you no favors. They will keep asking you details and will assume the worst if you won't provide answers.

    People often compare the process to an interrogation.

    In short, if you lost your job, it's better to take the 5 minutes to read the Alvin essay and understand what they're looking for, than to get your benefits denied.


    its awkward to address this but one of us has held many jobs and been on UI quite a few times in california (the road was bumpy, startups are volatile, what can i say), and one of us has never been on UI in his life (big assumption on my part obviously), so im not sure where your info is coming from.

    perhaps things have changed since i compiled my list of dog tricks a decade ago but yeah, all this came from first hand experience when i lived in the bay area.

    people can choose their own path on this one, i just made it about a dozen words into Alvin's essay before i realized it was fairly out of sync with my own experiences on top of being Way Too Long so i just made my point quickly and moved on.

    again, caveat emptor.
    "Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness." - Alejandro Jodorowsky

    "America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers." -- William S. Burroughs

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    Plutonium sonatine's Avatar
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    the fact that someone is pretending to be a legal authority on UI without even once accurately describing the notion of "cause" vs "without cause" is frankly alarming and irresponsible.

     
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      OSA: We gonna ignore druff is talking about his alter ego in the 3rd person isnt? Lol ok then
    "Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness." - Alejandro Jodorowsky

    "America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers." -- William S. Burroughs

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    the fact that someone is pretending to be a legal authority on UI without even once accurately describing the notion of "cause" vs "without cause" is frankly alarming and irresponsible.
    The fact that you are commenting on what I am describing when you admit you haven't read the OP is even more irresponsible.

    Almost the entire Alvin essay involves a termination with cause situation. "Without cause" is a no-brainer acceptance of UI benefits, to where it's not worth discussing other than a quick one-liner for those who don't realize it.

    From the OP (near the beginning-middle):

    6) Laid off / position eliminated. BENEFITS ALWAYS GRANTED.
    That was the entirety of discussion of the matter, because I feel the reader is likely smart enough to read that one line and realize they don't need to do anything special for UI benefits if their company laid them off.

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    Platinum Baron Von Strucker's Avatar
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    Ive had to lay off a few employees from time to time and when it comes time to come back to work they want both, as in they wanted me to pay them cash so they could collect there ui benefits as well.

    I thought about it and decided not to as i have never paid employees in cash and want NO involvement in ripping off the government.

    I think it is a great program better than others which just give the "dole" which is basically welfare which you can sit on forever. As far as i know you could be on UI for as long as one year, which is plenty of time to retrain or get another job.
    Last edited by Baron Von Strucker; 01-19-2018 at 09:02 AM.
    all hail Hydra



    Originally Posted by DanDruff:Since I'm a 6'2" Republican with an average-sized nose and a last name which doesn't end with "stein", "man", or "berg", I can hide among the goyim and remain undetected unless I open my mouth about money matters.

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    Hi Todd JACKDANIELS's Avatar
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    SIMMER DOWN ALVIN

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post

    Not sure which state your experience comes from, but in California, this advice will get you denied.

    They ALWAYS check with your employer, and if your story is different, they usually believe the employer and use their version to determine your eligibility based upon that. Many times that's bad news.

    Appeals are not 50/50 either. It's worth trying but you're probably failing again, especially if you admit you signed exit documents which weren't true "just to get the check".

    That wouldn't fly here.

    Being vague also does you no favors. They will keep asking you details and will assume the worst if you won't provide answers.

    People often compare the process to an interrogation.

    In short, if you lost your job, it's better to take the 5 minutes to read the Alvin essay and understand what they're looking for, than to get your benefits denied.


    its awkward to address this but one of us has held many jobs and been on UI quite a few times in california (the road was bumpy, startups are volatile, what can i say), and one of us has never been on UI in his life (big assumption on my part obviously), so im not sure where your info is coming from.

    perhaps things have changed since i compiled my list of dog tricks a decade ago but yeah, all this came from first hand experience when i lived in the bay area.

    people can choose their own path on this one, i just made it about a dozen words into Alvin's essay before i realized it was fairly out of sync with my own experiences on top of being Way Too Long so i just made my point quickly and moved on.

    again, caveat emptor.
    More than "one of us" has held multiple jobs in California. I'm around your age, and I didn't start playing poker full time until my 30s.

    I also went through the UI process, so your big assumption is incorrect. However, I am not even basing my information on a claim from 15 years ago. I am basing it upon recent and semi-recent situations involving people I know personally, as well as personal research of mine on the matter in order to help these people. Many of them were broke and really needed these benefits, and I did this as a favor to them.

    Of course, there are many ways to obtain UI benefits, and failing to follow Alvin's advice will not always result in denial. However, there are better and worse ways to go about things, and Alvin's OP was providing a useful guide on how to say the right things without directly lying or defrauding anyone.

    The important takeaway from the OP is that many people have misconceptions about the unemployment insurance process.

