On Saturday the lights went out, but it’s not just the lights, it’s the freezer, the medical equipment, the rescue animals heating pads, the tropical fish heater, the poorly pugs electric blanket, the fridge, the wifi, the GIFT GUIDES, which should be out by now.
11 updates on when it will be fixed despite knowing there is no intention to even visit the area. It’s cruel. Just as cruel as telling us to climb a ladder to play with the electrics as surely it’s our fault, not theirs?
Then the pipes burst. The poorly dog has an accident, no way to clean her. She goes for euthanasia tomorrow filthy. Without the treats we thought we could give her in her last days on this earth.
Still National Grid continue to lie. We know some people are worse off, have more than animals dying left right and centre, have more than a chest infection and freezers full of animal food but still.. we’re bitter. It does tend to get a little solipsistic when you’ve not had a shower in 6 days, you’re thanking Mountain Warehouse for their thermal leggings and you’re spending a fiver a time on gas canisters boiling chicken for a poorly dog.
When everyone goes to bed at sun down, 5pm as the candles have run out, the only network is in the middle of THIS field, we can’t even read by candlelight and when we do see people they ask if we put our makeup on in the dark.
Yet National Grid continue to lie.
A disabled son who can’t leave his room, who can’t get the care he needs without power. Daughters staying elsewhere, somewhere warm, and god, do I miss them.
A client who thinks I must be making it up so dropped me like a hot brick, right before Christmas when I need funds to fill the stockings. “6 days? But we live in the UK, if you don’t want this job you should just say.”
I need funds to refill the fridge and freezer which smell like sour milk and rotten fish but life is already a bit grim so I’m closing the doors and thinking of David Teninch.
A trip to the doctors with warm running water to scrub off the paint on my hands after, through thorough boredom, I decided to paint the woodwork navy blue. Then daylight arrived. I’ve achieved a blue polka dot finish on the stone floor too, fetching.
A paramedic that tells me I need to use a nebuliser, I need a hot bath, vapours, a hot meal. Oh how he giggled when he realised I’d told him at the outset I’ve had no power for days. “Silly me,” he said, “just go to an and e instead.”
“Yes sir,” I replied, “I’d love their free WiFi but with 5 dogs, 7 cats, 24 geese, ducks, chickens, pigeons, and oh did I mention the disabled son? I just can’t up and leave.”
“Well then, I can’t help you, Merry Christmas!” Indeed.
So now I stand against a draughty window, an angel tells me to believe (literally, she’s made of wood) and I find rare 4g. 4g to spill my guts to anyone who cares, as National Grid don’t, to have a rant from my phone, hoping grammar is forgiven, as National Grid aren’t.
It’s not all bad, there could be compensation. £250! That will surely cover the contract lost, the freezer defrosts, the fridge stuff tossed, the pets, gone.
The pipes burst, the late work, the hermit son, the cold and darkness seeping into every single bone.
Yes, £250 will do it, just be sure to add a few lies on top, and the cherry on top of that.
In an age where we’re pushed towards electric, electric cars, electric phones on WiFi, smart appliances, homework in the cloud, where we have no choice but to choose the power, where pen and paper are obsolete, the dial up phone, extinct, surely we’d make sure the very source would be up to standard first?
Surely when a power company changes its name, promises to do better, it does better than its forefathers not worse. Yet here they are, National Grid, exceeding every disappointment made by Western Power. Soon to be known as the Not East Electric as they’re running out of names.
See my full rant in the Metro this week. I realise it sounds entitled, I realise things could be worse, I know I’m more fortunate than most, and the electric guys have been working round the clock in all conditions but the hope they’ve spouted, the goalposts they’ve shifted and the blatant lies they’ve told leave me angry. When they promise to have it back on in hours then, at the eleventh hour add another 12 hours, then 24, then 48 it leaves us unable to plan anything, unable to leave the building, unable to make provisions as there’s that hope, that’s then dashed only for someone to tell us to play with the switches as it should be on by now.
Honesty, Integrity and Care go a long way in customer service today, just thank god they haven’t discovered AI yet!
