Location: Staffordshire, Bangalore.

What is it with customers at the minute and demanding to know where I am?

I have a blatant Midlands accent. Definitely British and yet customers repeatedly and determinedly ask me whether or not I'm in England. For any American readers this is like being called by someone with an obvious thick Texan accent and demanding to know if they are in America or not.

I know large companies outsource a lot but sheesh....very few outsource workers talk with a British regional accent.

One more odd story, of a type we get a lot:

A colleague of mine called a customer to get a reading which resulted int eh following exchange:

(Usual preamble)
Colleague: Would it be possible to get a meter reading this evening?
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: Can we get a meter reading?
Customer: A what?
Colleague: A reading....for the electricity.
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: A meter reading (Thumps head on desk, entire department is laughing at him)
Customer: Oh, which one?
Colleague: Electricity.
Customer: Pardon?
Colleague: The electricity meter.
Customer: What about it?
Colleague: Could you get a reading for it?
Customer? A What?
Colleague: A reading....(Entire department is cracking up, other customers are now on hold so we can hear how this pans out)
Customer: Sorry, I'm hard of hearing.
Colleague: (Groan) Ok, I'll send you a letter instead, ok?
Customer: Ok.

Bear in mind, the customer heard all the usual preamble perfectly well, including asking for the first line of the address and the postcode. My colleague guessed that he simply couldn't be bothered to get the reading, however the discussion he wound up having with my colleague probably took longer then getting the reading would have.

Some people go to so much effort to be lazy it's incredible.

It's not winter yet!

So, Sunday 18th of November....and the first snow of the year. I just want to know where our summer went!

Anyway, weather complaints said here's some more idiocy from work:

Mr Entitled wasn't satisfied when I said we'd get the start reading for his account re-agreed once we got a meter reading, which he was refusing to get himself. He demanded a manager call him back with details of what we were going to do for him. Ugh....

A customer and his wife had a five minute argument over where his glasses were.

Two more people couldn't understand that I needed to talk to the account holder because the law says I have to and not because I was being deliberately obtuse.

After introducing myself to a customer he went to get his meter read and I could clearly hear him say to someone else in the room "Some f***ing paki says I gotta read the meter" Unfortunately we get this far too often. For the record, I'm Caucasian, I was born in England and have lived all my life in Britain. My name is Hebrew which is why some people make assumptions. Some day we'll be able to press a "bigoted idiot" button on the phone and the customer's handset will blow up...

One customer gave me her telephone number instead of her postcode when I asked.

Another person demanded to know how I got their number....how the heck am I supposed to answer that?

Far Too Many Jackasses On The Road

Walking to work yesterday I had a little run-in with some random jackass in a car, for some reason, only known to them, they decided to throw a rock at me, it hit me in the head, I'm damn lucky I came away with nothing more than a graze and a small bruise. They thrower also yelled something at me, probably not complementary, unfortunately all I could tell that it was a young-ish male.

I wish I could have seen or heard more so that I could have reported them to the police, they could kill someone! It's lucky I have a thick skull.

Standard Notes

When we've dealt with a customer or modified their account in any way we have to leave a note in the account diary telling anyone who follows us what's been done. Thing is, we have very limited space, so our notes look like an horrendously mangled mess of "l33t" speak, contractions and abbreviations. Here's a sample, original first, then a translation underneath.

As per feas wrn rpt clrd fms rd 12789-a7 6598-a8 10/11/07 as in line with eh. gp39 location

As per the feasibility warning reports (the lists of non-billable accounts we need to fix) cleared the flow management system reads 12789 night rate 6598 day rate for 10/11/07 as it matches previous consumption in energy history. my username my location.

As per feas er rpt canx epps rd 12-a7 589786-a8 11/11/07 as does not fit eh, poss missed mex, sent irl to gain 2nd rd. gp39 location

As per the feasibility error report (more serious problems than warnings but usually easier to fix) canceled the electric pre-payment system read 12 night 589786 day for 11/11/07 as it does not match previous consumption in energy history. It's possible there has been a missed meter exchange, sent invalid read letter to gain a second read. My username my location.


And people wonder why i can't type at the end of my shifts...

Ages Past

So, I'm going to begin my blog by explaining exactly what i do...

I work for part of the Billing department in a major UK power company. We have two main functions.
First we fix accounts that aren't billing properly, this is usually due to meter readings not existing, being too high, being too low or making no sense at all.
Secondly we call customers in the evening to get meter readings for the gas and electricity, and this is where the fun begins. A lot of people can't read their meter, for various reasons, fair enough, but some of the things that confuse them are beyond comprehension.

So, let's have a few examples...

• Called Mrs Jones (All customers will have falsified names, mainly because I can't remember their names by now) She happily confirms her postcode and the first line of her address, but once I ask her for a meter read she gets defensive. "What are you going to use this information for?" she asks. To bill you I reply. "How do i know that you're not a load of con men trying to scam me out of my money?!" er...what? I really want to know how she thinks I can scam her using a meter reading. Oh well.

• Called Mr Brown, he asks if i can call him back in ten minutes because he's just putting his kids to bed. I hang up and call back ten minutes later, he has turned his mobile phone off. Git.

Sometimes it's customer's names that confuse us, for example:

• Mr Jesus Christ God Of Power. No I'm not joking... according to the notes on our system the man truly believes this and once called up and demanded to know why his bills were being sent to his real name. He also let a meter reader in to the property then proclaimed that we could not cut off his electricity because he was Jesus Christ God Of Power, and he would cut off our electricity instead.

• The DEHD. Turns out it's the Defence Estates Housing Directorate, but the name gave us a giggle, especially when we found a note saying "Received a letter from the DEHD stating that Mrs Berkley had moved out and the DEHD took over on that date". For non-English speakers DEHD as a single word would be pronounced dead.

Now and then meter readers confuse or amuse us:

• Can't read meter, puppy in the way.

• Can't read meter, customer has built a wall in front of it.

• Can't read meter, customer answered door naked and refused entry.

• Could not read meter, customer was visible hiding behind a chair in the living room and refused to answer door.

• Checked meter, nothing wrong, customer is taking the piss.

And finally, sometimes it's the customers themselves that make us scratch our heads:

• A meter reader was sent out to check on a meter that wasn't showing any usage for a while, he couldn't get access because the homeowner was out, he left a card and continued on his way. The next note on the account was from a social worker dealing with the customer's affairs, the note said that they believed that there was no usage of gas because the woman had believed that aliens were coming in through the gas pipes at night and had turned it off at the master shut-off. A later not said she had been detained under the mental health act. I felt very sorry for her.

So there we go, just a small sample of the craziness I've experienced so far. I'll update this blog as i encounter more weird and wonderful people.

Who Am I?

So, hi. Welcome to Power assisted.

I've caved in to some odd internal urge to start documenting the wierdness that sometimes happens around me. Let's see how long i manage to keep this up.

So, who am i?

Well, you'll have to forgive me for not posting my name, I kinda like my Job and since a lot of the wierdness I encounter comes directly from that job I'd like to stay anonymous.

What I will tell you:

I'm 21
I'm female
I'm a student
I work part-time for a large British power company
A lot of my customers are assholes (How's that for setting the tone of the blog?!)

There are other things i could tell you, such as my ability to speak three languages, but I'm willing to wager no-one really cares. And that's assuming anyone other than me ever reads this thing...

So, let the posting commence.