I'm in employment limbo! Ought I to go ahead and file for unemp?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I telecommute. Yesterday morning, the company for which I work suspended

• my email account with them
• my AIM chat account with them
• my access to the database that I develop & support for them
• my remote access to the server on which it runs

They have verified that this is intentional. It’s not some kind of administrative oopsie, in other words.

Oddly enough, the company owner denies that I am laid off. His claims flat out DO NOT PARSE: “I have disabled access to the database while I sort out an issue of stable backup strategy”. Not only does that make no sense, it fails to explain in any fashion why they would also disable my email and AIM and so forth. (And they are totally separate environments, each has to be disabled independently).

The NYS Dept of Labor’s web page says “You should file right away when you become unemployed. If you wait, you lose benefits becaue the first week is an unpaid week”.
Questions [with the usual disclaimer that none of you happens to be my attorney, or necessary anyone’s attorney, etc]:

• Do they have to keep paying me a full salary for each day up until they officially inform me that I am unemployed? I would think so… but do they need to have conveyed that status to me in some verifiable format, or could they, hypothetically speaking, just say “but we TOLD him we had laid him off!” ?

• Alternatively, if I file prior to having been so informed, do I cause problems for myself with the Dept of Labor (or otherwise)?

• Do I need an attorney?

2

I hate to use the b-word, but I’m interested in the answers to these questions (although probably less so than you).

3

Why don’t you ask the Dept. of Labor what they think? Or ask your boss whether you are still employed, maybe in a roundabout way, as in “so what do you want me to work on while my account access is disabled?” The whole thing sounds pretty odd.

4

I think they actually have to fire you first.

5

I don’t know how it works in NY, but my previous experience with filing for UIC was that I was interviewed about my employment and reason for dismissal, after which they verified the information with my former employer to determine my eligibility. I suspect they have a similar process in NY, so it’s not up to YOU to determine if you’re eligible, but up to the Labor Department. Why not just call them, explain the circumstances and ask for their advice on how to proceed? They’ll certainly help you. Good luck!

6

My armchair hunch is that the DOL will consider you to be “constructively” terminated as your employer has intentionally disabled what sounds like all of your access to their systems.

7

I know here in Ontario, when you file for unemployment you’re required to provide an official Record of Employment document to confirm that a) you were indeed previously employed by ABC Corp, b)your employment was terminated for an eligible reason, and c) the date you ceased to be employed at ABC Corp. Otherwise, no money for you.

Obviously, things are probably quite different in the US, but that’s just my roundabout way of saying that laws vary quite a bit from one place to the next, and that your best bet is to ask the people who would know best for your specific jurisdiction… namely, your Labor Dept or whoever else is responsible for doling out the unemployment cheques where you are. (just make sure you print out all communications from your employer in the meantime, as a CYA measure)

8

I like Eva Luna’s suggestion. You need to know your status.

If you’re not being paid while your employer works out the unstable database, I think you can still file for unemployment based on reduced hours. My daughter’s hours are cut every summer and she receives UC then, even though she’s not technically unemployed.

9

I think it might be good to send an email from your personal account asking when you can expect reactivation of your company account so that you have something to show the Department of Labor.

10

Update, with a soupçon of outrage marinated in bewilderment:
a) apparently I am really and truly not laid off. I’m not sure this is better, although in the short run it means I do have income. (not to be sneezed at in current economic clime…)

b) apparently, instead, the corporate owner has independently decided it would be good to separate the database interface and the database structure.

c) and decided that the best way to let me know that was to suspend my AIM account, email account, access to the database, and access to the server and not tell me that he had done so, and not tell me why when he did acknowledge that he had done so.

d) and turn over the separation of data and interface to someone who does not know and is not familiar with the database environment in which this thing is written

e) all without asking my opinion or soliciting my input.

Is it better to be unemployed, or to be still employed by someone who is apparently exhibiting the symptoms of tertiary rabies? This comes so far from making rational sense that I have absolutely zero confidence in my ability to predict what comes next.
I want out. I ever SO want out, I will take a 50% pay cut, total change in profession, am pelting the world, wallpapering it, with resumes.

OH, and of course I only have the secondhand word from an ancillary employee, sent to me backchannel over private email, that this is indeed what’s going on. It’s not like anyone has told me ANYTHING since chopping off my access. Officially I am still in limbo and know nothing.
Hours ago I was sure they had booted me. I should feel relieved and grateful that I am not. I am trying real hard to feel relieved and grateful that I am not. Why do I instead feel 9 times as stressed?

11

The default position is to fie.

