Posted on 02/24/2012 6:49:03 AM PST by SeekAndFind
[The following profile is part of a series on long-term unemployment in America.]
John Schmidt has been out of work for 150 weeks. Due to complications regarding his official date of termination, he is still eligible for weekly checks from the government.
"It's absolutely retarded, but I'm not going to turn it down."
Schmidt has been unemployed since April, 2009 when he lost his job as a database architect at JC Penney.
Fired for health reasons, Schmidt says he wanted to sue but no lawyers in the Dallas area would go against the local corporation.
In his first year of unemployment, Schmidt spent most of his time day trading.
"In all honesty I wasn't looking real seriously. I got started in the stock market and was doing well with it, got rolling more and a little more and really that's what I did for most of the first year. At the same time, I was still looking for a job, meeting the requirements for unemployment. But I wasn't looking all over the country. I was looking for the perfect job."
Schmidt's luck ran out around August 2010.
First his Countrywide mortgage was transferred to Bank of America, and a billing fiasco forced him to take money out of his trading account. Then he started losing money on the market. In less than a year, the bank had foreclosed on his house and Schmidt was forced to declare bankruptcy.
When Schmidt began to look seriously for jobs he was surprised at his difficulty.
"I'm one of the original people [in Hyperion Essbase software]. I never even thought about not getting a job. If I wanted a job I got it, period, for ten years," Schmidt says.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Hmm, there’s something about that last statement that seems strangely familiar........
So while earning a income as a day trader, sitting on his ass looking just hard enough for the perfect job to keep the unemployment people from coming down on him he lost everything?
Sorry... I have not sympathy for this thief.
Yeah, and then suddenly you’re 50 and unemployable.
He's just getting back what he paid into it.
??
Do you really think he paid $300 a week into unemployment?
or did I miss the sarcasm?
The part that got me was when he blamed losing his home on a “illing error”
Having been unemployed, through no fault of my own; I understand the last part all too well. By law, you need only apply at 4 places a week. This application may be done online, or in person, or through the mail. You are supposed to keep a log of where you applied, and if you turned down an employment opportunity.
Seriously, 4 jobs a week - I do more on a typical day between breakfast and lunch. 4x week is the requirement. Once could visit Monster.com for an hour, once a week and you can easily exceed this requirement in less than 15 minutes.
Me, I applied for hundreds of jobs, hoping to get 5 interviews a month, and hoped that one of those interviews would be productive. I got my job, after 3 months of digging and hard work - and I count myself as lucky to have it.
He’s gamed the system and lost. He shouldn’t have done that. I could have applied for unemployment in 2009- 2010 but I didn’t. I took a job that was not even close to “the perfect job”. It kind of sucked in fact but it kept me out of foreclosure and bankruptcy. I used that job as a springboard to get the perfect job about six months ago. Now I’m one seriously happy guy. God favors a man with a strong work ethic.
And yes he is a thief. Many people make a living on trading stocks, it is their job. While receiving benefits you are supposed to report all income or money earned, I am willing to believe he never reported any of the income from the stock trades.
No sympathy from this quarter.
Employers (not employees) pay a state unemployment tax (SUI) and a federal unemployment tax (FUTA) to fund the benefits. I suspect that those funds have been used up and the money is now coming from the federal deficit spending.
“Fired for health reasons, Schmidt says he wanted to sue but no lawyers in the Dallas area would go against the local corporation.”
I call Bravo Sierra - you can’t swing a dead cat in Dallas without hitting a lawyer who’d take even a marginally provable case against Penney’s - or anybody else.
If unemployment was only limited to 3 months, he would have been more motivated to find a job before the economy tanked. Long term unemployment does no one any good — least of all the unemployed.
John, put yourself in the shoes of the person reading your resume. They look under "Job History," and they see a 3-year gap. Would you even go any further than that?
Also, employers have to pay unemployment taxes based on their claims experience - so if a prospective emplyer sees you've been sucking down benefits for a year ot more, he knows you are a person that will cost him big money if you should have to be laid off in the future.
I don't mean to be unsympathetic to those who are unemployed and out there doing anything they can to get a decent job. But after about 6 weeks you need to seriously think about taking ANY job, even if you take home less than unemployment. Or be able to show you've used your time well by taking classes, upgrading your skills - making lemonade out of lemons.
I have never been on unemployment, but working for a consulting firm I was between assignments. While I was "on the bench" I got friendly with a sales executive, researched online for possible opportunities for the company and passed them on to him and also studied JAVA. When I finally got placed, my manager said I made better use of my time "on the bench" than any employee she had seen. You want a prospective employer to see you have made the best possible use of you time while unemployed. IMHO.
This guy would have communicated to prospective employers that he basically sat on his ass and "dabbled" in the stock market. He could have made a much more positive impression if he showed that while he was unemployed he did something like write a white paper on considerations in Seebase design, or prepared a reference guide, or an intro for beginners to use in his next position. Or taken a class in, say, IBM's Rational Data Modeler; or a business management course. Community colleges often are a very inexpensive way to gain new skills.
Alot of Oracle App shops use Hyperion as their budgeting tool. If this guy was any good, he’d be working. Good DBAs are hard to find.
2009 was a tough year for many of us, I was out for four months but now have to reject recruiters.
Yep. Probably exhausted his FEMA time.
Next move is SS disability. He is a mental case after all.
While earning an income being “self employed”
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck....
While earning an income being “self employed”
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck....
and HE did not pay in to it. His employer did.
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