Re: Monday

On 2007-07-24, Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 2007-07-22, Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tomorrow is going to be a toughie for me; any good vibes etc that can
be sent my way will be appreciated. I'll think about saying more
when I know more myself.

OK, the deal is that I don't get evicted tomorrow;

Well, that's something.

Yes. I was quaking in my bed as the hour of execution passed,
uneventfully to my huge relief. There was a heart-in-mouth moment later
this morning when the door-bell rang and when I asked who it was, the
large bloke said 'Police!'. But they were asking around the neighbourhood
regarding 'an incident' nearby yesterday morning at the time I'd have been
in court, so I think I've heard the last of that one. Phew!!

Indeed.

I've been granted an
'adjournment' so that some talking can happen. Thanks to a judge
(intimidating, but I suppose that goes with the job) who had only me to
talk to about it and managed to ask the right questions to convince
himself to give me a chance.

An actual judge, eh? Not a magistrate or anything? btw, a lot of `that
sort' really are very, very decent (in the UK - I speak for nowhere
else) and do try to get to the `real thing'. I have no faith at all -
but there's a little corner inside me that keeps bleating `Oh yeah, so
what about the judges, then?'

County Court judge, with 'Judge <name>' on the door and 'Judge's chamber' on
another door. Just him and me though, no clerks or anything, and no fancy
dress.

Coo! Righto.

This is one of the little shocks you can get if you can't read all the
letters that pour through the letter-box.

Yes. And pay attention, peeps: open that post, even if it's just for a
glance inside to make sure you're not about to ignore something and end
up homeless or hauled off to chokey after failure to pay the fine or
whatnot. Can spare you such problems.

Phobias can be a right pain.

If I get a brown envelope, I'm terrified. But I almost never let 'em
lie around for more than a week before I open them, even if I don't get
any further than identifying the sender, and the approximate gist. If
it's something that I can leave for a bit, I'll tend to do that - but I
do pull out all the stops to make sure I know roughly what's in 'em,
just in case.

I can do that sometimes, but not often enough it seems.

The first I knew about this
particular problem was when a bailiff knocked on the door and said words
that included 'court order' as he handed me an envelope. Two weeks ago
today, that was.

Ouch.

Stunned, I was.

Yes.

The first week I had to struggle through the terror and the brain fog just
to hold 'it' together and wait for a degree of clear thought to start
happening; all that while also having to deal with a GP appointment and
getting the car services and taxed. Last week I ran myself ragged trying
to contact the CAB (no luck; only telephone machines and locked doors)
which wasted three days.

Bigger ouch.

My feet hurt. Real ouch.

Doc Martens? Hush Puppies? Or just get yourself some comfy trainers,
maybe?

More fundamental than that. They hurt without even getting out of bed.
Me being of generous proportions doesn't help. I have 'supports' which
are built to work with 'proper' shoes, so DMs are OK if I can find any in
the shops; Hush Puppies are horrid, and 'trainers' worse than useless. My
current shoes have Clark's version of the DM sole. Traditional
leather-bottomed shoes work well for me, but they're expensive.

Then I found a leaflet tucked away out of sight on a shelf in a council
office, which led me to another council office, which got me an appointment
in yet another council office which got me yet another appointment in yet
another council office which actually got me talking to someone who could
give advice and might even be of some help.

Sounds quite efficient and helpful of them - as things go these days.

I seem to have been taken on as a case by a Housing Officer who seems to
be a jolly decent chap and very competent too; he actually visited in
person yesterday and went through my chaotic heaps to find all the
relevant stuff and so on. Service above and beyond, I call that.

I get the idea that - possibly because they're so constrained and rarely
get the chance to *really* help anyone - they do like doing that sort of
thing. You know, `here's someone who's in need of our help, they're
supposed to get our help, and but for *this* bobble - which I can fix
easily enough - they'd get it. Okay, let's deal with the bobble. Damn
that's good!' sort of thing. Only some of them - obviously?

You could be right. This man mentioned that he'd worked for 'Shelter'
before and might go back to them.

[snip]

Might I also suggest looking for
info/advice/etc via the 'net? Worth doing for a sort of second opinion,
you know?

