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TOM MORGAN'S MONEY TALK
''I solemnly promise to be here.'' My very words. To the woman from the electric & gas company. She had called to tell me I must be at my house to let the meter reader in. ''But I can read the meter for you right now,'' I offered. She told me that self-reading was okay most of the time. But their meter guy had to check us out once a year. Make sure there was no gas leaking. (''But I can sniff around the pipe...'') There was no escape. And so I gave my solemn promise to be at the house at 10 a.m. Tuesday. ''What if he does not show?'' She gave me an 800 number to call in the unlikely event. At 10:30, no meter guy. So, I called the number. The words ''Where the hell is your meter man??'' had already gathered in my throat. Got the ol' electronic switchboard. It offered various options. I tried one. I tried another. I tried another. I tried another. Not one of the options connected me with a solution. Nor with a living person. I grabbed the phone book. It gave me only the 800 number. Nothing more. This is a big electric & gas company. It has hundreds of thousands of customers. It has walled itself off with an electronic switchboard. None of us can reach a human being connected with the company. I knew I was smart enough to get through. I called the number again. Got the switchboard and its swag of options. I chose the one option I had left alone: Emergencies. ''If you are calling to report a gas leak....'' I was certain that a gas leak call would go straight to a real, live, human..... Electronic message? Nah. Couldn't be. ''If you are calling to report a gas leak, please enter your customer number. You will find it on the latest copy of your billing.'' To this day I picture an heroic parent who finds her house is filled with gas and calls this switchboard. Her dying words become ...''maybe the bill is in this drawer. I've looked everywhere else.'' Kaboom! There is no way to reach a person at this electric & gas company. Not one of the electronic options will connect you with one. So, I phoned the state's Public Service Commission. ''Hi, I'm trying to contact....'' Whoops. I was babbling to an electronic switchboard. After choosing a few options I heard a voice from a live woman. When she heard my problem she hooked me up with a customer service representative at the electric & gas company. The customer service woman phoned the meter guy and reported that he would show up at my house within minutes. He did. He told me he thought we were supposed to meet at 9:30 instead of 10. I told him about my travels over the many branches of his company's electronic switchboard. ''We get a lot of complaints about that,'' he said, rolling his eyes. ''A lot.'' He read my meter in 12 nanoseconds. But what about sniffing around the pipes to see if there's a leak? Which is what started this silly circus. ''We don't need to do that. Customers usually can smell a leak. They can phone our emergency.....'' Of course I have jammed this into my There-Ought-To-Be-A-Law File. Any company that sells over $500 to any homeowners in the course of a year ought to be required to answer their damned phones. And any company that sells gas ought to have an emergency number that reaches a person. And for any company that did not comply? Kaboom! From Tom...as in Morgan.
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