12

Sounds like you’re fired, but whatever management you have hasn’t worked up the stones to tell you yet.

I’d call them and ask them flat out how long you should expect to be getting paid.

13

This doesn’t address your employment issues at all but if my experience with the NYDOL unemp helps at all.

NYDOL is very very helpful if you call them. Their advice will likely be to contact your employer, but might say yes to go ahead and file. However, since you worked at least some this week you probably exceed their max income requirement assuming the company actually pays you, of course.:slight_smile: So next week will be your no pay week(unemp will pay you, but you have to wait till week goes by to actually ask for the check), you have until 5 or 8pm on Friday the 26th to start your claim so its applied to that week, so no hurry. They will check with your employer and thats about it, you can apply and check progress online or on the phone.

From there just follow the instructions, probably the least convoluted government interaction I’ve ever had.

14

Ask him if you’re still being paid weekly for your time. If he doesn’t give you a straight answer, go to the dept of labor and ask them for guidance.

Sounds like your boss wants you to quit so he won’t have to deal with unemployment. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Find a part time job to fill your time until he mans up. Babysitting, dog walking…anything.

What a fucker.

15

NYS state is an employment “at will” state so they don’t really need any particular reason to let you go. They do have to pay you for any days you worked and pay back any vacation you have. So definitely keep a record of any timesheets or other documentation.

Really what matters is have they cut off your paychecks?
You can go ahead and file unemployment. It takes a week to kick in. If you are still receiving checks, then you just deduct that amount against your weekly claim (or don’t file a claim that week).

16

Update your resume, file it on Monster, etc.

But as long as they are paying you, you’re not “unemployed”.

17

The attorney advises me that as long as I do not resign, they have to discharge me in some sense or else keep paying me.

I am of course open to entertaining any job offers, and my resume is planted in many many places aside from Monster, and my email outbox is suddenly chock-full of emails that have the same file attachments and similar bodies…

Meanwhile, here I am, and as soon as they task me with something (and of course provide me some kind of access) I will respond to their instructions.

18

They are seeking to hire someone (perhaps on a contract basis only, although I do not know that) who does what I do. (It’s a fairly rarefied community and I do hear things).

In a nutshell, their system was in one environment (FileMaker) and in September they hired a new IT guy who is a Ruby on Rails fellow (different db environment). And instead of telling me their thoughts & soliciting my input, they charged him with porting it behind my back. Between September and December there was a fantastically huge upswing in the extend to which they asked for printouts of the db structure, made sure they had the developer passwords, made sure they could export any table from any screen, and so on… so while I did not know what environment they were headed for, I (not being stupid) figured they were porting.

Alongside of all that was a growing ‘attitude’ in which I was transitioned from being the magical wizard brilliant genius person to being some kind of lazy ancillary employee whose work is never quite up to snuff.

I think that the intention was that early Wednesday morning they would disconnect me from everything, the new IT Director would tell FileMaker to use Ruby as the data source for all tables and click an “OK” button and they’d be up & running, because some book implied to hi that it would be that simple, and then at 11 the boss would call me and explain, in either kind or hostile tones, that I was either laid off or fired with cause but either way the company was done with me.

I really can’t come up with a single conceivable reading for nuking my email account and instant messenger account. Suspending developer-level privs to the db itself yeah maybe, as an ill-conceived approach to finally telling the FileMaker developer about the port to Ruby and seeing how he handles it… but not the email and AIM. That means “this guy doesn’t work here any more”.

But by 11 AM something had happened to give them pause and the company owner said “You still work for abt, I want you to know that”.

Yeah… they couldn’t get it to work! :smiley:

But they won’t be keeping me on. They are obviously trying to hire someone else to do the port that they can’t figure out how to do. Having peed on me, they are understandably nervous about giving me the necessary access and asking me to do the port myself. (And they are doing it backwards, they should write the front end using FmPro as the data source and when they get THAT, the more complicated part of the puzzle,working, THEN spit out the data and put it in Ruby and change what the front end references).

Me, I, umm, still serve at the pleasure of my employer. Haven’t been laid off. Let’s see what Monday brings,. shall we?

19

Let them know you want to work with them on a Management of Change plan. Since you know you’re on the outs, the best you can do is assist them with an orderly transition (that is, migrate the DB, redo the front end, and figure out how to route problem tickets to the new guy) and get a firm date on when your services are no longer required. Since you’re going to them with a (hopefully transparent) plan, there’s no reason for them to hide anything from you. At least this will reduce your uncertainty, so you know when they might sever you, have them put a package on the table, and you can actively look (or part-time) when you’re not working on the transition.