"Hang on a second," I replied, "I haven't agreed to this..." And then I remembered. On Tuesday evening, on returning from work, I opened the mailbox to find an avizo - so ofp I went to the post office to receive a registered letter from PGE, the electricity supplier. I say 'letter', actually it was an A5 envelope containing no fewer than 79 pages in total - contracts in duplicates, handbooks, explanations, termination letters, errata slips - not stuff you'd want to be reading on a Tuesday evening after work. And not on the day before the Annual General Meeting and Board Meeting.
I left it. The fat envelope sat in my rucksack all day Wednesday, unread, and then on Thursday morning the bloke called. All uppity he was that I wasn't there to let him in. Patiently, I explained that it takes two to be umówiony, and that I had not agreed to be there, that particular Thursday morning. Between 08:00 and 10:00, especially when that day I had to be in the office to run a seminar on digital disruption/digital transformation.
Later, I referred to the contents of the A5 envelope. Inside the umowa (contract) it did indeed state that if I wished to change from the G11 tariff to the more advantageous for me G12W tariff (cheaper electricity at weekends, which is when the działka would be in use), the meter would have to be changed. On Thursday 26 April. Between 08:00 and 10:00.
All of this would have been fine, had the letter reached me sooner than the evening of Tuesday 24 April, on the eve of the Most important day of my firm's business calendar. The letter was sent (according to the postmark) on 17 April from PGE Obroty S.A. in Skarzysko-Kamienna; it took a full week to travel the 140km to my post office on ul. Puławska. That's 20km (12 miles) a day. I could literally have walked with it quicker.
PGE Obroty S.A. could have used sent me an email or an SMS saying 'we're going to change your meter in nine days time - is that OK?' The company had both my email address and mobile number on the last form I'd sent them (in reply to my original letter of 16 February). But no. They will send it all by post, knowing that this is the most primitive and business-wise, least effective way of reaching the customer.
And why seventy-nine pages? Who reads this stuff? Everything, in Einstein's words, should be as simple as possible, yet no simpler. Has any lawyer or business-process manager gone through those 79 pages, paragraph by paragraph, line by line, questioning whether this has any meaning or relevance, and why we have to send this, is this clear communication?
This is what they sent me:
Now, among all this bumph, bądź mądry and find that one sentence that mentions the impending visit of the guy to change my meter.
How much time does it take one human being to read through all this stuff? How much of it do you really have to read? What happens if you don't? How much of it is understandable? Do you know the formula to working out how much you have to pay for electricity? It looks like this:
This is babble. Who understands this? If whoever wrote this thought - "they don't understand, but so what?" - then that person doesn't merit a customer-facing job. Without explanation, just dumping this in the contract is a heinous error of judgment.
In Britain, consumers may complain, but they are years ahead in terms of the service they receive from the utilities.
In Poland, I too have a choice. And here's my message for state-owned PGE. I'd prefer to buy my electricity from a Polish firm than from a German, French or Swedish one. But if it communicates with me per noga, then I must say I'd pay over the odds to a supplier who gives me what I want.
A smart meter. An app in my phone that lets me monitor and control my electricity usage. A contract that's clear and easy to understand.
And if not...? The Polish electricity regulator, URE, has insisted that among the 79 pages included in that fat envelope is one sheet giving me the right to annul my contract with PGE and switch to another provider.
UPDATE Friday 4 May 2018: I get an SMS at 15:57 from Poczta Polska to say that the signed contracts, which I posted by registered, priority mail on Monday 30 April, reached PGE Obrót S.A.'s Skarzysko-Kamienna offices today... not bad given that Tuesday and Thursday were both public holidays.
This time last year:
The Gold Train film shoot - Day Three
This time three years ago:
45 years under one roof
This time six years ago:
May Day in the heat (it was 31C in Warsaw!)
This time eight years ago:
Bike ride across rural Poland
This time 11 years ago:
Mazovian landmark from the air
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