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cold walk to downtown Brooklyn
Tuesday, January 8 2002
setting: Brooklyn, New York
There was a period this morning when everything seemed to be falling apart for me: my finances were in a brief state of uncertainty, my mother reported that her computer was on the fritz again, and there I was walking around in the bitter cold trying to find the New York Department of Labor in the bitter cold. I'm glad it wasn't at the first place I looked, where an overflow crowd of people waited in a state of resigned agitation, for what I don't know, within the confines of a grimy waiting area. There was also a line, but it was short and seemed immobile. Social Service employees were barking out orders from across their desks and yellowing computer workstations, yet nothing was getting done. The security guy took one look at my white face and asked what I needed and then told me where I needed to be.
It turns out that I should have taken the subway and gotten off at Nevins or Hoyt, but I hadn't known my walk was going to take me all the way to downtown Brooklyn when I'd set out. What's more, I didn't even need to go the the Department of Labor; the unemployment benefits interview is actually given over the phone in New York. And though I'd been lead to believe otherwise, in comparison to, say, trial by Earthlink tech support, the interview was like taking a crap. In fact, I actually did take a crap while doing my interview. The woman handling my case was so nice that I didn't want to insult her by having her hear the toilet flush when I was done.
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