Unhappy Camper

 I am NOT in a good mood today.  The tree service company has irritated me beyond belief.

First, let me mention that there is a consolidated public service (Miss Utility) number to call before homeowners or contractors do any excavating around buried public utilities.  Maybe not everyone has that.  But here, they come and paint lines on the lawn where the utilities are.  No one can dig within 18" nearby or down in my area.  Miss Utility promises to do the painting in "2 business days".

If a contractor is doing the digging, they have to call Miss Utility themselves for legal reasons.  The homeowner (according to the website can only arrange for that if they are doing the digging themselves.

Second, the company I called to do the tree removal  is a husband and wife team.  He does the tree removal (with a crew) and she manages the office.  I am embarassed to even mention this, but "English is a second language for both".  But it probably has some consequences to the situation.

So...  Sept 1st, she called to say they would arrive Sunday  Sept 4th.  I asked if they had called Miss Utility about the 2 tree stumps near the utilities.  She didn't know.  The husband called back to say it wasn't necessary.  I explained that 2 of the stumps they needed to grind were near utility lines.  I explained that the law said the contractor had to call Miss Utility.  He said he would.  

On Sunday, the lines had not been painted, so the contractor said he would return when they were to do the stump-grinding.  OK.  Seemed reasonable.  They removed the trees and I paid him half the quote.

By Thursday (4 business days, the lines were not painted).  I called Miss Utility to ask about that.  They had no work order for my address.  After being transferred a couple of times, I reached a very helpful person who finally advised me there was no work order within a few blocks of me.  But she opened one (in spite of me not being the contractor).  They will arrive Sept 14th (5 business days) and she gave m e a ticket number.  I thanked her very much.

So I called the tree removal company to ask them what their ticket number for the utility-painting was.

That's where everything went bad...

I could hardly understand her to begin with, but I blamed myself (I have always had trouble with accents domestic or foreign and as I say, blame myself for that).  But all I was asking was for the ticket number for their original call to Miss Utility.  Seemed like a simple question.

During our 15 minute telephone call, I was not allowed to finish One... Single... Sentence!  Please understand that, in the office doing some trouble-shooting work, my co-workers sometimes expressed their surprise at my patience.  It doesn't come naturally to me, but I tried to be "Mr Spock". It helped me solve a lot of problems...

It is hard to summarize a frustrating 15 minute telephone call, but I try to get at the gist of it.  And note, I had to struggle to ask any questions because she kept talking before I finished, so this is actually an rather perfected version of how the conversation went (baby screaming in the background - that matters)...

ME:  Can you give me the ticket number of the Miss Utility work order?

HER:  They cancelled the ticket twice.

ME:  Can I please have the ticket number?

HER:  We will be there then they tell us the lines are painted.

ME:  OK, so they cancelled the work order?

HER:  Yes.

ME:  What did you do about that?

HER:  Nothing we can do when they cancel the work order.

ME:  What did you intend to do after they cancelled the work order?  I need the stumps grinded down.

HER:  They cancelled the work order.

It went around in circles from there.  I couldn't get their ticket number, any explanation of what they intended to do about that, or what would happen next.  She seemed to expect to wait (for a cancelled work order?)

I finally gave up and ended the call.  I waited 20 minutes and called the husband's number (same baby screaming).  He speaks better English than she does (and they both speak English than I speak Spanish - 56 years ago in high school, so they are better at languages than I am).

To my surprise, I got the same run-around from him.

I think they never called Miss Utility.  The nearest work order they (Miss Utility) had was 4 blocks away.  And I am supposed to call them (the tree company) when the lines are painted.

I won't call them.  I don't want them to darken my door again, ever.  I paid them half the cost of the work for the half they did.  The woman is *%#^ing nuts and the husband is apparently not far behind her.  There are reasons why some business fail.

I'm going to cover the areas they were "supposed" to grind out with "Brush-B-Gone" and heavy black plastic.  They will rot out in time (I'm a patient person).  Be assured I would have been glad to pay them to complete the job.  I may call another tree service about the stumps and roots...

But damn I'm annoyed about this!