Utilities Companies

Argh!!  Hate ’em!  Hate ’em hate ’em hate ’em!  I hate the automated voice that goes ‘Hi there!’ and the way it announces, ‘right, I’m just waiting for that…’ as if it’s anything other than a binary algorithm designed to weed out that percentage of the population with a high blood pressure and dubious coronary system!  I hate the tinned music they play at you as if somehow phoning your electricity company is an inspiring and life-affirming event, I hate the relentless bureaucracy that always wants my name, age, martial status and financial prospects before it’ll tell me how much I’m being robbed, I hate – oh and this is something I REALLY hate – I hate the way they continually take money from my account even when, by their own admission, THEY owe ME several hundred pounds!  I hate being invited to get paperless bills and then not receiving them by email, hate the cheerful, chipper font and happy smiling cartoon-figures pasted over the paperwork with which they eventually do inform me that they’re raising prices despite their obscene profits in the last financial quarter.  I hate arguing with them when they’ve got it wrong, hate moving from one to the other when they try to claim that such a thing Cannot Be Allowed, hate the calls from my providers informing me that if I was a new customer, I could get this amazing package, followed by the incredulity – no, the indignation! – at discovering that I’m already a loyal customer and thus can’t receive anything of any note whatsoever.  I hate the difference it makes between getting two different types of people at a call centre – the chipper cheerful ones who I really do feel guilty about arguing at, and the dour, sour, more-than-my-jobsworth gits who perpetually put you on hold without saying a word, and inform you that they Do Not Have The Authority To Authorise That Transaction.

I hate utilities companies!!