The joys of bureaucracy
I got a letter this morning.
Actually I got two letters and a package but that’s by the way.
I hate brown envelopes with a little window showing the address and a little harp at the top. The harp means it’s from the gubmint and that is never a good thing.
Sure enough, it’s about an allowance I get for looking after Herself. It’s not that much but it gets us by, I have to prove to them that I deserve it. The fucking shits. I might add that if they had to hire someone to do all the various things I do, day and night, that it would cost them about fifty times more than my allowance [and that is not an exaggeration]. But somehow they even begrudge that.
All they want from me are a few simple things – payslips for the last few months, bank statements, what we have for dinner each day and various other pokes into my private life. Why, when I was employed could I not demand full details of all gubmint expenditure from them before I decided whether or not to pay them tax?
Of course the gubmint are still back in the fifties. They do everything on paper and irritatingly assume I do the same. I don’t. For example I have been into my branch of my bank twice – once to open an account and another time to add Herself to the account. Since then I rarely hear from them, though coincidentally the other letter I got this morning was from the bank telling me they had changed something in their terms and conditions. The point is that I do all my banking online. Everything is electronic so there is no paper. Actually there is one exception: RTE do send little yokes telling me how much is deducted from my pension each month. Why would I keep them?
So now I have to head off, delving into various accounts [but not the ones they don’t know about] and finding where I can find statements and then printing the fucking things off. I know in the past they rejected these printouts on the grounds that they weren’t printed on the bank’s paper, but I don’t know if my current bank even does printed statements. Then I have to stuff into an envelope and post it off to them. Cunts.
On a lighter note, the crowd who wrote the plugin on this site [that I have problems with] have reached out to help me. Doubtless they’ll want minute details of everything on the server.
No problem.
It’s all electronic.
Grandad, the UK government is hardly any different. My wife, who died from dementia last year age 76, needed quite a lot of attention – everything in fact towards the end.
I got her a blue badge for parking around five years ago because we had got to the stage of needing a wheelchair. The application was on paper back then – some 20-odd pages – and needed all sorts of proofs like doctor’s letters. Then I applied for attendance allowance so I could get help if needed, which was another extensive form and forests of doctor’s letters. Later on, I applied for enhanced attendance allowance when things got really difficult – more handwritten forms and evidence.
The first two are now completed online, but the enhanced is still a phone call to get the form. You really need to be good at filling out forms, which I am, fortunately. And you need to file doctor’s stuff. And you need to photocopy everything just in case.
All this labour for a few quid a week so you can pay someone to sit with her when you have to go out to the shops. I wonder how some people cope. Like you, 99 per cent of the 24/7 labour was mine.
I did have a similar experience with the Disabled sticker for the car. I got the forms after having to write off for them. Next they wanted a passport style photograph of Herself [several copies]. The fist problem is where to get the photograph. The nearest machine that I remember is in a town many miles away. Assuming that booth still exists we then have to find a Garda [cop] to sign the photograph. The local police station here is supposed to be open for an hour or two in the morning, but it’s many years since I saw a representative of our illustrious guardians of the peace. The station that is supposed to look after this area on a 24 hour basis is many miles away in County Dublin. In the end we decided it just wasn’t worth the hassle and I just park wherever is most convenient.
Yes, we had to get a picture for the blue badge too. Fortunately here, you supply your passport number and the PTB download it from the passport office. It’s the same with driving licences – passport picture. I’ve just renewed my passport with a new picture so I can visit the precious EU with my nice new blue UK passport. So I now have a picture ready for when I renew my driving licence, which you have to do every three years after 70 years old. More forms to fill out!
You’re ahead of us so. They’ll only accept paper stuff here. I suppose it gives lots of employment……
“what we have for dinner each day”
Tell them that on the amount you currently get from them dinner has been reduced to a bowl of cold cereal. On the weekends you allow yourself a treat by adding a splash of milk.