No power, no eternal bell

No power, no eternal bell

JAKARTA (JP): I've had my ups and downs with employees from the state-owned electricity company PLN. My meter reader is an abrasive man which used to made me react to him in kind. It took us ages to get used to each other, but now that we have we get along just fine. It only took one year of him leaving his finger eternally on my doorbell and me yelling from inside the house until I reached the gate, that one quick push was enough. Now I've come to realize his abrupt manner is not rudeness, but rather just part of his personality.

It's the other door-to-door PLN employees that I can't take. The ones who take advantage of the accounts payable date falling on a public holiday. Last year there was a public holiday on a Friday and Saturday, with the due date falling on the Saturday. On this occasion, I unfortunately forgot about the bill until the Thursday night. On the Monday morning I was rudely awakened by the eternal doorbell and, of course, it was PLN insisting they had to disconnect my electricity.

I actually thought my husband had paid the bill, but since he was out of town I couldn't ask him. And the receipt wasn't anywhere to be found. And so, not being sure, I apologized profusely and promised to go to the PLN office promptly and settle my account.

Well that wasn't good enough. He insisted that he had been sent to cut off my electricity and he couldn't leave without doing so. So I asked him what would happen if there was nobody home. The electricity meter is inside our locked garage and access can't be gained unless there is someone home. I don't remember what his reply was, but it was no go.

The discussion went on for over half an hour with me finally shedding all pretense of politeness and instead becoming flustered. So I called my in-laws, who live nearby. They also could make no headway with this guy. His final argument was that he had come all this way and his transportation costs couldn't go to waste. He wouldn't leave without a crisp pink banknote in his hot little hand. Strange how he could leave the white notice which, before smelling money, couldn't be parted with unless the electricity had been disconnected.

It's more than likely that over a period of five years or so each and every household, sooner or later, will forget to pay at least one bill on time. I know late payments have to be addressed, but to arrive on one's doorstep with a severance notice dated two days after a bill is due is a bit hard to take. In eight years of living at my present address, I have only failed to pay my electricity bill, on time, twice.

On the 23rd of last month another PLN man rang my bell. Lucky for him it wasn't an eternal ring and it didn't wake me up because, as it was, I was in a bad enough mood already. I ripped into him anyway. My husband, yet again, was away and he hadn't brought the receipt home. But I was pretty sure the bill had been paid and I told this man that he could just go away empty handed because I'd be damned if I was going to play that game again.

He said something to the effect that since I was sure it was paid everything was fine, but that he still had to leave me the white slip. And I was flabbergasted that he left it without being given any money and without getting anywhere near my meter.

So, what's the moral of this story? That in Jakarta it pays to be on the defensive and downright rude? It certainly seems that way to me. I've learnt over the years that the only way to keep people off your back when they have no business being there is to have a permanent scowl on your face and act like you were brought up in the gutter.

And I have PLN to thank for that invaluable lesson.

-- Linda Hollands