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Diary of a food stamp worker

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  • Diary of a food stamp worker

    Working here is worse than being in prison.

    I work in what is called a Kiosk Office. Customers come to the office, ideally do their application online and then we call them on a phone in their kiosk and do their interview. We are in the same building and a common question is “where are you?”

    I usually just tell them that I’m on the other side of the building but this time we were making idle conversation because the comp had frozen up. “I’m all the way at the end of the building. If you look at the windows, I work under the last window.” Him: That’s cool, you have a view. Me: Well, not really, that window is about 3 feet over my head and about a foot in front of me. When I look up, I mostly see the bottom on the awning. I can see the side of it, so I know when its raining, water drops off. I can see a little slice of sky which gives me an idea of the weather. I like it, its much better than my last cube.
    He was silent for a minute then said “Damn Girl! I’ve had nicer prison cells!”

    We are from the government and we WILL help you, gosh darnit!

    A stray cat showed up at the break area begging for scratches and food. We spend our days giving people food, of course we fed the cat.

    In my other life, I have been doing cat rescue since food stamps were made of paper. (Yes, we did have paper back then.) I have all of the cat rescue accruements, including a trap and contacts to get kitty into rescue. I made plans to nab kitty and told everyone.

    Suddenly someone tells me that she wants to adopt kitty herself. Wonderful! I told her that I would trap kitty and that she could take kitty home in the trap and return it later. When she told me that she had a carrier, I told her to NOT try to move kitty from the trap because he was going to be upset. I also told her that if she couldn’t carry the trap and kitty herself, I would do it.

    I set the trap and the next morning kitty was caught. And not happy. When I got all the way to that side of the building, everyone was distressed because the new kitty mom had tried to get kitty out of the trap and into a carrier. Of course kitty got loose and ran away.

    (Other accruements include leather gauntlets, thick canvas overalls and a trap stick in my trunk.)

    I grabbed my gear and stood in my boss’s office and told him that I was going to be late to work while I put it on. While he “didn’t” know that we were doing this, he just nodded his head and said that he had heard something about a traffic back up in my area.

    I went out and sat in a grassy area with some kibble, lured kitty out, grabbed him and ran over to the carrier and stuffed him in.

    Kitty got his balls cut off 2 days later.

    We are here to help, but you have to help us do that.

    I understand that if you have never been here before, you don’t know what you need. If this is your 4th renewal, you KNOW what we need. Please don’t waste your time or ours by coming to interview for a renewal without bringing the things we ask you for every 6 months. This hurts us both, I get dinged for every case I have to pend and you will have to come back with that information. (And wait in line again if you want to be sure that your case is completed.)

    I am a “Prudent Person”.

    There are many things that I can take your word for because I know how much people here pay for rent and utilities. I won’t question them as long as they are within the range of what other people pay. Tell me that your electricity bill is $450 a month and that you are a single person, living alone with $450 rent? Yeah, I’m going to question that. I’m also going to do an OSI report to get someone out to inspect because I think that you have unreported income.

    Dude, I have no problem with weed. I voted for 205. However, your reported income just barely covers your expenses if I subtract the electricity. I asked you several times in several ways about other income. You seem to be lying to me about other income and we are the government. When you agree to do business on our terms, we have the right to do this.

    If I’m wrong, do something about your insulation. Paying that much for electricity is a sign that something is wrong. If I’m right, I’m sorry. The OSI investigator might report you to the police. I have no control over that.

  • #2
    That last one was a red flag - $450/month for electricity? Either he's got electric heat (or an inefficient AC, considering summer is ending), or he's using it for other purposes - and combined with expenses completely wiping out his declared income, that spells GROWING WEED.

