Putting up some art I've done over the last week, plus having a little grumple about some frustrating life stuff.
So I got a text from the people who handle PIP Assessments in my area, (for non-UK folks, PIP is Personal Independence Payment, a monetary benefit given to people who're disabled) informing me my Assessment would be next week at [x] time and to call up to ask any questions, etc.
I've been planning for a long time to take my dictaphone with me to record the appointment, the reason being that the people who do the assessments are given specific instructions to catch you out, to find flaws and holes in how you describe your disability and day-to-day life, and this has led to some outright lying,
in the case of many, an example from that article being “
Apparently I walk my dog daily, which was baffling because I can barely walk and I do not have a dog".
This lying caught me out before, two years ago when I had my first PIP Assessment. They'd written down stuff which I hadn't said, and seemingly intentionally misinterpreted my words to spin them in a way that makes me sound more able-bodied; taking "
I wish I could go out for walks more often but my pain often prevents me" and turning it into "
I go for walks on a daily basis, and my pain only occasionally gets in the way"; another example was I mentioned that I "
saw my friends twice a year at most, but sometimes spoke to them over the internet as it's easier for me", which they wrote as "
has an active social life and communications with friends very often".
So, I called them up, got the time and date confirmed, and said I'd need my girlfriend to bring me along because I don't know the area and I'd like her to come into the appointment with me for moral support - and also, hey, I mentioned in my application (which was 40 pages long...) I'll be bringing my dictaphone because I have an absolutely awful memory, and tend to bring it to other appointments and interviews.
They informed me that, okay, but on some conditions. I would need to have it hooked up to a dual CD recorder or audio cassette recorder (which I must provide myself) which can simultaneously record directly onto the CD or cassette and produce a hard copy. Preferably, a machine capable of doing two at the same time. I would keep one copy and they would keep the other. The hard copies must be produced at the appointment, there and then; I couldn't record them on my current dictaphone, burn them onto a CD afterwards, and send them back to them; I also couldn't use "digital recording tools" like a laptop, phone, etc. It had to be a dedicated machine such as a dictaphone hooked up to a machine to burn the audio onto a CD straight away,
or an Audio Cassette recorder which would record straight onto the cassette.
Dual CD recording is extremely expensive and there's pretty much no consumer options for it, I've seen people online say that "dual CD recorders don't exist" they're that rare outside of companies which actually publish audio CDs, and whilst dual Audio Cassette recorders exist, they're not cheap, running around £200 - £300, and they are bulky as hell. These are the sort used in police interviews and interrogations - they aren't meant to be moved around super often from what I can tell.
But I'm pretty stubborn, and found one on Ebay going for £15 - that wouldn't arrive until after the appointment... So that options out.
I talked to some other disabled folk who've been through the process and they recommended me to buy two audio cassette recorders and just record simultaneously. Some people who work for the people who handle PIP will try to insist that "it must be one machine which outputs two hard-copies or more at a time", but this is false and not in the PIP Assessment Regulations.
Even so, it's about £50 worth of equipment which is a lot when I have no money and am applying for disability benefit specifically because I have no money and struggle to find a job because of my disabilities... OTL
My girlfriend is helping me pay for it and picking up the equipment we need tonight, so I'll test it out on some blank cassettes.
I read a statistic, somewhere whilst I was searching, that the vast majority of audio cassette recorders sold in the UK in the last couple of years were specifically for this purpose; disabled folk buying them for their PIP and ESA (Employment Support Allowance) assessments. Which is... concerning?
The reason for the limited "hard copy CD and audio cassette" rule is probably a mix of both of them being harder to tamper with than digital recordings, and the fact that getting ahold of the hardware needed at short-notice is not an easy feet, especially if you're disabled, live alone and don't have much help, and aren't tech savvy.
But now that that's sorted out, I can go back to drawing some more. OTL
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