and so goes the wind does the power as well
a mighty wind will blow.
sounds somewhat biblical, but it simply recounts the storm that bull-rushed chicago last night at about 6pm.
standing in the second floor workout area of my lakeview gym i noticed the trees bent sideways amid buckets of rain and thought, “whew, glad for shelter.”
i also thought that it was a helluva storm, the second in less than a week.
the carnage of last night’s storm in terms of uprooted and broken trees seems less, at least on the circuit of chicago that i run. but still power is out for thousands of clients of commonwealth edison. this includes one apartment at our edgewater building. trying to rectify the situation is like being told to walk a straight line after five minutes on the tilt-a-whirl – good luck.
just for fun call the 1.800.edison1 and enter the byzantine maze the folks at comed have in place for reporting power outages. cryptic and dead-ending you are told that today they are only fielding calls related to the emergency. stay on the line and an automated voice says that you may enter your information automatically to report your outage. stay on the line to do so and your are greeted with the click of the phone call ending. on their end.
over and over. and over.
funny? sure, in a monty python sort of way. but when you are trying to get the power back on it’s somewhat maddening. finally after a dozen attempts this morning i was able to make my way to a human voice and report my slice of reality. prognosis? not today, but perhaps by the end of business tomorrow. or maybe monday.
we can only hope.
facing this specific situation the question arises as a consumer – what can you do? when you get bad service at a restaurant you can head down the street and take your money their for your next meal. same thing for an auto repair shop or a boutique or any number of other purveyors where there is competition.
but not so with the monolithic electric company. at least not as far as i know. nor are there truly adequate methods of getting atop your desk a la the movie “network” to proclaim “i am as mad as hell, and i am not going to take this anymore.”
well, maybe it’s not quite that bad. but there is degree of earnest angst about this conundrum, the utility company’s use of an automated purgatory via the phone lines (remember when that was a monopoly?), and the powerlessness you feel when you don’t have power (of the electric variety).
at any rate, now the waiting game begins. at least now it’s not on hold as you hear a tinny voice say good bye.
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