    Many believe that, in order to qualify after a firing, you need to show them you were a model employee. If fired for a legitimate cause, people believe they're dead meat when it comes to collecting unemployment, so they bend over backward, lie, and do everything they can in order to cover up any wrongdoing at work.

    "Alvin" was trying to explain that they are NOT looking for evidence of you being a good employee. They are looking for evidence that you sabotaged your own job to force a firing. In absence of that evidence, they approve you. In cases where it could go either way (such as your behavior at work inexplicably changing, or your attendance record suddenly going bad), they assume the worst and deny you.

    The advice in the OP is to create a narrative where whatever behavior got you fired was ongoing, and you didn't abruptly change something so you'd get fired and therefore get UI benefits.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Baron Von Strucker View Post
    Ive had to lay off a few employees from time to time and when it comes time to come back to work they want both, as in they wanted me to pay them cash so they could collect there ui benefits as well.

    I thought about it and decided not to as i have never paid employees in cash and want NO involvement in ripping off the government.

    I think it is a great program better than others which just give the "dole" which is basically welfare which you can sit on forever. As far as i know you could be on UI for as long as one year, which is plenty of time to retrain or get another job.
    I know you're in Canada, so I don't know how it works there.

    One problem with UI is that it discourages looking for work, provided that you can get by on the money you're getting for it. Often the difference between the UI check and the expected paycheck from the next job isn't high enough to justify jumping right back into work, so instead people will take a break for the maximum amount of time, and keep collecting the benefit.

    I always felt that it would be more fair to require some kind of tedious work for the government part-time, in exchange for the UI benefits. Nothing strenuous, but something to where you have to dedicate like 15 hours per week doing some kind of semi-unpleasant office job, in exchange for your UI benefits. That would get people off their asses to find a real job faster.

    I don't even blame the people who milk it to the end. If you're getting paid a healthy percentage of your normal paycheck to sit around and do nothing, why rush back to a full time job?

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    All Sorts of Sports gut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    the fact that someone is pretending to be a legal authority on UI without even once accurately describing the notion of "cause" vs "without cause" is frankly alarming and irresponsible.



    I know in Oregon with firings, it all comes down to whether there was a cause for firing. Most common reasons for being fired are for cause, but the employer generally has to have proof. Like, if you are habitually late, and your employer fires you - but without ever giving you a written reprimand or some sort of warning - they realistically have cause but it is difficult to prove and the employee will frequently win.

    Firings without cause are things like "employee not fitting in with the culture" and etc.

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    Plutonium sonatine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gut View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    the fact that someone is pretending to be a legal authority on UI without even once accurately describing the notion of "cause" vs "without cause" is frankly alarming and irresponsible.



    I know in Oregon with firings, it all comes down to whether there was a cause for firing. Most common reasons for being fired are for cause, but the employer generally has to have proof. Like, if you are habitually late, and your employer fires you - but without ever giving you a written reprimand or some sort of warning - they realistically have cause but it is difficult to prove and the employee will frequently win.

    Firings without cause are things like "employee not fitting in with the culture" and etc.

    the most common without cause terminations would be layoffs/belt tightening.

    employers apparently prefer to terminate with cause because its somehow less expensive for them to do so (grain of salt that but its what i heard) so they tend to look for ways to scoot people out the door over bullshit as well, which UI intake people are well aware of.

    this is why its so important to provide them with information that allows the to make a judgement call in your favor if your employer starts talking about how you were a toxic asset because of your alleged personality disorders.

    whats more, employers have a fixed amount of time to respond and quite often they dont, which yields an automated judgement in your favor. this can be an advantage play if they come back and say well your employer says you were let go for cause; you can say "ive never had an HR writeup, thats outrageous, and im challenging their statement" at which point the UI department will insist the employer provide evidence of a demonstrable history of issues that justify their for-cause termination.

    real talk; most HR departments will take so long to dig up an employees records that the window will just close, providing anyone at the place of employment does anything but roll their eyes and ignore the follow up request.
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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by gut View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    the fact that someone is pretending to be a legal authority on UI without even once accurately describing the notion of "cause" vs "without cause" is frankly alarming and irresponsible.



    I know in Oregon with firings, it all comes down to whether there was a cause for firing. Most common reasons for being fired are for cause, but the employer generally has to have proof. Like, if you are habitually late, and your employer fires you - but without ever giving you a written reprimand or some sort of warning - they realistically have cause but it is difficult to prove and the employee will frequently win.

    Firings without cause are things like "employee not fitting in with the culture" and etc.
    I don't know about Oregon, but I can tell you that unemployment benefits are NOT denied for being fired with cause in California and most other states.

    That is a common misconception, and one which the OP was attempting to clear up.

    Unemployment benefits are typically tied to whether or not the employee attempted to lose their job. If they did not attempt to lose the job, they get the benefits in most cases. If they did attempt to lose the job, then they do not.

    I personally know people who did pretty bad things at work, admitted to it when speaking to the unemployment investigator, and received the benefits anyway because it was ruled as simply an issue of ongoing poor work conduct/performance, and not a job self-sabotage.

