v21.7 - Disconnection Notice

Morning folks,

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I'm sure everyone has received, at one time or another, a disconnection notice of some type of service whether it be electricity or water or even telephone/internet. Well I received one such letter in the mail yesterday and I'm not very happy about it.

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I'm not sure about electricity companies in your area of the world but the one I use is making so much money it makes me sick. This company made record profits last year and then had the nerve to want to hike the rates to help cover the cost of "infrastructure upgrades". This is the same power company that took 4 hours to return power to my house last week during a storm when the Tim Horton's down the road from me had power all night. In fact, even my sister who only lives a few minutes from me had power. The same company that had to employ outside help to restore power to hundreds of people this past winter because their crummy infrastructure couldn't handle the bombardment of snow storms we had.

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Normally I don't write about stuff like this but here is the issue. I get this notice in my mail yesterday after just making a payment on the account last pay; imagine my surprise when the notice came. Then I look at the disconnection date and it is dated for today! The letter is dated the 20th of February (before my last payment) and it didn't arrive at my house for a whole 17 days! Well I promptly picked up the phone to get to the bottom of this matter and low and behold, their offices are closed. I listen to the entire message and at the end was told to press 0 to talk to someone.

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In my experience, pressing 0 at the beginning of a phone tree can save you a LOT of time. Having to sit through these "convenient" message trees to get to the right place you want is a pain in the ass. In fact, I would say the convenient part of these automated phone services is not for the customer, but for the company who uses them. What has happened to the days of making a phone call and getting a real person on the other end? Why do I have to listen carefully to the following menu because some of the options have changed? Why the hell does a utility service that provides 24x7 service not employ a 24x7 staff to address my concerns and issues?

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I press 0 and am greeted with a burly sounding woman. She introduced herself as an "Outage support rep". I thought I was in luck and would be able to get this matter resolved now rather than having to wait until their office hours the next day (the day of disconnect). Of course that was too much to hope for because after taking a minute to explain my situation to the lady (whom I was sure was a bit overweight and dressed head to toe in leather sitting on the back of a motorcycle behind a greasy long-haired guy with a t-shirt that read "If you're reading this the bitch fell off") who fell silent for a few seconds and calmly told me (as calmly as a burly woman can) that she couldn't help me and I would need to call back tomorrow morning when the office was open. I made sure I expressed my point very clearly and mentioned that I had received a disconnection notice TODAY and my power will be shut off TOMORROW. The woman paused for a few more seconds and then told me something that set my mood on fire. "Sir, our systems are down right now so I can't even bring up your account information to help you."

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Needless to say, I was pissed off! I logged into WoW and went on a killing spree and slayed undead mobs until I was calm again. I even created a new female human, called her BurlyBitch, dressed her head to toe in leather and made her jump off this huge cliff; joking of course. I have been treated poorly by a lot of people in my life but this lady was so rude it just set my whole night spinning. I recovered but today I just had to write about it.

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I made it to work at my usual time (just before 8am) and as soon as my clock turned 8:00 I picked up the phone and dialed the power company. I was greeted by this nice lady named Madonna (no joke) who was able to assist me and I was able to resolve the matter quickly and to my liking. Fear not, for my power will be on at the end of the day today and all will be good.

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Anyway folks, just needed to share my frustration here. Hopefully I was able to put a funny spin on it so lighten the mood a bit so it didn't sound like I was just ranting. I'm starting to lose faith in Tim Horton's as I haven't won anything in quite awhile. It started off great, but now I'm in a bit of a losing streak. Perhaps today is the day I'll win the $10,000!!

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Cheers,
Al