Happy Friday everyone. So this morning marks my second paid furlow day. Still no one wants to hire me on Fridays. Tried again, but no response. Shucks.
Interesting fun fact. If you apply for CA worksharing, you cannot file online. Work sharing UI benefits can only be snail mailed into the special office in Rancho Cordova. So if you plan on filing worksharing UI benefits, make sure you send it to the correct place. Also, it helps to write a brief cover letter stating how much you are owed in total, and a list of weekly payout amounts. Normally, you wouldn’t need to do this, but the UI offices are getting slammed with applicants so please try to help out the people processing your claims by clearly describing total and each weekly owed amount so they have an easier time. After all, chances are, your UI weekly benefits you are collecting are more than the weekly pay of people working to process your claim. Wait, that sounded backassward. Because it is. So don’t complain how slow it might take.
Side note. I don’t know why CA calls this program “worksharing” because one isn’t really working. A more accurate name might have been “free loading sharing” , but I guess “work sharing” sounds better. Thank God this isn’t a red state, otherwise the state might require me to go pick strawberries in some farm field during my furlow day.
Next week will be interesting. Instead of a 4 day work week, it will be a 3 day work week. My company has Monday off for Memorial Day as a holiday. And according to the rules of worksharing , the employer can not alter the benefits of the employees that have been furlowed under worksharing. So, they cannot take back Monday as a paid holiday. Furthermore, since in order to qualify for worksharing , employees still need to show reduced hours, this means that one furlow day other than the holiday still has to be taken. So next week is 3 day work week for us. Too bad everything is locked down, because it would have been a 5 day long weekend starting today. This also sounds backassward. Oh well.
According to my quick calculations, worksharing UI combined benefits will produce an additional $325 in income per week above my normal weekly salary, or approximately an extra $1300 each month. I increased my automatic investment into my after-tax vanguard account in the most aggressive growth index fund I could find because I figure that would maximize my future gains while the chances of it going to $0 is very low (even theoretically if the index fund went to $0, it would be no different than not having the extra UI income windfall). So, might as well put the unexpected UI income windfall to work on the most aggressive thing. Who knows, if I play my cards right, it might grow into a down payment for another rental, lol.
Too bad these benefits won’t last past July. Or maybe they get extended. Who knows. Ideally they get extended until the end of the year. That would be sweet because on Dec 1st I could return back to work full time and at the end of the month collect my guaranteed bonus and then if decided I want to retire, maybe instead of just quitting, I can request to go on paid family leave to take care of a child that is at home due to school closures. I think that paid family leave is about 70% of your previous pay and lasts about 6 weeks. After that, I think there is a longer term family leave plan at 60% pay for an additional year. I forget the details. Oh well, will cross that bridge if we are still or relocked down in December.
It’s about time for me to go on my morning run. Have a great weekend everyone!
