holding on

It’s fair to preface this by saying that I have issues. I am very aware. I have a tendency to let the small things, especially those things out of my control, get to me more than they should. Perhaps it is because I crave chaos that I latch on (it’s like a vitamin deficiency almost). Who knows? But yes, I am painfully aware.

I am having flashbacks of the nightmare that we endured when the duplex we were renting changed owners back when we lived in Austin. It seems that our current residence has also recently changed hands. Let the fun begin. I can only imagine where this will lead as this is a 38-story building – let’s hope this is not the mother of roller coaster rides.

Back in Austin when the new owner called to change over the common utilities to her name, it seems that she managed to change ALL of the utilities to her name. A few phone calls later and she got things switched back (so she wouldn’t have to pay the bills). The only problem was that the City now considered us “new” customers (despite that the bill clearly showed we had a previous (yet paid) balance), and wanted to charge us as such. It amounted to about $30. Not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but a) we were both out of work at the time, and b) we had done absolutely nothing wrong!

I don’t have to tell you how many phone calls it took to clear that up and of course it wasn’t helping that by the time it was starting to look settled, we actually were in the process of moving! It wasn’t fun, especially dealing with people who obviously didn’t care.

Fast forward to a week and a half ago. We get a utility bill on the day that our utility bill is due. Odd? Upon closer inspection it seems to be a “final bill”. Quickly I found myself in flashback mode.

I put a notice out on the group that was set up for other students/partners that live in the building. No one responded, so when I got together with some of the partners who live here last week for book club I asked. No one knew what was going on. Several of them were having other issues because they are from other countries and when they signed the lease didn’t have social security numbers so the leasing office wasn’t able (or simply didn’t) send their information over to ComEd. Apparently I thought that this was one of the perks to living here – that I wouldn’t have to call and deal with the utility company.

When I was down at the front desk sending off a fax, I asked the person working the desk if he had heard anything about the utility bills. He had not, but made a call to the management office to ask. The reply he got was that they hadn’t heard anything, had no idea what I was talking about, etc. There was one other person who might know, but wasn’t available. They agreed to get back to me. Of course, I heard nothing.

I decided to just give it time and see what else happened. The new management decided to start a monthly newsletter, which was slipped under our door a couple of evenings ago. While they mentioned that the laundry room would now be open 24 hours, there alas was no mention of the problem with ComEd. Oh well. Clearly I was dealing with the cream of the crop as the first item in the newsletter was to correct their own phone number. These folks are on the ball.

Today we received a notice from ComEd informing us that someone other than ourselves had requested that the utilities be changed over to their name. Seems like maybe we should have received this before the final bill, no? It stated that if we were not indeed moving, we should call them ASAP.

So I called. First they wanted to know if I wished to continue in English. Pressed “1”. Next it was if I wanted to enter my phone number or account number (given that my phone number is listed in their system as “999.999.9999”, I opted for the ten-digit account number. Entered it wrong the first time around, so tried again. Success!

Not quite. Now it was time to pick an option for why I was calling. As “because you people are a bunch of ‘fuck-ups’” was not on the menu, I went for “moving services”. I got to listen to a commercial for how I could be doing this all from my desktop thanks to the Internet. I thought to myself, “How is this helping anyone?” Gah!

I still was not transferred to a person. Now they wanted me to say my phone number! So I said, “nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine.” And it repeated back, “Did you say: nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine?” I pressed “1” to confirm that I had indeed said that. Apparently I was not riled enough and had one more hoop to jump through.

Lastly I had to pick from one of the following options: new service, change to existing service or terminating service. Again, none of these really fit. I tried not picking anything, but it just waited a few seconds and repeated. So I pressed “2”. Before being transferred I was informed that my call might be recorded for quality control. Hit “record” baby, was all I could think.

At long last a live human answered on the other end. I confirmed my address and explained that I was calling per the instructions on the notice I had received. I told her that I was not moving, but that the 38-story building where I lived had recently changed hands. I also explained that perhaps when they had called to change over the common utilities somehow they managed to get the entire building turned over.

She confirmed that the new management were indeed the ones that had requested the bills be sent to them henceforth. I explained that as far as I knew the new management was not agreeing to pay my electric bill as part of the deal, but I honestly hadn’t heard either way and didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I mean if they wanted to pay it, I honestly have no problems with that.

I was actually surprised that there hadn’t been any notes on the system. I mean there are a couple of hundred apartments in this building. It seems hard to believe that I am the lucky one. The woman explained that she hadn’t heard anything. I was the first person she had talked to from my building. The supervisors didn’t know anything either. I agreed to check on this end a little further and see what I could find out. Meanwhile a note was put on the file.

I left a message for someone named Kathy. I suspect she took off early for the weekend. Her voicemail message specifically requested that I leave a “brief” message so I didn’t get to go into all the details. Looks like I might have to make an appearance on Monday and get this thing settled.

For the record I should note that the squirrel incident occurred around the same time as the utility incident. Understandably I am on edge although we don’t have a fireplace here. Another part of me is convinced that somehow I am the only one in the building that this has happened to, and am tempted to buy a lottery ticket. Instead I am thinking of just holding a pity party in the laundry room in bit.

background noise: 100 years :: five for fighting