The following Letter to the Editor was submitted to Patch by Donald Daley, Business Manager, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1049 in Hauppauge.
It’s been a very long 10 days for the 300 service representatives at LIPA’s Customer Call Center in Melville. If ever there was an example of a 24/7 team effort under very demanding conditions, this is surely it.
Working 16-hour days, every day since Hurricane Sandy struck, these representatives have answered over one million customer calls. The commitment of these hard-working men and women to their customers and their fellow workers has been outstanding. It is a commitment that we take very seriously and pride ourselves in this tradition.
The call center in Melville is the main contact point between the public and LIPA. During Hurricane Sandy, call volume has spiked from the normal 10,000 daily calls to as much as 130,000 emergency calls. As you might imagine, customers living without power for more than a week have strong feelings and the experience for call center workers has been physically and emotionally challenging. The call center workers know that the service they help to provide gives comfort and security to the public and will not stop until everyone’s service is restored.
These reps are themselves Long Islanders who truly feel the pain of their neighbors. Many are moms, who for more than a week have left their kids for all but a few hours daily, then rushed back to another 16-hour shift. Like the callers they help, these workers are Long Islanders and many have also been without power and have been flooded.
The call center professionals are part of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 1049, whose members include about 3300 workers putting in similarly long days on the street getting power back on. Whether our IBEW members work for National Grid in power generation or gas operations, directly for LIPA in the call center or the transmission and distribution area, or for a shared organization, these professionals always pull together and coordinate their efforts to help in a time of need.
It’s true that every Long Islander has had to sacrifice because of Hurricane Sandy. But few have given as much as the hard-working, dedicated electrical workers who are helping to get power restored to their neighbors.
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When the temp dropped to 32, we had no choice but to vacate and hope that the house was still there when we returned. So Monday AM, after still no good information, I finally gave up on technology and placed the call. Here is a Hint. BE NICE. The call center is NOT to BLAME for the lack of Upper management by LIPA to plan and prepare for a storm that was forecasted days in advance. The woman who finally answered was very pleasant, but I was told that they had no additional information than what I was getting from the txt message or the Web site. So Once again, the LIPA Management takes these hard working front line folks and gives them no information, like always. My question to Gov. Cuomo is "How will the be held accountable". He fired his Emergency Management director, when will he replace the lack of caring Upper management of the LIPA Management team and have someone in place that knows how to plan and communicate, as if they had no power.
Realize these emloyees, yes employees are paid very well. It is your job to report to work daily and provide the public and homeowners with the service they pay for through hard earned money. The entire LIPA is in total shambles which has been revealed this past two weeks. Realize there are those civilans and homeowners yhat have b een apalled by the work performance throughout the years and have said nothing. Now people are saying we need as new utility on Long Island and we need service and accountability. Unttil then please don't insult the publics intelligence, you have a job responsibility,now get to work ............
No, No, No ..... accolades for the rude reps!
Set up addition temporary call centers (this would take mere hours to do), hire temps to take calls and get managers to take calls. A busy signal is never an option for something so important as the basic need of electricity. Poor preventative maintenence of outside plant exascerbated the problem. Company reps. sent not knowing what the hell they're doing caused inefficient and multiple responses and visits and caused days of delay. LIPA needs to go and government owes the tax payers of Long Island a utility that can actually do their job. Electricity isn't just another consumer option. Lives depend on it as everything is somehow tethered to it and depends on it to work. LIPA's latest " We're gonna look and see what went went wrong, after this is over" tells how poor a job they do..They admit it. Time for them to go.
Those who have encountered outside contractors who did a great job need to contact these companies and say thank you. I just sent an email to State Electric, http://www.stateelectriccorp.com thanking them for a great crew of professionals that did a wonderful job in our area. I say this based on a dozen years as a splicer having to deal with both the damage and, sometimes, poor management. Seperate the bad (LIPA management) from those who work, in spite of poor leadership and send appreciation to the companies who came and helped us get back on line.