When Life Gives You Lemons . . .

When life gives you lemons . . . make lemonade, right? Well, let me just say that after the last week I have about 100 gallons of lemonade, and I'm seriously low on sugar. I mentioned in my last post some of the difficulty we had with our electric provider. I have to admit that I did not handle the situation with the grace that I would have liked. It pretty much happened like this . . .

About a month ago we found out that the retail electric company we recently signed up with was going out of business before we even received our first bill from them. As a result, we did our research and signed up with Reliant. My husband called them and went through the obligatory process to have our electricity switched. We explained at the time that we were customers of the company that was going under. In fact, we paid an additional fee to have our switch made more quickly as we did not want to be caught paying the Provider of Last Resort (POLR) rates.

Breathing a sigh of relief that we had taken care of the issue, we assumed all was well. Then, a couple of weeks ago we received (within days of each other) a letter stating that our switch was being made and a bill made out to "Mass Transition Customer." The bill stated that we owed a $390.00 deposit since we were prior customers of said defunct electric provider. Like a dutiful and responsible bill payer, my husband phoned Reliant to determine why we were getting a bill when we were told that there would be no deposit.

The representative soothed our fears saying that we should ignore the bill. It was an automated mail-out to everyone who had been switched over to them as POLR. We were told that since we had made the switch ourselves there would be no deposit necessary. So, we took his advice and ignored it.

Now, last weekend we received a last minute call to help chaperon a group of teens from our congregation on a trip to San Antonio. We gladly told them we would help. We had a nice time on the trip. We really enjoyed going to Fiesta Texas and spending time with our friends, but after spending two nights on a hard floor, trying to keep my little one happy for 3 days with not enough sleep, and being cramped in a van for many hours, I was ready to be home.

Unfortunately, we arrived home to find that our automatic garage door opener did not respond when we tried to open it. I knew immediately what had happened - they cut off our power because of the deposit we were told we didn't have to pay. I contacted Reliant and spent an inordinate amount of time being "handled" by one of their reps who repeatedly told me, "I understand how you feel." Now, no offense to customer service reps out there, my husband used to be one, but the last thing I wanted to hear was that she, sitting in her air conditioned office, understood what I felt as I sat in my powerless house sweating like I just ran a marathon. She wanted to explain what had happened. I knew exactly what happened - they fouled up! I did my part, and they could not manage to do theirs.

Eventually, I put my husband on the phone to "hold" while they checked on what they could do because getting my lights on was not possible I was told. Miraculously, when they heard a man's voice on the other end of the line, everything began falling into place. And that burns me up too. No matter whether you talk to a male or female in customer service, I have found without fail that my husband can always get a response before I do. So much for equality of the sexes.

So, to bring this rant to a close, they put us up at the local La Quinta after we waited over an hour for them to make the hotel arrangements. We ended up checking out the next day and spending most of the day with my parents because the electricity was still out when we tried to go home. We finally made it home at about 5 o'clock.

My husband also had to spend another hour on the phone with a different representative that afternoon trying to have them remove the deposit from our bill. He really has the patience of Job. They had trouble finding all of the previous calls to verify our claim because IMO, they are inept.

Now, we are waiting to hear back from Reliant's claims department because we lost all of the food in our refrigerator. We went and replaced the few things that we couldn't live without, and we'll work up from there.

I know and understand that companies have policies. I realize that those policies probably have very good business basis. However, I believe that every company should remember that they are dealing with people. Have some compassion and do what is right by your customers. Build and implement your policies so they not only benefit you but the people you are supposed to be serving.

I suppose I am an idealist. I will grant you that I do tend to be optimistic. For me the glass is most often half full. I have done my best to "look on the bright side." I have thought that my bill will be lower this month because I was without power for several days. I considered that losing all the food in my fridge was a terrific opportunity to clean it out. I even went so far as to enjoy the night we spent at the hotel by letting my little one sleep in the "big bed" and turn circles in her sleep. We were even grateful that we were able to take her swimming the next morning.

But if you see me or talk to me in the next few days, and I appear to be a little grumpier than usual, please don't mention lemonade!