Editor:

What a privilege it must be for the employees from AEP/CPL and CenterPoint, who get to decide at what time of the day they will come out to your home to reconnect your services.

After paying an outrageous reconnect fee with CenterPoint, here it is almost 3:30 p.m. of the long expected reconnection day (Dec. 4). No reconnect yet! These people do not realize how many people I had to borrow the money from to get reconnected. Oh, but remember for an overtime rate, it would have been done yesterday. Bah humbug! People, we are in a recession! It sure was cold last night!

Our paychecks just do not cover our living expenses any more.

What about AEP/CPL? Well, we rushed around, when to pay the bill, called in the receipt number to AEP/CPL, and the person tells me, “the technician already has the dispatch for disconnect, talk to him when he arrives, show him your receipt and see if he will not disconnect services, it is his decision.” Sure enough, he did not seem pleased that his work place had our money in the bank and that we had paid the bill. At this point, he told me to call in again, to report payment and get the disconnect order voided. He vowed he would be at our home by 8 a.m. the next morning to carry out the disconnect. He did not show up. Thank God.

What I have to say to these important decision makers is, remember we are your customers. You have a job, thanks to us, because we get disconnected. You need to go back to class and refresh your people skills. Oh, yes. We do not like to get disconnected; we just do not have enough money to pay our bills on the “due date.”

Still disconnected,

Maria J. Gomez