RBWH birth, maternity, complaint response whinge

Speaking of bad customer service, I just wanted to give a big middle finger to the RBWH for their handling of our complaint over mine and Setri's treatment there following Setri's birth. I haven't finished responding to all of the points made in their reply, but they managed to 'forget' to reply to every single important point, and pretty much call us liars too. I am actually shocked that they thought they could leave this stuff out and not have us notice. But they are extremely sorry that we *felt* distressed, even though they essentially say there was nothing to be distressed about. When I'm done, I'll be posting it here and everywhere else I bloody well can. I don't want to forget that the majority of nurses and midwives we dealt with there were wonderful, but the people and institution I'm complaining about need their noses rubbed in their own mess in a big way. I am so insulted and angered by their response that words can't really suffice to express how I feel.

Urban Utilities screw-up

Over a year ago I made a post whinging about the excessive water use figures (upwards of 700L per day) appearing on our bill. We checked for leaks but there were none. Quite a long time after that, after we had received our second bill showing water usage over 1100L per day (!!!), I wrote to Urban Utilities telling them I wasn't going to pay the bill until they had checked out possible problems at their end. By then we had had a plumber confirm that there was no possibility of a leak of that magnitude at our end. They told me to phone back for follow-up, and I requested that they conduct any follow-up correspondence by email. I like to have stuff in writing, and I don't see why I should pay to sit in their phone queue. I received no further correspondence.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago we received our latest water bill, with the previous unpaid bill also included in the amount.

Urban Utilities had replaced our meter, so obviously it was faulty.

Figures for the new meter (I had to get a calculator and work it out myself) showed an average of 348L per day being used- in line with what UU says is our local area average household consumption. So I just wrote them another email, which I thought I would post here for posterity (and I always like to be contacted by fellow pissed off customers who find these stories :) Let's hope they do the right thing... I was going to tag this post with the 'BAD customer service' tag, but I will allow that failing to consider the lower usage figures with the new meter (and the implications of such for past apparently excessive bills that I had complained about previously) could have been due to an oversight, a lack of conscientiousness. I will see how Queensland Urban Utilities responds to my email before whacking them with that tag.

Hi,

I emailed Urban Utilities some months ago regarding what appeared to be excessive water consumption figures on our bill. I requested follow-up by email but received none.

I see from the latest bill we have received that a new meter was installed on 19/05/2011. The water consumption with the new meter works out at 348L per day, pretty much in line with the local average household usage. Since our household size increased from 2 adults and 1 baby at the beginning of 2011 to 3 adults and 1 baby in March 2011, it is likely our actual water usage prior to then was even less than 348L per day.

I had suspected that we were being over-billed for quite some time, and the figures you will see below confirm that, being in all cases an awful lot higher than 348L per day. In two cases it was well over 1000L per day. The erroneous usage figures appear to date back to the time we moved into this house, in November 2009.

Issue date 29/04/2010: 726L per day
Issue date 26/07/2010: 547L per day
Issue date 26/10/2010: 1165L per day
Issue date 01/02/2011: 732L per day
Issue date 05/05/2011: 1109L per day
Issue date 01/08/2011: 547L per day (before new meter: 594L per day; after new meter: 348L per day)

I also see that this previous over-billing has not been taken into account, despite becoming obvious since the new meter was installed. The amount from the previous bill showing usage of 1109L per day (which, I informed Urban Utilities would not be paid until they investigated the excessive water usage figures), has been added to the current bill, without review or modification.

Given the evidence that I have been significantly over-billed on the basis of erroneously high usage figures for about 22 months, sometimes for water usage up to almost three times higher than what would appear to be our actual usage, I believe that the following ought to occur:

Either
A recalculation of all previous bills to my name (and my husband's) at this address be made in line with the new water usage figures (348L per day) and the amount I have overpaid be credited, with suitable interest (I note that Urban Utilities states that they charge 11% interest on overdue amounts) to my account.
OR the existing bill be waived in its entirety.


Thank you to the customer service-personnel whose job it is to deal with complaints like these, I am aware that none of you are personally responsible for the problems outlined here. I am keen, however, to receive proper follow-up of this matter in due course.

Kind regards,

Setri at 15 months.

