Utility company WTF
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@kt_ said in Utility company WTF:
Sure thing, grampa.
Whenever I see that phrase, I always hear Karl Urban from Red
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@masonwheeler That's not that different from here, just the use of a formal setting here is rare. I can't imagine professors making a big deal of it in these parts, most of them introduce themselves by first name.
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@wharrgarbl Yeah, that's a big difference. Over here, it's very common for a professor to be addressed by title, to the point where I (and a lot of my classmates) were weirded out when we walked into a class and the teacher, who was painfully obvious about trying to act young and hip, introduced herself as "just call me Ashley."
That's Just Not Done here.
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@masonwheeler here if you were a professor and asked to be called Dr Wheeler, I would be amused because in my mind the sound of that is similar to Dr. Wily (the megaman villain):
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@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
Mason: You can submit all your information for auto pay through the mail and I will be happy to set up when received.
Thank you,
UtilityCo Gas
Consumer Affairs
OK, the
just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Literally the entire purpose of having a Web form to sign up for autopay is to not have to deal with any of this, and UtilityCo is failing at every level!Seriously, can anyone give me any good reason why it's acceptable, in the year 2017, for any non-tiny company to do business online and not simply accept payment via PayPal? (And no, "PayPal suxx0rz because I heard some horror story on some website somewhere!!!!1" is not a good reason.)
You should pay in pennies. Also, Paypal sucks shit.
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@masonwheeler The voided check thing is presumably a guard against your typoing the numbers. I've found that procedure to be reasonably common.
Online sites tend to be doing the "verify amounts of small transfers" these days.
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@wharrgarbl WHAT?!? THAT IS A HORRIBLE PICTURE OF ME! WHEN I FIND THE PHOTOGRAPHER WHO TOOK THAT... AND WHERE DID YOU FIND OUT MY SECRET IDE--
...*ahem* I mean, heh, yeah, wouldn't that be silly?
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@wharrgarbl said in Utility company WTF:
I just read a post in Slashdot saying professors are complaining people started calling them on first name. Is it unpolite or not to call americans by their first names?
Dude, don't even try to make sense of our social etiquette. It's impossible.
I remember a lifetime ago when I was working as an undergraduate student in a support role, I'd get (gently) ribbed by my supervisor for replying to every e-mail with "Mr./Ms. <so-and-so>," even when the recipient was a student who was probably quite a bit younger than I was. It made sense to me; in that professional context, I was the one providing them with a service.
In the business world, I didn't even have to learn that you didn't call anyone by "Mr./Ms. <so-and-so>," it was just a fact that no one ever did. Some people are referred to by their first name exclusively. Some people are referred to by their last name exclusively, even though they themselves only go by their first name. (But they answer to their last name.) For a while I was only referred to by my first name, then there came to be a few projects in which I was one of four people with the same first name, so now I get referred to by a liberal mix of first name, last name, or rank and last name.
The only way in which I find mode of address useful anymore is in academia. I find that professors call themselves "Professor <so-and-so>" much more than they used to when I was in undergraduate, hopefully in recognition of the fact (finally!) that Ph.D.s are not and have never been entitled to call themselves "Dr. <so-and-so>" socially; that title is already taken. Whenever a professor calls themselves "Dr. <so-and-so>" and even puts it that way on their slides, I know they're a pompous windbag; abort, abort.
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@Dreikin said in Utility company WTF:
Decimal, I think you mean.
CHECKisREALby default, just likeGOD. In FORTRAN.
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@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
Seriously, can anyone give me any good reason why it's acceptable, in the year 2017, for any non-tiny company to do business online and not simply accept payment via PayPal?
Seriously, PayPal charges about 3% of every transaction to the payee, and that's before refunds and chargebacks. Seriously, that's not a small number if you do a lot of transactions. Seriously, your PayPal-paying customers will bitch if you pass that cost on to them directly.
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@lolwhat if you do a lot of transactions you can get a better rate.
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@lolwhat credit cards do the same
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@Arantor said in Utility company WTF:
@lolwhat if you do a lot of transactions you can get a better rate.
Still not as good as ACH. You don't have to worry about chargebacks with ACH, either.
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@wharrgarbl said in Utility company WTF:
@lolwhat credit cards do the same
But PayPal generally charges more, unless you get a sweetheart deal.
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@heterodox The rule in my parents' day seemed to be "Call someone Mr/Ms Lastname until they invite you to be less formal".
The rule in my generation is "Call people whatever they want to be called. If you don't know what they want to be called, introduce yourself by what you want to be called and call them whatever name they respond with."
I think the major difference seems to be in the lack of waiting for a third-party introduction to talk to people. That, and a general relaxation of formality that has been happening since forever. In Victorian times, you would never speak to someone you hadn't been formally introduced to, and even knowing someone's given name was a sign of intimacy.
