h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... according to the woman at the local Job Centre, that I do not have agoraphobia and that for the last 14 years I have just been putting obstacles up as an excuse, otherwise I would not have been sitting in her office!

Amazing! So that is why I couldn't help my mother for the last 2 years of her life, eh? That is why I could not attend her bedside for the last 2 weeks of her life?? Absolutely Amazing!!!

This was my first attendance to the Job Centre under the ESA (wrag) system. Why she needed me to attend I've no idea. Seems my benefit will run out and totally stop at the end of March 2015, unless my appeal for reconsideration (Mandatory Notice) to be put into the 'support group' is successful - in which case whatever she told me doesn't matter anyway!

Oh! And she only needs to see me twice during this twelve month period, so she will send for me in October so she can explain everything all over again. I thought I was attending to see what they could do for me... What a stupid bitch I am!

So during the 20 minutes or so interview, where she only wanted to know if my husband worked and if we owned our own home, this woman managed to completely overturn whatever my GP or therapists have said over the years and knocked me back into a deep depression. I cried all the way home and have been crying all night!

I paid for a copy of my medical records and during 1999 and 2003 there are at least 5 letters and numerous notations about my agoraphobia... I could look further but it's not exactly pleasant reading.

Just a couple of months ago I found this link http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Agoraphobia/Pages/Symptoms.aspx my symptoms are a combination of some or all of each section.


But of course.... I don't have agoraphobia!



Please note that lil will not be around very much until she can 'pull herself together'. She will continue to behind the scenes with gurus and other areas where she doesn't actually need to 'think' about what she is doing!


lil x

Joins large crowd of people to give lil a .

from me too.


Geggs

job centre staff = my words are unprintable

you know where I am Lil

*fights her way into the group *

*joins group (with a cork on the tip of his his hook so as not to hurt anybody)*

Doesn't it just make you . How could she be so insensitive?

These people maybe overworked, but they really should take their work seriously, and they should certainly take the people seriously who, after all, they took that job to help.

job center (plus)... oh... so many incompetances.... Problem always is, anyone who works there, who's any* good; immediately gets provmoted, and the 'public' never see them again; as they end up doing back-room stuff, rahter than fron-desk publifc-facing positions, and new recruits ends up in teh positions where they're able to not help anyone
Luckily they entirely stopped pestering me, after the last few times I had to visit them... being interviewed and 'helped' by staff who I was far more qualified (and knowledgible too as it turned out), to be doing their job than they...

I am so sorry they made you feel this way. You are so kind and helpful on this site to perfect strangers! I can't believe this person treated you like that face to face. Sometimes I wish they had a button in real life for such individuals. the nerve.

Want me to go over there and go all knight in shining armour on them?

I visited the job centre once when my job was about to end and told them I'd like help looking for something else so I wouldn't have to end up claiming benefits.

They said "oh, you have qualifications, you'll find something".

Some help!

It beggars belief the difference between the various jobcentres and the calibre/attitude of staff employed therein.
I've just been through the exact same reviews as Lil, forms for ATOS the assessors, filled in, sent back with appropriate medical data and the contrast in how I was dealt with couldn't be more stark.
Face to face interview not required, placed immediately in the support group, told next review wouldn't be till Jan/Feb 2017, even wished all the best and that was it.
It never bodes well at DWP centres if the staff are told to start with the attitude of 'all claimants are after something for nothing' as that puts everyone on the slippery slope to confrontation.
The fact a decision maker can still override medical opinion and insist someone is going to be well enough to work or seek work in 6 or 12 mths time makes a farce out of the system and is why the vast majority of appeals are upheld.
The govt and media need to stop with this constant tarring of everyone with the same brush and stop using language like scroungers and cheats.
There are more people cheating on their taxes than ever cheat the benefits system.

*joins in group*

that's horrible lil, how dare someone in any public facing job dare to say something like that to the public they should be ashamed
who ever that was is an absolute disgrace and I hope they loose there job but sadly its unlikely to happen the horrific ones always seem to hang around the longest.



words are not enough

You know where I am if you want to rant. Please don't deprive us of your glorious presence too long



GB

just let me know who this pip-squeak is and i'll send the ginger minx around to sort her, first things first don't panic, then go and see your doc, explain the probs and then hit the pub! then snooze!



and take a sick note next time

Awful the way some jobs worth can treat decent people, when I snapped my neck in 1999 had to beg for financial help and was told that they (dwp) weren't there to subsidise my lifestyle.... Paid into it all my life and the one time I need help was basically told to bugger off! Letter of complaint with gp evidence etc may do the trick but at the end of the day some people are just ?!&£@ers lil.

Am I too late for a hug too xx

This makes me so annoyed. I wish there was something - anything - I could do

Sadly there are people like that out there, but you do know how you're appreciated here

<BB<

Oh, Lil, you are one of many being treated with disdain and ignorance by people who do not know what on earth they are talking about.

You are not the silly , she is!!

Try not to take it to heart and bounce back. Can you appeal or kick up a fuss when you have recovered enough? It really is disgraceful.



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