BGE update.
Feb. 16th, 2010 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaTo update my previous post: I called BGE twice this afternoon. The first time was to ask whether they had a record of a worker being sent out to a call from #837; they did. The second time was to complain.
The BGE customer service rep explained to me that BGE workers have a right to access their equipment regardless of where it is or whose property they have to cross to reach it. I explained that I was aware that he was not trying to do anything illegal; I just wanted to express concerns about how he behaved.
Apparently, in the eyes of BGE customer service he did nothing wrong. It is totally normal, she explained, for a BGE employee to climb someone's fence or attempt to get through or over a locked gate. Did she see how it might be frightening to find an unknown person trying to get through to a limited-access part of one's property? Well, she said, it's not like he was trying to break into my house.
Also: apparently he was under no obligation to show his ID unless and until I specifically asked him to do so. When I said "Hey!" and "What are you doing here?!", that didn't constitute a request for ID, so there was nothing wrong with the fact that he did not immediately provide proof of his legitimacy.
I went around and around with the customer service rep, trying to explain that although his behavior might technically be legal, it was inappropriate from a customer-relations standpoint because it scared me and could reasonably be expected to scare other women as well. I was too smart to say (although I wanted to): "Don't you realize that your guy could have been shot?! He was acting like a fucking housebreaker!"
Oh, and also also: as far as his urgent emergency need to access our back area in order to solve our neighbors' potentially life-threatening electricity problem, using technical skills so advanced that it would've resulted in significant impairment to his performance if he'd been expected to simultaneously exercise common courtesy? He was an arborist. And our neighbors made the complaint on February 6th.
The BGE customer service rep explained to me that BGE workers have a right to access their equipment regardless of where it is or whose property they have to cross to reach it. I explained that I was aware that he was not trying to do anything illegal; I just wanted to express concerns about how he behaved.
Apparently, in the eyes of BGE customer service he did nothing wrong. It is totally normal, she explained, for a BGE employee to climb someone's fence or attempt to get through or over a locked gate. Did she see how it might be frightening to find an unknown person trying to get through to a limited-access part of one's property? Well, she said, it's not like he was trying to break into my house.
Also: apparently he was under no obligation to show his ID unless and until I specifically asked him to do so. When I said "Hey!" and "What are you doing here?!", that didn't constitute a request for ID, so there was nothing wrong with the fact that he did not immediately provide proof of his legitimacy.
I went around and around with the customer service rep, trying to explain that although his behavior might technically be legal, it was inappropriate from a customer-relations standpoint because it scared me and could reasonably be expected to scare other women as well. I was too smart to say (although I wanted to): "Don't you realize that your guy could have been shot?! He was acting like a fucking housebreaker!"
Oh, and also also: as far as his urgent emergency need to access our back area in order to solve our neighbors' potentially life-threatening electricity problem, using technical skills so advanced that it would've resulted in significant impairment to his performance if he'd been expected to simultaneously exercise common courtesy? He was an arborist. And our neighbors made the complaint on February 6th.
