Medical

I received a letter on Wednesday. I have to report to a 'Centre' to undergo a 'medical examination'.

As suspected, I must have tripped off a function in a computer program. I've been on Incapacity Benefit for a year. Therefore all efforts must be made to get me off it. No doubt the Benefits Agency have 'targets' to meet.

Since I'm on IB due to 'depression' (what my sick notes say), quite how they'll examine me is open to question. There will probably be a written test, probably box-ticking as this is easy to quantify. I will probably fail, and thus judged fit for some sort of work, as I'm not catatonic or psychotic. Basically, I'm being set up to fail because some civil servant wants a performance-related bonus, just as I lost my job because a manager wanted to make his presence felt.

After that I will be passed to what the letter terms a 'Personal Adviser' who will make me attend a 'Work Focused Interview'. This will assail me with hassling and demeaning words and demands that I justify myself, and prostrate myself in order to get work.

If my benefit is stopped, it's no real loss. I have over £30,000 in the bank so I won't starve. It's just disconcerting that I'm going to have to go through a system that presumes I'm a malingerer and must be punished.

My own plan was to start applying for temporary jobs in retail (my previous line of work) around November, when shops traditionally look for extra Xmas staff. But my plans mean nothing in the computer-generated, cost-cutting, target-driven world of the Benefits Agency