difficult customer, me

(low point of an otherwise pleasant day)

They’ll probably use their recording of my call for ‘training purposes’ : How to handle a cranky old woman who doesn't want to pay her bill and tries to rile you up with a whole lot of political/environmental ant-capitalist  hogwash.

I promised myself a while back never to do this again - get stroppy with the poor phone-answering wage slave employees, of the corporate entities which seem to rule our lives nowadays - Telstra, Optus et al. 

But I lost it today. Back from holidays, sifting through the mail, there’s an overdue notice from Unity Water. They say I owe them $436.42, and that they are charging me 11%, compounding daily. For supplying water to the beach house for six months. I don’t know what to be more furious about : the outrageous amount, when we are such frugal water-users; the fact that I never got an original bill; or that this is after almost twenty years of punctual bill-paying. And isn’t it direct debited anyway?

I have to say that Leanne, the customer service officer or whatever they’re called, who is unlucky enough to get me on the other end of the line, is a pretty smooth operator. She patiently explains that water charges used to be part of council rates, but aren’t any more. 

And yes, I am correct - council rates have not been reduced accordingly, but actually increased since then. She says The Queensland Government decided to outsource water supply, and to make us pay. Unity sent me the required paperwork last year. I don’t tell her that I probably chucked it straight in the bin. 

And No, she does not think it at all  wrong that a private company now makes a profit from supplying citizens with such a basic need as water, and from charging interest, even on a bill never recieved. Nor is she concerned with the fact that, as it turns out, only $34 of my bill is even for actual water. The rest is all ‘infrastructure’, sewerage and  water ‘processing’ She thinks Unity are doing a good job. 

Of course you just work there, you don’t make these decisions, Can I talk to your supervisor?  Pathetic, cliched bleats of the powerless consumer. I can’t get a rise out of her. She’s enjoying humiliating me. I’m a fool. Just shut up and pay. 

But it is  depressing that our god-given water should now be commodified and sold to us. Back in the old days it wasn’t like this.  Do you reckon that’s fair? Leanne thinks it’s entirely fair. And tells me I’d still have to pay for the infrastructure, even if I did install a big rainwater tank.  

No alternative is there? I whimper, as she crisply  extracts my email address so she can send me the forms for my bank account details.