The value of my blog was struck home to me when I received one of "those" letters from centrelink for a period of time from 2010. Far beyond anything I could possibly voluntarily remember.
If it had been of lesser value, at a less stressful time of year, I would have just paid it, because the difficulty of trying to work out / remember what I'd been doing six or seven years ago to the exact date is completely beyond me. Ive never kept quite so close notes. Usually my periods of unemployment are wellsprings of depression and disappointment that I do my best to forget.
To suddenly have to try and work out what i was doing for a month and a half six years ago, when i was quite unhappy with my situation, was rather a shock.
Luckily I blog and could reconstruct my movements and managed to re-access some old emails which contained my old payslips.
But what about all the other mad bloggers wot tried to stick to a non-personal theme and not spew their personal trials on all and sundry.
Where can they look to find out what exact day they might have been told to pack their bags because the government has decided to halt and desist employment of all temporary or other employees?
How many other persons with no trust of systems and no detailed personal records are paying back money they don't owe?
It makes me feel even less willing to apply for unemployment assistance than I already am (and was kindofsortof admonished for not applying sooner one time) because i really don't WANT to be on unemployment if I don't have to.
It seems such a shame to me that it is commonly called 'welfare' now, like it is a dirty word, instead of 'social services' like it used to be.
It makes me think about how important words are, and how often colleagues and even managers have asked me about definitions of words, even though i didn't finish highschool, i just read.
And then i get even more mushy and confused and emotional and obsess about commas and stuff and thinking, like maybe I should be on medication and possibly anti-depressants and outraged that not more people like 'letters and numbers' cause it is sooo good.
Then the cat meeps at me and I go fill their food dish and things return to normal.
Hiss and spit. This initiative calls for people to keep records longer than the tax office demands.
ReplyDeleteAnd is about discouraging people from applying for their entitlements as much as it is about recovering money which may or may not have been overpaid.
Fight it.
And the 'welfare' tag. Used by sections of the government but not reflected in legislation.
More hissing and spitting.