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[Andara Bledin]

Just because you had no smart phone, no laptop, and were not able to go to a part of the city with power to check the status doesn't mean that the message was useless; just that it was aimed at those people that did have those options.

As for the hangup: They're going to dump your call regardless of whether they give you the website information or not. It's just what they do when their call volume exceeds a certain limit. Apparently, people who call back are less likely to be assholes to the reps than people who wait on hold for an hour.

Again, I can understand your frustration, but there is a goodly chunk of the population who would actually benefit from those messages and having them isn't taking anything away from the rest of the people calling.

[siead_lietrathua]

In other words, in the power failure case, a method that couldn't be used DUE TO THE POWER FAILURE was the ONLY method of finding out. VERY frustrating, considering I live in one of the first areas to lose power that day, and for the last few hours I could look out my window and see lights on in other parts of town.

Just asking.. if your home phone was working, could you have called someone out of the power-out zone, asking them to check the feed occasionally and call you back if anything came up about your area? we've done this grapevine-method before during power outages at work, and it seemed to do ok.

[Kheldarson]

Just asking.. if your home phone was working, could you have called someone out of the power-out zone, asking them to check the feed occasionally and call you back if anything came up about your area? we've done this grapevine-method before during power outages at work, and it seemed to do ok.

You could...but that's really not the point. What if you're more of a hermit like me? There's not a lot of people I talk to, and if I had been in the same situation during our major power outage, I wouldn't have been able to reach anybody out of the power-out area (which was pretty much the whole valley for a while).

Major utilities (like power and water) should maintain a phone presence, even if it's a message machine that repeats pertinent information over and over, for this sort of emergency.

[daleduke17]

Oh, yes. This is one of the more egregious reasons why Andara and I left Earthlink. I had one phone call in particular, where I was just calling to ask about an outage, where the clearly-not-native-English-speaking tech wasted close to an hour of my time making me reset things, reboot things, and generally do bone-stupid tech checks that I'd already done, to finally discover that, oh, yes, there's an outage in your area.

Sounds like that company has a decision flow that the reps have to follow to the letter, or the fail a call audit and get termed. If "check for outages" is #14, then that is where they will check for the outage. One of the few things "Blue Death Star" wireless did right was have that as #1 or 2 in their decision flow (that and "check acct status" were #1 and 2 in the flows).

[HYHYBT]

Sounds like that company has a decision flow that the reps have to follow to the letter, or the fail a call audit and get termed. If "check for outages" is #14, then that is where they will check for the outage. One of the few things "Blue Death Star" wireless did right was have that as #1 or 2 in their decision flow (that and "check acct status" were #1 and 2 in the flows).

That sounds suspiciously sensible: check first the things that take only a moment and which you couldn't have taken care of before calling.

[daleduke17]

That sounds suspiciously sensible: check first the things that take only a moment and which you couldn't have taken care of before calling.

Blue Death Star Wireless was big in the handle time of calls so the automatons (aka call takers) could take more calls and make more money.

[AccountingDrone]

You could...but that's really not the point. What if you're more of a hermit like me? There's not a lot of people I talk to, and if I had been in the same situation during our major power outage, I wouldn't have been able to reach anybody out of the power-out area (which was pretty much the whole valley for a while).

.

You have us ...

I have more than one person who calls me to check on stuff - I am pretty much home all the time, and in general on line all the time, even if I am stuck in bed [which is now even easier with the tablet, I can play online without having to even sit up!]

[wolfie]

One thing I didn't mention earlier is that once I had power back, I couldn't get on the net until the next morning because some of my ISP's systems were still affected by the outage. In a large outage, this is to be expected - so even if someone has the latest in wireless technology, there are still "gatekeepers" (cell towers, ISP, etc.) that need to have power before someone can check the "conveniently provided on the net" sources of information in order to find out when they'll have power back.

[Ree]

Just because you had no smart phone, no laptop, and were not able to go to a part of the city with power to check the status doesn't mean that the message was useless; just that it was aimed at those people that did have those options.<snip>

Again, I can understand your frustration, but there is a goodly chunk of the population who would actually benefit from those messages and having them isn't taking anything away from the rest of the people calling.

*Looks at forum title - "Things I hate".
Hmmm...seems to me he has every right to complain, though.
It was useless to him in his situation.

I don't think he was saying they shouldn't have that as an option at all.
I believe he is complaining, or saying that he hates it, because that seems to be their ONLY option.

I bet, if one was to ask around, there were more people than wolfie in the same situation, who also felt as he did, because, while you say that a goodly number of the population have access to the technology required, I'm sure that there are many who don't, and who would also feel that having only those options available is pretty much useless to them.

[HYHYBT]

All true.

One other thing, though: what's the point of calling, checking the site, etc. if you already know there's a major outage? If you're trying to find out exactly when it will be back on for you, they're not likely to know, and you *know* some people they've already told that will keep calling them over and over anyway, which to me seems like a pretty good reason in itself to leave the phone off the hook, so to speak.

[wolfie]

All true.

One other thing, though: what's the point of calling, checking the site, etc. if you already know there's a major outage?

When I first noticed the power out (woke up early afternoon), I called and it listed 3 areas out (one was mine), with no estimate of repair time. That evening, the message had been changed to say there were extensive outages and to check their Twitter feed for updates on specific areas. I didn't find out HOW major the outage was until I saw it in the paper the next day.

When, after dark (and at least 8 hours without electricity), you can see the lights on in other parts of town, you EXPECT answers in a form that's REACHABLE.

[Kheldarson]

All true.

One other thing, though: what's the point of calling, checking the site, etc. if you already know there's a major outage? If you're trying to find out exactly when it will be back on for you, they're not likely to know, and you *know* some people they've already told that will keep calling them over and over anyway, which to me seems like a pretty good reason in itself to leave the phone off the hook, so to speak.

Because information can change?

When the derecheo hit last summer, we understood that the whole valley was out (mostly), and that it would be some time before we necessarily got power back. Given that we live right off one of the major shopping areas, we figured it would only take a few days.

We went a full two weeks without power.

Phone calls told us where the crews were being sent, and, after a second major storm hit and took out portions of the restored areas, informed us that those areas were supposed to be gotten to after trying to address those of us who hadn't gotten power back in the first place.

While it wasn't necessarily helpful (given that it took Kabe's aunt calling the news and airing the story to finally get anybody up our hill to replace the two power poles that had gotten knocked over), it did at least tell us what was going on and give us concrete facts. That can be comforting when you're stuck in a hard situation, or can give you the facts you need to make decisions about what to do next.