Recap for if you didn't follow my previous rant :
I was due to get a power bill February and I didn't get it. Months passed. Anyway we were coming up on being due for a second bill when Origin (my energy company) sent me a letter saying "We're sorting some things out to make the company better, which is why you don't have a bill". Ok, cool, whatever. I put the money aside, no biggie. And then when we get back I have a much more interesting letter, but still no bloody bill.

This one tells me that Origin fucked up on a massive scale and gave a whole heap of Sydneysiders a centrelink (government social security people) concession when they hadn't applied for it, centrelink checked up to make sure their money (ie, taxpayer money) is going to those in need and lo-and-behold it isn't, so they asked Origin to give the money back. So Origin then asks the people who had a concession they didn't know they had to pay the difference from all their previous bills.
And I read that and I'm like, no they wouldn't do that, surely? Even though I could read the letter fine and that's what it said.

So I rang them and I'm like WTF? and the lady told me "oh, I can't see any extra charge on your bill that we just posted, you won't have to pay any extra". Woo go me.

But the "amended bill" came and I did have to pay extra, from three bills I paid last year on top of six months worth of new charges at the non-concession rate. So I called them, and the dude goes "She shouldn't have said that, because if she did we have to waive the fee, and we do intend for you to pay this money. I'll listen to that conversation and call you back."

End recap.
He didn't call back. Nor did the guy I spoke to a week later. So I spoke to a third guy in resolutions after another week and... I'm going to sound like a racist piece of shit here, but it's the truth... as soon as I heard his Indian accent I knew this guy wasn't going to help me.
Now, I have Indian mates, they are cool. I'm all for multiculturalism, I married a foreigner, I know immigration is the only reason we have population growth and I'm very very aware that most of the call centers for anything over here are offshore. Some of them even train their workers to "be Australian" so they bung on accents and ask you about the footy. It's hilarious, but I understand there are a lot of racist dicks here and that it's a sad necessity that these people sound Aussie for those dingbats. But as Russel Peters said "Indians can't give you a good deal". I've never met an Indian person who is willing to be flexible in their work, and I've met an awful lot who only do the bare minimum required. Hey, who likes hard work? I don't! But when I phone for help I want someone who can understand what I am saying and who will do something about it.

I gave him the benefit of the doubt and repeated my story for the 100th time. He's like "I'll have to call you back" and I'm like "No way! You fuckers never call back!" and then he goes on to tell me that the problem was never with centrelink concessions it's that they read my meter wrong and that's why I have to pay it. Determined I'm like "If you won't help me, can I speak to a manager?" and he's like "We have a protocol, we'll have to call you back". Anyway I got in a mad, teary, blue with this guy and eventually he writes a note on my account (which is more than any of the others did!) gave me a reference number and said they'd call me back.

They didn't call me back, no surprises there. So I called them today and explained myself all over again to a nice guy and he was like "I can see you have called many times and there's a note on your account, I'm just going to look at you bills, please hold" OMG he's helping me!!! You can't imagine the relief I felt, finally getting some help the fourth time I've called this company. And I'm listening to the advertisements that play while you're on hold and then the voice changes to the mechanical drone of the Telstra lady, who tells me my credit has run out. And then the call ends.


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

So I whip out my mastercard, chuck more money on my pre-paid phone that costs me nearly a dollar a minute to call from because I have a texting plan and I call back. And go through the menu "Press one for this" "Enter your account number" "please hold" "Hi, I'm Miriam, I need to speak to resolutions.." "Please hold" bullshit all over again. Ugh. And I get a nice old-sounding lady who I tell my life-story to all over again. And she looks up my bill, not putting me on hold and I can hear her go through every month I've been with these people, manually doing the math for what they are charging me, and it takes forever.

