A wife wakes up early in the morning. She fixes breakfast for the family, then sets the places on the table. When the kids get up, she helps them in getting dressed, then sees them off to school. Her husband gets up and asks her for help in finding his tie, then eats a bit of breakfast before he runs out the door. The wife then goes about her daily chores. She gathers the dishes from the table, and cleans them. Then, she gathers the laundry and sets it to wash. Afterwards, she grabs the vacuum cleaner and does the living room. The beds need made so she does those as well. When she is finished with all of that, she makes out the grocery list and heads out to get it filled. Traffic is horrible, but she makes it there and back. Upon arriving back at home, she then puts all of the groceries up and sets the ingredients out for dinner. The kids arrive back home from school, and she makes them a snack. Around four or five in the afternoon, she starts on dinner and sets the places on the table again. The husband calls from work and lets her know he will be late coming home from work, so she wraps his plate up and puts it in the microwave. She clears the table after dinner, and takes care of getting the kids washed and ready for bed. Hours later, after they are fast asleep, the husband finally comes home. He heads to the shower and washes up. While he is doing that, she dutifully gathers his clothes. That's when she finds the lipstick, and smells the perfume on his clothes. This is not the first time this has happened, but she keeps her mouth shut because her kids need both parents. Her kids need the support from a working husband and father. But, when he exits the shower, as he eats his food that she worked hard to serve him, he tells her that he thinks they need to separate. It crushes her, but she accepts it, no amount of arguing would change his mind. Within a week, she has packed the kids and all they own, and has arranged for them to stay with her mom while she figures out how to support them. Some time later, a court awards her alimony based on the lifestyle she was made used to while married to him, along with child support for the kids.
This is very similar to how things work with something else. Let's change the story a bit.
The husband wakes up, hurriedly gets dressed, and grabs a slice or two of toast on his way out the house. Traffic is horrible, but he manages to make it to work on time. He checks the list of duties for the day. He then grabs the broom and sweeps all the rooms in the office building. Quickly checking his watch to make sure he is keeping on schedule, he notices he only has a short bit of time. He hurries back, grabs the necessary items, and mops all of the rooms. There will be just enough time to let them dry. He checks for work orders, and sees there are some things that need fixed. He replaces the light bulbs in the cafeteria, repairs the electric cable in the hallway ceiling, patches up the molding in one of the rooms, and more. People are starting to show up, and he hears there is a sickness going around. He cleans the bathroom more often that day than he has had to the rest of the month. His boss comes up and lets him know that the guy that comes in at five is sick as well and won't be coming in today, so he will have to work a double. He phones his wife to let her know, then sets about to clean up the bathrooms yet again. While he does his work, he daydreams about how he never gets to see his kids or his wife. He has had to bandage his blisters and cuts several times, and has even broken a finger or two in the line of duty as well. As his extra shift eventually comes to a close, he heads back to his locker to change and wash up before heading home, he finds a note inside of it. It says that he is to call the boss before leaving, so he does so. The boss comes back to work, and talks to him about how there are cutbacks and such due to the economy. The boss is very sorry, but he has to let him go. He goes home, and over a re-heated dinner explains to his wife how they have to cut way back on spending because he was laid off. The state awards him unemployment, but it isn't enough to cover the bills. The family will have to move in with the wife's mother, and figure out how to survive.
Both cases show how a person serves a role as best as they can, but end up getting "let go". In both cases it shatters their lives as well. In one case, we have the dutiful wife who slaves endlessly keeping a household together, only to end up out on her own with her kids. For this, she is awarded alimony. In the other story, we have the husband who dutifully serves his company, slaving over his work, suffering injuries and continues to work even when he has not seen his kids more than a few hours in the last month. He also is kicked out, and has to take care of his family somehow. He is awarded unemployment. To this end, unemployment is just another form of alimony.
We who have worked dutifully for one company or another, are 'married' to the job. We slave endlessly and tirelessly for the company. We suffer injuries and more, all for the glory of the company. And one day, each of us has a chance to be divorced from the company. There is nothing we can say to plead for our jobs, for nothing will change the minds of those whose thoughts are only on the money. And when we do get divorced, our only real prize for having given it our all, is to be awarded a small paycheck every week. This paycheck is not based on our family size, nor is it based on our stint with that company. It is based solely on our last pay. Not based on our last paycheck, but our last pay. So, when you work overtime because the company demands it, it will not affect the unemployment check. The injuries that were sustained, and grunted through, all for the better of the company, will not affect the unemployment check. If one is let go while injured, then that person will just be unemployed and injured, most likely without insurance as well. So the injuries continue to be there and really cannot be fixed without going into debt or using up some of the savings which are needed to keep the family from eviction and hunger.
Unemployment is the alimony of the divorced worker. But, unfortunately, it differs in some major areas. Alimony lasts until the court says it is no longer needed. Unemployment lasts a maximum of ninety-nine weeks. Alimony really has no limit, and is based on several factors: the spouses earnings, the time of the marriage, the amount of fault that belongs to the spouse paying the alimony, and more. Unemployment is based only on one factor: Pay Rate. There are other subtle things that go along with these two. A divorced spouse is no more or less desirable by another "employer", while a terminated employee on unemployment is usually much less desirable to the next employer. Why is it that it is better to get divorced than to be laid off or fired? The one thing I know for certain, is that companies make for very bad bedfellows and "spouses", when they tire of you or have no further use for you, the reward does not even come close to paying a person back for the hours and effort that they put into the company.
