myz_lilith | Grrrrrrr

So I've finally got back the council tax from last year that I shouldn't have paid when I was ill... only to find that after a long conversation with someone in the Council Tax Office last month about how I needed a refund rather than a readjusted bill for this year (partly cos it makes it easier to just split payments between Kris and myself rather than trying to work out which bit is a payment and which bit is a refund, partly because I need the money back in a lump sum so I can pay my parents back what they lent me while this was all being sorted out) And what do I come down to this morning? A readjusted bill that mixes the whole lot in together! Got that sorted out though it does mean that the payments for this year will end up slighly higher cos they've now fucked up the first payment... only a fiver higher and it means we get a month off paying but still... why couldn't they have got it right to begin with???)

On top of this when I asked about benefits I get this year while I'm still not working, I was told "Oh, you're not down for any" and on checking my bank account found that my housing benefit has been stopped. This happened on the date that I switched from incapacity benefit back to jobseekers... I know I'm still entitled to it and put in a readjusted claim so from experience I'm guessing that someone somewhere has ticked the wrong box, or failed to tick the right one, or put a number in somewhere or just eaten the claim form by mistake *fume* Now off to shout at people... I'm sure it will get sorted out but probably not for another month which means instead of paying my parents back I need to borrow even more money just to get my rent paid this month. Gah!

The stupid thing is, I have spent half the morning trying to sort this out and will probably be doing so for half the afternoon as well and possibly into tomorrow. All of which is time I could be using to look for jobs or try to develop freelance business and get myself off the bloody benefits in the first place*! I can't help but feel that someone somewhere is having a massive laugh at my expense... fate obviously has the kind of sense of humour that finds custard pie chucking the height of Wildean wit.

On the plus side have just got the new contracts through from the estate agents so hopefully csn just resign them and have everything sorted out - though even they've managed to make the contract for 6 months instead of the 12 we asked for. Going to go in tomorrow and ask them in a nice polite non-shouty way if they can change the contract, if not I think we'll just sign anyway. It'd be nice to have the security of knowing that we're settled here for the next year and just forget about it, but right now if it comes to it I'll happily sign for 6 months just to be able to do a big mental scribble over the subject in my ever-growing "things to worry about list"

Oh yeah, and the hospital has cocked up my smear test so have to go back and do that all over again... would it be too much to ask just one thing to work first time? And having said that am now off to try to accomplish something with Flash, which is of course a bastion of work-first-time-ness and in now way likely to frustrate my attempts to make a simple animation with various fucking illogical errors. People in the Leeds area may wish to start investigating the prices of fallout shelters very quiskly, or simply make an appointment with your nearest deity...

(*Please note that ranting in livejournal is actually for the good of my mental health, not to mention the physical well being of those around me, and therefore a necessary part of finding work and in no way a massive waste of time)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I can't help but feel that someone somewhere is having a massive laugh at my expense... fate obviously has the kind of sense of humour that finds custard pie chucking the height of Wildean wit."

Damn, that's me rumbled.

"Why Miss Barraclough, your hat is slighly askew, I, err, errm, err...*Must think of punchline, no, not happening."

*Splat*

Fantastic, she fell over!

RJ

Lightning... the joy buzzer of the gods...

Yes, ruined by Loki, inventor ginger people whose hair is "like that already". That's the real reason he's chained to a rock.

RJ

I think you'll find that it's just a duplicate chained up and that he's still roaming the world causing trouble. How else do you explain Chris Evans?

Well, once the Ginger menace was unleashed there was no holding it back, bit like Pandora's box.

I wonder whose chained to the rock, do you think he fell for the old "Oy mate, just sit on this rock for a while while I go for a wee, mind the poison...Back in a minute, I swear, just gotta visit me lockup before the fuzz find them videos..."

When I first started work I had been on a work placement training scheme and was told by the Employment office that I would automatically recieve a 4 week run on of Housing Benifit/Council Tax benifit as long as my job was going to last longer than a certain amount of time. This was great as I only got 2 weeks pay first time. Only when I enquired a month later as to which date I had been paid up till, I was informed that I wasn't actually entitled to the 4 weeks as I hadn't been on Jobseekers allowance long enough and Incapacity benifit didn't qualify for it. I was absolutely fuming....and worried like hell as this now meant that I was a month in arrears with the Housing Association. Leeds Fed were brilliant and we made an arrangement to pay it off at so much extra per month - then I got a letter saying how I had been overpaid housing benefit to beginning of April (I started work in February) and when I rung them the check hadn't even been posted!!! After along and conveluted phone call I got nowhere and was told that I had to recover the overpayment myself. Leeds Fed were quite willing to pay it back but HB reckoned I had to claim the money back from Leeds Fed and then send it to them...I told them in no uncertain terms exactly what I thought of that and wrote them a lette saying that they were to recover the money from my landlord as that's where it had been sent. Stupid thing is, I rung them a week before this overpayment was sent out but they did nothing about it until they actually heard from the Employment office (who got a right royal bollicking for giving me wrong imformation and causing me greif and debt - as well as not bothering to send my P45) I'm just glad I'm working now and don't have anything to do with benefits anymore. I was also informed when i started my training that Housing Benefit would be told I was now entitled to full payment, and I didn't have to do anything myself, only they didn't bother and I ended up running about all over the place trying to sort that out. I think some of the people who work for the benefits (not all of them, mind) agencies are of the opinion that clients are wasters and layabouts who can't be bothered to work so they don't really care about the fact that we have been left with not money, or in debt because we don't count...! Both you and myself have been in recipt of benefits because of circumstances beyond our control and have been trying bloody hard to get work as soon as we were able

whoops! - should have spell-checked that last entry

Grrrrrrr

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Re: The spawn from the belly of Satan which is the benefit system

Re: The spawn from the belly of Satan which is the benefit system