Something Is Very Fishy About That Guy’s Priorities

About a decade ago, I used to work doing customer service for a power company in Texas. As you can imagine, a great number of my calls involved late bills and disconnections. It’s not like the company was ruthless; due to Texas regulations and the general pain in the a** of disconnecting/reconnecting someone, it generally required being three or more months overdue to actually get shut off. 

As a result, it was hard for me to work up much sympathy for anyone who was disconnected due to delinquency.

I get a call from a customer who is screaming from the get-go.

Caller: “You cut off my power! You can’t cut off my power!”

Me: “Sir, you are four months behind in paying your power bill. If you like we can discuss a payment plan to—”

Caller: “—you don’t understand! I just bought a whole load of rare exotic saltwater fish that have to be kept temperature-controlled! With no power, they’ll all die!”

Me: “Sir, the minimum payment we can take from you today to restore power today, is—”

Caller: “—I don’t have no money to pay! I just spent it all on the fish!”

Me: “If you’re so behind on paying your power bill don’t you think that was unwise?”

Caller: “You don’t get to tell me how to spend my money!”

Me: “That’s true, sir, but not paying your bill has consequences.”

Caller: “You’re gonna kill all my fish!”

Me: “No, you’re doing that by buying them before bringing your account up to date. I am going to restore your power for 24 hours and 24 hours ONLY, and that’s only because I feel sorry for the fish. You have one day to make the minimum payment. Beg, borrow, I don’t care, but it’s on you to get that money to us. If not, those fish are dead because of you.”

I felt sorry for the fish, but my conscience was clear in giving him that extra day. Somehow he found the money…