timeline

[topaz]

Notes to myself for the complaint letter I'm drafting:

Thursday: keyne discovers that we have no hot water. Calls Keyspan and makes an appointment for a service rep to come by on Friday, after 9:30 (when she returns from dropping off the kids).

Friday, 9:15 a.m.: Service rep comes, leaves note on door.

Friday, 9:45 a.m.: Ellen calls Keyspan, screams at them a bit, reschedules for later that day.

Friday, 4:00 p.m.: Ellen calls Keyspan, asks when a service rep is going to show up. Is told that the service rep came by at 1:00 p.m. and no one was home. Tells Keyspan that is not possible, as she has been waiting by the front door all day and no one has visited.

Friday, 4:30 p.m.: I call Keyspan to schedule another service visit. Lose my temper somewhat when the phone droid tells me that no one can come by tonight and it will have to be on Saturday. Ask to speak to a supervisor. She says a supervisor will have to call me back, so takes my work phone number.

Friday, 6:00 p.m. No return call from Keyspan, but a service technician shows up unexpectedly at the house to go bang on the heater. Emerges to report that he can't fix it with the equipment he has on hand, and the tech tomorrow will have to take care of it.

Saturday, 9:30 a.m. Having grown older and wiser, I call Keyspan just to confirm our appointment for today. Am told that we need a part. (We were not previously told this.) The parts department is closed for the weekend and a parts manager will call us on Monday. We have no hot water, I point out to the phone rep. Isn't there some way to escalate the situation to get an emergency repair performed? The rep makes vaguely sympathetic noises but repeats that the parts department is not open over the weekend.

Saturday, 10:00 a.m. Ellen calls P&H companies referred by the elbow-joints crowd, arranges for a technician to visit around 1:30 p.m.

Saturday, 12:00 p.m. Leaving a note on the door in case the tech comes by early ("PLEASE CALL US!! PLEASE DON'T LEAVE!!") we take the family to Mom & Dad's house for some badly needed showers.

Saturday, 1:30 p.m. Heating engineer shows up promptly, sets to work on the furnace.

Saturday, 4:00 p.m. Having repaired the broken gas valve, engineer presents bill and leaves.

[flash forward five days...]

Thursday, 2:00 p.m. The Keyspan parts manager -- the one who was supposed to call us on Monday -- calls to schedule an installation of the igniter.

"Igniter?" says Ellen. "It was a broken gas valve."

"Says here an igniter," parts guy says.

Just for grins, Ellen asks, "When would someone be available to install this part?"

"Next week sometime, ma'am."

Pause.

"Can you tell me," asks Ellen, "how long Keyspan thinks it's reasonable to go without hot water?"

"You don't have hot water?" parts guy asks in surprise. "They didn't tell me that."

Comments

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Might also ask how long they think they're likely to stay in business....

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

dude! Are you kidding? "We're the gas company. We don't have to compete."

[sandhawke.livejournal.com]

Remember before Aubrey was born when Keyspan came to our house every weekday for 2 weeks to try to get us enough gas flow to run our new hot water heater? This involved ripping up and repaving the street three times, but fortunately only digging a trench 130 feet to the house once. (After they laid that whole new pipe, it still didn't work, but they were able to fix it without laying yet another one.)

The quintessential moment was when they showed up with maybe 12 people and two backhoes and a dump truck and were waiting for me to put the dogs away, and when I apologized for it taking so long (maybe 2 minutes) they were totally laid back and said "Don't worry, we've got all day."

But yes, every day it was a different crew who knew only the vaguest bit about the history of the problem. I got pretty good at summarizing it for them. Sometimes there'd be someone I had seem before, but usually it wasn't the foreman so it didn't matter much.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Oh... well, time to research whether people make "rural gas co-ops" or the like?

wokka wokka ?

Here, we just assume the "gas company" is responsible just for getting gas here. After that, we find someone good and stick with them. But we're city, not even suburban.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

Nothing like a big monopoly to generate inefficiency, waste, and a bureacracy whose motto is "we're gonna make you kill a few thousand trees before we do anything...here's another form!"

[lcohen]

oh wow.

man, that is impressive. my furnace died twice last winter and i'm just sitting here being grateful that i was never without heat for more than 24 hours.

timeline

[actjack.livejournal.com]

Usually I reccomend repairing one's own appliances,but, about 20 years ago, as I was installing a gas furnace in my garage workshop my hunting buddy dropped by. He owns a Heating & AC Company. He watched awhile, then said, 'Let me tell you a story"
Once there was a paratrooper, went up to 20,000' & jumped (HAHO), pulled his ripcord & NOTHING HAPPENED! He calmly checked all his equipment & pulled the ripcord again. STILL NOTHING! He's now at 8000' @ 200mph & pulls the release on his Emergency chute. NOTHING HAPPENS! Starting to panic he notices a man with a tool bag passing him, only this guy is going up insread of down.
"Hey", he hollered. "Do you know anything about parachutes?
"No", the guy replied. "Do you know anything about GAS VALVES?"