Does it bother you if gov. officials try n "chat"

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Does it bother you (ie make you very agitated or annoyed) when unsettling government officials try and chat with you ?

Like, if they're forcing you to see them for an appointment for no good reason, and threatening to stop your benefits if you won't see them.... but then during the appointment they start behaving like you're friends or something, and try to have a "jolly little chat" with you about stuff ?

It makes me feel really agitated, suspicious of their motives, and annoyed.
We're definitely not jolly chums, I'm only talking to them under duress in the first place... and I don't feel like having a merry little chat for their personal entertainment... and/or so that they can use it to try and make me relax and reveal something which they can use against me (which is why I reckon they're doing it, at least in my case).

It's about as annoying as when they ask you a question (especially a personal one), then while you're trying to answer they just start talking over the top of your reply.
I gave the last idiot a telling off for that, as it's the height of bad manners to do that and she shouldn't be asking questions if she has no interest in the answer.
She started blithering on about how she was interested in the answer (she clearly wasn't though ) but that well, the question wasn't relevant to her quest to tick her lame official boxes... so she had decided not to really listen to the answer, and just cut me off to ask some other stupid (and quite possibly irrelevant) question instead.
Which also annoys me, because I reckon that she shouldn't be asking nosy-ass personal questions at that sort of meeting, unless it's part of the appointment and interrogation process which I'm obligated to do under threat of benefits sanction.

They're just trying to put you at ease, get you relax and to trust them ...

... so that you will reveal some small detail about yourself that they can exploit in order to deny your benefits.

Do you think that actually works on most (any ?) people ?


My natural responses tend to be heightened suspicion and reluctance to give more than a curt reply to things, and to become even more tetchy about the interrogation process than I am already.

It seems to work on the majority of people; at least in interviews. If you can convince the candidate that he or she is in a non-threatening environment, then he or she may be more likely to confide in you something that might "raise a caution flag" during the interview process.

Alternatively, creating a stressful environment seems to accomplish almost the same thing; such as when the subject is hooked up to a Ouija-Graph machine, and the interrogator is playing the "Bad Cop" with no "Good Cop" anywhere in sight.


Same here. When a person who has never been nice to me before (especially a perfect stranger) suddenly starts being nice to me, it's a safe bet that they're trying to get something from me. They may also be trying to distract me long enough for their partners to "do their dirty work" behind my back.

we really are a suspicious bunch, aren't we. I've started using this strategy in reverse. If you relate to the official as if they are a human being rather than just a front for a government machine they may be inclined to reveal information you would normally not be given an easy access to. This doesn't always work but it is worth a try and as long as you remain vigilant to not revealing what you don't want to reveal, it's actually a less painful process going through the interview process and sometimes you get the 'we are all humans in the same boat at the end of the day' vibe about it which can be nice. Still stressful though, but slightly less so maybe.