    Guy was stupid - if he'd declared a typical amount for electricity, and as 'other income' that "People in the neighbourhood sure don't know how to play poker" (i.e. that he's winning a lot in floating card games - shady, but not the sort of thing that your office would be interested in other than the amount of income), he could probably have got away with it.
    Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

    Comment


    • #3
      (still up watching the election results. it seems as though 205 is going to die, darnit.)

      wolfie, yes, you are right. If he had just reported the normal amount of electricity, I wouldn't have questioned it. If he had said that he was growing, my response would have been "OK, that is farming self employment, here are some papers to fill out." At no point would he have had to said what his crop was. We would have just wanted to know what his expenses and profit was. I would have been able to use that electricity bill as a work expense.

      My job is to help people. I'll do everything I can to accomplish my job. It offends me when people lie to me about things that obvious.

      Comment


      • #4
        Allot of Illegal grow operations are found by electricity consumption. The local power company will report to the police that house at 1234 Maple Grove Drive is using 10 times the amount of power that is considered normal for that area. The police will investigate, get enough to get a warrant. Serve the warrant discover a nice size grow operation.
        Just sliding down the razor blade of life.

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        • #5
          Quoth Slave to the Phone View Post
          [B]When she told me that she had a carrier, I told her to NOT try to move kitty from the trap because he was going to be upset. I also told her that if she couldn’t carry the trap and kitty herself, I would do it.

          I set the trap and the next morning kitty was caught. And not happy. When I got all the way to that side of the building, everyone was distressed because the new kitty mom had tried to get kitty out of the trap and into a carrier. Of course kitty got loose and ran away.
          I've found some people to be amazingly idiotic around animals. Like the nice handyman who came to fix something in my apartment. I told him my cat is not friendly and WILL BITE. He says that cats always like him, and goes over to pet my cat, who is sitting on his cat tree which is basically his "safe place." My cat growls and swipes at the guy, who acts surprised. Dude, have you ever been around a cat before, ever?

          And for the record, if you come to my place, sit down and are semi-quiet, my cat warms up very quickly. He (like many cats) just doesn't like a stranger barging in, being loud, and lunging for him. Duh. He was very friendly until the house I lived in went up for sale. Loads of families crashing through the house, slamming doors, little kids probably not being watched by the parents... Yeah I think it permanently ruined my poor cat.
          Replace anger management with stupidity management.

          Comment


          • #6
            I was livid about the cat getting released. If I was going to transfer kitty from trap to carrier, I would have done it in an enclosed area. Like the lady's room that was just inside the door. Of course, I didn't say anything more about it than "it wasn't the decision I would have made".

            As I'm sure you know, there are policies and procedures for workers and they specifically prohibit us from feeding animals on state property. Something that a few people forget is that state workers are all people as well. There are 7 different state departments in our complex. There are a LOT of windows overlooking the smoking area.

            There is no way that not a single supervisor was aware of what was happening out there. Not a word was said, not while I was sitting out there with my catch stick (well, maybe nobody except my boss knew who I was) or when kitty in carrier and stashed under new slave's desk would meow. Nothing was said afterwards, either.

            Thank you for not judging my by my race."

            This was said after I finished a kiosk interview with a client, after I had thanked him for coming in. Even though we only spoke on the phone, he knew that I had access to all of his personal data and probably that I could access much more than what was needed to do my job. I am the government, so probably know everything.

            It made me sad. Some parts of this state aren't in this century and it didn't surprise me that he might have been treated poorly due to something that is so unimportant. The only reason I reviewed the race part was to be sure that all the right keys had been pushed. We never once discussed it because he had already revealed that and that was something that wasn't going to change.

            I sure do wish that people would stop hurting other people over something as stupid as race. We are all Americans, isn't that what should matter?
            Last edited by Slave to the Phone; 11-11-2016, 12:48 AM.

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            • #7
              Please don't touch me.

              I'm happy that I was able to help you. Really, I am. Just please don't touch me.

              Today, I was able to help a woman transition from regular health to a plan that would pay for her Medicare Part B (PSA, if you know someone on food stamps who is paying for part B, do suggest that they see if their state will help them pay for it. When one is only getting less than 800 a month, that 104 really hurts.)

