Incompetence, part what?

For a moment there, I was afraid it was over. My tension-filled tête a tête with Försäkringskassan over my sick leave after the miscarriage.

Since the last time I wrote about it, they've managed to idiot themselves at least once more. After contacting them once yet another month had gone without me hearing anything, I got the impression that they sped up my registration before answering that the registration was now finished. I went in and ordered my European medical insurance card on their website and, sure enough, this time it said "Thanks for your order, you will receive your card within 10 days" instead of saying "Who the hell are you?" But I was not to be disappointed, as I soon after received forms in the mail asking me to describe when and why I was away from work and what my symptoms were.

I was a bit confused about receiving these forms, as they asked for the exact same information that they'd already received on my doctor's notes -- and I knew they must have received the doctor's notes, because none of this process ever would have started otherwise -- so I went and had a little chat with the HR lady at my work about it. She mentioned that they had called her just the day before and wanted to confirm that they had the right dates, and had in fact even said that they still had my doctor's notes on file. So everything sounded good. I filled in the forms with the unnecessary repeat info and sent them in.

Two weeks later I received a letter saying: "We see that you have requested sick leave for the period 4 June to 7 August. In order for us to process this request, we must receive doctor's notes covering that time period."

Grr, grr, and more grr.

So I contacted Försäkringskassan, told them they didn't know their elbow from their asses, asked our HR lady to re-send my doctor's notes, and settled in for what I assumed would be another month of arguing with them or hearing that they'd lost this paper or given me the wrong address for that paper and that they'd gotten my file mixed up with a refugee from Zimbabwe.

But then, suddenly, as I looked up our bank account today, I got a shock.

There it is. My sick-leave money. Directly deposited.

But wait, there's more -- as far as I can tell, it's the right amount.

Suddenly, everything felt very empty. What will I now spend all of my free time with? I tried to console myself by remembering that in a few months I'll be hitting them up for maternity leave money and that they'll surely screw that up as well, but it just didn't fill the hole that had suddenly been created in my psyche and daily activity schedule.

But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I discovered on Friday that my employer owes me money! After staring at my last two paychecks for god knows how long and wondering what it was that just didn't add up, I realized that they'd messed up on my sick leave as well. Despite the fact that I worked 50% for 6 weeks and then 75% for 3 weeks after that, they had charged me for being 100% sick on the weekends. So not right.

Ahhh, yes. The comforting feeling of once again knowing that I'm surrounded by people who don't know what they're doing. Back to my warm fuzzy self!