I have to write fast, before the power goes off again.
Customers around Northern New Mexico are now portraying a strange behavior. Peacock like in nature, they bob their head as they approach a business, then weave back and forth. They’re trying to see if the lights are on and the business is open.
Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative kept to their tried and true secretive stance and did a horrible job informing customers and squelching alarm. We got three answers from three Jemez officials, none of the stories matched. Of course the Board was silent. When leadership is needed the most, they were in the dark as much as we were.
As our reporters tried to get information Dec. 9, it was like dealing with our printer in Albuquerque. When those guys say the newspaper left in a truck at noon, add 30 minutes. If they say the press needs a part and will be repaired by 10 a.m., that means the inserting machine is broken, they’re inserting by hand and they’ll be here about 3 p.m.
Jemez must do a better job of communicating with customers. The rumors flying around Española on the second day of outages were worse than Tuesday’s. I realize these guys are bureaucrats on a salary and they get paid whether the power is on or off but they serve residences and businesses. When a business has to close for a day, that hurts a lot, especially in this economy. It’s worse if you’re paying a bunch of people to stand around and wait for power to come on.
A straight forward answer and an estimated time of when they’d be back up would have been helpful. Instead we all got vague finger-pointing. Andrew Chavez went so far as to say Thursday’s down time was “an equipment failure.” This followed the “line down in Chimayó” answer and many “we don’t knows.”
A freshman in management class could solve this problem for the Co-op. The people who answer the phones must have a direct line of communication with the people in the field who are finding and repairing the problem. That information needs to get to customers. What Jemez folks continually ignore is the fact that the customers are the members. The Co-op works for us.
People in the field need to assess the situation, figure out how they’ll fix it and then estimate a time of completion. I believe everyone understands the power will go out from time to time. It’s not a perfect system. What makes people so angry is that the people in the Co-op dealing with the public either don’t know what’s going on or simply won’t share an honest, complete answer.
Please try the honest, straightforward approach, Jemez. You’ll be surprised how much more understanding people are when you say, “A faulty mobile voltage regulator in Hernandez failed. We have one coming up from Rio Rancho. We hope to have it connected and working by 3 p.m.”
People can go to warmer homes, businesses can close and reopen later and employers have something to plan around instead of standing around waiting for Jemez Mountains Electric Cooperative to do their jobs.
The other thing that doesn’t help is making up stories or blatantly lying to the SUN. We’re trying to inform people you directly affect. Why lie to us? We can be an ally, especially with the timing of the first two outages. Instead people giving answers did more work covering Jemez’ rear ends than giving us and Jemez customers straight answers.
You may be the only electric company in town, but you’ve got to do better.