28 August 2007

Actew constructs hole in Civic

| Gungahlin Al
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The blokes from Actew have been very busy in Garema Place the last couple of days building a quite servicable hole.

Pity they chose to build it so close to several of the trees there (like less than a metre) – look for those trees to keel over due to root damage real soon now.

In a potentially related matter, Hargreaves put out a media release a couple of weeks back crowing about the great job Canberra Connect is doing. I beg to differ…

Dial 132281…Ring…muzak…”Canberra Connect.”

“I want to report a big water leak that’s flooding City Walk near the bag shop on Bunda Street.”

“I’ll put you through to Actew.”

Muzak muzak muzak…Hang up.

Ring 132281 again…muzak…”Canberra Connect”

“I want to report a big water leak that’s flooding City Walk near the bag shop on Bunda Street.”

“I’ll put you through to Actew.”

“No thanks – I’m calling on my personal mobile just pass it on please.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I just want you to pass it on so something can be done before the tourist shop in the middle of the walk gets flooded.”

“I can’t do that – we’re just a switchboard. I’ll put you through to Actew.”

I hang up. Swear at phone.

Hargreaves needs to decide whether Canberra Connect is a call centre or a switchboard, because right now it is doing a pretty ordinary job of both.

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And there’s still a great big dirty hole, full of dirty water. On ya ACTEW!

I just called ActewAGL faults and told them about it as I was walking past… was this the valve with SV on top of it spraying past the gazebo gift store and running towards the merry-go-round?

There’s still a great big dirty hole there today. Not much of a fix job.

VYBerlinaV8 now_with_added grunt8:08 pm 29 Aug 07

Cheers Kramer, now I know!

Hasn’t it occurred to you that when they’re fixing a leak or fault they don’t have a lot of choice in the location of the hole?

Gungahlin Al12:12 pm 29 Aug 07

On the money AJ – simple courtesies. BTW the call wasn’t dropped – I hung up knowing that having already enjoyed several minutes of Actew’s muzak, my maximum call rate mobile (usually receive calls only) was ticking over the Telstra donation at a great rate. I figured $4-5 expended trying to do one’s civic duty was enough…so the result was an extreme need to vent – thank you for providing the vehicle.
[rant off]

Now about that hole in Garema…
What are the odds for:
1/ Actew doing a decent job of repaving
2/ The trees karking it due to root damage?

maybe, felix, but surely, as a responsible employee of the government, and coureous citizen, when someone contacts you and tells you that they don’t want to hang on for actew and could you, said resposible employee, pass on a simple message, and not complying, i have a great difficulty in condoning this. how could it be either hard, or outside their implied work role? it is simple discourtesy and this is typical, in my experience, of the ethic of the days in which we live. people are rude and don’t seem to make the effort to understand situations from others’ perspectives enough.

or al could have hung on. good on you for trying…

shall i stop the rant now?

Isn’t Canberra Connect simply a single point of contact (SPOC) that people can use rather than try and figure out what agency/dept/gnome to contact?

Like most large organisations, the SPOC won’t be able to solve or log your call, they’ll put you through to the right agency.

Felix is right…ACTEW possibly let you down dropping the call.

Build a tiny little bridge (call 132281 for a permit) and get over it FFS.

VYBerlinaV8 now_with_added grunt9:24 pm 28 Aug 07

Well **** Hargreaves and **** Canberra Connect then.

[ED (Kramer) – VYBV8nwag your language has successfully tripped the comment filter.]

Felix the Cat8:55 pm 28 Aug 07

I have rung Canberra Connect a few times and found them to be very helpful. It’s not their fault that ACTEW phone system dropped out on you.

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