¿será que estamos mal / y somos indefensos?
Yesterday morning at soccer a fight broke out. Not within members of our team this time, but between our team and another team.
We had already been playing for more than an hour when another team approached us and asked us to move one of our goals so they could have more space to play. Someone on our team declined, since our eleven-a-side game only occupied a space about 60 yards long. Besides, public fields are first-come, first-served.
A man on their team must not have liked that answer, because he started yelling at us and toppled our goalframe to the ground. A full on brawl erupted shortly afterwards, with players from their team trying to move our goal and those from ours trying to stop them. I did what I usually do when things like this happen: sit quietly a safe distance away and wait for everything to blow over. What's the point of getting into a fight over a few yards of turf?
I could catch most of what they were saying from where I was sitting and sort of wish I hadn't. One man called us North Koreans1 and some racial slurs unfit to print, things I'm not used to hearing in our suburb (or anywhere, for that matter). I wasn't so much offended as much as I was disappointed that people still have ugly thoughts like that bubbling beneath the surface. It's 2024...
I think sometimes people also forget that a big part of asking for something politely is accepting the answer with grace, whatever it might be. If you ask for something and are only willing to accept one answer, why bother asking at all?
(I haven't talked much here about the stuff that you're about to read. I don't know who I can talk to about it, so I'll hide it here at the bottom of another post. Maybe I'll delete it later, who knows. But I need to get this off my chest before I implode from anxiety.)
I got mail today. Both the good kind (cute card from a friend) and the not so good kind: a large manila envelope with NOTICE OF HEARING: URGENT stamped on it in angry red. I'd known it was probably coming for a while now; I've been checking the mail in anticipation everyday.
It's the notice for a telephone hearing regarding my unemployment appeal. Long story short, I filed for unemployment after getting fired from my last job. My company denied my claim, disputing my assertion that my dismissal was out of my control. I appealed (a few days late, sadly) and have been waiting for a notice of the hearing since. More than four months have passed since I submitted the appeal.
The time of the hearing is not ideal. It's next week, when I'm out of town, only a few hours before one of my flights. The letter tells me in no uncertain terms that I can't reschedule it, so it looks like I'll just have to suck it up and argue my case from my friend's apartment bedroom.
The stress makes my hands shake. There is so much I need to do. I already have my hands full at work lesson planning and teaching and grading papers and helping with other administrative tasks. I have an interview on Wednesday. I need to pack for my trip. I have blood work that needs to get done. I haven't properly applied to a job in weeks. And now I have to read up on unemployment law, prepare a case, solicit witnesses, and defend myself against my old company potentially represented by an attorney in a week, on vacation?
I'm trying to calm down. I keep telling myself nothing will happen if I lose anyway, since I'm already not receiving unemployment benefits. I can try my best, and win or lose I'll finally be able to rinse my hands of the situation and move on from that toxic phase of my life.
But what do I tell my parents? I told them I got laid off, not fired, and I've been keeping up that white lie for months. How long can I maintain the illusion? My friends tell me that coming clean won't go as poorly I fear, but I'm not so certain. I wince every time I imagine what my mom might say if she finds out.
There's also a part of me boiling over inside, indignant at how dirty my old employer has been throughout this whole process, furious at their lies, angry at the unfairness of it all. But what can I do? I have no evidence. They locked me out of my own computer. What do I have to show for my work? I can't possibly expect my coworkers to testify against the very company that writes their paychecks.
A pamphlet in the envelope explained roughly how the proceedings would go. We take our oaths, alternating chances to present evidence and cross-examine witnesses. It makes me wish I didn't quit high school policy debate, except now I have nobody on my side, there are thousands of dollars worth of unemployment benefits on the line, and on the other side sits my old boss. (Maybe. I don't know who they'll choose to show up to the hearing, though I can't imagine they wouldn't want him there.) The thought of him alone is enough to give me nightmares of getting yelled at and crying in meeting rooms.
So that's what's on my mind. I don't know if anybody will read this, but the possibility that someone might is oddly comforting to me.
P.S. If anyone knows an attorney with knowledge of unemployment law or has any advice for the hearing, please let me know!
On a side note, I'm not sure how this was intended as an insult. Am I supposed to be offended?↩