I arrived home today to a certificate from the health insurance company that I had coverage up to 8/1/09. I blinked. And turned it over, and blinked again. Yup. There was a clear "date coverage ended" field that was filled in.
I emailed someone in HR. Of course, being as it was 7pm on a Friday night, I do not expect much of a response until Monday. I called the insurance company. Oh no, the lady said, it's not a mistake. We received paperwork which included a termination date of August 1, 2009. Right, said I, but if that paperwork was sent to you by mistake, because either it's that or my employer forgot to mention that they fired me, forgot to march me out of the building, and forgot to disconnect my email, what happens to me if I get in a car crash this weekend? Oh, she said, well, if they write to us and explain that it was a mistake, we'd give you the coverage back retroactively. But they'll have to send us the paperwork, we can't do anything about it based on your say-so. Obviously not, says I. Convenient that it's a Friday night, isn't it?
The thing is, normally I'd blow this off as a silly mistake, but they DID lay off some people last Friday. August 1st. Although I think they were given a week's notice until today but I'm not sure. So it could be that my name was included in the paperwork for a reason. And in this economy you can't exactly take a job for granted.
Or it could just be a misunderstanding. They could have just effed it up again. My HR stuff is ALWAYS effed up. First of all, there is someone else at my employer with the same first and last name as me. Which is not unique in the company, as it's fairly large. In fact, at one point there were 3 guys with the same name and I think two of them had the same middle initial too. But despite the fact that you'd think they'd plan that over a certain size there could very well be people with similar or the same names, they still eff stuff up because of it. Second, I am the only one in my company with my job title right now. Well, we used to have 4 people in the same job but the other 3 have all left. And it doesn't quite fit nicely in the usual categories, so they often make the rules up as they go along. Leading to effed-uppedness. Third, I'm now ALSO part time, which effs things up even more.
Sigh. I know I should be grateful that I have a job. And I AM, trust me. My bro' has now been unemployed for 11 months. I know the deal. It'd just be nice not to be scared shitless by your mail.
5 comments:
It's not good to hear how useless HR is across the globe. I hope they can sort it out for you. How stressful to have insurance worries as well.
That is the HR screw-up of the century, and given that layoffs happened, I'd be totally freaked out, too.
holy heck!!!!
clearly it has to be a goof- but WHAT a goof!! & of course on a friday. sucks!!
Fucking IDIOTS! Hope you figure this out (and it turns out well) on Monday.
I was layoff many times due to nature of my work as contractor. It feels devastated every time but the feeling does not last long. I think HR are messing up and you still have your job. If not, hey, you will have more time to relax and less stressful things to deal with for a while.
By the way, I was telling my friend not to open mail that comes on Friday and Saturday until Monday. I do not however follow my own advice. Things like this termination of insurance thing is as bad as other ones like notices from credit cards and collectors that you immediately want to dispute, but how? It's the weekend and nobody is there at the other end so you can vent your disagreement with.
Sometimes they made me spend the whole weekend feeling bad.
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