PGE and me

By Todd Stadler · Friday, January 9, 2009 9:53pm

A while back, the folks at Portland General Electric sent us a letter. It said something about a billing error, and how they'd fixed it, and the difference wasn't all that big, and I didn't care: Thanks for fixing your small error, and thanks for telling me about it, but the cost to send this out was possibly as much as the billing error.

What I didn't apparently notice (if this was indicated in the letter at all) was that we got two bills from PGE in the past week, both of which I promptly paid, even though one said it contained a correction for the previous bill. What can I say — I may not read my mail very closely, but I'm usually pretty good about sending checks off to corporations demanding money from me.

But I hadn't worked this all out when I called PGE's customer service line. Not that it mattered too much, as evidenced by the following transcript of our conversation.

PGE: Portland General Electric, can I have your account number?

Me: [Account information]

PGE: Thank you, and with whom am I speaking?

Me: This is Todd Stadler.

PGE: Hmm. We don't have you listed on that account.

Me: Oh, well, I'm Julia's husband.

PGE: Well, Julia hasn't even informed us she was married [we still get the bills in her maiden name], so I can't share very much information with you over the phone. What you'll want Julia to do is have her call us and add you to the account.

Me: I know her Social Security number and birth date and all, so I can probably do that ...

PGE: Right, but you'll want to have her call us.

Me: Is there something you need besides that information?

PGE: Well, we want to have Julia call us.

Me: So you want to hear a female voice give you that information.

PGE: No, we just want to talk to Julia.

Me: Yes, but how will you know it's her?

PGE: Well, she'll have her Social Security number and birth date.

Me: Yes, but I know her Social Security number and birth date, since I'm her husband.

PGE: Right, but we need to talk to Julia.

Me: So you just want to hear a female voice give you that information that I have?

PGE: No ...

I think I went a few more rounds with the guy, but he never actually specified how they would identify Julia when she called, other than the information I already had. Clearly, I'd already identified myself as "Todd", but I strongly considered hanging up, calling back, and saying I was Julia.

Instead, I merely let the idea play out in my head. I particularly liked the part where the customer service agent struggled between an attempted security breach on the one hand (this voice does not sound like I'd imagine a Julia's voice would) and a potential discrimination lawsuit on the other (for assuming that such a voice could not be a woman's).

In the end, I had to go to work, and I realized why I'd gotten the second, corrected bill while I was on the phone. Oh well.