Where am I again?

Returning home after my surprise layoff I did what most people do in that situation - drank too much.

I didn't really feel like talking to anybody that night, so Saturday morning I work up hungover and confused, but also ready to start dealing with the problem.

The HR manager at The New Mexican had given me some paperwork with a list of things I should do. And she strongly emphasized signing up for unemployment right away, all of which was very helpful.

Being an Internet and computer nerd, I opted for the digital route rather than the telephone or office one. So I went to the New Mexico unemployment Web site at uiclaims.state.nm.us/uiclaim/html/UICHome.html and clicked on the Apply for UI Benefits - New Users link.

This brings you to a form that takes about a half hour to an hour to fill out, and has a few extremely vague options that you are pretty much left on your own to figure out.

The two main ones that threw me for a loop were 1. what unemployed type I was and 2. should I have the government take taxes out of my unemployment.

So, that said, if you were laid off - and there's no category for laid off - what you want is the "Lack of Work - No Recall" option.

The second problem, which I recently learned I did correctly, is that you should have the government take the tax out - because if you're still unemployed come tax time, you'll probably get a nasty bill if you don't.

With that filled out, then you get to file a weekly claim.

With my surprise layoff, and not really understanding my first claim, I answered the question "Did you meet your work search requirements for this week?" honestly, saying no. In retrospect I would have met those requirements on Saturday morning before filing my first weekly claim that Sunday.

Because if you don't meet that obligation, they cut off your unemployment until you call them - which takes at least an hour of waiting on hold if you can get through at all. In New Mexico, by the way, that number is 841-4000.

When I did get through, after the wait, they told me I would be issued a warning and the problem would be taken care of.

More on that in upcoming posts.

But generally, after finishing that part of the process, then I went into filling out COBRA paperwork. And I'm especially thankful that the Obama Administration is subsidizing COBRA right now, so my payments are about the same as I was paying when I was at work.

I finished half of that - the dental part - at home that weekend. The bigger health care coverage part would come in the mail about a week later - and I was also told that my coverage might not kick in until September, although claims I had to pay out of pocket for August would eventually be repaid.

That's a bit scary, considering I'm trying to hold on to as much money as I can while I wait for unemployment to kick in and as I try to get a realistic estimate of how long this will last.

That's still an issue that I'm uncertain of as I launch this blog.