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The original was posted on /r/newzealand by /u/DarkflowNZ on 2024-09-16 01:52:56+00:00.
Had a phone appointment booked for friday just gone at 1pm, they just never called. No missed calls, no texts, no emails, no letters. I call today and after an hour and a half they call me back and all the lady on the phone can tell me is that there’s a note on the file saying “unsuccessful contact” (do bad programmers maintain the file lol? Be descriptive you muppets, comment your code) which normally means they tried to get through and couldn’t. She also says they would have tried three times. My phone number on file is correct. All she could do is make me another appointment for next week. Obviously my calls get through to them, and their callbacks get through to me. Unless the case manager is on a different number and their number is being screened by my phone or network without notifying me at all, it’s hard to feel that this is anything other than a lie meant to blame me for them being busy or useless or some combination thereof.
You’d think you could at least flick a text or email saying “sorry we’re too busy to go through with your 5 min appointment we booked 2 weeks ago for you to declare money you absolutely could have and should have just hid”? I’m trying to do the right thing here and it’s just been hurdle after hurdle man. I could have just taken my ronald mcdonald blood money and went and upgraded my pc and bought an exorbitantly priced, realistically warmed sex toy with elastic drip tray and life-like fluid reservoir action and just crossed my fingers that they never found out, but no.
To make matters worse I asked the lady on the phone if I was supposed to be holding on to the money until it’s declared and she’s like nope you’re free to spend it. And so I ask, but there’s a chance they reduce or cut my benefit by the amount given right? And she’s like yep. So actually by “saving” it I’m breaking WINZ rules as I’m not allowed to save more than some arbitrary figure I think its $1k, but by spending it there’s a very real risk I end up unable to pay my rent for 5.23 weeks (the amount of weeks my benefit would be cut by if it’s 1:1). Now it would have been great if I’d been able to have my appointment, I could have stopped stressing about it 4 days ago and I’d be free and clear. Unfortunately my particular cocktail of mental illness means it’s going to be another week or two of regular rumination on this whole situation and stressing that I’m going to be on the street.
Am I wrong for finding this infuriating? If I missed an appointment there’d be hell to pay. I’ve been being fucked around on this for weeks. If I could put the whole organisation “on orange” and have them come to my house to do an activity or lose their job and become homeless, that would be good. I can’t even get mad at anyone because it’s either not their fault or I’ll lose my benefit. The lady on the phone was utterly no help but that’s obviously not her fault, the file says what it says and she’s not a case manager she’s a call center operator. Having to wait hours to talk to her is just salt in the wound. I’d love to blow up at the case manager but I don’t know who they are and obviously its not easy to get in contact with them lol. Plus you run the risk that they don’t like your tone and suddenly you’re homeless. Like what the fuck?
Anyway guess I just wanted to vent and see if anyone else had had this happen