General Chat

Not sleeping again so I am on here moaning.

Now I have to fill in a questionnaire about how my "illness" affects my ability to work so I am assuming I will have to be assessed by those people who tell everybody they can work, regardless of what is wrong with them.

Fine, yes, I suppose I could work but I am cream crackered. I am 61 and there are thousands of other people also looking for employment who are younger and less knackered.

The level of care Fred needed would probably have cost the government well over a thousand pounds a week in residential care whereas he was receiving a little over £300 pounds worth.

I must have saved them hundreds of thousands (pause for standing ovation), I have only a year until I draw my pension. You would think they wouldn't begrudge me another six thousand.

I feel like a fugitive!

SIX THOUSAND POUNDS!!!!!!! THAT's hmmmmmmmm carry the 3 hmmmmmmm TWELEVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!!

Are you sure your worth it Sharron. I know you caring for Fred saved the government money, but still................... :-D

Not when every employer in the land is longing for some old biddy to come along and panic in their business for a year!

Oh well, see its only for a year and then you won't have this problem anymore. and beside you might like your job, it'll get you out of the house more too ;-)

fresh air, seeing new and exciting people - now doesn't that sound nice?

I would love to be out working. It would have been good to have carried on eight years ago.

Over eight years of not seeing the outside world you wear out the clothes you used to have for work and you don't buy any more because you aren't going to work anyway.

I have jeans, slightly smarter jeans and what I wore to the funeral. Now, I have no intention of getting the sort of jobs that you do wearing the type of jeans that I have. On £123 a week you don't really budget for smart clothes so that only leaves attending funerals on a full- time basis!

a professional mourner hmmmmmmmm All though I don't know you all that well, NOPE I can't see you enjoying a job like that (although some people do).

BUT six thousand pounds maybe one thousand and work you way up No that won't work either would it.

Oh well, good work with choking money out of the government, I think you'll will need it. <3

I can manage pretty well on the little I do choke out of them. I just want to be left alone to keep on managing without having to go on with this pretence.

If your own doctor is saying you are unfit to work how can any other organisation say that you are fit. You doctor presumably knows you much better than a 5 minute assessment by anyone else.

Sharron, you have to really pile it on about how you are affected by your illness, turn on the taps if you have to be physically assessed, they can't expect you to work if you are very emotional and keep weeping over the counter, desk, whatever they try to put you in front of.

Lizx

Sharron, it would be good if, on the form, there was a space where you could put what you put at the top of this thread. It is ridiculous that they can hound you in your position when we happily hand over benefits to all and sundry some of whom we know have no intention of working because they publicly say so.

Have you thought of contacting your local MP about this? With the information you have so eloquently put at the top of this thread.

The other thing is of course to attend interviews in the only clothes you have :-) :-)

or go with no clothes on at all :-D

Hope you are only joking, RockyShyMountain. Sharron is completely done in with Caring. Anyone who has attempted to care for an elderly knows how it is.

Get well soon, Sharron. Understanding that you can only do that with a bit of time and cherishing from others. <3

I think RMS was only joking.

She would have understood my feelings completely had I not done so.

Isn't she in a similar position herself?

All this is just a matter of going through the motions isn't it? Everybody employed to encourage people to work has to sound positive to protect their own rocky employment but they agree with me underneath that, however hard I look, my employment prospects are negligible.

I would like to be working and have never been work-shy but just not yet. Of course, when I am ready, there might even be openings for the elderly!

Of course I was joking :-D :-D

No I don't care for my parents like Sharron did but I do live with them and drive them around, listen to them complain about getting old, I don't work either and that it why I live with them.

Sharron, at least you have 123 a week to live I have 100 a month BUT I'm not trying to pay bills with that as my Dad does it still YAY

As long as nothing I say is given seriously, you'll be okay ;-) Just say the word and I'll go away and never come back :-( Although it will be hard.

Sharron - just remember to answer each question as to how you are on a BAD day.
NOT what you can do on a good day.

Your GP knows you well enough and they can say you are fit for work but if GP says you are not and signs you off sick....................

A friend of mine, who had been unemployed for a year (carpenter on building sites) was finally made, what he calls a 'plastic pensioner' ie on pension credit. He was 62.

Can your doctor give you a 'note' explaining how your total bl**dy exhaustion is affecting you?

Mine did one for me for work, when they tried to claim my sickness absences weren't caused by stress. It was just a little (free) note he typed in the surgery. (I was a bit shocked at his poor spelling :-S) Work ignored it, but in a month or so they'll reap what they sowed :-D

All this talk of turning on all the taps (from Liz), (I imagine not only a wet desk but a wet chair as well), and going through the motions (Sharron), I think I will have to report this thread, it is just disgusting.

Oh go on then!

I'll just stay here sitting on my stool.

When filling out forms think to yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 what can I do.

So if you think something you do affects you on the scale at around 8 - then you are a 10-11.

Seriously, we women are very bad at saying just how bad something is.

How far can you walk, oh I can walk round the supermarket, but I have to have a trolley for support as my knees, by the time I get to the checkout feel like they are about to give way. Now to the DWP that meant I could walk OK unaided!!!

As said before I was very, very lucky. My doctor was extremely supportive, as was the Disabled Charity in Greenwich who helped me in the end to fill out the forms correctly (!). And as I am unable to use Public Transport, only drive with parking as near as possible. I got a home visit from ATOS. And the female doctor who came was truly amazing. She watched me walk from our front room to the bathroom, where I explained about being unable to use the bath (can get in, but a struggle to get back out!). I offered to walk up the stairs, but she said that she could see how much of a struggle walking was and would not put me through that. I was breathless by this time.

Now I know my brother in law, went to ATOS in Croydon and had an absolute nightmare of a time.

I hope you get the help you need and are not forced into employment, which is usually 'zero' hours contracts these days, which are of no use to man nor beast.

All the very best. <3

Really, there isn't much wrong with me but I just need some time to gather myself.

I am spent but I don't need to work for very long anyway.

The reality of the situation is that nobody is going to want to take me on with the prospect of having me leave when I get my pension.