I was terminated from my job back in early May for “poor performance“. My manager had said she had had to correct me too many times, that I took too many absences, and that the latest incident where i had apparently removed a practitioner from a schedule was basically the nail in the coffin for her. Mind you, my co-workers would step out weeks at a time while I’d be gone max a couple of days, were behind on their tickets while I stayed on top of mine and the issue with the practitioner was because we had moved to a new scheduling program that was still in beta testing and was extremely unreliable so sometimes group schedules would just disappear. She had also initially told me in a message that that wasn’t my fault so I had been confused when I was abruptly called into a meeting to be told I was being terminated for that.
Whatever, all of that was over so I just focused on immediately applying for unemployment, cleaning up my resume and applying to jobs again. I did a quick interview and was approved for unemployment benefits which I started receiving the last week of May.
Now today I got a letter in the mail informing me that my former employer has filed an appeal to have the EDD reverse my approval of unemployment benefits to ensure I am no longer eligible. There was no decided court date or reasoning for the appeal. This was just a notice that my company is taking action to do so. I was also informed in the letter that anything i receive in benefits after this notice may need to be paid back if the judge decides I am ineligible.
I’m floored and absolutely at a loss for what to do. I am highly encouraged to attend the hearing to try and defend myself but I don’t know how. I had been compiling screenshots of things my manager would send me for a while before my being let go because I had been wary of the frequency in which she would threaten to have me terminated. All of that was on my work laptop that I was locked out of just a few hours after I was terminated. Dumb on my part for not thinking ahead and transferring those screenshots to my personal email ahead of time, I know, but what do I do now?
I have emails from HR after I was terminated encouraging me to apply for unemployment. That’s about it. I was already upset about my termination in the first place. I had never been let go by an employer before and the manager I had at this company would constantly highlight my errors instead of my many achievements. I never felt good enough for her. I spent the last month just trying to build my self-confidence back up and now this? I don’t know why they’re doing this 2 months after I was approved for benefits. I feel so lost. Any ideas on how to prepare myself?