There’s a lot of controversy in my hometown of New Zealand concerning the death of a woman hooked up to an oxygen machine who couldn’t afford to pay her power bill. Consequently, her power was cut off, the machine went blooo, and she stopped breathing. Columnists are outraged that a corporation can be so coldhearted. Ho hum.

I’d be suspicious of a corporation that wasn’t coldhearted. Being cold and impersonal is the oil in their cogs. A day in the life of a customer service footsoldier is mostly made up of petty, desperate pleading for special favors and privileges from customers who don’t deserve it. It’s pretty hard to give a shit. If you want to communicate with a soldier, you’ve got to know how to make them listen. Be articulate, straightforward, to the point. There’s people out there who have contracts with the power company to, in the event of power failure, make sure that this particular customer on life support gets either a generator or an ambulence within an specific timeframe. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been too hard for the bereaved family to sort out something in advance, or to make absolutely sure that the power company knew about her situation. If the footsoldier doesn’t care, you demand to speak with a supervisor. If the supervisor doesn’t care, you drive to the HQ and make enough noise until someone listens to you. It’s also important to remember that corporations are made up of lots of incompetent individuals who only care about paying the rent and making it through their day painlessly. If the diplomacy I hinted at above doesn’t work, you make them listen. You’ve got to struggle to survive, y’know? Nobody wants to hold your hand or care about your problems.

So the contractor turns up and he meets the woman hooked up to her oxygen device. She pleads with him to not turn off the power. He probably thought, If it’s so freaking dire, why didn’t she arrange for the company to not switch it off? She’s had notice? If it’s a life threatening situation, surely they’ve got a contingency? Regardless, yeah, he probably should’ve called up his boss, but if it’s anything like my evil corporate, I probably wouldn’t have bothered either: I’d have guessed the answer. The sons also ask him not to turn off the power. The contractor ignores them, and cuts off the power, and goes about his way. I personally would’ve thought a large knife would be a pretty good way of discouraging him. Get the cops involved: the story would’ve blown up as it has regardless, and woman would still be alive. But anyway, woman (did I mention she’s in his position in the first place because of chronic obesity?) proceeds to die. Her sons want to call an ambulence, she refuses, doesn’t “want to cause a fuss”. To which a thoughtful reply would be “Fuck you, you’re not dying on my watch”, and to call the ambulence anyway. One son actually said, and I shit you not, “I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I knew it would be bad”. So after Einstein here fails to call the ambulence, woman falls unconcious. Sons, ignorant of CPR (fair enough, most of us are) start slapping her on the face in an attempt to wake her up. Pathetic. And then he calls an ambulence.
Blame seems to be pointed solely at the power company, and the contractor. The family are innocent victims. Sure, but the family set themselves up as victims. They did nothing to help themselves at all. They expected the corporation to be sympathetic, to somehow divine exactly whatever the hell was going was going on in their heads. Given their behaviour, would you, gentle reader, suspect that they were at all coherent in their dealings with the corporation? The poor footsoldier they talked to probably had no idea what was going on. As I said above, do whatever it takes to make sure you’re listened to. If they don’t understand you, get an advocate! Make noise! But above all, think with your fucking brain!