Many Americans face a similar struggle. Time marches forward, incomes vary, and are rarely enough, yet the bills seem to come with the regularity of a cesium atomic clock, and they generally get bigger.
We are no different to others. We juggle on a monthly basis, trying to keep those balls in the air. The red one is gas, the green one the phone, blue is water and yellow is electrickery.
Well today the yellow ball crashed to the ground, and therein lies a tale.
I knew we were past due on the electricity. We always are at this time of year. Summer is the hardest time because the bills are higher and the way Jodie is paid means that by September, however hard we try, we are out of money. For the last few years I have managed that situation by paying all the bills past due, and adding a bit to each one so by Christmas we are current (sic) again. If not, we get a little ahead in January when we usually are due a decent Federal Income Tax refund. That sets us up at least for the next few months.
It wasn’t always quite this hard, but in the last couple of years the income, which was never generous, has taken a hit. Jodie is a teacher and her pay has been frozen since Noah decided to leave Oklahoma for the hill country. I lost my karaoke job and the substitute teaching hasn’t fully replaced it although I have fewer drunks to deal with. My woodshop, which is capable of producing a good income, has suffered through the depression although I am in the middle of an order right now. An order that won’t pay much because it’s for a friend, and I didn’t charge enough. She will though, be grateful for her gorgeous oak bookcases and desk.
I mention all of this simply to set the scene. We are not wealthy people, but we are very happy together, the kids are all doing just fine thank you very much, and we are not complaining. What crossed my mind was that I can write about our situation, and when I have done so in the past it has helped others feel a little less alone.
I had paid the previous past due account a couple of weeks ago and thought I had until about the 10th of next month to pay the next installment. We are not miles behind, two payments would bring us current so I wasn’t worried about it even though this was, at $290, the biggest we would get this year. I spent a little time in the workshop cutting the fronts for the drawers of the desk I am building, sat down for a few moments, and everything went silent. The radio went off, the lights went out, and worst of all, the coffee machine quit doing what it does best; keeping me in caffeine.
This happens quite a lot, usually it’s a blip, rarely more than a minute so when five minutes had gone by I thought maybe I should call someone. That’s when the fun really started.
It turns out that we were not suffering a power outage that would have superelectricitydude jumping in a van and rushing to repair the fault. Nope! We were the kind of deadbeats who, despite having paid our bills for the last five years, now had to be disconnected for non-payment. Well I didn’t see that coming!
Worse, the nice lady patiently explained to me that it wouldn’t cost $290 to turn the coffee machine back on, coffee that was increasingly needed right now, it would instead be $390.
“What makes you think that, if I couldn’t pay $290, I can now pay $390?” I asked her, patiently. It appears that this had not crossed her mind. “It’s the fees”, she said. “It’s $50 to disconnect, and $50 to reset the meter. I can’t reset the meter until you have paid the past due amount, plus the fees”.
I can see this is going to take a while, so I go on the attack early. I asked her about a fee waiver. Nothing doing. “If I did that, I would have to waive the fees for everyone”, says she. When I tell her what an excellent idea this is, and I would fully support her thoughtful decision, she complains that if they didn’t charge the fees then people wouldn’t have an incentive to pay. “You mean cutting off the power to the houses of the poor people wouldn’t be incentive enough? It made me call, didn’t it?”. This falls on stony ground. She can’t get past the idea that people who struggle to pay their bills shouldn’t be, you know, made to pay even more. It’s the American Way, apparently.
“Could you explain to me why you fine poor people like this?” Again I am told it is not a fine, but a fee, and it is there in the schedule. There are a few answers to this and I tried a couple, and she is bristling, by the way, that I am accusing them of dumping on the poor. So I asked her how many of their rich customers pay disconnection and reset fees and that shuts her up. Mainly though, I am concerned about the fine. She doesn’t like the word fine but struggles when I ask that she relates it to a cost that needs to be recouped.