    I also personally know someone who was DENIED benefits despite an otherwise good work history, simply because they took a week off due to being stressed out from something in their personal life. The investigator ruled that no-showing for a week (even when notifying the employer) was too similar to quitting, and they were denied.

    It is true that being terminated without cause will almost always allow for UI benefits, but the converse is not always true. You can often get UI benefits even when fired with cause. That's what most don't realize.

    Here is a good article about it, though the website is slow, so give it a minute to load.


    http://carolinaaccounting.com/protec...-unemployment/

    Business owners do not realize that former employees can establish an unemployment claim very easily. Simply terminating an employee with cause including substandard performance does not disqualify the employee from collecting unemployment. In most states the employee’s behavior has to an egregious overstep or be considered inappropriate misconduct for the employee to be denied the ability to collect unemployment.

    Employees terminated for an inability to perform their job because of a lack of skill or knowledge, underperforming, or just incompetence will in most instances capable of collecting unemployment benefits.

    For employers to terminate an employee with cause and not have that employee collect unemployment, the employer will have to demonstrate the employee’s behavior did rise to the level of “misconduct” as written in that state’s law. The burden is on the employer to prove that the terminate employee either knew or should have known they would be terminated if the behavior in question continued.
    The above is 100% true.

    And the reason a high level of misconduct is required to disqualify benefits is because such misconduct can be construed as job self-sabotage (equivalent to quitting).

    Simply doing a poor job at work is not enough to deny UI benefits in most cases, unless the misconduct is either egregious, criminal, or can be construed as the employee intentionally trying to get fired.

    Additionally, look at the last paragraph quoted above. It mentions that the burden is on the employer to prove that the employee knew that their behavior would result in termination. This is why it's important for the employee to demonstrate that the behavior which got them fired was ongoing for a long time, or perhaps even tolerated among others at the company.

    In the case of the person who had a poor attendance record for 18 months, and then eventually got fired for it, he got the benefits because the company admitted that they tolerated him frequently missing work for 18 straight months, and thus the UI investigator concluded that the employee could not have known that he would have been fired for continuing such behavior.

  19. #19
    All Sorts of Sports gut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sonatine View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by gut View Post




    I know in Oregon with firings, it all comes down to whether there was a cause for firing. Most common reasons for being fired are for cause, but the employer generally has to have proof. Like, if you are habitually late, and your employer fires you - but without ever giving you a written reprimand or some sort of warning - they realistically have cause but it is difficult to prove and the employee will frequently win.

    Firings without cause are things like "employee not fitting in with the culture" and etc.

    the most common without cause terminations would be layoffs/belt tightening.

    employers apparently prefer to terminate with cause because its somehow less expensive for them to do so (grain of salt that but its what i heard) so they tend to look for ways to scoot people out the door over bullshit as well, which UI intake people are well aware of.

    this is why its so important to provide them with information that allows the to make a judgement call in your favor if your employer starts talking about how you were a toxic asset because of your alleged personality disorders.

    whats more, employers have a fixed amount of time to respond and quite often they dont, which yields an automated judgement in your favor. this can be an advantage play if they come back and say well your employer says you were let go for cause; you can say "ive never had an HR writeup, thats outrageous, and im challenging their statement" at which point the UI department will insist the employer provide evidence of a demonstrable history of issues that justify their for-cause termination.

    real talk; most HR departments will take so long to dig up an employees records that the window will just close, providing anyone at the place of employment does anything but roll their eyes and ignore the follow up request.

    Yeah, I was considering that as a separate category i guess. Like.... "termination" is the complete category, then breaks down into quit, fired, layoff brackets.

    For the part I italicized, I think companies pay higher payroll taxes depending on the amount of former employees on unemployment. Again, that is for Oregon, at least.

     
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      sonatine: ahhhh point taken
    Last edited by gut; 01-19-2018 at 01:25 PM.

  20. #20
    All Sorts of Sports gut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post


    http://carolinaaccounting.com/protec...-unemployment/

    Business owners do not realize that former employees can establish an unemployment claim very easily. Simply terminating an employee with cause including substandard performance does not disqualify the employee from collecting unemployment. In most states the employee’s behavior has to an egregious overstep or be considered inappropriate misconduct for the employee to be denied the ability to collect unemployment.

    Employees terminated for an inability to perform their job because of a lack of skill or knowledge, underperforming, or just incompetence will in most instances capable of collecting unemployment benefits.

    For employers to terminate an employee with cause and not have that employee collect unemployment, the employer will have to demonstrate the employee’s behavior did rise to the level of “misconduct” as written in that state’s law. The burden is on the employer to prove that the terminate employee either knew or should have known they would be terminated if the behavior in question continued.

    That is correct up here also. Underperforming or incompetence is not considered proper cause in Oregon, unless it is something very detailed and possibly dangerous. Usually in those scenarios, though, the employers will find a way to label the firing under "violation of company policies", which is a proper cause.

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