Social Security Whoas

Let me start by saying the people we have experienced at Social Security couldn't be more nice. Seriously...they have been nice. But the outcomes of the service have not really served us well...at least not as far as a reasonable conclusion in a reasonable amount of time.

Upon arriving home, we attending our scheduled meeting at our local Social Security office (scheduled by the office in California with the office here in Illinois). The person we met with was very kind and seemingly helpful. We answered questions, shared information, felt things were done to satisfaction.

We knew it would be a couple of weeks for the next pay (the beginning of the next month, right?). Nothing came.

Okay, so maybe there is a bit of a further delay. Still, my husband telephoned (he is the Representative Payee for his sister) to check on any questions, issues, etc. He was polite and very on top of it. The people on the telephone (we were using the 800# because we can't seem to get through to the local office) were kind and decisive. My husband answered questions, shared information, felt things were done to satisfaction. Nothing came.

My husband stayed on top of it all. Each telephone call was documented with a different answer OR there really isn't anything we can do about it right now because it is in the pay office (whatever they called it) and we have no way to contact them other than to put the request through (potentially over and over again...which will net the same result). We waited, my husband continued to call.

Finally, more than two months LATER, we were told by our local office (we were able to get a supervisor) that someone (likely the initial contact we sat with IN-PERSON) had input Sharon as the deceased. Um, Sharon was sitting there answering questions. While she might have been dying of boredom, she certainly was NOT the deceased. What the hell?!

So, we had been living paycheck to paycheck before Sharon moved in and now we had another mouth to feed, someone else using utilities, more gas to spend as we shuttled her to appointments and my parents to start paying back (they were not pressuring us, but I feel guilty as all get out) and we still have not seen any Social Security Disability payments. Holy Crap, how are we going to do this?!

The local supervisor was AWESOME. He helped us through the mess to at least get us some cash flow and facilitated us through to start the process of healing the wrong that had been done.

I won't even pretend to know how Social Security decides who gets what and how much. I know that Sharon gets less money in Illinois than she did in California. I can kind of see that because California has a higher cost of living, but not by the amount that she has been shorted moving here.

I also do not understand those documents that they send us CONSTANTLY. They are constantly updating us on Sharon's status. Really, that would be fine. But the documents are rarely less than 5 pages in length, they use government lingo throughout and generally are just confusing. I can generally muscle through lingo...I work for a government institution myself, but reading the documents from Social Security is like doing the worst math story problem. I hated math story problems!

But hey, as I type things with Social Security appear to be in place and I am hoping that when Sharon does finally get a job it doesn't screw up this hard work too much. I don't hold much hope of that sorry to say.