Have I mentioned my battle with the water company to you?
Didn’t think so.
Started a couple weeks ago, when the monthly water bill arrived in my mail.
It was 9 times higher than usual.
The water company claimed our water usage in January was 9 times greater than it had been in December — in fact, 9 times greater than it had ever been in more than 12 years.
So I called ’em on the phone. That’s when things got really ugly.
The bureaucratic toady I talked with didn’t address my problem but quickly lectured me on how the water bill is calculated. He talked about meter readings and multiples of 100 and the cost of a square cubic foot of water.
None of this, of course, had any bearing on the fact that, with no evident leaks in our house, you could’ve floated the Queen Mary 2 in the amount of water the company said Deb and I had used last month.
Here’s all I was looking for: an admission from someone at the water company that, judging from our long billing history, an error had obviously occurred.
Simple, huh?
But no, I got an arrogant sermon and a reminder that my bill was due in two weeks.
You can be sure that to cool off and get some sleep that night, I relied on a few tactics I’ve revealed before — http://www.wallyconger.com/erasemoneyworries.
The good news is that we finally found a water company rep who acknowledged the boo-boo, trimmed our bill to normal size, and thanked us for our patience and business.
I could use this story to blather on about good service, common sense, customer appreciation, etc., etc. But I’ll just sum up this way…
When in business, don’t be a dick.
Later.
“We don’t devote enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.” — Bill Watterson
