My spouse has observed something hilariously true about conversations pertaining to New York City. Inevitably, whenever you talk to anyone who has spent any time in NYC - whether significant or no - they will inevitably say "The thing about New York is..." This is often followed with explications about how it will "eat you alive" or that there are hidden gems that are actually inexpensive or that spending time there is an important rite of passage, or some other keen insight the speaker has gained during his/her time in the Big Apple. One of the things about living in New York is that New Yorkers never call it the Big Apple, for instance.
Construction projects are no different. Everyone has his or her take on it. And even outsiders to the experience have things to add. We frequently get a lot of "what you need to do is..." or "why don't you justs" - like "What you need is a set of stairs," as if walking up and down the cockamamie ladder scheme isn't desirable. Sometimes people like to play Monday morning QB and tell us where we went wrong: "You really should have just gone for the sump pump in the first place." As if we did not know that already. This latter category of observational brilliance comes most frequently from prospective construction workers we interview or hire for various tasks on this project.
I know people mean well by this, just as I mean well when I tell people no f**ing way should they consider renovations, what are they crazy, have they learned nothing from us?
Anyway. I have some advice I would like to share with you that is, in fact, useful not only for dealing with additions, but perhaps for other areas in life where you are getting screwed over by a business. The thing about businesses is, they don't like getting a bad reputation with certain often unknown overlords. This is sometimes hard to believe, especially for the evil utility triumvirate of Verizon, Comcast, and Dominion Power (I've never had a bad experience with the water folks, but I'm sure there's hope) who seem to care nothing for the havoc they wreak, and why should they? Where else are you going to go? Here's the secret to getting them to do something. I'm just going to put it out there to all 20 of you who regularly read this blog, so I'm not too worried that sharing this secret will cause it to lose its effectiveness. There is this thing called the State Corporations Commission (or some variation on the theme, depending on your jurisdiction). (For all other businesses, it is more familiarly known as The Better Business Bureau.) The State Corporations Commission is essentially the state regulatory body for utilities (and sometimes more). And for reasons that are still deeply mysterious to me, there are people who work there who actually care about you, you little peon, and your little problems fighting Goliath with nary a stone nor slingshot in sight. Even more mysterious is that they seem to exert some of Jedi mind control over the utilities.
Exhibit A: So here we are, going on week 6 of waiting for the woman at Dominion/Godot to finally finish designing my project and sending me the bill so I can pay them, so they can put me on their backlogged schedule to move our power, so that we can get the heck on with this project. I have been nothing but exceedingly polite but semi-persistent with this woman. Once a week I would send an email saying "Hi, how are you, hope all is well, just checking to see if there is any news on my project and if there is anything at all I can do to speed things along, I would be really happy to do so." And I received the myriad excuses - I was sick for a week, I gave it to the City, they haven't called me back, I missed their call, etc. - for awhile, until finally, for the last 2 weeks, pretty much zero response. So after hearing about how a big shot like me (HAHAHA) who knows the Alexandria mayor (pop. 130,000) by name (but does he know mine? doubtful.) should be able to just call someone somewhere to get them to help because this is absolutely inexcusable (I do agree with that part), I finally did 10 minutes of Googling and discovered that the City of Alexandria has a Consumer's Protection Office that deals with Verizon and Comcast and there is a state office that deals with Dominion and the water company. So I called the Virginia Corporations Commission and did not get a phone tree. I got a real, live person - in two rings. I explained, in 3 sentences, my problem. She said I would need to talk to her supervisor. I was transferred to the supervisor, who picked up immediately. I explained the problem in slightly greater detail, but it's not a complicated story. She listened politely, said she would look into it and would get back to me. I said a little prayer.
The next morning I had two messages when I got to work. The first was from the woman at Dominion Power, who left a long message about how she has been calling the City repeatedly and has a record of every call, that it is their fault the project has not proceeded, that she was informed that I called the State Commission, as had the City, that she had now spoken with the City and was resubmitting the necessary permit application to them that day, that I should have their approval within 3 days but hopefully sooner,
since they know you have called the Commission, that she would then get me the estimate, that it would get on the list for completion ASAP, and that her supervisor was well aware of all of this
and that I had called the State Commission. I spoke with the woman later that afternoon to fill in, as sweet as pie, some information she needed to submit her permit application. She was nice back. There was no discussion of the Commission, but it was there, like the President's Secret Service Bodyguards, and we both knew it, so why mention it?
The second message was from the nice woman at the State Commission. I called her and she explained that she had contacted the relevant parties about this situation, that she had heard everyone's side of the story, and had observed that perhaps, if they had bothered to keep me informed of where things stood, I might not have called the Commission. She said she would keep the complaint open in case there were any other delays. I thanked her profusely and said I'd let her know how things progressed.
You know, especially since I do work for the government, I must observe that I am sick to death of the stereotype that government workers are lazy and/or incompetent. I think you get vastly more and with greater professionalism with your tax dollars than you do with your private dollars paid to the utilities or most insurance companies. But then again, I'm not a Vet trying to deal with the VA, so obviously, like the private sector, there are some Nordstrom agencies, and there are some Comcast agencies.
But wait, there's MORE!
In a dizzying explosion of progress, the electrician also called yesterday (the one whose bid was 1/4 of the other mean guy's bid). He said he'd just received our signed contract and would like to get his guy out to put in the new meter box and set up his side of the power move the next morning. And at 8:30 on the dot, when he said he would arrive, the electrician was here, raring to go. Okay, I wasn't a fan of the fact that after formalities were exchanged and he got to work he ceased knocking on the front door when he came in to run downstairs and just suddenly barged in and out, but that's a small thing and I stopped thinking I was under attack by the 4th time. He even reattached the electrical panel back to the wall (the one our prior contractor left dangling by the incoming power cable) and cleaned up after himself.
So we're really ready for some new energy in this place. All we need now...is for Dominion to get back to us.