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@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
@Captain Does Provo, Utah, one of the biggest, fastest growing tech hubs in the country outside of the West Coast, count as slow-moving middle America? :P
Reminder to search for "Mason Wheeler" and "Domino's Pizza" in Provo, Utah. For...research purposes.
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@Polygeekery Oh, yeah, there's a Domino's about 2 miles up the road from here.
I tried to order online from them. The website said they didn't deliver, so I went to pick it up... and found 2 delivery cars sitting in the parking lot.
The guys inside said they had no idea what's up with the website.
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@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
Mason: You can submit all your information for auto pay through the mail and I will be happy to set up when received.
Thank you,
UtilityCo Gas
Consumer Affairs
OK, the
just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Literally the entire purpose of having a Web form to sign up for autopay is to not have to deal with any of this, and UtilityCo is failing at every level!Seriously, can anyone give me any good reason why it's acceptable, in the year 2017, for any non-tiny company to do business online and not simply accept payment via PayPal? (And no, "PayPal suxx0rz because I heard some horror story on some website somewhere!!!!1" is not a good reason.)
You are buying natural gas delivered via pipeline to your home. You are not buying counterfeit Beanie Babies via eBay.
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@Polygeekery I wonder if it would be possible to get eBay to deliver Beanie Babies (counterfeit or otherwise) by pipeline.
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@boomzilla said in Utility company WTF:
@kt_ said in Utility company WTF:
Is USA really so far behind freaking Poland?!
Think of our banking system as a massive collection of legacy systems. Because that's what it is.
A massive collection of legacy systems held together with
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@Luhmann Dr. Willy
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@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
@wharrgarbl Yeah, that's a big difference. Over here, it's very common for a professor to be addressed by title, to the point where I (and a lot of my classmates) were weirded out when we walked into a class and the teacher, who was painfully obvious about trying to act young and hip, introduced herself as "just call me Ashley."
That's Just Not Done here.
10:1 odds that Ashley hung out at the local college bars and drove a lot of college boys home..."just to make sure they made it home safe".
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@dkf said in Utility company WTF:
by pipeline
If it works for beer ...
Cheers! The world's first beer pipeline is now open
The world's first beer pipeline has opened in Bruges, Belgium. It will reduce traffic in the city's old town.
It also has a cleaning and flushing system to keep the pipe clean
Always keep your pipe clean at all times! (
)
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@Polygeekery said in Utility company WTF:
10:1 odds that Ashley hung out at the local college bars and drove a lot of college boys home..."just to make sure they made it home safe".
Not quite. She was young, attractive, and knew it--you know the type?--and seemed to be worried that we knew it too, because she would always find some excuse to mention her boyfriend, for no apparent reason that I could ever discern other than to make sure the students knew she had one.
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@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
@Polygeekery Oh, yeah, there's a Domino's about 2 miles up the road from here.
I tried to order online from them. The website said they didn't deliver, so I went to pick it up... and found 2 delivery cars sitting in the parking lot.
The guys inside said they had no idea what's up with the website.Good tip. Make sure to call as their online ordering is messed up. Good to know.
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@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
In order to get it entered into their system, they want me to send them a voided check with the routing number on it.
Utilities are the worst. (Well, almost the worst; property tax payment systems are the worst.) One of my utilities didn't even have the option to sign up for automatic payments online. It was print this PDF form and attach a voided check... I think they did at least let me fax it to them. Same for my mortgage company.
It looks like the whole "voided check" mixup has been thoroughly
'd, so I won't go into that. However I will point out that if you use paper checks at all, your bank probably does scan the canceled checks and make them available online.@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
I'm hoping
is apt enough that the mention of PII will equate to "potential liability" in her mind.If you don't want to send it over
, then I'd recommend 
.@masonwheeler said in Utility company WTF:
Seriously, can anyone give me any good reason why it's acceptable, in the year 2017, for any non-tiny company to do business online and not simply accept payment via PayPal?
It'd cost them money to have the system built, and it'd cost them money to process payments through it, and most importantly, because they don't have to. What are you gonna do, anyway... pay another gas company to install mains all the way to your house? Switch to propane? Have the water or electric shut off? Move again?
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@lolwhat said in Utility company WTF:
@Arantor said in Utility company WTF:
@lolwhat if you do a lot of transactions you can get a better rate.
Still not as good as ACH. You don't have to worry about chargebacks with ACH, either.
Weeeeeeeeell... actually... you do still have to worry about chargebacks. Although if you've got all the proper documentation that the payments you charged were authorized, then you don't have to worry about them. That's one reason why they're so persnickety about setting up ACH payments.
