For all the benefit advisors and other that give their expertise!

seven-day-weekend

bestpud wrote: »

7DW - don't you sleep?

Not all that well, no - I have Restless Legs Syndrome and the symptoms wake me up in the small hours and I have to stay out of bed until they have calmed down for a while.

(The translation of RLS from the Spanish is 'Unquiet Legs' which I think is much more descriptive! :rotfl: )

bestpud

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Not all that well, no - I have Restless Legs Syndrome and the symptoms wake me up in the small hours and I have to stay out of bed until they have calmed down for a while.

(The translation of RLS from the Spanish is 'Unquiet Legs' which I think is much more descriptive! :rotfl: )

I feel for you; I hate restless legs and thankfully don't get them often, or for long.

Better just tell them to 'shut up' next time though, in Spanish of course!

-BA-

Only a recent contributor so not got so much mileage under my belt here but hope all information helps. I can see it gets a bit heated here too at times but quite a few of us are passionate about helping people and sometimes we come from slightly different backgrounds or situations.

Thanks for the thanks

luxor4t

woodbine wrote: »

Going back about 8 or 9 years to the old style dhss offices i remember being in there one day when i young man was arguing the toss about a crisis loan,he suddenly got up went outside and came back in with a very young baby,handed said baby to girl behind the desk and said "here you feed her and buy her nappies" and walked out.
I was utterly gob smacked

I used to work for the DHSS in the 1980s and, sadly, this used to happen every so often. The official instruction was to ring Social Services (which are entirely separate from 'social security') which meant the baby or child might well be taken into care.

I can remember one awful day when the parent did not return to claim their child before the social workers arrived and so the inevitable had to happen. It was dreadful because there was no way we could 'childmind' a baby safely.

When the mother did come back she went crazy & the police had to be called.

hbgirl

i think i have gone mad. i've only just signed up on here. joined cos i was recommend to check my ctax banding, followed martin's advice and got it down a band and got back £600!

anyway, saw this board and started looking. i work from home sometimes, and the other day i finished assessing real claims and came straight on here and started answering some posts....

have i gone mad??? you know what, i think it's cos people on here say thanks. and that never happens in real life!

NASA_2

hbgirl wrote: »

have i gone mad??? you know what, i think it's cos people on here say thanks. and that never happens in real life!

So true:beer:

elainey_2

I'm a volunteer adviser for my local CAB, and we're also in the firing line - most people assume we get paid for what we do (it would be a bonus, but hey ho:D ), and you get some people giving us verbal (and occasionally physical) abuse because we don't give them the answer they want. Still, I wouldn't change it for the world, as I know I'm making a difference and helping people - even if it's just a little.

And I quite enjoy helping people on here - not been on here that long myself, but I know that the advice I've given is appreciated.

Love Elaine xxx

bestpud

luxor4t wrote: »

I used to work for the DHSS in the 1980s and, sadly, this used to happen every so often. The official instruction was to ring Social Services (which are entirely separate from 'social security') which meant the baby or child might well be taken into care.

I can remember one awful day when the parent did not return to claim their child before the social workers arrived and so the inevitable had to happen. It was dreadful because there was no way we could 'childmind' a baby safely.

When the mother did come back she went crazy & the police had to be called.

My mum and dad used to run a pub just down the road from the DSS offices in the 80s and lots of people used to sit over a drink and decide how to word their hard luck story. :rolleyes: Mostly it was how to convince them they needed a cooker, or a new bed etc.

A woman who came in one day though, with her small child and asked if she could leave a bag behind the counter. She was a regular so the barmaid said yes.

The woman then took off the child's shoes and replaced them with a pair of wellies that were obviously too small, before openly saying she was off to the DSS to get some money for new shoes. And sure enough, she came back a couple of hours later with money for shoes!

People regularly took their children along and dumped them on the counter in protest. I haven't know anyone leave them there though - most used to wait until they were hungry and had a stinking nappy and then go in and plonk them in front of the advisor and threaten not to move until they had some money to feed their 'starving' child.

It's a shocking way to behave imo and you have to wonder what effect this had on the children don't you? I was a teenager at the time and remember being appalled by it.

Perhaps the worst part of it was they didn't hide what they were doing and obviously felt no shame.

A few were caught out though as DSS staff often came over for their lunch, and they didn't always spot a new staff member, or one who they'd not met on reception.

space_rider

luxor4t wrote: »

I used to work for the DHSS in the 1980s and, sadly, this used to happen every so often. The official instruction was to ring Social Services (which are entirely separate from 'social security') which meant the baby or child might well be taken into care.

I can remember one awful day when the parent did not return to claim their child before the social workers arrived and so the inevitable had to happen. It was dreadful because there was no way we could 'childmind' a baby safely.

When the mother did come back she went crazy & the police had to be called.

My mum did that with the 5 of us back in the 70`s. She was at the end of her tether. I`m the eldest but I can`t really remember that much about it but I can remember being left. We weren`t taken into care or anything as she did come back. She was given some money too.

NASA_2

A couple of claimants threatened to do that when I worked face to face with the public - had they gone through with it I would have rung the police and tried to get them done for neglect.