Getting By

This is apt to be long and rambling and political. Very political. So if that’s not your cup of tea, by now you should know what to do. No hard feelings. See you next time.

I got oil! Woot!

OMG!

I can’t believe I actually accomplished it and I don’t know how anyone older than my good self does it either. Especially having worked with the ‘elderly’ so long in that church. Most of them couldn’t compose an email or would say things like “send the email to my phone.” Then they would point at their iPhone and repeated it while tapping on the glass, “Send it to my phone.”

Ok. It took several tries but I finally managed to convince those people that their email was their email. No matter where they checked it from. It was the same. Don’t get me started on ‘attachments’…no just don’t do it.

So…how those folks would get through this process is a total mystery to me.

First off, I applied in 2 places for free oil–something I’ve never done, I’ve looked at it when it was needed but even I couldn’t figure it out back then. I applied with Operation Fuel which is associated with TVCCA (Thames Valley Council for Community Action). For years and years and years the Operation Fuel website was simply a static page. That’s it. One page…one really Old School web page…that didn’t give much info. It was hard to understand and impossible to ‘use’. When calling the numbers given to you, more often than not, the only thing you got was a Busy Signal. (Anyone out there even remember that wonk-wonk-wonk that told you the single line was in-use?)

This year it was different! It was an actual website! I was amazed. With links! It was still a bit hard to use and in the end wasn’t of much help but someone tried. Here. I’m going to walk you through it.

Welcome to the front page of the site. Yes, you may notice it still mentions COVID which is a bit odd and should be a big tip off! You’ll see why later on. Now, as we go through this, I want you to imagine you are a person 65 or older who needs help. Perhaps your grandmother. Ok? Get in that mind set and really try to be that person just for a few moments here.

Ok, let’s click ‘get help’.

Yep that’s it. Now let’s click the only link available to us ‘help for residents’.

Ok. Now half the people at that church would start typing their town in here and a bunch of stuff would start scrolling and they would immediately think the page was ‘broken’ or their computer was or some crap like that. But, hopefully it won’t last long when they realize it’s a drop-down menu. So let’s find our town.

You can click any of those links, in the end they will take you to the same place, we’ll get there in a sec. I want TVCCA

Oh, ok, that’s nice. I have a phone number and address I could have looked up myself 5 minutes ago but ok.

Here’s the deal. This placed so poorly on the page you are no encouraged to scroll down just a tiny bit where you will find this and only this.

So, now we all realize we have totally wasted those 5 minutes. We’ll never get them back. Ever. We huff and puff and finally realize we’re now going to do what we should have done all along and that is go directly to the TVCCA website (or any of their website really it doesn’t matter here)

Welcome to the home page! Let’s click ‘select your service’. Not that an older person will immediately click that one…they probably won’t. But we will for time’s sake.

There it is. Let’s click it.

I don’t know which option your grandmother will choose but we’re going with ‘apply online’.

Ok, well, now, unbeknownst to grandma she has been transported to the State of Connecticut website where she is immediately met by all these ‘red flags’ and is completely and utterly lost. If I still had a mortgage to pay I would be the whole monthly amount that, at this point, grandma either ‘clicks back’ or ‘clicks out’ and her heart is racing thinking she just picked up some virus. In three minutes she’ll be on the phone to…you…wanting to know what happened.

But we’re going to be brave and Sally forth.

We’ve gathered our intestinal fortitude and scrolled past all the red flags to this point. There’s more to the mumbo jumbo and you can go look at it if you want. https://portal.ct.gov/dss/economic-security/winter-heating-assistance/energy-assistance—winter-heating/how-to-apply?language=en_US

At this point, because I do have an account and I have been approved, I can’t take you through the steps…and there are many of them…to apply to get $500 in oil or other whatever heating source you have/use. An older person won’t have the patience for it and, if they do, they are faced with strange obstacles that appear designed to make them go through the longer drawn out process when they’re asked to upload their documents. First of all, that’s in the wrong place and secondly….I couldn’t get them to download/upload an attachment in their email! I know that because….

When I got to the end of this and was unable to correctly find/upload the documents they wanted and I’m pretty damn good at this, I got a letter in the mail from TVCCA…a letter in the mail…asking for these documents. It did not say where to send said documents. It did have an email address sort of buried on the back page and an Affidavit of Zero Income–which they and the next place–said was ‘easily found’ on their sites.

Ah, yeah. No. No it’s not. I looked. Please believe me. I looked.

Anyway, I filled those out and had hubby give me his latest Unemployment Statement for the last 4 weeks. I scanned them in. I sent them to the email on the back page.

I have yet to hear a word. Not even a simple confirmation of receipt.

