And now for the FINALE!

Some of you will remember that two weeks ago I published the last of my Adventures in Pension Land. As anyone who has dealt with a government agency knows, things are never quite over, especially when you write them irate letters mentioning the many discrepancies, erroneous information, lack of service, wasted time, useless paperwork, and just plain injustice that they cause.

Well, I wrote my irate letters, emails in fact. I wrote to several people, mostly the national director, some of his staff, and the regional director of the state (Nuevo León) where I had had to conduct all of my requests for a pension.

The first to answer was Maria Magdalena Perales Cosain whose position according to what was stated under her name in the email is Coordinator of Public Relations (Coordinación de Relaciones Públicas).

She wrote to me and asked for me telephone number, which I gladly gave her.

Since her telephone call was not forthcoming, I emailed and asked her if she was going to call at all. I then got a phone call from her.

The gist of her phone call was to defend the IMSS refusal to give me a pension. She said that she had looked up my case and that according to Article blah, blah, blah, and Article blah, blah, blah, the IMSS was within its right to deny me a pension.

After I explained that she was not telling me anything I did not already know, I said that I did not believe that I had not paid for my SS for more than 402 weeks, 98 short of the 500 I needed to collect my pension. I explained that the people at the IMSS Sub-Module 4 had said that the IMSS had started computerizing the weeks paid as of 1982. So, I believed that in the paper archives from 1967 to 1981, there must be some trail of the weeks I paid in those 15 years of work.

"I can't believe that I did not pay any SS for those 15 years," I said.

She argued that indeed the SS system started computerizing the paid weeks in 1982 but that for workers who had started paying before that time, "an algorithm" was used to calculate the "probable" weeks I might have paid before that time.

So, a life time of work, hundreds of thousand of pesos paid by me and my employers, and these bureaucrats leave a worker's pension up to some damned algorithm?

I said to this woman that I understood that they could hide behind their laws and regulations and deny me a pension. But, I said, it is precisely those laws that are unjust.

I also complained that I had not received any information or help of any kind from their hundreds of employees and in fact, they seemed to do everything possible to hinder or make difficult the requests for pension. Never mind that they offered no information, never mind that they offer no guidance or help, never mind that they don't have things as simple as signs to help one find the right office, never mind that a simple sheet or pamphlet with simple instructions would go a long way to saving a worker time and money while requesting a pension, never mind all of that...what I wanted to know was:

WHY DID AN EMPLOYEE OF THE IMSS SAY TO ME THAT THE IMSS WAS NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF GRANTING PENSIONS, THAT IT WAS IN THE BUSINESS OF DENYING PENSIONS?

I also said I thought it was unjust that I had to go back to work and pay SS for another year JUST SO I COULD BE REINSTATED IN THE SYSTEM!

She counter argues that the IMSS has an employment "bank" (banco de empleo) that helps people in such cases to find a job.

WELL, WHY THE HELL DID YOUR PEOPLE NOT TELL ME THAT?  I asked.

Anyway, of course, she was not phoning me to help me. Like all good bureaucrats, she was phoning me to restate the case of the IMSS and saying that they were within their right to deny me a pension.

WELL, LA-DI-FREEKING-DA! Thank you, Ms. Perales, for calling me to tell me I am F...well, denied a pension.

Not to be outdone, I also got an email from Natividad Elia Méndez López; her email says that she is the Head of the Benefits Department (Titular de la Jefatura de Prestaciones).

Her litany was much the same: they were within their rights to deny me a pension due to Article X, Y Z, and so on.

THE IMSS PEOPLE ARE VERY GOOD AT TELLING YOU WHY THEY WON'T GIVE YOU ANYTHING; AND THEY ARE VERY BAD AT TELLING YOU HOW YOU CAN GET ANYTHING.

Both of the persons WHO CONTACTED ME are probably very happy that I have withdrawn my savings in my AFORE and have thus terminated all possibility of ever getting a pension, thus cutting off all ties with the IMSS.

WRONG!

I AM GOING TO START A CAMPAIGN ON SOCIAL MEDIA TO INFORM AND WARN OTHER WORKERS OF THE INCOMPETENCE, LACK OF GOOD WILL, AND SHEER DISREGARD FOR THE NEEDS OF WORKERS BY THE IMSS.

I am sure most of us are already aware of it but perhaps we can avoid some of us falling into the same traps I fell into.

Incompetents and uncaring bureaucrats like the ones I met, and the ones I have been talking to, should NOT be handling the well being of Mexican workers, especially in their old age. The incredible insensitivity of these so-called state workers has left the majority of people who have worked all of their lives without any source of income or health care.

BUREAUCRATES OF THE IMSS, I WILL SEE YOU IN TWITTER, FACEBOOK, WEB CAMPAIGNS AND ANY OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA SITE THAT I CAN THINK OF.

FIRST OF ALL, I AM GOING TO DEMAND THAT YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU HAVE REFUSED TO ANSWER:

HOW MUCH OF THE BUDGET OF THE IMSS GOES TOWARD PAYING THE SALARIES AND THE PENSION PLANS OF THE BUREAUCRATS THAT WORK FOR THE IMSS?

And you, my dear readers, please re-twit, re-post, or send to your lists this blog entry. Sorry if I am not my usual funny self, but this is no laughing matter.

BTW, I AM GOING TO TRANSLATE ALL THE BLOG ENTRIES OF "ADVENTURES IN PENSION LAND" AND THEY WILL BE THE START OF A BLOG REGARDING THE IMSS.