Monday Over, Tuesday Begins

Holy cow, yesterday was a long, busy day!

Our office has incepted this Performance Sheet online, and we had to go and fill it out. The stress is already colossal, and this is the most idiot thing. Not only does it NOT get you a promotion if you are already EXCEPTIONAL at your job, functioning higher and well above expectations, you still have to complete this idiot thing. What a colossal waste of a government employee's time!

I worked mine up in about a half hour, though, having been exposed to it some time ago...I think the last time I did one was about 8 years ago, and I thought the same about it then. All this gobledygook about getting your job done in a perfect manner, even though it's not your fault that the work doesn't come to you complete, NOR do the computer programs allow you to work on it immediately--NOR are you allowed access to those computer programs to make the changes necessary to do your job efficiently....and so "your work" sits idly by while you wait for some other government employee to finish theirs. Git er done! Says the Supervisor. I'm waiting for it to be available to me, says I.

I do a lot of waiting you see. Waiting and email. Only to hear "What?" "I don't know how to do that!" Or, "I can't." When clearly, they have to if they want their client to get a check. I sometimes feel so harried on both ends of the candle, that I just want to cry. Government work is not for the idiot--though I bet many people think anyone can do it, and that all we do is sit around and chat with our friends all day. The fact is, that our office is constantly on the phone with people who don't understand--and let me tell you, you have to have ALL YOUR DUCKS IN A ROW, before you give ANY answers, and even then, people get really uppity with you.

Case in point--names removed to protect the attacker.

Phone call. Gentleman on the line states Medicaid cut off in October. "please be patient while I run some screens." (pretty canned answer so far, but it's all I've got). I get names and birthdays and social security numbers, and check one database. Then I check another, and find out that the caller had open medicaid that closed in October, that had been opened when the children were in foster care, and that the cases had finally closed in October, but! I also found that his children were covered by A DIFFERENT MEDICAID as of April, and that he should tell his providers to use these numbers INSTEAD, and to remind them DO NOT USE THE CHILD'S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER to look them up, this being tied to the foster care identification numbers, which had been closed. Then, the caller was asking me why one of his children doesn't have medicaid anymore, and I explained that according to my records he was determined ineligible for our program. "BUT HE HAD IT BEFORE!" (clearly angry) so after getting his attitude under control again, I explained "The case you had for this child was open in the county, not in our program. You will need to go to the county, SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS CHILD ONLY, and apply for a program USING THE IDENTIFICATION NUMBER I GAVE YOU FOR HIM, to see if you can get him/her medicaid. Then he starts hammering me about having to fill out 6 pages of forms, which I have nothing to do with--and I have to keep my cool, and explain that if that's the way it's done, then that's the way it's done.

Personally, I would have no idea, since I've never had to apply for assistance or medicaid myself, but I suppose you do what you have to do to get your child insurance coverage, and I realize how blessed my life has been, and I have not always worked here, just the last 20+ years.

I mean, that seems only fair, being that's what EVERYBODY does, right?

Now, anyone who looks at this can see, that there is a coverage overlap of 6 freaking months. I am aghast at the state of government largess--when our state is doing so poorly!

Further, he needed to make sure that the information for this child was entered on the correct identification number AND that he call the medicaid hotline to get new cards. I verified his address to make sure the cards were going to go to the right house. ALL THIS FOR 4, count them, children. And I can do only one at a time.

Once he had the instructions firmly on paper--what to do--who to call--he settled down to a reasonable human being. However, I have the distinct impression that I'd spoken with him just a few days before, and he was not able at the time to give me the information I needed to do my job. It's frustrating. It's a living.

All in all, on the phone with an argumentative person for an hour. He didn't know it, but I stayed WELL PAST MY TIME TO LEAVE, JUST FOR HIM, but I got not even a thank you at the end--and then I went home. The air in the car was blue, and when I opened the door, it slipped out into the ozone, trying to follow me, it's grasping blue fingers trying to hold tight before being forgotten. I did try to shake it off, but it's grip was tight, and walked into the house, with an attitude that could have knocked a frog off a knot on a log at a hundred paces, to find my husband studying for his test at the breakfast nook.

"How was your day?"

"grumble, grumble"

"That good, huh? What's for dinner? Something better than salad?"

"grumble, grumble", and a fair amount of stern looks. Were my eyes red? I couldn't tell.

I tossed my coat, purse and knitting into a chair, then I sat down in my favorite chair, opened my book and disappeared into it's pages for an hour before getting up and fixing dinner.

During this, he interrupts me with stories of his day. How the property we own might be sold any day now, as the people who are looking at it are impressed, and may just put in an offer. How he's not nervous at all about his test, yet he's not yet doing it (a fact I point out, and so he retorts--)

"Boy, you just have a way to cut right to the chase, don't you."

"Well, yes", I explain..."it's what I do everyday, all day, and I do it quite well. Do you think *I'M" going to take the test for you."

"Well, I thought..."

"Never mind what you thought, my dear. I'm not taking this class. You ARE. So take your test and be done with it so you can get on with your life!"

So he did. It took him all of 10 minutes. I have no idea why he was so ambivalent about it.

I finished dinner, and got back to my book.

Tonight is knit night in Lake Odessa. I have a pattern to make a pair of gloves from the fingers down, and wanted to show it to the rest of the knitters there, as well as my son, who probably will come and knit with me, thinking that this particular project is WAY over his head, when it's really not. We'll see.

But it's another long day at the office before that.

Another long day at the office.

Sigh.