Ahem. Please excuse me while I have a brief rant.  I’ve had a distraction this weekend. Unfortunately it’s not a pleasant one — not ‘the distraction’ I’ve mentioned in passing on this blog (unfortunately).  Last week I mentioned that I was being audited. From 2004-2006 I was working for a Clinical Diagnostics company — this is a company that provided diagnostic products to clinical labs.  It closed it’s office in my city in late 2006 and laid us all off.  For the better part of 2007 I was on EI (employment insurance) as a result of this lay off.
I didn’t feel right about just sitting at home and job hunting.  I’ve always had an independent spirit and a strong work ethic (when I’m dating a guy it even feels weird to have him pay for me all the time — I like it, but it’s still a weird feeling). Also, I was concerned about gaps in my resume. The other thing that bothered me was self-identifying with being ‘unemployed’ — to me that’s a significant statement to make and a VERY difficult one (as an aside, it also played a role in choosing to attend nursing school — it’s not the primary reason but it was certainly one factor).  So, when I had the chance to start teaching ESL I jumped on it. This particular position was not one that paid enough for me to even stop being on EI (though many weeks I received very little), nor was it one that met my career objectives, though it did mean that I could state that I was an ESL Teacher (rather than an unemployed scientist). So, I worked for the ESL School part time and continued to look for a career-related position (and found one eventually — the one I’m now working at a few hours each week while I go to Nursing School).
So what’s going on now? The method of reporting is so confusing that there is a huge complication between my records, my pay statements and what the EI people have on record, so I’m being audited and I’ve already spent about 6 hours on this audit this weekend alone, trying to figure out what was going on back then!!!
So why is this a rant and why am I frustrated:

• I don’t have time to be dealing with this mess right now, I’m in a very intense program and my schedule is completely BONKERS. Even without this, my stress is high, and will remain high until the Christmas Break.
• For the next 20 months I’m in school, hardly making anything, and if I can’t explain records from almost 3 years ago I’ll have to pay the EI people back. BUT I have no money so I will be paying the EI people with my Student Loans or a Bursary — if I win one. I suspect they wont defer the payments that long, nor would I want them to, this whole thing is VERY annoying.
• As I mentioned, I have a strong work ethic an an independent spirit. What this means is I find handouts VERY difficult to accept.  So it bothered me that I was on EI, so I chose to work. Yet, had I not chosen to work, I would have received roughly the same amount of money per week (~$90 less per week since we could work a tiny bit without losing money that EI gave), but I would not be dealing with this stress now. So had I not chosen to work, the EI people would have paid me more than they actually did, as I would have used the maximum benefit available to me.

Why are they auditing me NOW after so long?? Why not while the EI benefit is being paid out? Why not as soon as the benefits are exhausted so that the records are fresh and so that the company still exists so that their records are more complete?!?! (It’s a very good thing I’ve kept in touch with my old boss — though she doesn’t have much information, it’s better than nothing)
So this begs the question and the rant: I understand wanting to make sure that people don’t defraud the system, but REALLY??? Could there be some published evidence that the EI people are auditing those that don’t work at all so that they can be sure that they were actually job hunting as they were supposed to be, rather than enjoying some time off?  That I’d like to see.
Grumble.  Okay, the rant is done and now it’s time for me to get ready for school and work tomorrow, so that at least I get a little bit of sleep.