In the olden days, before meters that could be addressed remotely, to disconnect a supply someone had to get in a van, drive to the property and physically disconnect it. That person has to be highly trained, and he needs a van, which has to be paid for. This I understand and I say so. Again, in times not so long past, the fees were $25 for each trip. I have no problem with that, at least it is a charge that reflects a cost. Today, however, to disconnect my supply took a few mouse clicks, and resetting the meter took a few more. How does a $100 charge reflect that amount of effort. It doesn’t even take a skilled person, anyone could do it. She is not taking this line of argument very well, in part because it’s rock solid so all she can do is remind me that the fee is in the schedule.
So I ask her who else I might buy electricity from. I am told that to get my electricity from another supplier then I would have to move my home to another area. Oh really? ”So in this absolute monopoly of supply, you are free to set a fee schedule that fines the poorest of your customers only, and does so at a punitive level, even though they are calling and trying to pay for the service they have consumed?” I’m sure she is a nice lady, but she doesn’t like withering replies delivered in my best Harry Potter.
I posed an alternate, but similar scenario to her. “Suppose you regularly shopped at Walmart (everyone here does), but one month you decided to take your custom to Reasors instead. How would you feel to get a $50 bill from Walmart, for failure to buy your groceries there, and then have them bill you another $50 before you were allowed back even if you had paid for your groceries? And how is this any different to what you are doing to the customers who struggle the most?” There is no cost to Walmart if you decide to shop elsewhere, and none to let you back through the door again. Indeed, most suppliers would want to know why you had gone, and would bend over backwards to try to get you back! That is how a free-market is supposed to work.
At this point she is getting tetchy and making noises about having other customers in the phone queue. “Oh really? How many did you disconnect today? I was on hold for 30 minutes!”
Finally, having stated many times that the fines (she called them fees) could not be waived, she offered to waive half the fees. So I took it and paid the bill. I was told the power would come back on sometime today. I’m thinking that it must be arduous, all that mouse-clicking and I hoped it would be on before the kids came home from school.
Five minutes later the coffee machine burst into life. Too friggin’ late, I need something stronger!
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Compared to so very many, our troubles are small. As I said, I am telling a story not bemoaning our lot, but this small incident brought a few things to mind. Things we don’t manage very well at all.
The electricity cooperative that supplies us is no better or worse than many others. They do what they do, and we pay the bill, when I remember, but there are much wider concerns.
The electricity company has no idea what personal circumstances pertain in this, or any other household. What they do know is that things are tough in homes that become delinquent in this way. One might hope that a long-standing customer might be treated with a little more understanding, but they are not social workers, and I don’t expect them to be. What I do expect is that they should be working under a very tough regulatory framework, and one in which they cannot simply withdraw a supply in this way. They don’t know if there are infants in the home, or elderly folk relying on medical equipment. Cutting off the supply could be extremely dangerous in some circumstances, as could suddenly restoring it.
There are certain basic services that should never be withdrawn from families except in the most extreme of circumstances, and a Court could decide if the conditions have been met. Electricity, water, gas, sewerage, waste disposal, even internet (yes, dammit, internet).
People don’t willfully fail to pay. They fail to pay because they can’t pay. I am all for incentivizing consumers, but refusing to supply, or abruptly withdrawing a basic service hurts the wrong people. Infants and children, the elderly especially if they got confused and simply missed the payments. Sick folk, the unemployed and otherwise disadvantaged.
These services are not something that a modern society can live without, and we should not be expecting anyone in this society to have to consider doing so. It is unhealthy and potentially dangerous. I am not against metering services. If nothing else that does persuade some folk to conserve rather than consume, although it is worth pointing out that the poorer you are, the more “conserving” you have to do.
In the end there does have to be a mechanism that makes it hard for people to simply refuse to pay, with no fear of society being unable to apply sanctions, but the model we currently operate is fatally flawed. It withdraws basic necessities of life with no regard whatsoever to any consideration other than an ability, or willingness to pay. Single mom struggling with a couple of kids and no income, or your granny who has worked all her life but is now a bit confused and forgetful … or someone with a comfortable income and a disposition to get everything free. The system we operate treats them all the same, and that can’t be right.
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