Had a letter today from some distant department dealing with “Re-evaluating” my claim for a 25% reduction in Poll Tax.
I replied. Told them my wife was still dead, but that I would let them know if that situation changed.
I know they are only doing their job, that I could have now had a lodger or live-in girlfriend, but it still seemed insensitive.
Hi, it is sorry to read this happened, and you got angry, we can understand why you would, you just need to keep talking about these things, to get them off your chest. Hope you’re feeling a bit better now.
I doubt that many realise how painful it can be to receive mail with our loved one’s name on it. The Pension people here in the UK made a mess of my state pension when my wife died. I was told that as you have a partner living with you adjustments would be made. I had no partner, she was gone. I later got a letter adjusting correctly but no apology. The faceless and often cruel actions of bureaucracy. It’s not much use getting angry with them because it uses energy we have little of, and makes little difference. We have to take it from whence it comes, from ignorant people.
Sad to say there are many of them about. Take care.
Believe me when I say I was such an angry person in the months after my husband death. Phone calls and letters was a constant reminder that he was no longer there. I informed one body that he had died and they sent a rebate which was very nice but it was addressed to my husband. So I had to return it. The bank sent some of his money to a solicitor that I didn’t know and it took five months to get his investments changed over. I was sent me numerous forms to fill in, all the same!!! then I had to get a non relative watch me sign a form to prove that it was me and then I still received a phone call asking me to give them yet more details. I know security is at an all time low these days but it really is upsetting at a time when we are at our most vulnerable. Do they do it on purpose. I became an all time angry person.
Insensitive is exactly the right word.
Yes Pat, and anyone who is squeamish had not better read on. The worse case I have heard about was a woman being sent the costs of putting sand over blood after her husbands fatal accident. She did get an abject apology. But who on earth would write such a bill? Totally without any sympathy or understanding.
What is it with these people? There are many kind and understanding people in the public sector. I have met them and been encouraged by them, but so many leave a lot to be desired.
Like the social worker who kept asking my wife silly questions over and over when she obliviously had dementia, until I stopped her. If we can’t at least be kind to each other then it would seem all is indeed lost. Best wishes Pat. John.
The cost of that sand really plumbs new depths.
After my father died last June my mum then aged 90 decided to commute his army pension .
He spent 25 years in the army and only left when cutbacks forced him out. He was 18 at the outbreak of war and spent 4 1/2 years in North Africa and the middle East. Spent 2 years in what is now Israel during the conflict with Palestine and then 18 months in Korea during the war between the north and south. He suffered his traumas quietly and took refuge in his garden. When my mum applied to the army pension people (now privatised) she was sent a form with instructions on how to apply for a trivial pension commutation. I’m just relieved my dad didn’t live to see those words.
I have told almost all the agencies about my wife. I have left a charity where we sponsor a child as it is and not told them due to wanting her to still be part of my life. We could not have children so it was our way of sort of having a child. But the worst mail I’ve had starts with Allison Deceased. That’s hard.