by sandy82 » July 26th, 2005, 5:18 pm
A genuine sequence of events.
1. Blue sky, no wind. Electricity goes out in entire neighborhood.
2. Call electric company to report outage.
3. Connected to the Phone Tree That Devoured Cleveland.
4. "In order to assist us in locating the precise location of the outage, please enter your phone number, followed by the pound sign."
5. Punch-punch-punch...5-5-5-6-9-6-9. Pound.
6. "That is NOT your phone number." Click. Buzz.
7. Look up own phone number in book. Redial.
8. "....followed by the pound sign." Punch-punch. "That is NOT your phone number." Achtung! Sieg Heil! Click. Buzz.
9. "You have reached automated directory assistance. Please speak the name of the desired party clearly." [Note: if I do that, I go back to the Cleveland-devouring Phone Tree. Hmmm.]
10. "Fum Ducks Quest Stupid Actions."
11. Live voice: "WODjoo say??"
12. "I want to speak to somebody alive at the electric company."
13. "Honey, they got another number, but 'tween us, they never answer it."
14. Go stand on the corner near the traffic light at the intersection.
15. An electric company truck stops for the red. I go stand in the middle of the street, directly in front of the truck. Light turns green. Honk. Red. Green. Honk. In the shoes of Gandhi. Red. Green. Honk. A living electric company employee exits truck, breathing fire. I tell him what I want.
16. "You didn't get these numbers from me, but they fired the union members what used to answer them help lines. Here's the number for the president, VP, Treasurer. But call 'Accounts Receivable.' They answer on the first ring."
16. Repair truck arrives 30 minutes later. "We'da been here sooner, if you'd called."
Ain't deregulation grand?? (BG&E profits are up this quarter.)