Jan17
I totally get that a relationship doesn’t have to have sex in it to be regarded – it was just clear that the guy had no idea about what the official definition of WINZ was, and that he started freaking out about our genders and what that meant for us having sex.
dang, i am in a relationship with a lot of people, apparently.
haha me too! I have to find a way of telling them now…
Hahahahaha this cracked me up! *makes an awkward turtle with hands*
Ha! Yes – it was the ultimate awkward turtle moment!!
You know, there’s a history of this with WINZ and gay relationships – back in the heady days of Robyn’s First Dole, I recall the only specification was a relationship “like marriage” and a lot of questions that were kind of like the above (and upon examination, basically, if they could get out of paying you money to live on, they would). So anyway, a friend of mine successfully brought his Work Track meeting (do y’all still have those?) to a fever-pitch by pointing out that if gay marriage was illegal (this was even before the civil union bill so not even any equivalent, but the civil union bill was a big issue then) then no gay relationship could be counted as like marriage and therefore gay beneficiaries should not have to declare partnerships. As he said, “you can’t recognize us when you want to sanction us and ignore us when we are asking not to be sanctioned by you.” I thought it was a pretty good point. I think they’ve changed the “like marriage” wording since then though.
Good luck declaring all of your extra relationships to The Man.
Ooooooh! Well our case is currently in review at the moment. I ended up writing them a two page report with about 40 pages of documentation to say that no-one (except one lovely lady at a studylink last year) was able to tell us that their definition of “a relationship” was being emotionally connected and financially interdependant (we meet the first one not the second). It’s been in review since November. The whole thing has been quite dumb, so I make it my point to ask a winz officer every time what their definition of a relationship is. Imagine how long it’s gonna take to declare my relationships now – especially as I have a birthday party to go to this evening.
You’re basically going to have to declare a relationship with an entire roomful of people! Emphasize the fact that the relationships are based on cake.
Oh, well that blows most of the student flats in Wellington, the hippy-vegan-home-cooking ones anyway.
Suddenly not sharing a shopping list or a grocery budget may be a prudent relationship-prevention tactic. *Sigh* stoopid WINZ non-training of new recruits to their frontline jobs.
Haha, yep – “I can no longer eat your bland meals because I don’t want people to think that we’re partners”
we had a similar experience in seattle when applying for aid! the man helping us was obviously super uncomfortable and was having trouble figuring out how to fill out the forms for us. my favorite part was when he ended up announcing that kelly was now the “head of household” in our relationship because their “name was on the form first”. we still joke about this…
haha, they even have a category for “head of the household”?!?! Damn. Joe would come first if it was done alphabetically…. may have to rethink my name…
I’m so excited. I have to call all my friends and let them know that New Zealand says we’ve been engaged in gleeful lesbian polyamory since high school.
Oh yeh! Imagine how many people you’d have to bring in to the meetings. You’d probably break WINZ.
Hahaha brilliantly rendered, sir.
why thankyou 🙂
I would’ve loved to see the look on the guy’s face while he was fumbling around trying to figure out how to ask you about your relationship ^.^
I’m going to encounter something like this at a normal non-nocturnal time of day. Talking with the school principle about being trans! Oh and congratulations with how far you’ve come. (Just thought I’d say that since I love your work)
Oh woah, good luck! I hope that it goes well! (yay and thanks!)
Thanks Sam! It all went well with the school and the principle, I get to use the staff bathrooms(which are the cleanest in the school) and most the kids in my grade (some younger too) have seemed to adapt to it pretty well. I also got my name changed on my birth certificate ^.^
I’ve had this problem before in the UK, and it is *ridiculous*. No one can ever define it properly. I’ve been told that it’s not about sex, because some elderly couples don’t have sex. It’s not about whether you define as together or not, because sometimes people think you’re together. It’s not about whether you share a room, because people who don’t sleep in your house might not know whether you share a room, and lots of couples have separate rooms. It’s not about kids because some couples don’t have kids. It’s just so vague.
In the end, we just all always pretend we’re not together, and do things like have separate kitchen cupboards when they come round to check.
Oh yes – see we don’t share rooms either, and we buy things separately, we’re basically flatmates in terms of finances. Winz does have a definition, ’cause a lady who works there told us what it was – but none of the other employees know it (or want to tell us what it is)
This is excellent! 😀 When my girlfriend, friend and I went in to centrelink to start up our rent assistance the woman asked if my friend was ALSO in our relationship. She said no and the woman then went on to ask if when we go out places, if our other friends consider us all to be in a three person relationship. The answer was still no.
Do they ask EVERYONE these questions?! O_o
WOAH. That’s an interesting pathway of questions to take. I totally doubt that they’d ask a group of footy playing dudes those questions.
on second thoughts, maybe they should…
hahaha they definitely should! you made my day!
Hi. Just popping by to kind of ajfdkla about the fact that someone from my current city (sort of) writes a proper webcomic! It’s really awesome! Um. Yeah! That’s all I wanted to say. Good luck with WINZ. I’ve only had to deal with Studylink properly and that was bad enough. >.> Have a good one. ^_^
haha, yay! It’s a (sorta) proper webcomic 🙂 Goodluck with your studying!