The Food Stamp Phone Interview. Whee.

Well. That was the most...annoying phone interview ever.

First, the "Eligibility Worker" called almost 40 minutes late, with no apology or explanation.

Next, she asked if I was okay being put on speaker phone, as there was someone there learning. I said fine. I wish I hadn't, as we spent the rest of the interview asking each other to repeat ourselves, because of the ridiculous amount of background noise and garble. I could also hear her give small instructions on what she was doing. It just came across as completely uncaring and unprofessional.

There was a kerfuffle when I mentioned our roommates. She acted like I was trying to pull one over on her by not mentioning them before, and said she would need all their information and a letter stating that we split rent and utilities and no other expenses. This annoys the heck out of me because, after an insane amount of annoying research in which I attempted to navigate their stupid phone tree and ultimately found the answer buried on the internet, I found the definition of "household" as "people who buy food and share meals together." That's I didn't list them. When I explained this, she again acted like I was trying to get out of something when I was just trying to explain why I hadn't listed them before--because of your own definition, lady!

When I mentioned the impending hospital bills--whose number we don't know yet because St. Joseph is also being a pain in the rear about helping us, grumble grumble--she said that hospital bills "don't count in the budget," and weren't taken into consideration. Fantastic.

Finally, she told me that, with our combined income, we were over the eligibility cap. She asked if I wanted to proceed anyway, or voluntarily withdraw. I asked her honest advice. "As I just told you, ma'am, with your combined gross income you're at $x,xxx and the cap is $y,yyy." At that point, after trying to access the human being and being bluntly denied, I was done with the whole thing. Knowing that we were going to be denied, I voluntarily withdrew. She said that, if Ryan isn't hired at the end of this month, we can apply all over again.

I am so annoyed right now I could spit. The entire thing was jarring, unprofessional, and without any ounce of human emotion. I understand that's it's a government program, and they have to be harsh in order to weed out anyone trying to get a free lunch, and maybe some of their interviewees are, indeed, trying to get one past them. However, I was nothing but polite, honest, straight-forward, even apologetic when I found out I should have listed BJ and Sameh. None of it was appreciated one bit. And it was all for nothing.

If Target doesn't keep Ryan on at the end of the month, I'll start the process over again. Obviously, I hope that's not the case--not just because I want him to keep his job, but because I never want to deal with that bullshit again.

And to think, that was only the start of my day...