One of many things that annoys me about The Poverty is that she acts like a medieval peasant whose crops have failed and sits there blaming a vengeful God or a local scapegoat. She's never made any effort to educate herself so she can pass of useful information. It would be fine to relay her tale of woe but explain that because she's from a well off background and had never claimed before she didn't know she could get help with her claims and that she'd advise anyone experiencing similar now to seek free professional support. It's presented as if it's just something you need to accept when it isn't always the case. Even with the old JSA if you could show good cause for resigning sanctions wouldn't apply and I often find DWP staff are very well informed about the benefit the deal with but less so with other benefits so sometimes taking the first answer you get isn't the right thing to do and that's before you get to genuine misunderstanding and poor communication on one or both sides.Exactly, and at that time I think it still went up to 13yo not just 4 or 5 like UC now. UB for someone with no dependents had a penalty period but that's it HB was "automatic" if you were on full bens but completely separate so even if sanctioned for u/e you could still claim it as someone having "nil income" But yes, that would have involved actually completing paperwork not just thrashing about wailing.
It's just bloody tragic watching a young person waste all that time and energy revelling in bleeping misery and victimhood all the time. One day, if she's lucky she'll be old and have aches and pains and maybe even a chronic illness and will look back and wonder why she wasted her youth fixating on misery and squandering what could have been a nice lowkey career- not famous enough to be a celeb but well known enough to get regular work and develop a modest talent.
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