baby book and pg&e
First of all, I would like to recommend a book to everyone who has children under 5 or who wants to have children in the future. We're reading it for one of my classes and it is just fabulous. Anyway, you should check it out: Being the Parent You Want To Be: A Sourcebook of Strategies for the First Five Years by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser.
Second, I would like to express how much I hate PG&E right now. For our kitchen remodel, we need more electricity coming into our house. We submitted an application for this work (pulling wires 20 feet to our box) at the beginning of February. Oh, did I say yet that they required a $2500 deposit just to submit an application? Ya. They also said that it could take up to FIVE MONTHS before they got to the work. They said someone would contact us soon to set up an appointment for someone to come to our house and check out what needs to be done. After not hearing from anyone and not being clear on this whole process, Tim started the challenge of talking to the representative for our area. This guy is always on his cell phone whenever we hear from him. I say "hear from him" because until today, we were just exchanging phone messages. Phone messages that we could not understand a word of because he is always on his cell phone.
Tim called a week or so ago asking specific questions and asking the guy to call back. He called back last week but, of course, didn't have our file in front of him so he couldn't answer the questions we had. Why call back if you can't even answer the questions? So Tim called and left another message. Finally I was home today when the guy called again, so I gave him Tim's mobile number.
Tim said he got to talk to him for awhile. Of course the guy didn't have the file in front of him again because he was once again on his cell phone. He started asking about gas lines, which we aren't doing at all. When he realized that we had submitted our application at the beginning of February, he said we were "jumping the gun" even though we haven't heard from anyone about someone coming out to check out the work. He also started giving ballpark estimates of $3000 to do the work! THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS to pull a wire 20 feet. Of course, this won't happen for five more months though. Our electrical lines are underground. Keep in mind that if the lines are above ground, they do this for FREE.
Oh, and the guy never left his direct number so whenever Tim would call, he would always get the person at the front desk. She just tells him that this guy knows what he's talking about and seems upset that we've called so many times. Tim says, "The thing that kills me is that there's a pamphlet that i got that shows the steps, and makes it look easy and simple. But we haven't even gotten to step one yet! and nobody can even tell me what to expect."
I hate PG&E.
matt said:
oh my lord.
you're kidding.
wtf.
Posted on March 4, 2005 04:08 PMalison said:
If only I were...
Posted on March 4, 2005 04:28 PMGenevieve Ortlieb said:
So a total of $5500 just to pull a stinking wire 20 feet??? That's highway robbery!
I wonder if you could call a news station and report the horrible fees and horrible service and see if they'll do a story and you'll get your stuff done? Like Seven on your Side here. But Austin is so much smaller than San Francisco I'm not even sure if your news stations do something like that.
Posted on March 4, 2005 04:34 PMEmy said:
We totally have our own Seven on Your Side, and it's called exactly that. KGO is ABC7.
Abigail said:
I have that book! I need to crack it out again. It is a great resource.
Sorry to hear about your electricity! :(
Posted on March 4, 2005 07:08 PM