182, right? Nope, not according to our water meter! 191 is next, and don't you dare think that 192 comes over that, because just as soon as that 2 comes creeping up, BAM, it is already above 200!
The above pictures were taken, in succesion, over a three day period. And just a note, it was raining all three days.
Today has been a somewhat streesful day. Okay, very stressful. I spent over an hour on the phone with Charlotte Utilities battling with them once again about our faulty water meter - a battle that has been brewing since our first bill arrived in August and it was 10 times higher than any previous water bill at our old house. Since Chad and I are reasonably intelligent people, we have read everything we can about water comsumption and water meters, and we have watched our meter every day to figure out what is going on, until finally we saw with our very eyes that our meter was mysteriously moving normally until it hit the number 1 in the last counting number, at which point the second digit would move instead of the last. Sounds weird and crazy, I know, but we saw it with our own eyes. Instead of moving from 181 to 182 to 183, like it should, it moved directly from 181 to 191 - Counting 10 Ccfs of water instead of 1! After being on the 1 for awhile, it seemed to start working normally again, further making us look crazy. We have pictures to prove our case (in case pure common sense alone isn't enough, which states that a family of four in a house with no leaks, whose family size hasn't changed at all, and who isn't allowed by law to water their lawn, cannot possibly be using 20 Ccfs of water in three days, when the average family of four uses 8 Ccfs a month!), and until today, which was about our fifth or sixth time calling in, they utterly refused to admit that maybe we aren't just idiots who run every faucet in our house all day and all night, and that maybe, just maybe, something might be wrong with their measurement. Today was the first time they actually agreed to send a supervisor over to talk to us in person.
If this was a company that actually had competition, there is no way they would have treated us like this. Since we have to use them, I had to listen to the first person I talked to today (who had been bordering on rudeness even before this point) offering to send me pamphlets about how to conserve water around the house, even after I just spent 20 minutes explaining everything and telling her about all the research I had done on this subject. Yes, you mailing me pamphlets about not watering my lawn is really going to help me. She actually kept insisting that since we were in a new house and had to establish a new lawn, that explained the 30 Ccf jump, even though I told her that our backyard was dirt, our front lawn was tiny, and we hadn't watered in the last month and a half. At that point, I knew that no matter what I said, she wasn't going to really listen and she wasn't really going to try and find a solution to the real problem. What good is she as a customer service representative if she isn't going to do those things? The pamplet suggestion was the last straw and I told her to get me a supervisor immediately
Hey, I worked as a customer service rep. I know that most of the time it is a sucky, thankless job, but it still your job to help the customer.
Maybe I have spent too much time with a business oriented husband, who managed in a call center for two years, but it is horrible business to not want to know if your company is making mistakes. If a customer has to call in time and again over three months to tell you something is wrong, each time being treated like a crazy person, when your own numbers alone (which show our family using 8 Ccfs a month or less for two years and then suddenly using 38 or more a month when we have a brand new meter!) should alert you that there is a problem, that is just plan bad business, and if they had any concerns at all about losing our business, they simply wouldn't be acting this way.
Maybe I have spent too much time with a business oriented husband, who managed in a call center for two years, but it is horrible business to not want to know if your company is making mistakes. If a customer has to call in time and again over three months to tell you something is wrong, each time being treated like a crazy person, when your own numbers alone (which show our family using 8 Ccfs a month or less for two years and then suddenly using 38 or more a month when we have a brand new meter!) should alert you that there is a problem, that is just plan bad business, and if they had any concerns at all about losing our business, they simply wouldn't be acting this way.
