Wednesday 6 February 2008

The government part II

Earlier I blogged about the government and the letter I received about my maternity benefits with Alexandria (The government can kiss my ass!). Today I called and finally got through to a live person on my third try. (The first two times there was "too much call volume" and I was disconnected. Nice.) She was a run-of-the-mill, non-listening, government moron. I was on the line for over 20 minutes with her. The upside was I was only on hold for a minute or so before I was connected.

She was confused at first and thought I was talking about this maternity leave. I said, "nope. no. this is about the one two and a half years ago". She told me I was supposed to call when I went back to work. I told her it did not say that anywhere. She read me an excerpt from what I had signed that stated if I make any income during the time I receive benefits I need to claim it. I said, "exactly. I was not under the impression I was still getting benefits. I would not have returned to work otherwise!" We went around in circles for a while on this one.

Then I asked, "OK. When do you have on file that my benefits end on my current leave?" She said if I work any earlier than May 3 it will conflict with my benefits. I said, "My mat leave started April 21 when my son was born. One year later would be April 21 again. Do you see why people are confused?" She said, "That's why you need to call us." And my reply, "This is supposed to be straight forward. You get a year, you go back in year. Simple. But as with anything with the government, you make it difficult and hard to figure out."

So, the upside here is I don't have to go back to work until the first week in May now. Maybe I'll squeeze in a wee bit of nice weather before I have to leave my kiddies.

Oh, and I still have to mail in the letter explaining why I "didn't claim" the income I made two and a half years ago.

1 comments:

Italia girl said...

You leave April 21 you go back April 21 - how is that confusing. Seriously - but hey that's another two weeks with Zach so that's not so bad!! :)

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