EDF energy: witless in the wind

It's wonderful having friends in differing economic strata's, cultures, faiths… walks of life; as there’s a sundry of differing obsessions, afflictions, things strange and quirky that affects them (and so many others) that I can’t help, rofl (rolling on the(it used to be rotfl but the ‘t’ tends to be silent in its abbreviated form and not mentioned, except by tits) floor laughing).

From one who's idea of happiness is to be up at 6am and finish working around 9pm, to another who is unable to jam a giant foot anywhere, without it first passing – and usually at speed, through his mouth.

So it was interesting listening to the travails of one of them, whose current energy supplier - edf (one of so many megalothipsaurs), was transferring them from a pre-payment “isn’t that going down faster than it should” meter, to a normal everyday happily whirring away to itself unit, the next.

Easy!

The dawning age of computerisation promised paperless offices and a life of complex free ease! If they’d truly ever realised how things would have turned out, I wonder if they’d have smashed those initial transistors and chased the scientists out of town.

Every mechanic/engineer or, in todays five second buzz-wind, ‘customer presentable problem solver’; seems to be umbilically attached to a small electronic recorder come note-taker, especially when working for one of the aforementioned megas. This wonderful little device makes everything easy and straightforward. Ensuring every job is efficiently undertaken with laser smooth precision. Calls with queries to the mothership are made before, during and after installation. But in this current reality it firmly falls into the arena of comic cock-ups, and descends through the human half of the cybernetically twisted union into an epic fail.

But back to them.

Wishing to keep on top of things, they’ve gone down the path of automatically doing weekly readings, which are spreadsheet’d on and offline. So when they received a card requesting meter readings, it was with unbridled joy that they filled them in. Called. Only to find out that according to the computer, and rude representative, they apparently owed £500.

They assured the representative there must be some error, and that couldn't be the case. The representative assured them that was the case, as that is what computer said.

Not sure why but, images of little britain

A potential representative in training?

sprang through my mind as the growing stream of harrumphing continued from both ends.

Oh yes it does… Oh no it doesn’t…

But then, apparently, friends’ phone packed up and they had to reconnect. This time to a different representative. Who put them on hold.

Moments later the new representative was back on. Apparently, representative one had eventually gotten through and found out there was no debt.

I took a sip of tea.

“A what gesture,” my friend asked surprised. “Oh right, a goodwill gesture. You’ll credit my account, with one pound!”

Bubbling tea sputtered into my saucer. After which, despite my best efforts not to, I had to burst out laughing.

Well it's always nice to know what a big megalothipsaur thinks of its charges, when they have to admit to a right royal cock-up their end; and hence avoid.

Will friends’ change supplier?

Apparently, ohhhh yesssss!