Saturday Rant

warning - this post is mostly for posterity and for me to look back on someday - but read if you want to.

The girls and I (as some of you know) are on food stamps. They were set to expire at the end of September. I got a letter at the beginning of September saying I needed to come in for a face-to-face interview. So come in any time between the hours of 8 and 5. Great. No problem. Except that I WORK from 8 to 5 and if I don't work, I don't get paid. So I called them to see if there was something else that could be done. I talked to a lady and she said I would need to speak with a supervisor. She transferred me and of course the lady wasn't at her desk so I left a message. Now, I'm not one of those people who call and harass someone daily, because (naively I guess) I figure I left them a voice mail, they will call back. So... pretty much a whole week goes by and I hear nothing. So I call back, and I get the supervisor this time. I explain the situation (that makes 2 times) and she says "Okay, we'll do a phone interview, I'll transfer you to Diane the phone interview lady and you can set that up." Great... so she transfers me... and I get... Diane's voice mail. So I leave the message. And wait... 1 day... 2 days... 3 days.. 4 days... I call back... explain my situation (3 times), they transfer me to Diane, again I get voice mail. Leave another voice mail. 3 days later i get a call back "Hi, this is Blah blah and I'm calling to let you know that we're really far behind in our phone interviews and we'll be calling you in 3 weeks to do your interview." "Um... 3 weeks will be mid October and my benefits end at the end of September." "Oh, well you should have called earlier."

EXCUSE ME??? I FREEKING DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Ma'am, I did. I've left messages and talked to now 4 people."

"Well, it's going to take at least 3 weeks to process your application so you need to get it done."

"THAT IS WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO!"

"Well I'm sorry. Because of the gas shortage we've been on a skeleton staff so we can't get to you for 3 weeks. Don't you have someone who can come in for you?"

Now that one I don't get... just any old random person can come in for you? Well.. guess what lady, I don't KNOW anyone here so NO, I don't!!

"Well, can't you come in during the day?"

"Ma'am, if I don't work, I don't get paid."

"Well, I don't know what to tell you. You'll just have to wait for the phone interview"

FINE

Now... because of all the drama at work this week, the manager closed the office at 4 on Friday, and said he would pay me anyways for a full day. So Friday morning I called human services and asked if I would need an appointment or anything. (Wait, first I had to explain the whole story... 4 times now)... oh no, no appointment, just come in. It's gonna be at the end of the day, will that be okay? Oh, of course.

4 o'clock comes and I head up to the offices. Now I work in a town about 20 miles south of there, so it takes me about a half an hour to get there. I walk up, take a number, they call my number, I go to the window and say "I need to renew my food stamps"

"Oh, you're too late, we're full today."

Oh. MY. WORDS I WON'T SAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a nasty cold, and it's been a stressful week, and I just lost it. Tears filled my eyes, and I explained the whole thing again and that this was the ONE TIME that I got out of work early and couldn't they do anything??

Nope

So, I just turned and walked away, got in my car and bawled and bawled... this just shouldn't be this hard.

I grabbed my phone and called the Social Services number. Asked for a supervisor. Of course, the lady needs me to explain the whole thing... AGAIN... which I do... while sniffling. FINALLY she says she'll give the message to a supervisor, but she's not sure it will happen today.

Fine...

So about 5 minutes later my phone rings. I answer. It's the director of the Food Stamp program, and he's not happy. He asks me to start from the beginning. *sigh*... so I calmly do.... all of it. He apologizes about a bazillion times, and says that my case worker will be calling me first thing Monday morning to get this taken care of and do I have food for the weekend and if not he'll arrange something (I did have food so that was fine)... I think he confirmed she would be calling me Monday morning about 6 times. He said if I didn't hear from her by 10 to call him and he would take care of it.

SO.... in the end, it's going to work out. But it shouldn't have to be that way. I was so ready to run for country commissioner yesterday. I'm sure those people have bigger caseloads than they can handle, and I'm sure they have people who try to abuse the system and do all kinds of dumb stuff, but some of us are TRYING to get OUT Of the system, and we're not trying to abuse it... just use what we've been paying into for years... I know some of you are social workers and have dealt with this from the other side, and please don't think I'm not sympathetic to what you go through... I'm just... over all this.