              I was almost as thrilled as she was, because I wasn't sure I could do it for the initial month and it worked and the non-working program designed to interface food stamps, the actual medical system AND the federal programs didn't go belly up and make me call the help desk.

              Life was good until I used my cane to hobble out and have her sign some paper work. She lunged out of her chair to hug me. We both almost ended up in a very embarrassing heap on the floor.

              People see me coming with papers in one hand and a cane in another and want to shake my hand for helping them. Dude! You are not helping me right now!!!

              I do this because I care and I'm happy to help. Your smile and thanks are all I need. Hands off, please.

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              • #8
                Shows that customers don't need to be enraged and violent to pose a danger to workers.

                Just like a vicious chihuahua ("I hate keeds. I'm going to bite him. Let me at him!") poses less of a danger to a toddler than a friendly Great Dane ("I love kids. Another face to lick, another butt to sniff. Let me at him!").
                Any fool can piss on the floor. It takes a talented SC to shit on the ceiling.

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                • #9
                  Not to mention the danger of catching the flu or something else from touch. There are times when our lobby sounds like a TB ward what with everyone coughing and wheezing. I personally go through a large bottle of paper-cut finder every month.

                  I'm sorry that you hate America

                  I don't care to hear about it, and I control this interview. If you don't drop the subject right now, I am going to get my sup and a security guard* to listen to the rest of the interview.

                  Except for the misplaced hostility, her case was pretty easy. No work history to verify, income verified through the SSA/SSI interface, expenses within income. Tight, but not questionable.

                  *Not in a threatening fashion, I'd use IM and my sup would quietly slip into my cube and just stand there. The guard would walk by my cube and then stand out of sight and listen. It often de-escalates a situation to have another person watching.

                  We also have a word. Funny/sad story here: If someone randomly raises his or her voice to ask if someone could bring them a word, everyone who hears instantly drops everything to respond.

                  Last week the lady (Mel) who sits next to me had someone in her cube who was starting to worry me, but Mel never asked for word. Things can escalate very quickly, so I went up to tell the sup in charge that Mel seemed to be having a problem. He said he would go see her, so I went back to my cube and he didn't follow me.

                  Stupid me, I didn't say the word. Instead of sitting down, unlocking my comp, and IMing him, I hobbled back and told him that I thought that Mel might need some word.

                  He instantly typed MEL WORD on the message he was on, told me to find the guard and was gone.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Our office started officially ruining Thanksgiving today. We are honestly doing the best we can and pushing payouts out right away. Sadly, there are things we can't do over the phone and need some other form of verification.

                    While I and everyone else here wants to get every case finished NOW! sometimes that just doesn't happen. In the end, its up to the customer to provide the verifications if we can't do it for them. Its fair, they are the customer's benefits, who other than the customer would look out for them as well as they will?

                    The lobby was full of yelling today. Sups were all over the place. Security was involved several times. People were waiting for up to 4 hours, so were mad when the interviews started and when we said that we couldn't complete their case for whatever reason, they tended to lose their minds.

                    Someone from another state spit on a co-worker because his benefits were lower in this state. (Banned from this office forever. He can try to do it all through the call center or drive at least an hour to the next closest office to do a face to face.)

                    Another customer from a different state who had already received food stamps from that state this month (federal law there, one can only receive food stamps from 1 state per month even if one has moved in the middle of the month) who had a total meltdown because she had traded her old food stamp card and remaining amount for gas money (!!!Food stamp fraud!!!) to live with her parents and now didn't have money to buy her kids a turkey and it was all MY fault!!!

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Quoth Slave to the Phone View Post
                      Another customer from a different state who had already received food stamps from that state this month (federal law there, one can only receive food stamps from 1 state per month even if one has moved in the middle of the month) who had a total meltdown because she had traded her old food stamp card and remaining amount for gas money (!!!Food stamp fraud!!!) to live with her parents and now didn't have money to buy her kids a turkey and it was all MY fault!!!
                      Are her parents planning to cook a turkey dinner and not feed their daughter and grandchildren?

