Conventional wisdom these days is that if you want to collect unemployment, you need to make filing a claim your full-time job. You start calling at 7am when they open, and keep re-dialing until you get through -- hopefully before they close at 4pm, and you have to start again the next day.

Also, don't call before Wednesday, if you don't absolutely need to. Monday/Tuesday are unofficially reserved for people who really need the money.

Of course, even if you get through to a person and get the right bit flipped in their database, there's no guarantees. I also hear lots of stories of people whose claims were approved 4 or 6 weeks ago and still haven't gotten a dime.

> Laid-off workers are confused and confounded by the department’s faltering claims system, erroneous denials and stubborn silence on key policies and questions.

> The frustrations lead people to call the department again and again – some say they dial more than 700 times a day.

> The employment department is taking steps to address the call volume. It has added hundreds of staff to process claims in recent weeks – it has 520 now and has leased a facility in Wilsonville to expand claims staff to 800.

> With jobless claims up nearly seventeenfold, though, the staffing increases aren’t close to keeping up with demand. So it may be weeks – or months – before Oregon works through its backlog in claims questions.