Signing On

Well today was the day I had to sign on for the first time in a lot of years.
I had submitted my claim nearly a month ago and have yet to hear from them or get a penny :(
The wife and I had signing on times of 2.05 and 2.10pm so we turn up at 2pm and ask where we have to go? as the layout is all open plan and not as regimented as it used to be.
We are finally shown who to see and arrive at her desk at 2.06pm and greeted with "you're late, I only have 5 minute time slots", so I showed her the time and pointed out mine was 2.10pm so I was actually early and as we are man and wife we could do it together.
But Miss stroppy moo wasn't happy and insisted on treating us like low life scum :(
"What jobs have you applied for" she says, so I get out the e-mails sent to me by the online job search company and a copy of the local paper with the 2 jobs I had rung up about but I'm stopped in my tracks because I haven't written it down on the special "looking for work" form that they didn't give me on my initial interview! "you have to put it on this form" she says, so I show her all the paperwork they gave me and sure enough I didn't have one.
Next I ask when I'm likely to receive any benefits as I had to borrow money to get to the job centre as we are completely broke and it's been a month, she mentions something about the wrong signing day being listed on the computer? and that I have to talk to benefits "so where abouts do I talk to them?" I ask and she points out some telephones "go over there and press button B".
So off we go to the phones, there are two labelled benefits and one has an out of order sign on it, also there is a queue of people waiting for it.
I patiently wait and eventually get to use it, I press button B and get a choice of options jobseekers is no.2 so I press 2 and get the message "all operators are busy please ring back later", I try again and the same message so I try option 1 instead and get a real person :)
after telling me I'd called the wrong department I explained the problem and unlike her colleague she was very helpful and helped me through the process.
My claim still hadn't been processed (as it takes ten days), I pointed out it had been 29 days so she agreed to label it as urgent and I "might" hear from them this week.

Makes you wonder how so many people are supposed to be getting money from them by fraud when it is this hard to get a penny from them with a genuine claim?