                      At my old job, the boss heard my colleague Sketchy on the phone selling his SNAP card. Boss was willing to help people, but on his own terms. From that day forward, Boss had custody of the card, and Sketchy asked for it whenever he went to the grocery store and handed back when he returned.

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                      • #12
                        I can't report any changes on my states website because the computer on their end always screws it up somehow. So I get to lose 4 hours of my day and clog up the lines just because someone doesn't know how to code a Submit button.
                        "I try to be curious about everything, even things that don't interest me." -Alex Trebek

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                        • #13
                          I really like your boss, workerbee. If I was wearing my food stamp worker hat, I'd post about food stamp fraud, but I'm not and so I'm allowed to admire someone's very creative and thoughtful approach to a very common problem.

                          As to the grandparents eating a feast while their daughter and grandchildren have nothing? You would be amazed by how hard-hearted a lot of parents/grandparents are out here!!! I'm surprised that we don't have children dying of hunger here every day while their single parent despairs and their uncaring grandparents don't even notice. According to my customers, it goes on all year long.

                          There are times when I really feel like calling the grandparents and telling them what their child or grandchild has been saying about them.


                          Wistful, I am sorry that you can't report your changes online. I don't know what state you live in, but I do have some idea of the problem. The system you are using more than likely has been designed by people who didn't consider the end users. It was designed to impress the PTB and then was tweaked to interface with other state and federal agencies.

                          Or at least, that's how the windows based online program we use seems to have been designed.

                          If its any consolation, the workers hate that system even more than you do. You only have to try to deal with it a couple times a year. We have to deal with it all day long, every day.

                          Its guaranteed that I will swear* in front of a customer at least once a day. It isn't a question of if, its a question of when and is usually precluded by me apologizing to the customer several times over computer crashes. They usually understand and I do as much in the old, reliable DOS system and then let them go so I can finish their case in the new, pretty, unreliable and unstable system.

                          *I might not say the real words, but I am very clear with my anger. Poopyhead usually comes out of my mouth first, then if the problems continue I might call it a piece of used food before I really get creative.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            One Christmas I worked at the Mart of Wal. I waited on an elderly lady who had a twenty-something with her. The elderly woman was, evidently, using her own SNAP card to buy food for her grand-daughter accompanying her.

                            Grandma's card wasn't working, but apparently grand-daughter had Social Services on speed-dial, and called them to find out why.

                            I wondered what Grandma was going to eat.

                            One of my neighbors wondered why his grandson was acting so fussy. His son finally admitted the only thing the two year old had had for a couple days was milk. They were 'out of money.' I think I heard that the grandfather literally cuffed him upside the head. "You have money for beer and cigarettes!" he reminded him.
                            Last edited by workerbee222; 11-24-2016, 11:26 PM.

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                            • #15
                              workerbee I could spend days ranting about welfare fraud and how it hurts the most disadvantaged, but I won't do it here. I'm trying to keep this light and entertaining.

                              To the customer who got into a fight with his wife in the lobby and then ran her over with their car as she went running after him. Thank you for not running her over in the parking lot. Having the parking lot closed for a couple of hours would have been a big inconvenience to both customers and workers.

                              Many of the witnesses say that you just went out into the road so you could turn around and hit her head on, but I try to always think the best of people so am assuming that you didn't really mean to hit her, you were just turning around to get her and lost control of your car. (besides, I have read so many police reports that I know just what happened. amazing how completely reliable cars with no history of issues just seem to take control from the drivers, isn't it? Lesson learned today? Don not name your car Christine.)

                              Besides the sad part about the poor woman getting hurt, I was very entertained when the paramedic who seemed to be in charge leaned over to the office manager and said "We have got to stop meeting like this. People are starting to talk."

                              She gave us all that "oh shit!" look and the teasing commenced as soon as she walked back in. As a witness, my description of her "lover" was highly valued by all of my cube neighbors

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