I have a relatively deep voice for a woman, and I’m often mistaken for a man over the phone. I’ve always found it amusing, especially when my grandparents would think that I was my brother if I answered the phone.

My husband and I had recently bought our first house and went about getting utilities set up: electricity, water, that sort of thing. We shared the responsibility, and it just so happened that he forgot to have my name added to the waste management (trash and recycling pickup) account. All the other ones were in both our names, but not that one. And then he had such an incredibly busy few weeks at work that he had no time to call in during business hours to add me.

Normally, this would be fine because we could still pay the bill, but we were fixing up the house and needed a temporary dumpster to hold the old stained carpet, chipped linoleum, and other “treasures” the previous owners left behind, and that required calling in. Because I wasn’t on the account, I couldn’t authorize the addition of a new service. With all the stress of my husband’s job, he wasn’t going to be able to call them for a while, and we wanted the garbage gone.

So, I called, explaining in my deeper-than-the-average-woman’s voice that I was my husband. Since I knew all the passwords, security questions, and his personal information, I was able to fly through the screening with no problem. (My husband knew that I’d planned to do this, for what it’s worth.) I got the temporary dumpster ordered — and then had “my wife” added to the account, as well.

When the blackout of 2003 [the northeastern USA and southern Canada suffered the worst power blackout in history] occurred, I worked at a private social club for alumni and faculty of a prestigious college. It was right around the change of shift for the waitstaff.

Basically, employees had been able to leave, but replacements were not able to get in. Better stated, I don’t believe those who left realized the issue, and once they left, they didn’t come back. My network admin did that and left me to the servers, which I knew nothing about. Thankfully, they were hooked up to a UPS [Uninterruptible Power Supply] that shut down on their own.

A bunch of us helped out with serving the club members who had shown up as they could not get home. People were sleeping on the staircases, couches in different rooms of the club, etc. I honestly do not remember anyone giving us a hard time about whatever service we were able to provide. Also, not everyone helped. I get it. It was an interesting evening, to say the least.

Thankfully, no one thought about the couch that was in the women’s locker room, and I was able to get a snooze in there for a few hours. I left at 7:00 am after helping the hotel staff close and open the previous night’s stuff.

My dad’s good friend did rubbish collections for a while when he was broke. Essentially a man with a van who would lump all your rubbish into the back of his pick-up and get rid of it for a fixed price.

He agreed a price to clear a lot of rubbish from a customer’s house, which took him half a day and filled his van.

As he was about to drive off, he requested payment.

Knowing that he had invested a lot of time and effort into collecting and loading all this rubbish, the customer tried to capitalise on his vulnerability and knock him down on price.

After a few choice words and the customer not budging, my dad’s mate got in his van without taking any money and started to drive off. He then backed up onto the customers drive.

Here’s where it gets interesting, what the customer obviously didn’t realise, was the van was a tipper van. As the bed of the van started rising, the customer was frantically offering the full amount of payment.

My dad’s mate, even though he was broke, refused to stop the tipper function and said the rubbish was piled up so high, the customer, who was standing there bewildered, wouldn’t have even been able to get in the front door. 

He drove off broke but happy.

This happened in the late 1990s in rural South Carolina.

My relative is an out lesbian. Indeed, she and her partner were in discussion to be the plaintiffs in a legal case seeking to overturn bans on same-sex marriage.

[Partner] got a job as a high-powered engineer for a major international company and moved to South Carolina. Wanting to live in a more rural area, [Partner] and [Relative] found a home that was a converted barn sitting on about eight acres complete with a pool, a private lake, a small fruit orchard, and some open fields.

As there were some electrical drops in various parts of the property, the sellers let [Partner] know that there are actually three electric meters for the property, each billed separately. The main house was on one, there was a hookup on a light pole in the orchard, and there was one more for a well on the property. Go figure. The two meters that were not the main house were cheap, so [Partner] and [Relative] didn’t give it much thought.

After they had lived there for a few months, [Relative] mentioned to me that the electric bill for their well pump had gone way up — nothing outrageous, but from around $6 per month to nearly $40. Curious, I did some back-of-the-napkin calculations and found that the quarter-horsepower pump would have needed to run twenty-four-seven for about twenty-five straight days to use that much electricity. It was just the two of them living there, and there was no way they could have used that much water. Something wasn’t right.

I began a bit of investigation, looking for a leak. I followed the waterline out of the house and, oddly, it ran off away from the well out in the field. I followed the line back into the edge of the woods behind the barn and found, much to everyone’s surprise, another well with its own pump powered from the main house!

So, what the h*** was this other pump in the field for? I started digging. Surprisingly, that well ran to the neighbor’s house. And that is when we finally got the full story.

