How worried should I be about this unemployment issue?

Post date: 2023-06-09 08:16:48

I recently signed up for unemployment in Massachusetts after completing a contract position that ended on a positive note. They wanted information on all the jobs I've worked in the past year, which included one that ended badly. Will this affect my ability to collect?

I'm a proofreader and copy editor, and I've been doing a lot of contract work since the pandemic. I've worked three contract jobs over the past year; two of them ended when I completed the project and I came away from them with good references and a positive working experience.

I was placed at the third job last fall and was supposed to go temp-to-perm with it. I lasted about six weeks. My boss was rarely on site, and her assistants were tasked with training me. Neither of them were very good at it, both of them ignored reasonable requests I made during training (like slowing down and having me do some of the more complicated tasks with them present before doing them independently), and they both made the workplace a hostile environment for me. (One of my boss's assistants wore a denim jacket with a large anti-psychiatric drug button on the lapel that she draped over the back of her chair, and it was visible when she was training me. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and seeing this kept me from disclosing my status to my boss.) I sent my boss emails about the specific problems I was experiencing and asking her for a meeting, and she fired me through my recruiter the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I stupidly didn't copy my emails to my personal email account for documentation, so I don't have direct proof of any of this happening.

After this job ended, I was placed at a contract position that got extended from three to six months and ended on a positive note, and my recruiter (a different recruiter than the one who placed me at the previous position) told me at the end of the assignment that I was eligible for unemployment. I signed up for unemployment yesterday and the DOL asked for all the jobs I'd worked before signing up, and I had to fill out a form about my dismissal from the job I worked this fall as well as contact information for my supervisor there. I've been concerned that she'll say something that will prevent me from collecting unemployment.

Does this supervisor have the power to block me from receiving unemployment at all?

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