Five weeks after the accident I was still confined to bed 🛏 . I was managing to navigate the stairs with help and take a shower 🚿 if my husband was around. I was still in considerable pain 💊 and this was limiting everyday normal physical activity. The same might be said about my brain, 🧠 as it was being impacted by both boredom and meds. So I could not work.
The home visit for my ESA remained elusive so I had no choice now but to chase it up. From my call log I identified the number☎️ I used before to ring for an update. Learning from previous failures I called at 11am which, even with the crystal maze element, 🔮proved useful as it was answered within 20 minutes. In fact this caught me a little by surprise; Mozart was playing on a loop on loudspeaker on my phone. The monotonous lilt was boring me into a semi-slumber, although the relaxation 😋 was a welcome relief, when a brisk “Hello” interrupted my reverie. I grabbed the phone before she had the chance to hang up and managed to articulate reasonably quickly that I was calling about my planned home visit. Was that a stifled a laugh? 🤪
This was the call that rumbled the dirty tricks 😡. deployed by the previous two encumbents. Claims were recorded over the phone at this call centre. Not emailed. Despite the two earlier calls to this number I learned, despite my details having been taken, they had no trace of 😵 me. She was about to start the process of form filling when I begged her to check again. Up to this point I must have been speaking Swahili 💩 as she could hear me but clearly not understand what I was on about. I’m unaware of what exactly caused her to stop in her tracks and check some other system, but she finally found my details and lo and behold agreed I had been referred for a home 🏡visit. My elation was short lived, but she could not help me, I now had to call the DWP.
The DWP has a slightly less confusing version of the crystal maze 🔮to permit you access to a human person. I felt quite smug to have made it through on the first attempt. This was another trick. The human person that answered my call was only programmed to provide responses to the right questions. There are no clues🔬 provided as to what these questions are. There is a strong assumption that you have been on Mastermind 📺 with DWP/ESA as your specialist subject. No normal, polite interactive conversation where you each take turns at trying to find common ground where they assess your need and direct your enquiry, here. Every thing was responded to with with a sneering 🤨combination of “I don’t know what you are talking about”, “who gave you this number?” “This is not a Universal Credit Line”
I don’t know if it was the pain, the boredom, the frustration, or my patent lack of ability in all matters benefit, but I lost it. 🤬 He had the ability to put me through to a Job Centre in my area but was electing not to. I fumed and snarled, (articulately of course) the rabid dog 🐕 was back, go Jax ! And somewhere in the tirade I must have appealed to his inner conscience, either that or he just wanted rid of me, because mid stream🐸 he put me through to a helpful person at the Job Centre………….
Life’s little dramas blog 