Temper Tantrum Alert

Holy Mother of God. Dealing with the state is driving me nuts. Absolutely bonkers. It isn't that the people I'd dealing with aren't nice. They are. And helpful when they can be. It is that the way the communicate with each other is back in the stone age, and they have no money to improve the communication. I'm so frustrated I'd like to go out and buy them a fax machine for the 2 offices trying to talk to each other. Of course I can't but damn, I'd like to.

So this is what's going on. We applied for food stamps in April. We got all of our documentation together, and watched them fax it to the big office in Boston. We WATCHED THEM. Then I started getting letters from the main office saying that we didn't send any documents. So they faxed them all again. More letters came. I got nervous and started calling the worker assigned to us. She said that she hadn't gotten the faxes, which I knew was bullshit. But we faxed them again. Three times we faxed a ton of documents. Then I got a letter saying that we needed to submit all my medical expenses, so I went down to the local office and again watched them fax the stuff to the main office.

Then silence. No word for weeks. So I started calling my case worker in the downtown office. No return calls, mail box filled up. You know the story. Finally today there is a message on her machine saying she's out on an emergency and left the number of her supervisor. I call Lucia the supervisor and she looks around and tells me that I've been approved for 0. This means that we get nothing....again. I ask why and she says that they are missing the copy of my lease and all utility bills.

Three separate times I KNOW the documents have been faxed. And they still can't seem to get from one end of Boston to the other. I'm beyond frustrated. You cannot use snail mail, or I would just mail them return receipt requested. You HAVE to fax them to one number and one number only. We've done that over and over. And yet... it isn't done. I called our local worker and left her a message asking her to fax it again. AGAIN. But the truth is, their fax machine is so old and cranky that I have doubts it will ever reach the downtown office. It would be simple to just fax the stuff myself. Except.... no money. Not a penny. Which is WHY we need food stamps so desperately. I haven't been to the grocery store in 2 months. We are living on what we get from the food pantry. Which is pasta, pasta and oh.... pasta. Every fricking night.


Now I'm in a holding pattern...again. Sigh.

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