Setri always puts his hand up in the water when the big shower head is running and says 'laining' :)

Everything below the '15mo' written below was written on my BlackBerry but I didn't make updates for a couple of weeks, so it goes up until about 15 and a half months. Since that time he has gotten shockingly good at naming his colours- we've moved on to grey, brown, beige, silver and gold because red, green, yellow, blue etc. are obviously down pat. He can identify pink. He says it backwards in the same way he says 'pig': gih. He still can't make 'p', 't', and 'r' sounds reliably, can't say 's' sounds at all. He can identify purple, but says 'yurlul', which sounds ridiculously close to yellow. One of his recent favourite activities is to get us to play a YouTube video featuring numerous pictures of tractors (set to dance-y music), and he will sit there naming the colours as the pictures flash up. He doesn't always get it right, and if a tractor is multiple colours he won't always get both (e.g. he may say "Yellow. Gee" for a green tractor with yellow wheels, or he may just say "Yellow."). He can identify about 4 numbers from one to ten, specifically 2,4,6 and 8 (no pattern, just coincidence). 9 about half the time. He seems to be able to identify the number 3 from his foam puzzle mat, but hasn't done it in any books yet. 1 is a lost cause- you'd think that would be the easiest!

Something strange he has been doing lately is asking for 'other one' boob. He'll have one, then the other one, then sit up and say 'uh-wun'. I'll point out that he's had both, then say he can have the 'other one' or 'same one', and he will reply 'dih-din' (different), and then get upset when I point out that I only have 2 boobs! Furthermore, he has started asking Gam for boob, and even once asked my mum for boob!

In addition to pretending to give his toys food and drink (and boob), Setri has started adding sound effects, doing a beaut slurping noise when he is pretending that one of his toys is having a drink.

According to my mum, his social skills are getting noticeably better, and for the first time he seems interested in playing with other children, approaching and playing with/near them where he used to seem to move away to play by himself at the park or library (though apparently he has a weakness for little blonde girls). Gam and I saw him trying to show off and copy a 3yo boy he knows from Playgroup when we saw the boy and his mother at the park a few days ago. He is still painfully shy, but warms up to pretty much everyone within a couple of minutes. He held his first conversation with a girl who works at the bakery a couple of days ago (making good eye contact and answering 'yeah' to a few questions and saying 'thank you' for the pie). I hope he grows out of the shyness.


15mo

Yesterday evening he was at his toybox, which is up off the floor and a bit out of reach, pointing at his bag of blocks and saying 'Back. Back'. He says 'bock' for 'blocks', so I wondered what he was talking about. When I got closer, it appeared that he was pointing at the large black block at the top of the bag. As far as I was aware, Setri didn't know 'black' yet, but I asked him if that was what he wanted. 'Yeah', he said. I pulled down the bag and unzipped it for him, and he reached in and pulled out the black block. He held it up. 'Back', he said. Then for good measure he held up a green one. 'Gee', he informed me, before putting it aside. 'Yellow', he announced, reaching into the bag, ignoring the yellow block at the top. 'Uh-wun' (other one), pulling out the large block beneath it of a slightly different lemon hue. So there we go. Today he pointed at a dark coloured car and said 'back', and it did look like it was, but as we walked past it it became apparent that it was in fact a dark metallic blue. Talk about making things complicated!

Instead of saying 'ay' when pointing at wobbily at random bits of text, Setri has taken to sometimes saying 'ohhh'. I have only once seen him point at an actual letter O on request, and he has no interest lately in pointing to any letters at all when I ask him to. He is still reeeeaally keen on books, however.

Something embarrassing he has done since 11 months of age. I've somehow forgotten (read: been a bit too embarrassed) to post it until now: When I'm getting changed or going to the toilet he loves to point at my pubic hair, shout 'Lair! Laaaaaaaairrrr!!!' in a mock-horror tone, and then scoff at me. I have never been prudish around Setri, the hair is nothing new, but somehow he instinctively recognises its potential for humour and embarrassment compared with the hair on my head (which receives a matter-of-fact ruffling and the simple pronouncement 'lair' from time to time). I keep thinking if I don't react to the 'LAIR!!!' thing he will get tired of it and another phase will start, but no such luck yet. It doesn't help that after he'd done it a couple of times he did it in front of Gam, who thought it was absolutely hilarious.

Knows colours blue, yellow, green, red, orange and white (which I hadn't bothered with until he pointed to the lid of the toilet and pronounced it yellow, which I felt a little defensive about, in spite of its pristine whiteness). Maybe purple too.

15 and a half months. Knows difference between 'now', 'later' and 'soon', and uses 'now' and 'soon' spontaneously in conversation. Uses 'now' a *lot*. Can choose between 'same' and 'different' ('lame' and 'dih-din'), has used 'different' spontaneously in conversation. Most interactions still consist of one word even though he's capable of two a lot of the time (and occasionally 3). His enormous vocabulary can't keep up with his consonant deficit, something that keeps getting worse the more words he learns. There's no excuse for some of them either. He can say 'cat', 'kitchi' (kitchen), 'chicki' (chickens), 'cukukuk' (cluck cluck), but still says 'lar' for car. He did come out with a perfectly enunciated 'tea' the other day but immediately reverted to 'dee'.

