Phoning it in
It's my birthday, and also the low point of the last round of chemo. I am thinking that it's a good birthday because hopefully everything gets easier from here. But today is kind of a slog. Weirdly I feel a little stronger right now than at this point in the cycle previously -- still enough brain power to write this, anyway.
My singular quest for the day is calling the EDD hotline over and over in the vain hope that I will eventually get through to an actual human. Apparently this is a known issue: EDD is pretty much broken. I've set up speed dial to push through the various menus automatically so all I have to do is hit one button and wait 30 seconds to get kicked off the line. It actually makes me marvel that I was able to get through to someone earlier in the summer -- twice! -- to solve the initial claim issues I had. But now that I'm trying to update an intermittent leave claim with my actual hours worked, I've hit a roadblock where I submitted a set of time sheets that I must have interpreted incorrectly (or something? I can't really figure it out) because then EDD cut me a pair of checks that are definitely too much money, and sent an inscrutable notice vaguely alluding to this situation. And now they are totally unresponsive via web portal requests and their phone system seems to be totally borked.
This is all deeply annoying, because my employer is waiting to know how much EDD is paying me so that they can determine how to handle my paychecks, and I don't want to give them the wrong information so really I have no idea how to resolve all of this without getting through to someone who can look at my claims with me. Thankfully we are financially secure enough that a long delay on resolving the payments is manageable, but it's been hanging like this for weeks with no apparent way to move it forward other than dialing over... and over... and over.
"We're sorry, the maximum number of callers waiting to speak to a representative has been reached. Please call again. Thank you." Within 10 seconds of their offices opening, every day.
Last week I tried calling over 25 times (and then stopped counting). If only 1% of calls go through, then I guess I have time for a few hundred call attempts today. I've been slacking -- so far I've only tried eight -- nope, nine -- nope, ten times. Seven hours left until they close for the day, and I guess if I don't get through today I have all day tomorrow as well.
So that's cool! Cancer sucks, but broken bureaucracy sucks possibly more! If we were living paycheck-to-paycheck this would be super bad. As it is, it's just stressful to have it hanging overhead. Wish me luck.