I'll do the 'getting a solicitor' bit first, and getting the solicitor,
the Housing Officer, and the MH team, all talking to each other. But I am
aware of eg uk.legal and various web sites. I think I'll be able to
concentrate a bit better now that the immediate peril is deferred.

Good stuff.

I've phoned, and been told when to turn up. On Thursday morning; why oh
why does so much have to happen in the mornings? I am not good at
mornings.

Quite how anyone less placid or less endowed in the intellect and
perseverence areas would have coped, I dread to think.

They don't, and that's that.

It's very easy to
see how people end up in jail for GBH or sleeping in shop doorways when
things get slightly out of sync like this; I'm only a very short step from
that myself.

Yep. The system is designed to crush those at the bottom.

I think it's more subtle than that. Some of the people right at the very
bottom (the mythical disabled black lesbian single parent illegal
immigrant, for example), seem to get a heck of a lot of help - often good
help too, although 'good' and 'a lot' don't always go together. There
seems to be a lot of chance involved, and getting a good match in
personalities between 'client' and 'helper' is one of the biggest chances.
If you're a 'client' who can make a good match with none of the available
'helpers' then you're in for a rough time, it seems.

[...]

[2] Wasted an hour chasing around failing to get to talk to a human about
that: 'all our helpers are busy, please try later', from the private phone
actually inside the 'job centre' - no helpers actually on the premises,
only clip-board jockeys handing out chits giving permission to use the
phones after you've been frisked by 'security' - that's progress that's
happened fairly recently, that office used to have real humans actually
working there and talking to 'clients' face-to-face and issuing letters
etc right there and then, if required. Of course, you might have had to
queue all day.

<shudder> Dear lord.

What is the world coming to, I wonder? They could at least have video
chat set up, couldn't they? I mean, if all you get is a phone
conversation, what's the point in going there?

I suppose if you're literally 'on the streets' and penniless, access to a
phone is worth having - and somewhere relatively clean and safe to sit
indoors for a bit is a nice perk.

True - but most people in Job Centres (or whatever they call them these
days) aren't in that position, are they?

Perhaps not, although a good many are pretty close to that around here.

But the days of queing up and talking
to a real person who can write a note or issue a Giro right there and then
(however reluctantly) seem to have almost passed. I suppose too many of
them must have been thumped by the inarticulate and past all hope.

I was talking to a manager in my local `Job Centre Plus' as it was at
the time (I think, unless they'd just changed the name again), after I'd
had some severe trouble with a really snottily unhelpful receptionist.

He told me that they were going to re-fit all the `JCP's locally so that
the glass partitions and suchlike were gone, and you got to sit down at
a table with an advisor, both of you on sensible chairs at the same
height, and discuss things reasonably. He mentioned that this had been
proven to improve the behaviour of the staff: it stops them behaving as
arrogant, bullying shits (what I'd received - the manager had witnessed
it and apologised to me for what I'd had to put up with), because they
know they can't get away with it.

Strage the way that supposedly national agencies that are supposed to
deliver a uniform service in a uniform manner, don't.

All this was done in a tiny, filthy, stinking cubicle with us on
different sides of a grubby glass partition. I was supposed to be sat
on a hard bench seat bolted to the floor at a level about 6 inches lower
than the comfy chair the manager had to sit on on the `staff' side. I
perched my bum on the `counter' surface that ran both sides of the
partition - never mind anything else, I'd've got a crick in my neck
having to peer upwards like that. I'm not used to leaning up to talk to
people, you see, and I've got a tendency to angle my head down a bit
(avoiding looming over people, y'see - I'm only 5'10", but that's taller
than most people round here, so it seems).

Ah yes, I know that sort of office. The one you have to go to in the
local court house is like that, except that the public have to stand
looking up at the seated clerk. The situation is disarmed somehow by the
clerks all being very charming ladies - not 'young', exactly, but
'comforting'. (One of my fellow supplicants remarked on it - we were all
chaps not in the first flush, struggling to make sense of the forms and
procedures).

Being mentally ill requires great physical endurance and considerable
clarity of thought, sometimes. Which is almost amusing.

I find it *extremely* funny, as it happens. But I do have a sense of
humour that's often called `sick' when people meet it.

Hmm.

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~
.