How’s that for service?

Blitz. Zip. Blitz – blitz….in quick succession. I was on the phone and observing that the lights were blinking on and off, and my radio was making a noise as if it wanted to be on but was not getting enough “juice”. And then there was silence -Thank God it was daylight. Electricity was no more.

I looked out my window to see the garbage truck attendants all staring skywardly at a now torn down power line. They then sort of shrugged and  got back into the dump truck and left.I took it upon myself to call T&TEC on behalf of my neighbours. I decided to sort through some call cards while I waited for an answer. It seemed as if every 5 seconds this woman’s voice was telling me that “my call was important, and that I should hold to maintain my call priority.” She gave me hope – every 5 seconds. I finished my “card sorting” activity and then decided to read – which wasn’t a very good option however I was faithfully reminded “just how important” my EMERGENCY call was. I figured that T&TEC probably fielded quite a number of emergency calls on any given day.

NINETEEN MINUTES, FIFTY-EIGHT seconds later…a quite disgruntled woman, greeted me on the other end, and before I could complete the pronounciation of my street name, she cut me off and informed me that they were “already aware of the problem” and had dispatched accordingly.

In spite of the rapid brush off (which took LESS than 5 seconds), I felt kinda good. It was now nine o’clock. So I figured they’d be here by about ten – ten thirty latest. Twelve thirty – the truck arrived – which caused me to wonder “where were they dispatched from?”

Fast forward to the evening of the same day and I’m driving past, and looking upwards realising that the power line in question – though now reconnected – is still sagging from a height where “mr garbage truck” was going to come into contact with it again.

So I said to my neighbor who was also looking skywardly in disbelief: “why didn’t they tighten that line or whatever it is they have to do to prevent it from sagging?” She said to me “Oh dey say we have to call TSTT and the cable company to come and do something or the other, before dey could do anything else!

”So I ask you – is that good service or what? The experts (T&TEC) know what the problem is but we (the mere mortals on the ground) – must call TSTT and FLOW to tell them what??? – I have no clue – which roughly translates into “nothing is going to be done”, until of course the garbage truck rips down the power line again and then we can go right back to where we started, waiting our turn, because our call is of “high priority”.