The worst has happened.
They have destroyed me. The studio reps walked into the Unemployment Hearing on Tuesday morning and lied. Instead of bringing my former supervisor, they brought in that fat f*** IT manager, who sat under oath and lied to the judge about my computer habits. I was so stunned at the fact that he perjured himself so blatantly, that I was hardly able to respond to any of the judge's questions. He told the judge that I re-installed my Windows 2000 operating system in order to change the administrator password on the desktop and lock them out of their computer. I pointed out in the cross-examination that it would have been impossible unless I had the original administrator password, which I did not. I did not change the administrator password on the desktop. But they were counting on the chance that the judge would be just as computer-illiterate as most of the studio management personnel. They were right.
Besides, if I had the original administrator password so I could re-install Windows 2000 on their company PC, then why would I have had to go through all of that anyway? I could have just changed it without reinstalling anything. They LIED. THEY LIED.
Then they said the reason they had been going through the computer in the first place was to look for a letter that had been faxed to the corporate office. It was an anonymous letter from a client -- he had been concerned about the general attitude of the warehouse personnel (see link at the bottom of this page if you want to read the letter). He called me to see if I would be willing to pass it along to the appropriate management personnel, and when I said sure, I had him email it to my Yahoo email address. He wanted to remain anonymous, so I said not to send it to my work email address. I didn't ask why he wanted be remain anonymous -- I assumed he had his reasons and it wasn't any of my business.
I read the letter, considered his request and decided that he had a very valid concern that the upper management needed to hear, and faxed it to the corporate office without saving the document. His email stayed in a folder in my Yahoo account.
Well, they walked into the unemployment hearing and told the judge that I wrote the letter. They admitted that they couldn't find the document on my hard drive, but in the process of looking, they had found my "unauthorized" Zip drive (another lie -- they SUGGESTED that I get that. In fact, the last time my office was moved, they RE-HOOKED IT UP for me when they moved the computer to the new office) and all of the alleged "changes" I had made to the administrative permissions on the machine. They brought a copy of the letter as evidence.
I didn't write the letter. I think they were surprised when I admitted that I had faxed the letter to the corporate fax number, but I did NOT write it. But I think it was the thing that finally allowed that fat f*** to find a way to get rid of me. But I still cannot believe that he sat there and lied under oath. It was the final nail in my professional coffin.
The end result of all of this came on Thursday in the mail. I was notified that my Unemployment benefits have been revoked. The judge said I was "evasive" and he obviously believed their side of the story, probably because to do any investigating of the facts would have been too time consuming. Besides, he was quite obviously well-acquainted with the attorney rep they brought with them -- she stayed behind after our hearing because she was representing the next hearing with the same judge. Their dog & pony show, complete with a "timeline" document listing all of my alleged transgressions (written just for the occasion, I am sure) confused the judge enough about the computer issues that he bought their story and revoked the lousy $370 a week that was keeping me barely afloat. Now I have no income at all, and no replies to the hundreds of letters and resumes I send every week.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