Yet. During all of this. My Youngest Daughter sent me a link that looked like another place where I could apply for the same deal. Since I was totally unsure I had done this right and was proud of myself for having gotten as far as I did with it all, I decided What the Hell? In this economy, if I can legitimately get $1000 in oil, I’m grabbing it. Screw the rest of them. I have adopted that Me First Attitude.

I put up the above to show you the beginning of my faux pas. See that link at the top? Does it look a little…I dunno…’junky’ to you? Because it did to me and I passed it by when I originally typed in that search term. Yet it turns out, that link, also sent to me by my Youngest, is actually the “new” Operation Fuel.

Wonderful!

But…why didn’t you get rid of the other websites? You know? Just take them down? If you already paid for the domain names…cool…you can just make them redirects to the NEW and IMPROVED place. Right? Don’t make grandma go through all that.

Again, I can’t actually show you the whole process here because I have been approved and I can’t apply until next year. BUT suffice it to say…it WAY easier to use and understand. Even grandma might get through this on her own except when it comes to the upload of files and understanding what, exactly, counts as ‘income’ as, for us at least, ‘unemployment’ wasn’t listed.

BUT…here…if you do it wrong. They very very very nicely GET BACK TO YOU in an extremely reasonable time frame. By email!

I am blown away.

So I got my email wherein the nice lady kindly asked me to ‘complete’ my application by uploading said files I’d been trying to find in some cases and upload in all. Great! I click the link. I go over. I do that. Very easy-peasy, they’re on grandma’s side as best they can be here. I go back to my email to see if I can reply. I can!

WTH?

Wow!

I write a nice thank you note. As I look down at her signature I see she is corresponding with me from the “New” Operation Fuel.

Fuck! Did I just blow this by applying twice?

Shit!

I type back my story, I apologize and tell her I was trying to ‘double dip’ at the same pool. I was simply unaware.

Within an HOUR. An hour! I was approved the $500 in oil. AN HOUR! Holy crap! I didn’t even know it for four hours because that’s how long it took me to check my email figuring I would never hear back so quickly. Her email advises me to call my oil company, Anytime Fuel, as they’ve already been told and “some times oil companies just deliver they don’t even tell you”.

Oh. Ok.

I write back another thank you note.

I call Anytime. They are aware of my $500 grant and the lady said…”we are delivering it tomorrow.”

Out my mouth blurted a very happy and grateful, “Oh God, I love you so much!”

She was silent for a second. Then she snickered. Then she laughed.

Yes, I do believe it was the same lady who so kindly gave me my account number earlier so I could apply for the oil.

I’ve lived in this hour 30 years. I grew up in this house.

Never once have I been able to order $500 worth of oil at one single time. I am the woman who calls and first asked; “How much for 150 gallons?” (that’s where the ‘best price’ starts). If I can’t afford it. I look at my budget and ask “What can I get for….?” Usually that number is around $100-$150.

$500?????

Unheard of!

They came and delivered. I’m so happy. My tank was showing on the ‘e’ in ‘Empty’.

It came to just under 3/4 of a tank. My tank is 250/gals so saith hubby.

I was faced with my Age and the Times. I really had expected it to fill the tank and maybe even have a teeny tiny bit left ‘on account’.

Wow!

Damn!

But, hey, ok. We won’t freeze to death. I had a long bath last night. I hate showers. I got to sit in a scented tub with my candles, salts, incense, and of course, the radio. It was heavenily.

I happen to absolutely love Winter in New England. I adore a slightly chilly house and a warm blanket with a cup of something hot and good to binge. It’s wonderful. We’ll make the oil stretch to mid-January at least. Probably even the end of that month. So, if you’re out there seething, don’t go thinking I’m in the Tropics here, darling.

And, if that’s you and you’re actually in a hard spot, my best advice is….freakin’ apply. Don’t sit there bitching. It’s just oil. Get natural gas, propane, electric help, even wood. You may be shocked at the end of that rather involved application process. Don’t be ‘too proud’ to get a little help. I spent most of my life that way and it ain’t no fun. Get a little help. Ease your own burden. Stop pushing it off on other people.

End Sermon.

Mostly.

I guess.

Well maybe not. And, trust me here, move a little closer I need to whisper;

You may really want to ‘click out’.

Ok?

Stay close if you’re here.

I heard there’s this thing with SNAP coming up? Something about everyone has to reapply? Let me say it one more…you may be shocked at that end of that application process. You dig? Even if you don’t get anything, in the end, all they can do is say ‘no’. That’s it. You feel me? Wasn’t there some big “Department of Government (choke) Efficiency” thing where a bunch of people got fired? Long Ago and Far Away I worked for a Law Office. You know one of the biggest things I learned working there?

Move a little closer.

Drown Them in Paperwork.

Turns out, that is most delectable if it’s their own paperwork.

It was very big in that world. Very big. Still is.

Best of all…totally legal.