Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my handphone and could not use my 3G to surf the net as I had to conserve my battery for emergencies. Thankfully, I managed to put up one post this afternoon at 1p.m.
What was most infuriating was the inefficiency and poor communication of the Tenaga Nasional Staff.
Once the power was cut, I called TNB @ 15454 FOUR TIMES and was given a different story each time.
The first call I made was at 10.45 a.m. to Ms L from the TNB in Pahang who told me that it was highly probable that mine was the ONLY house that had a power outage since there was no one else who called. I told her that I called her within seconds when the power went off. Then I asked her to let me know the progress report. I gave her my MOBILE number and told her I would leave to buy lunch since there was no way I could cook. Most intelligently, she said that she would not be able to call me when the electricians arrived to check the wiring in my house. I reminded her that:
a) I had given her my MOBILE number and she could call me when the electricians arrived. Besides, I was going to the shops near my home so I would be able to reach home in a jiffy.
b) I reminded her that mine was NOT the only home that had a power cut.
Ten minutes later, I called again. This time I spoke to a Cik S. N. A. also from Pahang and she ticked me off for calling back so quickly. Fine. Then I asked her to call me back (as I had done with other customer care officers in the past). Her response : Sorry - if you want to know, please call back after ONE HOUR. Fine.
I called a third time and spoke to Cik A who said that the technicians were attending to the problem and power would be restored within three hours.
An hour later, a TNB pick-up truck drove up to my house and the technicians said they had to check my meter as mine was the only house that did not have electricity.
I told them that mine was NOT the only house and by then, the neighbour opposite my home came out and she confirmed that she too did not have any power supply.
The technician then called a number and then told us that the power supply would be restored by 7p.m. the latest as they were doing maintenance works. Then he asked why I did not refer to the notice given and why I said my home did not have electricity etc etc.
By then, I was boiling mad not at the technician but at the first customer care officer I had spoken to for passing on the wrong information to the technicians who rushed from one end of town to my place.
Later, I had to rush off to buy lunch, fetch my son home from school and upon my return, I called TNB for the FOURTH time and spoke to a gentleman this time.
Immediately I asked to speak to the officer-in-charge and asked:
a) Why were the customer care officers so clueless when receiving reports?
b) Why didn't they have to latest information at the click of the mouse to update irate consumers?
c) Why weren't any circulars distributed in the neighbourhood?
d) Who was responsible for the horrible mess in the communication breakdown because two technicians were deployed to my home for the wrong reason?
e) Why was I told one reason after another for the power cut when another neighbour who called up was given the correct answer?
f) It was only two days ago that the meter reader did his rounds in the neighbourhood. Surely he could have passed the notice to the residents in my housing area.
Etc etc etc
She apologised and said she would get back to me. It is now almost 11p.m. and I have had no word from her. For sure, I will call her tomorrow morning and follow up on what happened and why my neighbours and I did not receive word/notice about the power cut.
Two years ago, my area had power outages NINE times on the second or was it the third day of the Chinese New Year. I wrote a terse complaint letter to TNB and even made an appointment to see the head of department at Anson Road. The distinguished gentleman apologised elegantly and answered my query for what they intended to do. To my surprise, the gentleman wrote a very long letter of apology and mailed it to my home. A very diplomatic and professional move indeed - a sharp contrast to the horrible scenario I experienced today.
As a result of this hiccup, I almost threw my smartphone away because I was so frustrated as I could not surf the net smoothly. The screen was hung so many times and I had to reset my data. By late afternoon, I indulged in some shopping therapy and bought a new handphone that truly gave me many moments of laughter.
One of the problems of my previous android phone was the small keyboard and screen. For at least 60% of the time, whatever I typed be it emails or smses would be wrong.
The android that I bought this evening has a very big screen for the blind to see and the best part is that everything is voice activated (or so I thought as I did my homework long ago and had wanted this particular phone for ages) which meant I could email, sms, surf etc just by my vocal directions, or so I thought. So I asked the salesgirl from whom my family had bought four phones and she said gingerly that it depended on how accurate was my accent.
Hmmm I thought....how wrong could I be in my accent?
Anyway, the whole evening was spent at the shop downloading the stuff I needed, learning how to use this and that and downloading songs, ringtones etc.
On the way home, I used the voice facility happily. With my previous phone, I only had one problem - When I asked for Jemputree ( a cafe), Google directed me to Calgary....:-( and auto-dialled one Calgary number.
This evening, I asked for my own blog and said: masterwordsmith dot blogspot dot com.
And what came out was:
Did you mean :
- master blood the smith?
- mom still would smith?
- mom still would miss
- mom still would a minute
- master i will smith
- mascara will smith
- master it will smith
- mascara what is this
- and many more combinations, I kid you not!!!
By the time I came home, I had problems connecting to my home internet line because I forgot the password.
:-(
And once forgotten, it had to be reset. Only a former student of mine could do it for me and I did not want to trouble him for he had helped me so many times previously. Fortunately, my younger son saw what I was typing for like 20 times and saved me for he reminded me that I had changed my password to something else...so here I am now :-).
Anyway, I will definitely be having lots of fun tomorrow when the phone is fully charged. In the mean time, I reckon I lost at least a kilo from sweating and fuming away without any power supply but all's well that ends well with the new phone that gave me the opportunity to laugh and destress....
I will catch up with the news now and put up the next post soon after....My apologies to commenters as I have not had the time to respond to your input but will do so by tomorrow.Have a restful evening everyone.
cin2tan wow...pheew with iwc !! CHEERS .