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New disruptive company idea: Uber for natural gas
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@anotherusername said in Utility company WTF:
What are you gonna do, anyway... pay another gas company to install mains all the way to your house?
FWIW, we can actually switch companies that way. They get to use the same pipes for delivery though (and I've no idea who actually owns them). The plus side is that online payments all work very nicely.
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@hungrier somehow I can't see going door-to-door passing
as a viable business plan...
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@anotherusername Business plan? That's old style thinking. All we need is a trendy domain name, like parpr.io
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@dkf
Around here the pipes are state owned and commercial companies buy access. Or rather the cities put the ownership in a subsidiary with a political appointed board.
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@Fox I'm actually enjoying it here, for the most part...
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@masonwheeler The last time I was in Utah the best thing about the place was the way the flies on the beach of the Great Salt Lake scattered as you walked towards them.
And we refused to stay the night within the state of Utah after we got lost in Salt Lake City looking for a hotel and ended up in a neighborhood where entire families were seated at their front windows, smiling at cars passing by.
But maybe it's changed in the past 12-ish years.
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@heterodox said in Utility company WTF:
@wharrgarbl said in Utility company WTF:
Maybe it would even be a decent conversation starter to meet your new neighbors.
We don't do that in America.
Crap. I'm doing it wrong. We even have the phone numbers for a couple of our neighbors, in case of emergency.
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@abarker Oh, fly over country? Yeah, that's different.
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@boomzilla If you consider 30 minutes from downtown Phoenix "fly-over country", then sure.
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@abarker I can't imagine how it wouldn't be.
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@boomzilla We have our benefits. If you don't know, then you don't need to know. :P
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@Fox said in Utility company WTF:
@masonwheeler The last time I was in Utah the best thing about the place was the way the flies on the beach of the Great Salt Lake scattered as you walked towards them.
And we refused to stay the night within the state of Utah after we got lost in Salt Lake City looking for a hotel and ended up in a neighborhood where entire families were seated at their front windows, smiling at cars passing by.
But maybe it's changed in the past 12-ish years.
Probably a little, but probably not very much...
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@abarker said in Utility company WTF:
@boomzilla If you consider 30 minutes from downtown Phoenix "fly-over country", then sure.
Yes. I can't imagine anyone wanting to land in Phoenix. Leastaways, not for the 10 months out of the year that it's scorching hot there.
@abarker said in Utility company WTF:
@boomzilla We have our benefits. If you don't know, then you don't need to know. :P
The one thing I'll say for Phoenix is that it's perfectly acceptable to have a dirt front yard there, and it's rarely wet enough to need to worry about having it turn into a mud front yard that could get tracked into the house.
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@anotherusername said in Utility company WTF:
The one thing I'll say for Phoenix is that it's perfectly acceptable to have a dirt front yard there, and it's rarely wet enough to need to worry about having it turn into a mud front yard that could get tracked into the house.
I wouldn't call it "perfectly acceptable", but it's not unheard of.
Also, it's pretty consistent about when those rare wet times are.
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@abarker said in Utility company WTF:
@boomzilla We have our benefits. If you don't know, then you don't need to know. :P
No one said you didn't.
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@Fox said in Utility company WTF:
@anotherusername said in Utility company WTF:
The one thing I'll say for Phoenix is that it's perfectly acceptable to have a dirt front yard there, and it's rarely wet enough to need to worry about having it turn into a mud front yard that could get tracked into the house.
I wouldn't call it "perfectly acceptable", but it's not unheard of.
Also, it's pretty consistent about when those rare wet times are.
Depends on the neighborhood. The "nice" yards have rock gardens and cacti, but dirt is pretty typical.
I suppose some of the neighborhoods might expect residents to have green lawns, but I don't know why anyone would want to live in a place in the desert and where they're expected to keep their lawn green.
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@hungrier said in Utility company WTF:
@Luhmann Dr. Willy
No, it's Doctor Albert W. Wily, with a single L
Doctor Albert W. Wily | MMKB | Fandom
"You forget, Megaman. Robots cannot harm humans..." ―Dr. Wily, Mega Man 7 "Your objections wouldn't stifle me forever! I have perfected my design! And now we'll see who was right all along!" ―Dr...
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@wharrgarbl Did you check the post I was replying to?
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@Fox said in Utility company WTF:
lost in Salt Lake City
E_NOT_POSSIBLE
Seriously, the roads in pretty much the whole valley are in a very straightforward north-south by east-west grid, and most of them are "named" by hundreds instead of random word names (and with very few one-way roads).
You've got everything north and south of Temple Street and everything east and west of Main Street.
The only difficult roads are the highways, and those still mostly follow the north-south/east-west system and have lots of exits and on-ramps.Edit: Oh, and any of those families would probably have been happy to help direct you to where you wanted to go.