Today he saw a large number eight on a 'save 8 cents' flyer at the Woolies checkout and pointed at it and said 'eight'.

2nd week in. He just gets sweeter and sweeter. Several times a day he will say 'Mumma', and toddle over to give me a cuddle, or 'Mumma, kissh'... After which comes 'Daddy, kissh', and he will give each of us several kisses in turn.

He has also started being affected by stories. If someone is lost, or has lost something, he gets quite worried and upset and we have to reassure him. He gets even more whiney and distressed by stories that involve people going to bed or to sleep. One day after he asked to see Facebook photos of Bec's little boy Xander ('Lanna'), he had a whinge because one of the photos featured Xander sleeping.

6th day of 15m. For a few days now, Setri has been saying 'thank you' unprompted. Actually it sounds more like someone saying 'thank you' with their mouth full: 'ahng-oo'. Anyway, the context he uses it in, in many cases, is not quite appropriate. What Setri means when he says 'thank you' unbidden is better translated as "I'll have that, thanks very much", i.e. that a particular object in someone's possession should be handed over wholesale. Whether it's saying 'thank you' and taking the whole piece of toast when I've offered him a bite, or attempting to take some other object that we are holding, Setri seems to think it's very unfair when someone says in fact no, he can't have that despite his polite 'thank you'! Hypocritically, we have probably plucked forbidden objects from his grasp from time to time and said 'thank you' without paying regard to whether he wanted to hand it over or not! He also sobs/wails 'Leeeeez' in the most heart-wrenching tones when he doesn't get something he really wants (usually me not getting a boob out quickly enough), or not giving him something he regularly covets but is not allowed to play with.

4th day of 15m. Brought Setri out from the bedroom this morning. While I was in the kitchen getting stuff ready to make coffee, Setri went to his bag of blocks and picked up a red block and walked towards me waving the block in the air. "Led, led", he said earnestly. A few days earlier he had pointed to a red car and said the same thing, but I dismissed it because he can't reliably produce the right answer to 'red' questions when asked.

He put the red block on the floor, and reached for a blue one. 'Booo!', he said, holding it in the air before placing it on the floor and reaching for another red block. He then held that in the air and said "led". Later on though, I asked him what colour his cob of corn was. "Geee", he told me. "Try again", I said. "Booo", he offered, before trying 'green' again when I asked him what other colour it might be!

Also this morning he pretended to change Hello Kitty's nappy, and asked to go to the park. "We'll go to the park later", I told him. "*Now*", he insisted.


3rd day of 15m. I have noticed over the past couple of days that Setri is pointing to large bodies of text and saying 'ay' a lot. Mostly there are a lot of 'ays' and the text too small to reliably see what he's really pointing to. Maybe we over-praised him the other day and he's just doing it for the attention. Lol.

2nd day of 15m. Gam asked "Who has boobs, Setri?". Answer: "Mumma". Last night Setri retrieved a number 3 from his foam play mat and ran around showing it to everyone. "Ree!". Tonight I heard him coming again while In the Night Garden was on, this time chanting "doo". And clutching a foam number 2, waving it at Mum and I in turn before trotting off to the study to show Gam. WTF. Oh and tonight he tried to share one of my boobs with his Big Bear. He stopped feeding and reached out to tug the ear of Big Bear, who I was using as a cushion. "Boooo", said Setri. "Boooo". I was a bit confused. "Are you saying you want the other boob, Setri?", I asked. "Boooo", he insisted. It sure did sound like he was just saying 'boob'. But I flailed around for alternatives. "Do you want me to read you a book?". Finally I let him haul Big Bear out from behind my back. "Booo", said Setri, pushing Big Bear's head towards my boob. I explained that it was very thoughtful of him, but bears don't need boob!

Oh another thing he did today was point at the (very large) light in the coffee shop and say 'bih-light'.
First day of 15m and I asked Setri to put something in the bin for me. He walked to the bin, held the rubbish over it and then withdrew his hand. "Bih-bin", he stated. "Go on, put it in the bin", I prompted, puzzled. "Bih-bin", Setri repeated, sounding insistent, this time pointing to the back door. "Oh, you want to put it in the BIG bin", I said. "Yeah", replied Setri. So we did. Dunno if I've mentioned before that he's obsessed w the bins?

That night he also informed Gam that he had a big nose.