Today I have a short rant on why you should be better organized. I’ll tell you why not being very organized cost me a few hours of sleep. I’ll tell you how to avoid similar pain and how being prepared really kept it from being very bad. Even though I really want to crawl into bed right now and catch up on some of that missing sleep I hate missing a day without a new blog. So read on and let me rant at you!
Rude Awakening!
I overslept yesterday by quite a few hours. Waking up around 4am, and having to rush to get my cleaning, laundry and cooking done before having to go to work that night. To get enough sleep I need to be in bed around 10~11 am. With everything I had to do It was around 12 before I laid down. Falling asleep that early was pretty hard. I slept very badly and ended up being woke up by some kids yelling upstairs. I decided to turn on my fan to drown out the noise. I turned the knob back and fourth to no avail. The thing just wouldn’t come on. I checked my phone and saw it was not charging either. A quick throughway the apartment showed me I had no power.
Forgetfulness!
CRAP! I realized I forgot to pay the electric bill. The one that was only 13 days late. One month past due, with the new bill just having come out. My past due amount was $70! I checked my phone to see if I had any missed calls. Nope, no attempt to call me before cutting off my power, in winter. I put on pants and drove down the street to pay the bill and get the power back on. I got to the electric company at 4:39, they close at 4:30. Nine minutes late and they had apparently ran out the building.
Backup Plan
With my annoyance growing I returned home. With the power out my internet would be out too. sadly backup power is next on my list to get. My laptop stays fully charged though so I turned on the wifi hotspot on my phone. Went slowly to the online pay center for the electric company and paid my bill in full. Next I called the 24 hour service number to check on when I could expect to get the power back on. Since they were closed for the day (by ten minutes) it would be a $95 fee to reconnect. No fee for waiting will the morning time. I may have gotten a tad bit angry with the guy on the phone and ended up hanging up. No way was I going to pay almost $100 to get my power back on a few hours early. At this point I only had two hours before work and it would be back on before I returned home. I had flashlights and oil lamps, I knew my fridge would last a few hours, So I decided to just go back to sleep. I at least tried to sleep while mentally cussing them out for turning off my power. I day without power even in the bitter cold day is not big deal for me. What If I had been elderly or sick though? Seems like a courtesy call would be good customer service…
Let there be light
About thirty minutes or so after paying and calling them (and hanging up) my power kicked back on. Waking me up again. I guess someone was in the area. Good on them for turning me back on. I also had a bit of time to calm down. I am at times scatterbrained and forgetful. I completely forgot to pay the bill and as a result caused myself the loss of sleep and frustration.
Lessons Learned
Even bad situations can have a benefit if you look at it and accept the lessons there. The lessons I learned from this
- Get a bill organizer and use it!
- Push up power redundancy plans
- Buy another oil lamp or two.
My oil lamp which i have not used in several month worked perfectly. My bedside flashlight also worked great. Using my phone as backup internet even if slow worked good enough to get me on the site to pay my bill. To be honest I would have been fine a few days and might (definitely will) run a power outage drill soon. No I am exhausted! Enjoy today’s post and learn from my mistake for you don’t have to.
Have you had your power or other utility cut off? Have you been affected by long power outages? Have you done a power outage drill?If so let me know in the comments.
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