Things that could make one a Republican

I had an employee who left my employ some time ago.  She got pregnant and, according to my other employee's, announced around the office for some period of time she was going to take the pregnancy as an opportunity to not work for awhile.  (We are a tiny business so exempt from the family leave act - she had no right to family leave).

At some point as her due date got closer (paraphrasing her sworn testimony) she started investigating all the ways she could get money from the government.  At one point before she left her supervisor reported to me she was soliciting another employee to pretend they were me so they could lie for her so she could qualify for some state benefit for expectant mothers that she was not in fact qualified for.  The supervisor and other employee reported to me that when they refused to help her commit fraud, she got irritated and said she would get a google voice account, give the agency that number and when they called to verify the facts she needed to qualify for the benefit she would pretend to be me herself.

As she got closer to her due date she stopped talking about what she was going to do after the baby was born.  Her supervisor repeatedly asked her if she planned on coming back to work, she would never answer, telling the supervisor "I will let you know."

Then a couple weeks before the baby was due she reported her doctor has said she had some problems with her pregnancy, so she was going out on disability leave.  We never heard a word from her about her job after she left until over a year later we got a notice she had filed for unemployment and listed us as her last employer.  She never contacted us to say she was ready or wanted to come back, the only contact with her was when she showed up one day at the office to show the new baby to other employees (I did not work out of that office)

Since both her immediate supervisor and I believed, and still believe, she never intended to come back to work, I appealed the decision, since I understand the law to be one is not entitled to unemployment benefits when you voluntarily leave the work force.  Her benefits are charged against my business reserve account - not a huge deal, but I believe in unemployment insurance as a protection against events beyond your control, and it irritated me to have someone - evidently - using it to fund a vacation from work.  The fact that we had to go through the trouble of sending a part of her paycheck every month to the government under a garnishment order almost the entire time she worked for us, because she been doing her best to avoid paying her student loans, didn't help her credibility with us.

While awaiting the appeal hearing I got to wondering about the other state benefits my employees said she tried to get them to help her fraudulently procure so called the agency.   I went through the usual lengthy period of going from one phone menu to another, finally got someone on the phone who then referred me to the "program integrity" unit (or some such politically correct name for fraud).  At the "program integrity" unit I got voice mail instead of a person.  I left a brief message along with my contact information and that I had information about possible fraud.  Never heard a word back.  Evidently they are to busy giving out money to worry about possible fraud.

In the end the administrative law judge decided in her favor.  She (the employee) did have complications from her pregnancy, so it sounds like her disability benefits were legitimate - she did leave work earlier than she had planned.  But in the end her testimony made it apparent she had made a deliberate effort in her last months at work, even though she had no intention of coming back to work, to avoid saying she would not come back, despite regularly being asked.  After she left she never contacted us about coming back to work then filed for unemployment a year later.  

The administrative law judge's decision made it sound like we had talked about whether she would come back but no decision had been made.  It was pretty clear to me his findings were aimed more at justifying awarding unemployment.  My testimony, which she did not dispute, was that we asked regularly about her intentions, she refused to answer, and she never contacted us after we left prior to filing the unemployment claim a year later.  I suspect she had learned that by not saying anything she could claim unemployment, and it seems pretty clear if you are the employee you have to do something pretty stupid or pretty outrageous to not get unemployment.

I could have filed an appeal with a real court, but it's not worth my time.  I was probably tilting at windmills to pursue it as far as I did.  But the integrity of the unemployment insurance program is important to me and this just seems wrong.  

This women worked for me for three years.  She was very bright, but was never a particularly good employee.  I learned things when I started making inquiries that made me realize she seems to have found the challenge of manipulating to minimize the amount of work she did much more interesting than her job.  If she spent as much time and energy on doing her job as she spent on figuring out how to be a freeloader she could be very successful (and could make a lot more than I was paying her).  

It aggravates me people like her provide so much ammunition for those who dislike the idea of safety nets.