Nope, Still Don't Want A Timeclock in My House...

 so I wrote this to Sandata, the firm handling the local #EVV monitoring here.

Dear Sir or Madam:

We are hereby requesting that we be allowed to opt out of electronic monitoring in our home, both for ethical and technological reasons. Philosophically, we have a huge problem with someone thinking we are “gaming the system” because we need financial supports and it’s hard not to feel invaded when you think that some stranger knows what days you shower and when you get out.What will you have done with this information?Even on my most optimistic days, which I  am trying to have more of, despite writing this in the waning days of a pandemic(ordinary life has been complicated for some time, even though we’re mostly unscathed) I don’t believe that anyone will read our data, tip his hat, and say “Ok, just curious…carry on then.” Because that’s not why people look for things, hoping not to find them, and with all due respect, yours is a tech company, not a personal care company. You’d be forgiven for not knowing what it takes to get a disabled person through her day, except the government has made it your business now. Quite frankly, a lot of our leaders don’t understand either, and trying to clarify that has been one of the central fights of my adult life. Adding another “front” especially during the stress and grief of a pandemic seems like a lot to ask, especially when our high speed internet lets us down a lot, often disabling my landline as well.(Sometimes I wish I’d never heard the word “bundle”, to be honest, but we were just trying to save a little money where we can.) Thinking about when we might get the monitoring device, how difficult it might be to use, and how those difficulties  might affect our lives has added stress to simple things, such as our daily trek to the mailbox, especially since people I know in other states have had paychecks tied up for days due to some error or software problem.

Sincerely,

Bohemian Crip and her

Actual Mother