I HATE SOCIAL SERVICES

I am so freaking fed up with the Social Services people here. Let me start at the beginning, and you can share in the immense frustration that I am feeling right now.

I applied for food stamps about a month and a half ago. For those of you who don't know, food stamps are government assistance to help you buy food. You apply for benefits, and if you qualify (i.e. you are poor enough and other random-ass qualifications are met), they give you free money for groceries. I applied and never heard back... until I got a random letter in the mail saying that I had missed my scheduled interview and was required to interview with them by November 9th or lose my eligibility. And I was like, "Um, I never scheduled an interview, so how could I have possibly missed it?" I called my case worker, but she was unreachable and I kept getting redirected to other phone lines. So I finally went down to the office, which was a pain in the butt and took three hours total. I interviewed with another woman (not my case worker), who took all of my income verification and other stuff, and told me that I would qualify. She asked me to mail my last few pay stubs to them, to verify that my income was steady. She wanted pay stubs from September and October. When I arrived home, I realized that I didn't have any pay stubs from September, because I was unemployed then. So I mailed the other pay stubs to my case worker, with a note saying that I didn't have any from September.

Then about a week ago, I got a letter with my brand new EBT (food stamps) card and my pin number, and found out that I had been approved for $140 per month of benefits. Yay! I was so excited! Grocery shopping has never been more fun!

But THEN I got this ridiculous letter in the mail from Social Services yesterday saying:
"Based on information reported to us, your food stamps benefits have been closed effective 11/30/12 because: requested verification was not provided."
What the fuck.
What fucking verification did you request?
I don't know what they want from me! I just want my freaking free money! And because the office is virtually unreachable by phone, I would have to go back down there again, to sort this all out. I don't have time for this! I don't have transportation! This is such bullshit.

I am annoyed in general, because this is a waste of my time, but I am also annoyed at the system. Think about this: what if I was not a student of social work, but a single mother working three jobs to stay afloat? Would I have time to go down to the social services office twice, missing almost a whole day of work, to get these food stamps benefits? I think not. This is so messed up; the people who these food stamps should be benefiting are unable to get them, because of how screwed up the system is! This is unbelievable.

GRR.