UPDATE: 4/8/2020
I was notified by Squatters that our company was picked out of the Tip Your Server Lotto, and that I was one of the five tipped employees randomly chosen to receive $500 from this donation.
I have decided that after I receive this money, I will be dividing it up equally among my co-workers that need it the most. I want to say thank you to the Tip Your Server Donation, the Downtown Alliance Salt Lake City, Thank you to Ty Burrell and the Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. Thank you for your help, I deeply appreciate it, we deeply appreciate it!
GOOD MORNING!
Checking my blog posts this morning, I didn’t realize the last time I posted anything was six days ago National Poetry Month!
I’ve been so busy applying for jobs and working on poem orders, the time has just flown by. I have gotten more donations from friends through my POETRY FOR $. The past three days, I had a poem request every single day which is amazing. Thanks to donations from friends, their $upport is helping me pay a few bills and put some money aside for groceries.
More about POETRY FOR $:
To date I have completed 10 personalized handwritten poems for $upporters. I accept any amount of donations via my Venmo, whatever people can give, I deeply appreciate.
How I Create Personalized Handwritten Poem:
I spend a few hours writing a poem, this takes the most time, then conceptualizing a design. My poems are more like little art pieces synthesizing my writing and my art style.
After I complete the Poem/Art piece, I offer to send a pdf copy of their poem to their email and then ask if they are comfortable with me mailing the original to their home address. I have mailed 7 poems to people. If they don’t feel comfortable receiving mail during COVID-19, I hold their poems (right now I currently holding 3). My poem also comes with a Thank you card and I mail them within 48 hours of receiving their $upport via Venmo.
UNEMPLOYMENT CHECKS & PAYING BILLS
I am relieved because today I received my 2nd unemployment check. If I continue to receive a check a week, which I am figuring out may be how often I receive one? (the unemployment site is not clear on this) then I will be barely getting over $1,000 a month. This doesn’t even cover rent but it’s something. Every Sunday I have to refile so I have set up reminders for myself so I don’t forget.
STAYING POSITIVE & FOCUSED
I have been applying to a minimum of 2 jobs a day. I have only taken two days off since I was LAID OFF from job searching/applying. It is exhausting. I have reworked and redone my cover letter and resume tons of times already and I plan on doing more revisions. I have been utilizing the unemployment job search tools and my various online work profiles such as LinkedIn and Zip Recruiter.
It’s so tiring and I am trying hard not to feel like a failure but I feel the pressure to get a full-time remote job as fast as possible. Yes, I’m being incredibly picky about what jobs I apply to right now (I am only applying to writing related work that require a Bachelors of English or similar degree). It’s my goal to take advantage of this time and try to find work that requires my degree because that would mean a minimum boost in my annual income (compared to last year) by about $15,000 or more. I am also looking specifically for companies that provide full benefits (health and dental) as well as a good 401K plan.
It’s difficult but I’m not going to give up. I don’t want to live off of unemployment. But I have a plan that if I get close to depleting my savings, I will get a Customer Service Rep job (remote call center work) or maybe a Data Entry job to tie me over while I continue my search. The downside of those jobs, I’ve found that the hourly wage is significantly less by $10-$15 of what I used to make working in a restaurant and more importantly about the same amount less as a job that requires a BA. So I will persist and not give up.
HELP MY FRIENDS
So many of my friends are my co-workers and more than half of them had only their jobs at restaurants as their sole income. Many of my friends don’t have degrees, or any other work experience besides restaurant/service/hospitality. Most of them have been able to file for unemployment successfully and have started to receive their checks but many of them are having issues with DWS (unemployment) and issues with discrepancies on their file, so they have still not received any checks.
As for our employer Squatters Pub Brewery and Wasatch Brew Pub (owned by CANarchy) there has been little help. Thankfully, they have started offering to LAID OFF employees the choice to come and get free fresh fruit and produce that is extra from the bi-weekly deliveries and have given the option (within the last week) of getting two free meals a week from the restaurant. I have received emails from our Human Resources department and it has been suggested that they don’t plan on opening in May which means another month of no work.
If you would like to help out my friends, I have posted in LAID OFF: HELP MY RESTAURANT FAMILY Venmo links to some of co-workers (that wanted to participate) and need $ help right now. I think that direct donations are best.
We were expecting some help from the Downtown Alliance “Tip Your Server” donation program but it has been revealed this is a lottery donation,
excerpt taken directly from https://downtownslc.org/tipyourserver
Fund Distribution FAQ
Q: How does selection work?
A: Recognizing that there are more restaurants and more servers than we can fund, we pulled a list of all eligible establishments licensed with approved NAICS codes. 560 restaurants and bars licensed in SLC were compiled and then randomized. Owners from randomly selected restaurants will be contacted in rounds by the Utah Restaurant Association, with the first round consisting of 40 establishments. Once contacted, those owners may submit up to five displaced workers to receive a $500 grant. Owners may select the workers based on their own criteria, whether those individuals with the greatest need, a random selection, or otherwise.
Once the employer has filled out the form, the employees will be contacted directly by the Downtown Alliance with a request to submit a W-9 in a specified period of time. Payment will be sent directly to the employee within two business days.
Additional notification rounds will commence as long as funds are made available through the Tip Your Server program.
Workers that have applied for unemployment are eligible for this grant. However, workers who have not been displaced or currently have income in an establishment should not be included.
This has been a complete let down and I have not heard of a single one of my co-workers receiving any funds from TIP YOUR SERVER.
I WILL CONTINUE TO WORK HARD
It is so important to stay positive during these strange days. I keep up with the news but stay busy. I am positive that I can turn these events into something beneficial for my life. I am focused on my job search, reading, art, and writing as much poetry as possible and I think this has really helped.
Thank you for reading about my experience and I hope you are doing well and staying safe out there!
For National Poetry Month I am doing live videos on Instagram of me reading a poem a day and talking about poetry. I am doing this around the times of 2-7 p.m. MST, and posting my LIVE feed to my story which is available for 24 hours.
Liked this blog post? Check out there:
‘Poem to Read Aloud’ by Alina Happy Hansen (April 11th, 2020)
Podcast Sesh #2 June 18, 2020: Writing, Freelancing and Coping with the George Floyd Protests
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