To the editor:

This is to show how a person who was monetarily harmed by the closure of Brunswick Naval Air Station “gets help.”

I lost my job June 4, 2011, by no fault of my own. I received no Voluntary Separation Incentive Pay, no Voluntary Early Retirement benefits and no severance because I was a contractor on base for four years and a temporary government services employee for 18 months, doing exactly the same job for both positions.

I filed for unemployment after that and received $366 a week to help me out. I took a temporary position with a staffing agency. The position was “ temp to hire” if it worked out for both of us.

It didn’t work out for me for both personal conflict and for medical reasons. I gave notice for the position before it was formally or informally offered to me on a permanent basis.

I filed for unemployment and was told that I am now ineligible for it and that after four weeks, I owe the unemployment office $ 1,830. The math doesn’t work out, but I am using the totals in my letter from them.

It is very sad for me to know that because I worked for a temporary agency while looking for suitable work that I am now ineligible for compensation. So let it be known to all those looking for work that if you choose a temporary agency and don’t like the position they offer you, stay anyway or you just traded your right to unemployment compensation.

I have worked the last 30 years, and now because I took a “temp-to-hire” position that didn’t work out, I’m no longer eligible for unemployment.

There is definitely a problem when hardworking people who pay taxes for 30 years are unable to collect unemployment because they tried to fit into a position but couldn’t.

Meanwhile, the people who don’t work at all get help from every direction.

Alice Breckenridge
Brunswick