Am I on a Power Trip? (Electricity in general)

Member Name: Aspen

Product:	Electricity in general
Date:	15/01/01 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well, we can't do without it, can we?

Disadvantages: And we miss it when we lose it.

Or has my power supply tripped again? I have no electricity, and I am unable to find anyone who cares very much.

A little poetic licence. Obviously, I have electricity at the moment, because the coal-fired PC has yet to be invented. Likewise the hamster-wheel-powered dynamo version, though I have given it much thought. I hesitate to develop the idea simply because my Jack Russell views hamsters in much the same way as I view roast beef.

However, (rather cutely, I thought) to the meat of this opinion.

In the run up to Christmas, I had seven power cuts in a fortnight. Some were brief, granted, but others were tediously long. Long enough to seriously interfere with my eating habits. And worst of all, some happened during the night, throwing off the radio alarm. And as other late-night opinion writers will appreciate, having no morning alarm is a mite hazardous.

So what do I do first? I look out of the window to assess the extent of the problem. I am what you may describe as remote. Nearest neighbour quarter of a mile away. But I have the advantage of being on top of a hill, so I can see lights, not only at the various neighbours’, but at the nearest three villages, and from upstairs the nearest two towns. So I can safely say that I can gauge the severity of the fault before Scottish and Southern Energy plc’s fault finding computer has whirred its lumbering gubbins into a gear above lethargy.

I’m ashamed to say that if any of the villages is out, I don’t even bother to pick up the phone. If that sounds mean-spirited or socially irresponsible, I apologise. But past experience has shown this to be such a fraught, traumatic and long-winded exercise, that I ask to be forgiven for letting someone else do it now and again.

Now for some history, or call it nostalgia if you will. When S & S E was The North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board – pre-privatisation, of course, but really not so long
ago – it was a very human, and very contactable organisation. If I had a power cut, I phoned the local depot. The then-equivalent of a call centre was Bill. Bill was the local engineer, and in stormy weather, Bill could be found in his office at any time of day or night, with his flask and sandwiches, a phone, and a prehistoric radio apparatus with which to keep tabs on his linesmen.

The conversation would go like this.

“Bill, I’m off again.”

“Aye, there’s a swan flown into the line just down the brae from Upper Balquindachy. Wullie and Jock are oot there jist noo. If it’s nae back on in ten minutes, phone me back.”

I never had to phone Bill back.

Now we have centralisation, the curse of civilisation as we know it. The disembodied voice which eventually answers after the queuing and the muzack, has slightly less knowledge of geography than I have of neuro-surgery.

I will confine myself to one example, lest this turn into a novel.

First call.

“I think I have located a fault in your area, sir. There is damage to a transformer in Elgin.”

If I got in the car now, and put my foot on the floor, it would take me an hour and a half to get to Elgin.
“I have nothing logged closer to you. Can you call back in ten minutes?”

So I can only conclude that if the fault is not already logged on the system, I’m making it up.

Second call, ten minutes later. Different disembodied voice.

“Can I take your postcode?”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Long pause.

“According to our records that postcode is an unoccupied property.”

Now I’m a squatter.

I remained calm, and asked for the address associated with the postcode. I could confirm that the address was a derelict house nearly half a mile away. There followed a discussion o
n postcodes and updates and databases and addresses. I began to feel we were straying from the point.

The point being, that I was in the dark and my tatties had gone off the boil. I made that point, politely, and the disembodied voice got a little huffy.

“I have no fault logged in that area, sir. Can you call back in half an hour?”

I seethed in the dark, as my stomach began to rumble. Then, miraculously, twenty-five minutes later, there was light! The tatties spluttered into life.

I couldn’t resist.

I phoned again, and insisted on speaking to the one I’d spoken to before – not too easy, as they won’t give their names. But when I recognised the disembodied voice, I asked if their was any progress on the fault I had reported.

“Sorry about the delay, sir. Our system has just logged a fault at the Belfatton transformer. I would expect you to be reconnected in about half an hour.”

I acknowledge that I have many faults. And I can be a smug bu**er at times. But I derived immense satisfaction from telling the disembodied voice that the fault was repaired five minutes ago. “Just thought I’d better keep you up to date.” (Purely in the interests of public service, of course.)

Does Aspen have a point to make, or is he just indulging in anecdotal rambling – again?

My point is this. Service is provided by people. Computers and information systems are tools at the disposal of people. They do not replace people, and they certainly do not replace people’s local knowledge. This headlong rush to cost-effective centralisation by now-privatised ex-Public Utilities does no favours for the consumer. The deregulating of these services may in the longer term help to redress this situation, as customers vote with their feet. But the post-privatisation headlong rush to profit-making is a very short-term vision. And until a longer-term
view is taken, the consumer will continue to suffer.

And may I add, slightly tongue in cheek, that the fact that my Scottish Hydro Electric help centre is now in Basingstoke, does little to pacify me.

Summary: