Last week I got a letter in the mail from Michcon, which is my gas supplier, stating that they needed to come out and repair my gas meter and that i should call them at the listed number to arrange a time. I called them and set the time for today, but honestly I had forgotten about it. While I was on the phone with the person setting the appointment I asked what the problem was, to which she replied she didn’t know only that the meter had been flagged as having an issue.

Fast forward to today at about 10:30am. I am sitting at work when my phone rings and the caller ID shows a number I am not familliar with. I answer and it turns out to be the guy from Michcon. He says “As I am sure you are aware of, your meter was broken and I have just finished replacing all of the gears. This should allow the meter to read correctly and you will notice new starting numbers on your bill.” To which I replied, “Oh, was that the issue? Honestly we did not know as we have not used the heat yet this winter and that is all our gas is used for.” This got a few seconds of silience to which the repair guy then replies, “Oh. Well maybe I just did all that for nothing then. Your meter was flagged as broken because the meter reader noticed the numbers had not changed for a few months.”

Ahh…needless work. What makes this funnier is that when I was on the phone making the appointment I had told the woman that we had not used our heat yet, and as such where unaware of any problem with our gas. I wonder how may service calls could be avoided if they asked questions (or listened to information freely given) first?