At 8 a.m. on a recent Monday, I answered an insistent ringing of the front doorbell. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and hadn’t even had a first cup of coffee.

“Ma’am, I’m with a subcontractor to Edison. We’re here to replace your power pole,” Ken said, as he presented me with his card. It never occurred to me that I might have a choice in the matter. 

I did tell him that I was concerned about whether we’d have power during the process, and whether our phone, fax or Internet service would be interrupted. Ken assured me that he would give plenty of advance notice before turning off the power, so computers can be protected. He also promised there would be no interruption of phone service at all.  

With that, I said okay, and he left to join his crew in the alley. 

I needed electricity especially that day, because two people were coming to help organize a lifetime collection of materials on the environment, consumer affairs and First Amendment issues. 

Barbara is with UCLA Library’s Special Collections and brings her laptop, sans batteries, to record everything in each file box, before it is shipped to Westwood. Anastasia, an intern from Cal State Northridge, needs illumination to see what she’s sorting.

Soon we could hear the crew working, behind the house. A special nail in the pole, revealed that it had been installed in 1944. 

From the alley, this pole serves six houses. There was one man working high up in a cherry picker and another climbing the pole. The electric wires were wrapped in orange rubber, to prevent electrocution while they were being worked on. It was fascinating to watch. 

My friend Betty, a former chairwoman of the City’s Public Works Commission, arrived just in time to see what was going on. With Ken’s crew was someone from yet another subcontractor, hired by Edison, ostensibly to be sure everything was being done properly. 

The first thing Betty wanted to know was whether they had a permit from the City to be doing this. And, whether I had been given advance notice of such plans. “No,” was the answer in both cases. 

At the end of the day, Ken reappeared at the front door. I asked why they never turned off the power. He said they would, the following day, instead. I asked that they please not do that until I got back from a luncheon meeting, so I could quickly check my e-mail and turn off my computer. He agreed. 

Imagine my shock and dismay when at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, I heard the alarm beeping on my computer’s battery-powered back-up device. I quickly went to my bedroom window, opened it, and shouted at the crew: 

“Ken promised you would not turn off the power until I got back today, at 2 p.m. Please turn it back on!” No, they said, they would not. Ken was nowhere to be found to ask why his promise was not being kept. 

I then called the office of Edison’s CEO, and stated my problem. The computer’s back-up alarm was still beeping loudly when Edison’s consumer affairs manager, Eva, introduced herself. I told her that, as even a minor shareholder, I am concerned when “our company’s word means nothing.” 

This is not the first example of the decline in the quality of Edison’s service. This January, I had requested that the tree branches, entwined in the powerlines above my garden fence, be properly trimmed.

The last time they were allowed to grow above the top powerlines, we had a flash-over fire in a storm. This burned up the wires, causing an outage.

Edison’s tree person has refused to arrange for trimming this year, saying, “With our new contract, the decision to trim or not is now the contractor’s.”

It looks like Edison has turned over too many of its responsibilities to others. It may be that the less Edison’s contractors do, the more money they can make.

I told Eva about this and, perhaps as a consolation, she agreed to get someone to trim the trees along the alley. However, the worst was yet to come.

My insurance agent, had just found a new automobile insurance policy that would save me a few hundred dollars. I had to sign the agreement about to be faxed to me, and fax it right back, or I’d have no coverage.

That’s when I learned that my phone line, which serves both the fax and the computer, was dead.

I went out on the patio and shouted at the crew, “Ken promised there would be no interruption in phone service.” The reply was, that “Yesterday’s crew shredded the phone line.” They claimed that no one from the phone company was available to help restore service. Then, temporarily they did get the phone line to work. But, as soon as the crew quit for the day, so did the phone line.

I called Pacific Bell just before 4 p.m. and was told they had no one to send until tomorrow. But, I would not be at home tomorrow and needed someone now. Fortunately Amber, a supervisor, found Michael available.

Michael, sporting a swirled, lavender-dyed crew cut, went straight to the three phone boxes on the side of the house. He opened up the newest of them and proceeded to gouge out a 1 inch by 2 inch computer chip. He explained that they had been put in years ago, were defective, and probably accounted for the fact that my phone service only operated at 93% of what it should.

With the chip removed, for the first time I no longer had trouble getting my computer to connect with the Internet. All this time I had been cursing Earthlink and it wasn’t even their fault.

Now, if the California Public Utilities Commission were doing their job properly, they would see to it that every defective chip installed by Pacific Bell was removed. And, that Edison stopped fobbing off all of its responsibility for quality service to its subcontractors.

Ellen Stern Harris
Executive Director, Fund for The Environment
Editor of BeverlyHillsCitizen.org
P.O. Box 228
Beverly Hills, CA 90213