Hi all and sorry any of us have to be here. However I have just had one of those days that restores your faith in humanity and wanted to share! My sick pay ended in Nov and I was told I should be entitled to ESA and housing & council tax benefit. I have been putting off sorting out the claims as paperwork, forms etc terrify me (I know I need to get over this!) and I just wasn’t feeling up to it. Also have read numerous horror stories about claiming and just couldn’t face it.
However for whatever reason I decided today would be the day. I went to the council and saw a really lovely woman who completely put me at ease, spoke to me in a private room and helped me through everything and sorted it all out then and there. And then I phoned the jobcentre about ESA and spoke to a really lovely man. He was genuinely sympathetic when he realised it was BC and was really helpful (e.g. I couldn’t remember my work phone number off hand and went to go and look it up, and he said not to bother myself and looked it up on the internet himself). He too completely put me at ease and was so kind.
I was totally psyched up for both experiences being horrible and stressful and now I actually want to cry with relief at a) having got them out of the way and b) how nice both people were. So I just wanted to say that if you are putting off doing something like I was, how much better you will feel once you have done it. And I know some people have had awful experiences but have hope that there are some nice people who work for these organisations! Good luck and best wishes to everyone going through this.