Everyone's advice has been really helpful! I'm working on organizing my documentation today. One more question - will the hearing be in person or over the phone? My notice doesn't specifically say, just gives an address and time.

Good luck with your hearing! I went through something similar about 6 months ago - also sales job, also performance vs misconduct dispute. The key thing that helped me win was being able to show I was actively trying to improve. Do you have any emails where you asked your manager for additional training, requested different territory assignments, or discussed strategies to meet targets? Those really help demonstrate good faith effort. Also, if you have any documentation showing the 180% increase in targets was unreasonable (like industry standards, previous years' data, or other team members' struggles), bring that too. The judge in my case was very interested in whether the performance expectations were realistic. One tip: practice explaining the difference between "couldn't meet targets despite trying" vs "deliberately underperforming" - that distinction is crucial. You got this!

UPDATE: Just wanted to let everyone know that I was able to certify this morning! The system updated overnight like you all said it would. Thanks for calming me down yesterday - this is my first time dealing with a holiday while on unemployment. My certification went through and it says my payment should process within 48 hours. Thanks again for all the help!

So glad you got it resolved! This is exactly why I love this community - everyone jumps in to help when someone's stressed about EDD issues. For future reference, holidays always mess with the certification schedule but it usually sorts itself out within 24-48 hours. The system is old and clunky but it does eventually work. Hope your payment comes through on time!

One additional tip that might help: When you do manage to get through to an EDD representative, immediately ask for their direct extension or ID number. This won't guarantee that you can reach them directly if you call back, but if you get disconnected again, you can at least reference who you were speaking with when you call again. Also, I'd recommend preparing a brief "claim summary" document for yourself with all the key information you need to provide. This way, if you do get through, you can efficiently complete the claim without scrambling for information, which reduces the time spent on the phone and the chance of another disconnection. Include details such as: - Your employment history for the past 18 months (employer names, addresses, phone numbers) - Start and end dates for each job - Reason for separation from each employer - Your gross earnings for the last week worked - Any vacation or severance pay received Having this information readily available has helped many of my clients complete their claims more efficiently during their brief windows of connection with EDD representatives.

I feel your pain! I went through something similar last year. One thing that really helped me was using the EDD website's "Contact EDD" feature to send a message about my dropped call situation. While they don't respond quickly (took about 5 days), when I did get through on the phone later, the rep could see my message in the system and it actually helped speed things up since she knew exactly what had happened. Also, if you're calling from a cell phone, make sure you're in an area with strong signal. I learned the hard way that even small signal drops can cause the call to disconnect on EDD's end, even if your phone shows full bars. I started calling from my landline after that and never had another dropped call issue. Good luck with the 8am call tomorrow! The advice about having everything ready is spot on - the faster you can get through the questions, the less chance of technical issues messing things up.

Update us after your next interview - I'm curious if asking about all remaining issues works for you. Many claimants have found success with this approach, as it forces EDD to review the entire claim rather than just the isolated issue assigned to that particular interviewer.

I went through something similar last year - had 4 interviews over 6 weeks before everything got sorted out. The frustrating part is that each interviewer acts like they're seeing your case for the first time, even though you've already been through this process multiple times. One thing that helped me was creating a simple timeline document before each interview listing: - Date of each previous interview - Name of interviewer (if you got it) - What issue they said they were addressing - What they told you the outcome was When I started my fourth interview by reading this timeline to the interviewer, she actually paused and said "Oh, I can see there's been some confusion here" and was able to consolidate everything. Turned out I had overlapping issues that different departments were trying to handle separately. Also, don't stress too much about the identity verification popping up late in the process - that's actually pretty normal. Sometimes it gets triggered automatically when there are multiple interviews on a claim, even if identity isn't the actual issue. Hang in there - I know it's incredibly frustrating when you need the money now, but most of these multi-interview situations do get resolved eventually.

UPDATE: I tried that Claimyr service and actually got through to EDD this morning! The rep was able to reschedule my interview for next Tuesday evening after my work shift. She said normally they don't offer rescheduling this close to the interview date, but since I'd been trying to contact them repeatedly and had just started a new job, she made an exception. Just wanted to update everyone and say thanks for all the advice!

That's awesome that you got it resolved! For anyone else reading this thread who might face a similar situation in the future, I'd recommend always keeping a detailed log of your attempts to contact EDD - dates, times, methods used (phone, online, UI Online messages), and any error messages you receive. This documentation can be crucial if you need to appeal a decision later. Also, if you do end up missing an interview despite your best efforts, don't panic - the appeal process exists for exactly these types of situations where there are legitimate reasons for missing the call.