Posted 6:07 PM by Floyd

A Visit to the Employment Development Department

(Now with additional waking-at-6:30-a.m.-powered vitriol!)

A few weeks back when I received my unemployment check, the envelope contained a letter from California's Employment Development Department telling me to appear at the EDD office in San Carlos at 8:15 a.m. last Tuesday. There were two forms to fill out and bring with me; one which I would contain the most rudimentary elements of a resume, and one which would list the employers to which I had applied for work. I assumed that the State of California was keeping tabs on me.

I got up early on Tuesday and drove through the rain to San Carlos. The EDD office was in an industrial area west of 101, actually on unincorporated county land between Belmont and San Carlos. This is not a densely crowded area, but the EDD building had very little parking and I had to park two blocks away.

My paperwork was taken from me and I was directed to a conference room. Sitting in cheap chairs around cheap furniture were my fellow unemployed. At the front of the room, an EDD employee told us why we were there: When we first received our unemployment information, we were told to register with CalJOBS, an online job listing site managed by the state of California. We did not do so, and so were sent followup letters for a special morning meeting. You might wonder why the state could not send us a nasty letter telling delinquents like myself to sign up or stop receiving unemployment. That just shows how little aptitude you have to be a government employee.

The middle-aged EDD lady started telling us about CalJOBS. I know the major online jobs sites for the Bay Area-- Monster, HotJobs, DICE, BayAreaHelpWanted.com -- and CalJOBS has never come across my radar. "I bet it sucks" I said to myself. I expected to find this out when I got to a computer, but confirmation was forthcoming in the next few minutes. EDD Lady asked if any of us had gone to CalJOBS. Maybe two or three people out of the fifteen in the room had. She said "It's hard to enter a resume, isn't it?" Those who had used it agreed with her. Apparently the main problem is that it's very difficult to enter a job objective; you go through a long questionnaire and the generated result is not usually what you want. You then have to go re-answer the questions from scratch.

But the EDD is on the case. They're going to fix the online questionnaire, you ask? Sorry, you still have no aptitude to work for the government! EDD's solution was to look over our paperwork while we were in the lecture and fill out a cheat sheet telling us what answers to give to the questions!

The rest of the meeting was a list of job search resources that I do not need or want. Note that most of the resources -- support groups for the unemployed, information about a business library -- were either private functions or other government offices. At 9:30 we were free to go.

Today I went online to look at CalJOBS, to make sure that I was not maligning it unfairly. It was everything that I expected and more. To use CalJOBS is to be transported back to the halcyon days of the early web -- 1996 or so -- when pull-down selections on all-white backgrounds were the rage. A complete list of CalJOBS' crimes against good UI design would take me all night.

It's not just the presentation that sucks; the content is awful too. I looked for technical jobs and found practically nothing. Here is the only job posting that was remotely interesting:

Job Number: CA3281332
Job Title: DATABASE SOFTWARE ENGINEER
City of Job: Redwood City
Experience Required: 2 years
Start Date:
Starting Wage:
Duration: Long Term Hours Per Week: 40plus Shift:
Education Required: Bachelors degree
California Drivers
License:
Federal Government
Contract: Y

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Job Duties:
Oracle Corporation has openings for Database Engineers. For specific duties, requirements, job reference numbers, and other employment opportunities, see www.oracle.com/corporate


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How To Apply:
URL: www.oracle.com/corporate

I assume that Oracle created this posting for the same reason that I went to San Carlos, because the state has some small leverage over them and would hassle Oracle if they ignored CalJOBS. I've put more effort into one-page book reports written on the bus when I was in sixth grade. (EDD Lady said that employers were paying for CalJOBS through their payroll taxes, so they want to use it effectively. EDD Lady clearly does not understand sunk costs.)

You may have the impression that I am whining because I got up early and wasted an hour and a half of my time for no reason. I am spoiled, but not that spoiled. What really grates my cheese is this: California has a massive budget shortfall -- $24 billion if Gray Davis is to be believed. And people are talking about how the state cannot possibly deal with its shortfall by cutting programs, and has to raise taxes. (Liberals like to raise taxes judiciously -- in years beginning with 1 or 2.) But here is an office full of people who do not seem to do much except enforce useless regulations, provide pointers to useful work done by others, and to maintain a computer application that is already done much better by private enterprise.

Which is more likely -- that EDD will be cut to a reasonable size, or that my taxes will go up?