I’m not quite sure if DEP is a universal abbreviation so, just in case it isn’t, that stands for the department of environmental protection. That’s who we pay for our water & sewers here in NYC.
They got this brilliant idea to pay people thousands of dollars to install some sort of automatic electronic reader in everyone’s home rather than paying people to go around and read the current meters. Personally I don’t see that as cost efficient but, then, when did a government agency ever do anything that was cost efficient?
But moving on, I’m not certain that we ever got a notice about this work being done. If anything came at all, I’m thinking it was stuffed in with the bill – like I pay attention to anything stuffed into a bill. In any case, I had no idea anyone was coming until I saw a little notice hanging on my door that said they were here but couldn’t gain access and I need to reschedule.
Personally, I found it rather irritating that someone expected me to be home and yet never told me when they’d show up. How was I supposed to know this wasn’t some sort of scam? They probably wanted to just get in here and rob me. Oh, well. The only thing I ever had of value was already stolen – so there! you can’t get anything from me, anyway!
That was a few weeks ago. This afternoon I happened to be out and came home to another notice that they had been here to upgrade my meter but oops, no one was home. And if I don’t call the number right away, they might deny me service.
Fine. I’ll call the stupid number. Which I did. “Press 1 for this, 2 for this, 3 for this….” When I finally just hit zero, I was told there was a wait & 7 other people were ahead of me. I hung up. Yeah, like I have nothing better to do than wait to talk to someone & schedule another appointment. Uh, I mean my first appointment since I never had an actual appointment in the first place.
I wander into the kitchen to stuff my face with something & see a DEP truck parked across the street. Obviously they are still around, in one of my neighbor’s homes.
Since I’ll be around for the rest of the day, I decided to try something. I took the notice he had stuck in my mailbox. I wrote on the back of it that I’m home now if he wants to come & install the stupid thing (I didn’t word it exactly like that) and I put the notice under his windshield wiper.
20 minutes later – the truck is gone. Clearly getting all the meters updated is not a huge priority to the guy.
Editing to add – the woman found my little note, came back & did install it. Not only that, being a woman & all, she cleaned up after herself & there was no mess down in the basement. Not that I’m trying to be sexist or anti-guy or anything but I’m sorry. All the men I know are slobs.
About 5 years ago the electric company went through and put meters in that no one had to read, it as all done electronically. We were assured it would be a huge time and money saver. I went on paying my normal bill for a couple of years without any problem. One day I got a bill from the electric company for over 500 dollars. My normal bill is between 150 and 250 dollars a month, depending on the season. When I called to ask about the bill I was told the computer hadn’t been reading mine like it was supposed to be so they finally got it working correctly and now I had to make up the difference. TWO YEARS difference that absolutely had to be paid in one month. I paid it but made sure they knew how unhappy I was. It took 2 years for them to screw it up that bad so why should I have to pay for their mistake all at once.