The neighbor was the pastor at the church where the former homeowners attended. They had an arrangement that the former homeowner let the pastor get his water from the well on the farm property, and the former homeowner just paid the bill.

But somehow, there had been an electrical fault to ground (if I recall correctly; I don’t really understand electrical stuff much), and the meter was spinning almost non-stop. That is why the bill spiked.

So, [Partner], not wanting to rock the boat, offered the pastor continued use of the well if he would fix the electrical issue and get the meter moved into his name.

But he refused! He insisted that he had a right to free well water — at [Partner]’s expense — and got rather unpleasant about it. “This is what God wants!” and similar proclamations were hurled [Partner]’s way.

Fine. Her well. Her pump. [Partner] gave him a couple of weeks’ notice and disconnected the electrical meter. No pump. No water. No longer her problem.

Rather than agreeing to reimburse [Partner] maybe $80 in excess bills over a couple of months, paying to get the pump fixed, and taking over the rather modest bill, we saw a well drilling rig at the pastor’s house a few days later. It must have been thousands of dollars!

To cap it off, [Relative] talked [Partner] into doing something else with that well. They did fix the pump, run a new water line, and build a bathroom with showers — all for their new women-only lesbian campground.

The campground didn’t last particularly long as a business; it mostly just covered some basic expenses for a few large events each summer. But if not for the pastor’s obstinance, it might never have existed at all.

I have just moved into a new flat, and I get my first energy bill. It comes in at about twenty times what I expect — around £600 for one month’s electricity for a studio apartment — so I call the company.

Me: “Hi. I’m calling about my energy bill. I’ve been here for a month, and I’m still getting set up, so I haven’t used much electricity, and yet my bill seems to be enough to cover my whole building.”

Agent #1: “Oh, that’s weird. Do you have a smart meter fitted?”

I agree to the smart meter, and it’s installed a month later. In the meantime, I am billed another £600, but I have only a direct debit for £75 a month. As soon as the smart meter is fitted, it’s clear from the readings that my usage is more like £40 a month, but the back charge hasn’t been cleared. No worries; maybe I need to call again. 

I talk to [Agent #2] and clear the security questions.

Agent #2: “Hi there. I see you owe us £1,150. How would you like to pay for that?”

Me: “I would not, actually; I’m trying to resolve this. I had a smart meter fitted which shows that, since the date of that meter fitting, the readings have dropped all the way down. It’s clear that the original readings were wrong, and I’m trying to get that cleared.”

Agent #2: “Oh, I’m looking at your records and I see exactly what you mean. I’m going to forward all this to the correct department. You should see this removed by the next billing date.”

Brilliant, I think. Sorted. 

But three months later, I’m still getting emails about this overdue amount (which is steadily going down as I’m still overpaying for my actual energy usage). So, I call again. And I have the same conversation again. I’m now being redundant and I’m stressed out of my mind, but the agent assures me that it will be resolved by the next billing cycle. 

Three months pass, and the amount is still showing on my bills. I’m signed off work with chronic pain and anxiety (not helped by this bill), and I call again. This time, I am overwhelmed and not hiding it well when I get this awful agent. 

Agent #3: “Hi. I see you owe us [amount]. How would you like to pay?”

I repeat my spiel about the bills and go on to say:

Me: “This has been going on for six months now, and getting these constant emails is negatively impacting my mental health.” *Starting to cry* “Can you please just remove these overdue charges?”

Agent #3: “Yes, yes, I understand. It must be very hard for you, being a woman.”

I immediately sober up emotionally. 

Me: “Actually, you know what? Leave a note on my file. I’m taking this to the ombudsman.”

Agent #3: “Whatever, lady.”

And he hangs up. I’m livid, so I let myself calm down before quickly calling back. I get another agent. 

Agent #4: “Hi. I see you owe us [amount]. How would you like to pay?”

Me: “Actually, I would like to make a complaint. Can you see who accessed my file earlier today?”

Agent #4: “I can’t see any access today from anyone.”

Me: “So, he didn’t even access my account? That’s insane. I was talking about my bill. Can you see the notes?”

Agent #4: “Give me one moment.” *Pauses to check* “Okay, I see. So, you’ve been overcharged?”

Me: “With the last guy, I was explaining how this bill is affecting me, and he essentially said that I was emotional because I’m a woman, even after I explained my long-term health conditions. I don’t appreciate being belittled like that.”

Agent #4: “You’re right; that’s totally unacceptable.”

Me: “I know it’s not your fault, and you’ve been great, but at this point, I have to go to the ombudsman as I don’t feel like I’m getting any support from your company. Can you please leave a note on my file that that’s what I’m doing, as well as my complaint about the previous agent, whoever he was?” 

She was nice, and while it took another six months, my contact with the local ombudsman services had them reverse the charge, along with a suggested £100 credit. But it was the most exhausting year of my life.