My heart leapt when I saw a call come through with an unknown number and a 208 are code. I was driving but I picked up anyways and put the call on speaker, “This is Beth.”
“Hi! Is this Elizabeth?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Hi Elizabeth, this is Elaine from the Department of Labor.”
“Elaine! Yes, oh my god, thank you or calling! I’ve been waiting for weeks! Hi!” I couldn’t contain my excitement.
A strong giggle bubbled up over the road noise. “Is now a good time to answer some questions?”
Anything for you Elaine, immortal public servant super hero, anything.
Elaine is the kind of street level beaurecrat who has worked on the front lines of public service for so long that she not only knows how to help people, in and I am sure, around, the system but who has also likely been sustained in the work by her complete joy in doing it. 5.5 million people signed up for unemployment last week (in the US) and what has the department done here in Idaho? They have extended hours and hired more people. They have communicated expectations. And, now that I have received the call I can say, they have followed through.
Most of us are so used to systems not working that we have not even a sliver of faith let in it. There is an inherent lack of trust for bureaucracy as a whole, but actually it is people who make up our systems and you can’t possibly, accurately throw them all out with the dirty government bathwater. They aren’t some abstract machine. They are people. They are Elaines and Gerrys and probably a Dorris or two. Yes, government moves slow, especially if you compare it to business. But the ultimate goal of public servants are to serve people. Lets not forget that the ultimate goal of business is to generate profit. I think its no secret that we have all been subject to a quick service from a business that is initially satisfying but lacks sustainable support or any real value. Take social media for example. What a fucking scam.
It took four weeks from the time I filed my unemployment claim to when I got that call to resolve the pending issue which kept my claim from being fulfilled. With May’s rent and bills for April approaching I was getting nervous and increasingly tempted to call the department. But every Friday I got a letter from them which read something like- Keep filing, even if there is a pending issue, we will call you, you will get back paid, please don’t call us. So I had a choice. I could trust that, or I could contribute to the bogging down of the system, and get on the phone until I got the answer I wanted. Maybe I’d get through and best case scenario, I’d get my benefits a little sooner. I’d feel a little at ease, a little ahead of schedule. At what cost? Or I could have gotten through while in a panic and talked to someone who knew that I had not respected the department’s wished, who were sand-bagged by calls just like mine with people who were unreasonably out of their minds. That is a shit position to be in, one for the newbies, I bet, and those people are less inclined to help. Maybe this isn’t their calling, or they are new to the job and don’t know how to get around the system like vets, or maybe they are just less inclined to try because they know that you are a part of the problem. You don’t trust the.. Or could follow directions and wait and you could get Elaine.
I get really frustrated when I see people who can’t think beyond their own situation. Sometimes doing what is better for the greater good is also better for you- hey! Novel idea, I know. I also know I’ve crossed back into smugness here but I’m feeling entitled and damn near rich with all this governmental aid I’ve got coming.
Elaine asked me some deep questions about my self-employment. She really helped me through some things I’ve long struggled with, via clear-cut, routine questions. These are thoughts I have wrestled with for years. “Would you rather work for wages or for self-employment?”
“Oh gosh Elaine, I don’t know how to answer that, thats so deep.”
“Wages,” she mumbled, “Say wages.”
Wages it is. Queen! After going through all the details of stand-up work like how much I have made, how many hours I spend, why I wasn’t fully sustained by self-employemnt, Elaine said, “Girl! We need to get you in a bigger city!” When I told her I was sincerely thinking about full-time work she encouraged me to apply at the department. She said they had just hired twelve people and would be hiring more soon. I asked her how she like working there. She said, “I don’t have to come to work, I get to come to work. I’ve been here 11 years. I’m a supervisor and I love the people I work with.” She encouraged me to apply and at the end of our conversation she said. “Everyone here at the department will be looking out for your stand- up flyers,” (the ones I claimed as expenses for advertising,) “and Ill be looking for your application too.” What an angel.
We had one of those ends of conversations where you say goodbye more than once to the other person, lingering to draw out the interaction, for all its pleasantness. after we hung up I sat in my warm, parked car in a dopamine haze, daydreaming about how I would spend all my money and how life would be if Elaine adopted me. Its gonna be ok. We have the stimulus. We have the Cares Act. We have unemployment. And we have, Elaine, the immortal public servant, warrior queen, goddess, maker of dreams.