A little over a month ago I went to my local Saint Vincent De Paul offices because I’d been told they could help with space rent. They stopped helping with rent several months ago but they failed to notify Neighbor Impact of that tiny little unimportant fact.
So I got a food box from them and was told to come back on the first of March. They have money to help with utility bills on the first of each month.
What I was never told, and didn’t find out until I had waited in line outside in the cold for 20 minutes is that they do not help with utility bills unless you have a shut-off notice in your hot little hand. Between paying $45.00 per month myself and the energy assistance grant that Neighbor Impact gave me ($250.00) I am nowhere near having my electricity shut off.
The only other help they offer is help with prescriptions. While I should be taking my iron pills, thyroid medication, and anti-depressant, I quit doing so in the fall of 2007. So I don’t need help with prescriptions either.
So I go in today for a food box, thinking that it would be fast and painless because I’d already been in before. I’d already filled out their forms, talked to their staff, and they had my information on their card.
My assumption was that they kept the forms and card that I filled out a month ago.
After all, that would be the logical, intelligent, cost-effective, and efficient thing to do, however I forgot they are a bureaucracy the same as any agency, governmental or not.
Logic, intelligence and effective behaviors are NOT rewarded in bureaucracies; what seems to be rewarded is stupidity, inefficiency, spending money in stupid ways, being wasteful of resources, and making the process as complicated and difficult as possible for everyone involved,
So they want me to fill out the same form I filled out a month ago, even though nothing has changed except the fact that I have even less income now (that doesn’t increase the amount of food they give me either).
They do NOT care that I’ve been in before, and its obvious that I’ll be jumping through the same hoops that I did last month. I said “no thanks” and went to Safeway since I needed to buy cat food and tampons anyway.
I wonder if the people who donate time, money, food, services, etc to Saint Vincent De Paul recognize the level of sheer stupidity and incompetence that runs rampant at even the lowest level of their bureaucracy