And we get to the end and she explains about the centrelink concessions. And I'm like "I know. I understand that" and she says "we already credited your account $40, so we're not even asking for the full amount of the concession money back" and I'm like "That's nice and all, but you're still asking me for money for bills I've already paid, claiming I was getting a concession I didn't know I had and never asked for. So it sounds a lot like your people are just making up reasons to charge me money that I don't have, you know?" and we go back and forth for ages, until she breaks out the "I'm sorry I don't have the power to help you" speech at which point I completely crack it, because if I give in and pay this fee now, I've spent a stupid amount of time and phone credit for nothing. And it's still bogus, you can't just make up a reason to charge someone extra money on bills of the past! And she said outright that it wasn't fair to do that and everything.

Anyway so I'm like "Fuck it, whatever, I'll pay it, and then I'll change to Energy Australia so I never have to deal with you again" well that turned the trick. She was like "I'm so sorry to have upset you, blah blah. Please hold while I try to figure this out" And she comes back, and asks me "Did you at any point give us a phoney concession number to claim that concession?" Uh, no, I'm not an idiot... and then waives the fee and gives me a 14% discount for the next year worth of bills. Woo!

Unfortunately they put me on a contract as well to get that extra deduction, and I hate that, but whatever. Electricity is so expensive over here, I'll take it. (Like I'm in a one bedroom unit, I'm careful with my power and I still pay about $3.50 a day. Insane!)

Anyway, so yay! I'm feeling a lot of relief right now. I'm half writing this down here so I can remember the date it all went down in case they hassle me again some time.

Cliffnotes: Rang my electricity company five freaking times but finally got them to waive a bogus fee, and give me a year's worth of discount. It was stressful.

Other stuff - So my half sister, he fiance and their combined family of five brats left for a cruise today. They are from Melbourne but the ship leaves from Sydney. So they invited Bec and I to come hang out because they had time between arriving and when the ship leaves. I kinda didn't want to go because it was raining cats and dogs, but I went anyway.
I was on the bus with Bec when the window wipers shat themselves and we all had to pile out into the rain to get another bus I had my 100 year old pram (ok, 15 year old but it's the same at this point) with Isis, no plastic pram cover because I'm holding out until I can buy a nice fancy double pram, so she's wearing my only waterproof jacket and I'm like AK! because I hate the rain. But anyway, by the time we got to circular quay it eased up and all was dandy, and we found the family.

The plan was to go for lunch, but then as we entered the restaurant Half-Sister (HS) decides that they won't eat lunch with us, they'll wait til they get on the boat. Which is fair, with that many kids to feed eating out must be a costly nightmare. But the thing was, it was about 1pm, the boat wasn't leaving until after 6pm and they'd given us the impression we could hang out for the afternoon, see the kids and everything, because being interstate we hardly see each other and we have years of catching up to do.

Well, understandably, the kids were very excited about the cruise (before this was in planning I never imagined people would take their kids on a cruise!) and wanted to get on the boat now! now! now! and fuck, if my brats think for a second they are going to nag me like that or push me around they have another thing coming. Anyway, so as soon as the boat opened for boarding at 2:30pm they got on it, rather than spending the time with us like planned. And it was just really disappointing, you know? I didn't say anything, it's not my place to judge, but it was quite a hassle to go into the city for such a short period of time when I have so much here I need to get done, and I just thought that maybe she could stand up to her kids, you know? HS was obviously disappointed and she tried to reason with the eldest saying "I never get to see my sisters, we'll be on the boat for two weeks..." but yeah.

HS wants to meet up again when they pass through Sydney going home, but it's a Saturday, so unless they stay the night in the city I probably won't see them because I'll be at work, and thus probably wont see them again until Christmas, if we decide to go down there a third year in a row (Which to be honest, I'm not keen, but we will see).

The not disappointing news it that tonight we're going to Bec's for dinner so I don't have to cook, Woo! and then after work tomorrow Bec's taking Isis and Obi and I are going to have a romantic sushi dinner (because I'm not pregnant, so I can ) and then before we pick her up hopefully we can come home and have hot crazy monkey sex. LOUD hot crazy monkey sex, because waking the neighbors is fine back waking the baby stalls the romance haha.

That will be all.