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Here's a new one: Snow forces delay in online service
By adamg on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 1:26pm
Greatergrafton goes online to file her weekly unemployment claim and instead of the form she expects, gets "This online service is unavailable this morning due to the snowstorm. Please try again after 12:15pm today," which makes her wonder:
... Please tell me how it's possible that the snowstorm affected an online service? Can it only be turned on by someone in unemployment physically flipping a switch? ...
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Comments
I tried calling Blue Cross
I tried calling Blue Cross this afternoon at 1:30 and was told nobody was available to take my call due to a "delayed opening." That's rather delayed!
Not surprising
Five years ago when I was collecting, the website didn't work in hours when they were closed. I don't know if that's still the case, but it drove me insane.
yup, it's to protect the jobs of people at the DUA
Basically, to answer your question, yes- when I filed for unemployment a couple of years ago, you couldn't access the online or telephone system outside of their office hours.
I'm almost positive it is to protect jobs in the DUA offices. By restricting the hours the system is up, they assure that there are still people who call in, and thus their call centers keep busy, and nobody's fired because of "new-fangled technology".
It doesn't help for calls where people need actual help- those calls are difficult, and require training and some modicum of brains. Answering call after call of exactly the same type, reading from a script? No brains required.
If everyone could file for UA any time of day via the internet or using the telephone system, what reason would they have to speak to someone, unless there was some complex icky problem which required brains and training?
The online unemployment
The online unemployment check-in only is in service during the same hours you can call in. Sun-Fri 7am-7pm. Even the call service doesn't work at other times. There must be some reason for this and both are probably controlled/regulated by people working.