You must all have seen Little Britain and the woman in the office who sits and stares at a computer screen all day with the one line “computer says no”.
I want you to bear that image in mind while you read this, because on Monday, I swear, this actually happened.
Monday was the day when Suzanne went to the Jobcentre to “sign on” for the first time, I’d been with her two weeks ago when she went to register and so now she went for her fortnightly “sign on” interview and eagerly await her cheque three days later for the £64 a week Jobseekers allowance.
So I went with her again, she spoke to ta young girl at the desk for a very short while and came back saying that they weren’t going to pay her anything because she wasn’t yet “on the system”.
Well, I mean, its only been two weeks, can’t expect her name to have been typed in to “the system” yet can you, I mean, its not like she needs the money or anything, she’s got no money at all at the moment, why on earth would she want any money from the Government for being unemployed – ungrateful wretch.
So we come home and she rings the number that she’s been given by the girl at the Jobcentre counter – its the office where they type your name into “the system”.
She speaks to someone there and during the conversation I hear her say something like “How do you mean I’m not entitled to anything ?” and then a short pause and “I’ve been employed for twenty years”.
The other side of the conversation that I couldn’t hear consisted of the woman in the Little Britain sketch (have you been holding that in your mind ?) saying “Computer says you’re not entitled to any Jobseekers allowance” and then when asked why saying “You haven’t been in employment for the last two years” to which the answer was “twenty years” as above.
There followed some furious typing by the woman from Little Britain and then came the classic line, and Suzanne swears that she said these exact words – “Computer says no”
It appears that HM Government do not have details of our P60 returns for the last two years, they were submitted on time during those two years and we have copies in Birmingham, we have to get them to prove that she’s been working during that time and then we’ll start all over again.
Dealing with Government departments – I’m sure there will be a Part 2 soon, I’m sure it will become a saga of legend before we extract any money out of the bastards.
