This house sitting adventure takes place last summer. I was living with the McQueens, but my uncle, Uncle Joe, asked me to take care of his place while he went away.
Uncle Joe has an old house in Ottawa relatively close to one of the post-secondary schools. He rents the basement out to a student every year.
On the first or second day there I came home from work to find a note on the door from the power company saying that they had to shut off power to the water heater for some reason, and to turn it on again they would have to actually have access to the water heater. All I had to do was call them and set up an appointment.
The next morning I took a shower, but the water wasn't cold. I thought it was odd, but figured there may have been some mix-up, and maybe I didn't have to actually call the power company. Now, for some reason I spent the next couple of nights at the McQueen's house. I assumed the water was still warm at Uncle Joe's.
When I returned my first shower was _cold_! I had to call the company.
Now, the water heater was in the basement, so I had to coordinate a time that I could be there, and that the tenant downstairs could be there too. That could prove to be difficult.
It finally happened. That poor student! Cold showers several days in a row!
It would figure that the company would do that in the two weeks I'm taking care of the place. Of course, it occurs to me if they're going to around shutting off people's hot water, why wouldn't they make appointments? That way they can catch people at home, so they can shut the hot water off, do what they need to, and turn it back on at one time so they wouldn't have to come back? It seems so inefficient. Sure, if they're doing that to a whole neighbourhood it may appear to make sense to do it all at once, rather than mess with appointments. But, they're going to have to make appointments to turn the power back on anyway! Why not do it all at once?
1 comment:
When you say "Of course, it occurs to me if they're going to around shutting off people's hot water, why wouldn't they make appointments? That way they can catch people at home, so they can shut the hot water off, do what they need to, and turn it back on at one time so they wouldn't have to come back? It seems so inefficient. Sure, if they're doing that to a whole neighbourhood it may appear to make sense to do it all at once, rather than mess with appointments. But, they're going to have to make appointments to turn the power back on anyway! Why not do it all at once?", you seem to forget that this is public utility. Efficiency and customer convenience are NOT part of the equation. Same mind set as the "you should stay home and wait around for us all day" appointments from the phone or other service companies. The customer's time is always considered as less valuable than the servicing agency it seems. Maybe if we could bill them back for wait time that would be improve...
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