National Grid’s response to my letter:

Dear Online Customer,

Thank you for your inquiry. The reason that the gas service was shut off was National Grid must change the gas meters every 17-20 years and since the service tech was at the property he changed the gas meter for your apartment. The landlord of the property was notified of this and should have advised you that this was going to be done, we also installed an automatic meter reading device on your meter at no charge. We are sorry for any inconvenience that this may have caused, please contact National Grid at [removed] to schedule an appointment to your best convenience.

Sincerely,

National Grid Customer Service.

So many problems with this… sigh

[nb: they did respond quickly.. just took me a bit to post]

Here’s a letter I’ve just sent off to National Grid.

Hi,

I’m writing to complain. Tonight when i got home from work, I had a notice letting me know someone had been by, and to call you back regarding a gas meter. To my dismay, you had turned off my gas without my knowledge or consent! When I called, you dutifully & expediently sent someone out to fix the problem, but since I’m a mere tenant in an apartment building, I don’t have access to wherever these gas meters are! I called back, but there’s nothing you can do for me at this point. The onus is on me to coordinate between my landlord, myself, and you to setup a time where we can all be here, so we can let you in to do your work. The only one who gets screwed in this scenario is me! I’m stuck here without gas — in a single swoop, you’ve rendered my stove & oven completely useless. And when I talk to any representative of your company, I’m blocked by the sheer mass of your bureaucracy. Since this isn’t the fault of any particular person I talk to, none of them care about the fact that you removed a basic service from me today.

The question I pose to you is: why would you ever turn off a basic service without my knowledge or consent, especially where there’s the real, distinct possibility that the process of re-enabling it is so difficult?

I’m upset at your company & your impersonal bureaucracy, but I’m especially dismayed that in the morning, I can’t make my coffee.

Sincerely,
Robert Tolar Haining

A while ago, I posted a letter I sent to Delta Air Lines [check it out].

A few weeks ago, I got a very nice voice mail from them!

Delta Response

I have not received any response from AirTran, who I also wrote around the same time.

Here’s the other letter I sent today. This one’s to Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines.

Mr. Anderson,

I write to you today to commend you on what a fabulous job you are doing. On my recent trip from New York/JFK to Atlanta, I nearly missed my flight due to highway traffic. I arrived some 25 minutes before my flight was due to take off, frantic and sure I would not make it. I ran up to the First Class check-in desk, as it seemed to be the least busy, and I explained my situation. Graciously, the gentleman checked me in ahead of waiting First-Class patrons (of which I was not one).

I ran to security and to my gate and just made it as the plane was boarding. I do not recall the gentleman’s name, but he should be honored! I was even more surprised when my bag arrived in Atlanta! I had just recently had an altercation with an airline who will not be named, where I arrived at the airport about an hour before my flight was to depart, and they lost my bag! Barbarians, I tell you!

Another pleasant surprise came on my return flight when I arrived at JFK some 40 minutes early! Quite lovely, if you ask me.

I understand that these are trying times for you, and I commend your dedication to customer service all the more.

I sent off a couple of letters today. Here’s one I sent to Bob Fornaro, President of AirTran Airways. I will post any response I get from AirTran.

Mr. Fornaro,

Lose my bag once, shame on you.

Lose my bag twice, shame on me.

That’s right. On my last two trips with AirTran, my bags have been lost.

The first trip was Atlanta to New York/LaGuardia on September 2, 2007 when I was moving to New York City. I had paid an extra $50 to bring a third bag, which happened to contain the sheets and pillows I intended on sleeping on that night. Why did I pay an extra $50, when the bag never even made it on the plane, or even to New York on the same day as myself? When I asked for my money back at the very least, the manager flatly refused.

The second trip was New York/LaGuardia to Newport News, VA on July 18, 2008, when I was traveling to Williamsburg, VA for a friend’s wedding the next morning. On this trip, you lost my only bag, which contained all of my clothes. I couldn’t very well go to a wedding in shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops, and I couldn’t be sure when my bag would arrive the next morning, so I was forced to travel the 20 miles back to the airport at 1am.

The AirTran representative I dealt with at PHF was congenial and gave me a $25 credit, but that’s not enough for me to consider flying with you in the near future. Not by a long shot. That does not even cover the $50 I paid for you to lose my bag in September 2007, or the exorbitant price of gas I had to pay to get back to the airport in July 2008.

The essential problem is that you have become unreliable, while simultaneously raising your prices to the levels of other airlines. In fact, because I have to pay for such conveniences as sitting in an exit row, I end up paying more than I would on a similar flight on, say, Delta. Plus, they have the added bonus of not regularly losing my luggage.

You have left me no reason to fly with you.

While I have your undivided attention, I wanted to bring one more issue to light. On the aforementioned LGA-PHF flight, it took me some 30 minutes to check in, even though there were several AirTran employees assisting customers and not very many customers in line. The employees were extraordinarily slow and rather surly when I finally made it to the front. I suggest sending spies to LaGuardia’s Terminal D or Atlanta’s South Terminal to find out how a 21st century check-in system works.