I have officially finished my seventh full VISTA work day. Upon racking up a week's "employment" status magical things start to happen. People start to remember your name, or at least part of it, you actually exist within the work e-mail/computer system, and you have an Identification Badge. The mere possession of said ID is suppose to magically grant you limitless access to all parts of TU's campus. However, in my case I have only been granted a "courtesy" ID do to the fact that I am neither being paid by TU or actually paying to attend class. Despite this seemingly lame subtext on my ID it still allows me all access to different parts of campus (not as if before this official "badging" I couldn't get into any building anyway). Either way, I am moving up in the world, well, at least at work. Within the social class system of the United States I have fallen quiet hard into "working class." I know we all kid ourselves into believing that we live in a "classless" society and that with the "American Dream" anyone can move up and down the social ladder, however, just spend a couple hours in the local public assistance office and see if you can we don't.
So, this is where my food stamp story continues. After a week long voicemail harassment on my part to get in contact with "Mr. C" I finally managed to break the silence. At quarter to 1pm on Monday, Mr. C finally answered the phone and in response to my name exclaimed, "OH! YOU!" I guess my harassment at least put a name to my application number in which I have been refereed to for the past month. With a little badgering on his part I had an appointment at noon the next day. I was to bring every form of identification that any legal citizen possesses, receipts that I do in fact pay my bills, have a job, only have one job and secretly do not work in two places at once. I was directed to go to the Liberty District public assistance office in a less than favorable part of North Philly where the excessive queuing rivaled that of the DMV, accept they were a lot less organized. However, since I managed to remember my caseworkers name and time of "appointment" (not to be confused with a meeting) I saw Mr. C within a few minuets. However, after an hour of "mathematical assessment" I was granted the elusive permission to obtain a "EBT" card. To those who do not know, an EBT card stands for Electronic Benefit Transfer which is an electronic system that allows a recipient to authorize transfer of their government benefits from a Federal account. This is not a credit card and can only be accepted at select locations (no such list of these locations seems to exist). However, that was the easy part, after waiting for 2 more hours in the massive waiting room, accompanied by screaming babies and angry people I became aware of just how underfunded this office has become. Apparently, pens are tantamount to that of gold in a public assistant office. My only pen helped fill out several applications since I seemed to be the only person in the entire 4 floor building with a spare writing utensil. In fact, the office workers do not give out pens, there are no cups of sharpened pencils and the constant buzz in the room is to where the only spare pen has gone. I made the mistake of flashing my pen out to take notes and no sooner was it deemed as some weird form of currency. If I played my cards right I could have probably gotten some gum or nice cookies out of the deal, however, this transaction would have to be done on the down lo since eating and drinking is prohibited within the office.
After what seemed like a lifetime of staring off into space I stared to fear for my own health after I had gone 3 hours without water and 5 hours without food. Fortunately, as the 3rd hour came to a close I was called into the secret EBT room where I was handed an "access" card, signed a form and was sent on my way with no other information but a hot line to call if I had any problems accessing my food stamps. I still am not aware of which stores accept these, how much money I can spend at a time, if the amount I have will be a standard amount each month, how I get more money on my card and if I can withdraw cash since it is also called a "debit" card. I have spent countless minutes searching for clear cut "rules and regulations" but all I can find is the generic "this is not a credit card."
I have to wait until tomorrow to use my EBT card since it takes 24hrs to generate that I exist in the system. However, I am excited. I feel that the government owes me some compensation for working for free for a year and oh yeah almost a decades of insane political policy that has led an office to be void of a budget to BUY PENS! But, I digress, after some review my all access pass seems to be quite limited.
So, this is where my food stamp story continues. After a week long voicemail harassment on my part to get in contact with "Mr. C" I finally managed to break the silence. At quarter to 1pm on Monday, Mr. C finally answered the phone and in response to my name exclaimed, "OH! YOU!" I guess my harassment at least put a name to my application number in which I have been refereed to for the past month. With a little badgering on his part I had an appointment at noon the next day. I was to bring every form of identification that any legal citizen possesses, receipts that I do in fact pay my bills, have a job, only have one job and secretly do not work in two places at once. I was directed to go to the Liberty District public assistance office in a less than favorable part of North Philly where the excessive queuing rivaled that of the DMV, accept they were a lot less organized. However, since I managed to remember my caseworkers name and time of "appointment" (not to be confused with a meeting) I saw Mr. C within a few minuets. However, after an hour of "mathematical assessment" I was granted the elusive permission to obtain a "EBT" card. To those who do not know, an EBT card stands for Electronic Benefit Transfer which is an electronic system that allows a recipient to authorize transfer of their government benefits from a Federal account. This is not a credit card and can only be accepted at select locations (no such list of these locations seems to exist). However, that was the easy part, after waiting for 2 more hours in the massive waiting room, accompanied by screaming babies and angry people I became aware of just how underfunded this office has become. Apparently, pens are tantamount to that of gold in a public assistant office. My only pen helped fill out several applications since I seemed to be the only person in the entire 4 floor building with a spare writing utensil. In fact, the office workers do not give out pens, there are no cups of sharpened pencils and the constant buzz in the room is to where the only spare pen has gone. I made the mistake of flashing my pen out to take notes and no sooner was it deemed as some weird form of currency. If I played my cards right I could have probably gotten some gum or nice cookies out of the deal, however, this transaction would have to be done on the down lo since eating and drinking is prohibited within the office.
After what seemed like a lifetime of staring off into space I stared to fear for my own health after I had gone 3 hours without water and 5 hours without food. Fortunately, as the 3rd hour came to a close I was called into the secret EBT room where I was handed an "access" card, signed a form and was sent on my way with no other information but a hot line to call if I had any problems accessing my food stamps. I still am not aware of which stores accept these, how much money I can spend at a time, if the amount I have will be a standard amount each month, how I get more money on my card and if I can withdraw cash since it is also called a "debit" card. I have spent countless minutes searching for clear cut "rules and regulations" but all I can find is the generic "this is not a credit card."
I have to wait until tomorrow to use my EBT card since it takes 24hrs to generate that I exist in the system. However, I am excited. I feel that the government owes me some compensation for working for free for a year and oh yeah almost a decades of insane political policy that has led an office to be void of a budget to BUY PENS! But, I digress, after some review my all access pass seems to be quite limited.
