to want to bloody well go to the benefits office and retrain the lot of them?

[BrittaPerry]

ARGH. Benefits.
Right...I'm pretty sure that my ESA claim shouldn't be completely stopped, but tbh I am pretty sure it should be reduced to a token amount of about £5 a week, which I don't mind losing if it takes me away from the stress of ATOS etc.

I volunteered for a work focused interview (despite not having to have one) to clarify what work I was allowed to do, and my direct sales job is within that. So I rang up to report that I am working, gave details etc.

Two weeks later no letter or anything but my payments have stopped. If they have taken me off ESA I need to cancel free school meals and inform the other benefits places as I don't want to get into trouble, but I just rang them and I got basically told off for expecting to still get esa when working as it is a sickness benefit. BUT YOU ARE ALLOWED PERMITTED WORK!!!

Like I say, if they do stop it, it isn't the end of the world, but I need to know one way or the other before I end up in trouble for not reporting the change to other places. (incidentally, why can they not communicate with each other? Feels like booby traps for people trying to comply with rules)

I am trying to get off benefits, why do they have to be such dicks about it? I'm in support group, I am allowed to not work, but I am doing my best to get better and get back and they talk to me like scum.

I have spoken to a few lovely benefit people in my time (face to face people at the job centre seem to be best - I don't know if it is me turning up in a suit with a nice notepad and a folder with CVs that does it) but a very high proportion of people who are twattish, incompetent, or both.

I have been told by several doctors and nurses (I have a severe mental health problem that landed me in a police cell then hospital last time I tried to work) not to work for a few years, but I was getting lonely and bored and so took on this job more as a hobby than anything, but it has the potential to make me a good wage eventually - atm I am making no profit as I plough it all back in to grow the business as fast as I can.

DH works part time (he has only recently stopped having to be my carer) and we do our best. I am studying so I can get a better job that fits round my problems (ironically I am studying social policy and psychology - I could, and do, write essays about welfare benefits) and we have two very young children.

Surely I am doing what I am meant to?

Right.

So, I am not making any profit, although I do have about £50 a week that I could choose to use as profit if I wasn't buying advertising etc with it, working a variable amount - up to 20 hours some weeks, down to 2 or 3 on others. Averages at maybe 10 hours a week.

I am in income related ESA support group, and also get DLA middle rate care, low rate mobility, HB, CTB and tax credits. DH works part time and we have one child at nursery, one at school.

According to "section 12, provider led pathways to work guidance" (which I know isn't the jobcentre, it is those companies that do it on commission, but I think it works for these purposes)

I can work up to 16 hours, earning less than £95 a week, under the permitted work higher limit procedure, or earn up to £20 a week and unlimited hours under the lower limit procedure.

I have to report all working and fill out the permitted work form (could this be the form the man said he would send me last time I rang?)

Any income will affect my income related benefits.

Is that all right?

I have a number of friends who work for the DWP, as there is a large office in my town. They are the people who take your call when you apply for benefits, report a change, or have a question. They're very hardworking, lovely, caring people - and each and every one of them hates their job and wishes biblical plagues upon the DWP as an institution. It's considered the worst employer in town; they are overworked, understaffed, underpaid, undertrained despite asking for the training they need to do their jobs properly, and the management culture is one of fear and intimidation. I would give specific examples but it'd out my friends and they might lose their jobs.

That said, I am completely with you on how ridiculous it all is. I've been on the receiving end of DWP incompetence and attitude and it's awful. I just felt I needed to speak up for my friends because the problem is institutional (and I know they get a horrible knot of stress in their stomachs every time they see or hear a story like this because they genuinely care), not to do with the people who are on the phones. Surely there's nasty ones there too but you get that anywhere.

Ah, I know. Working for the DWP is one of the jobs I could very well end up doing when I finish my degree, and I have done much more hated jobs (cold calling, care work, I even worked for a weapons manufacturer for a very short while) but ARGH!

I do get really annoyed when people don't know their jobs though. Especially when they will be dealing with very vulnerable people. I have never, ever had a job (even saturday jobs as a teenager) where I haven't made it a priority to read and learn every single policy, product and procedure. And that is just for minimum wage.

And then they speak to me like I am trying to pull a fast one.

A few years back I actually had to get my MP involved - within a couple of hours of her contacting them, they rang me and told me to go and collect a giro for the £900 they owed me, plus £50 compensation for them twatting me about. So they can pull their fingers out of their arses when they feel like it.

I love my job already, I have made more friends in the last nine weeks than in did in the previous three years since I moved town, and it gets me out in the fresh air. But stuff like this makes me want to pack it all in and just take the hardcore medication and stare at a wall like the system seems to want me to do.

A "normal" job will not take someone who hears voices, sees stuff that isn't there and needs a few weeks off two or three times a year. I'm in recovery now, but that has been my life for the last five and a half years and I was last ill less than a year ago, so...

Sorry, my point about the "normal" job seemed a bit random there. What I am saying is this is why I have to have a variable job and I can't give exact figures - I am excellent at working and make a fine employee when I am well. Unfortunately I am often not well.

"Oh no Mrs X, you can't do any work when you are on ESA" "How about permitted work?" "ah, well, yes, you can do that but it has to be with a charity" "I was under the impression that it doesn't" "oh, well you can't do over 16 hours anyway" "I'm not, but doesn't the fact that I am currently putting all my profits back into the business mean that I come under Permitted Work Lower Limit anyway?" "No, there is no such thing as that" "Really? Permitted work lower limit is where someone, as long as they earn under £20 a week, has no limits on the amount of hours worked - obviously this only really happens with the self employed so maybe you haven't come across it very much?" "Oh, er, yeah. Lower limit, is, er... I will have to look it up" "Section 12, clause 16 in the provider led pathways guidance, yours is probably slightly different but that might help" "err...thanks, yeah, that's right... I'll send you a form" "Thank you! Have a nice day!" "Er...yeah.." :-D