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If I should tell you that the bus will leave at 8 am, and once you've gotten up, showered and dressed, pampered, powdered and painted yourself, send you a text that the bus will actually leave at 10 am, you'll be angry and upset. But if at 9 am, after adjusting your thought patterns and processes, planning and time-budgets to the new input, I told you that in fact the bus was due to leave at 9.05, you'd understandably be properly peeved so to speak, - not to overstress the point, as you wouldn't make it there on time. Well, this is what Eskom is doing. They are erratically moving between stages 1, 3a, 2 and 3b and now, just to spice things up for good measure, they have today decided to rename the stages and what each of them mean.
When I know that loadshedding (LS) is imminent, and about to sling the unmentionable at the proverbial fan, I like to switch everything off myself at my distribution board, and when I know that it's back up again, I switch the switches back again, manually, and one at a time. Anal, - I know, but this serves to protect your appliances from voltage fluctuations and also from on/off - on/off scenarios, such as we recently encountered. In fact, when I leave for work, and I know that LS will happen, I switch everything off. It really is no problem, as the freezer isn't being opened, and thereby stays frozen; the alarm works off battery and stays activated; and the electric doors and gates being de-electrified, merely add to the security pros of the property for the day. I also plan there and then to drink red wine, at room temperature when I arrive back home, instead of hops-based beverages, as is my wont.
However, the electrical engineers, managers, boffins and ding-bats at Eskom, switch between stages more often than I change underwear, (I’m perfectly normal, I assure you) and as one chap recently put it, will soon have more stages than the Tour-de-France! The bottom line is that they say there will be stage 1 LS, and I look on my schedule on the fridge under the big magnet and see, - Ah, it’ll only apply tonight at 8 bells...I leave everything on and go to work. By the time I get to work, stage 2 is in effect and they bang the juice off without any forethought given to my peace-of-mind regarding my private collection of electrical goodies and gadgets.
Before I go home, they advise that they’re at stage 4, a stage which up until today was never defined or described in their online or other paraphernalia. To add insult to injury, some of the areas on the way home are switched off because of unscheduled “issues” whereby traffic is brought to a stop, causing gridlock, and my travel time increases by 200%.
Now, I am not a man given to cursing…not ordinarily anyway. This week however, said profanities, individual as well as often lengthily phrased, directed toward Eskom and their idiotic planning and communication combinations, increased by far in excess of proportionality to my driving times’ increase. Already, my submersible pump blew, my father’s freezer blew, a friends two appliances have fried their motherboards, amongst others. All of this is caused by electricity cut-outs and cut-ins that are not cleanly done.
Eskom – get your stuff (for want of a better word, - which incidentally springs clearly and immediately to mind) together. You cannot expect to hold the monopoly without being able to deliver the goods. We know that you can talk the talk, albeit in masterfully poor pidgin, but you have to be able to walk the walk. We, your “customers” are feeling aggrieved, and are being abused because you don’t have said “stuff” together. We need to know what will apply for the day, and that needs to be based on true and proper information and planning from your side, analysed in detail by informed and insightful persons of intellect. If you believe that stage 2 will apply, say so and apply it. Don’t screw around, not being able to make your collective minds up. You’ re wasting our money.
