More strange doings

So, on the news this morning: they've concluded an audit of the local water utility, including its billing practices. "Less than five percent" of the bills were off, due to what are called "rounding errors," amounting to about $400 (what do you want to bet that's in the city's favor, though $400 is not much, even for a small city).

But the bigger news: an employee resigned last week after it was alleged they had been shredding customer checks and then telling the customers they never paid their water bills.

Yeah. Apparently this employee was "overwhelmed" by their job and decided to, I don't know, destroy customer payments?

I don't get it, either. Most of the people I know who get overwhelmed by work just don't do anything, or else take sick days.

Anyway....back in summer 2013, I remember I got a letter from the city. Essentially saying "hey deadbeat, you didn't pay your water bill, we are turning off your water and you will have to pay $100 to get it turned back on."

I was upset and concerned - calling the city and telling them, "Check your records, I've been a customer since fall 2001, and in that time, I've paid on time, in full, every single month" cut no ice. So I went down there and paid AGAIN, in person. (My dad advised me to go to the bank and get the amount of the bill in pennies, and bring that, but I was too tired for that and also afraid they'd look at the pennies and go "Turning your water off ANYWAY." I am not the sort of person to escalate things).

Anyway - what really irritated me in that situation was that the letter telling me I was a deadbeat came ON THE DAY THE PAYMENT WAS DUE. In other words: sent out before the check was officially late, so I don't know. (I complained about the letter and its wording. I also complained that we were given no second notice - something I thought was standard from utilities*. I was told, "Oh, an outside company does those, we have no control over them" and my response was "You are paying them, aren't you? So don't you get to set the conditions?")

(*I don't know, I am not in the habit of paying bills late, but I thought "second notices" were a thing)

Anyway, they were kind of all-around rude to me about it, especially considering that their records showed I'd been a customer for a dozen years who ALWAYS paid on time.

And that check NEVER came through. (I asked them - at the time they were claiming "the post office lost it" - what would happen if it was found and they got it. They said,"Oh, we'd cash it." No word if they'd credit my account). I think that may have been when I stopped payment (and paid $25 for the privilege of doing that, something I didn't know going in - yeah, $25 to stop a $45 check, great). And now it's entirely likely that that check WAS received but got shredded.

Argh.

I will say, when I called them (and later, went in) they said, "Oh, yeah, lots of people have been complaining about that" (which made me all the more THEN MAYBE YOU CALL OFF YOUR BULLDOG ENFORCER COMPANY?) and I suspected the post office* but maybe my check was one of the shredded ones.

(*and later on - this year - it turns out someone in the local PO was arrested for mail theft)

I will say, I hope they go back through their records and anyone who had to pay $100 for "reinstatement" after a check "got lost" during that employee's tenure gets their $100 back. Probably won't happen, but. (In an ideal world? Each of those $100 would come out of the employee's pocket, but again: it's not an ideal or even a just world).

I dunno. This kind of thing bugs me. It does seem, more and more, there are a lot of people who do wrong and kinda sorta get away with it. (This person has resigned their post, but apparently there was nothing "criminal" done, so they won't be charged). And people like me, when we break some "small" rule, like missing a deadline, we feel guilty and terrible for it - and yet there are people doing things that actually hurt other people (can you imagine being someone on a fixed income and having to cough up $100 to get your water back after your check "got lost" and the city "never received" it?) seem to skate along without consequences or in some cases without even seeming to feel very bad about it.

I'm also aghast at the number of small-town politicians/administrators in this section of the country that are awaiting trial/in jail/have resigned over "wrongdoing" of some sort. As I've said before: I value my gig and don't want to do ANYTHING to jeopardize it (not that I have opportunities to embezzle or the like). If you stay honest you get to keep your job and you have an ongoing source of income. If you're dishonest, yes, you might get a short-term big payoff, and yes, some places the paychecks for public servants are not great, but if you're found out doing wrong it will be even WORSE for you than if you kept your head down and did what you ought to do. I don't know. I suppose it's not that corruption has got worse so much that either it's more widely reported, or people have gotten less competent/more brazen about doing it? But it does dismay me, as someone who was raised to be honest, to see people who SHOULD know right from wrong presumably choosing to do wrong.