The Rural Voice, 2001-06, Page 10'Our experience
assures lower cost
water wells"
101 YEARS EXPERIENCE
Member of Canadian
and Ontario
Water Well Associations
• Farm
• Industrial
• Suburban
• Municipal
Licensed
by the Ministry
of the Environment
DAVIDSON
WELL DRILLING LTD.
WINGHAM
Serving Ontario Since 1900
519-357-1960 WINGHAM
519-664-1424 WATERLOO
CANADIAN
CO-OPERATIVE
WOOL GROWERS
LIMITED
yr;w:�fw
Now Available
WOOL ADVANCE PAYMENTS
' Skirted Fleeces
Well -Packed Sacks
For more information contact:
WINGHAM
WOOL DEPOT
John Farrell
R.R. 2, Wingham, Ontario
Phone/Fax 519-357-1058
6 THE RURAL VOICE
Keith Roulston
Adventures in `efficiency'
Ah. the wonders of the wired
world. It allows us to deal with some-
one hundreds of miles away instead
of face to face. Of course the idea is
sometimes better than the reality.
Take one recent episode. After
having our lane under ater several
times from last
year's torrential
rains flooding
down off the half -
mile -long hill-
side, we decided
this spring to
build up the lane
and put drains
under it. First job:
call Bell Canada
for the location of
the buried line.
Looked
simple. Call the
1-800 number
and report the
details. Of course there was the
obligatory electronic answering
service and the "push -one -for -this".
Then it was the "your -call -is -
important -to -us -so please -hang -on -
the -phone -for -another -ten -minutes"
message, repeated every 30 seconds.
By the time you finally talk to a
human you're wound like a clock.
And then the fun begins.
The operator asked for my
telephone number, then my name and
address. This being Bell Canada, I
figured if they had my telephone
number they'd already have my name
and address so this must be some sort
of double check. It wasn't.
We went through a long series of
questions including my 911 address
and the nearest cross-roads on my
concession, then she asked me to
hold while she looked for the maps of
the area. Another long wait while I
tried to find something productive to
do so my day wouldn't be totally
wasted. Then she was back to try to
determine the location they were
supposed to do a locate on. It became
like a man with no tongue talking to a
woman who was blind and deaf.
Despite the fact all our local roads
have been renamed and renumbered
according to Bell Canada specific-
ations, apparently nobody told Bell
Canada. Using one of the cross-roads
Communicating
in the age of
communications
I had given her, she first tried to tell
me I lived at the corner of the county
road four miles north. Mystified, I
told her I lived closer to another
county road several miles south of
that. She then tried to get from me
details of how one would get from
that county road, which ran parallel
to my concession, to my place. The
best I could figure out was that her
map only had county roads on it.
Finally twigging to this fact, I gave
her directions from a north -south
county road. I'm worried, though,
because though they promised
service within two working days, as
this is written four days later,
nobody's showed up yet.
Now if I had met one of the local
Bell servicemen on the street, we
could have arranged this within 15
seconds. Instead it took at least 15
minutes of long distance line time,
not to mention the operator's time
and frustration. The local worker
would have known instantly how to
get to my place. Heaven knows if
they'll be able to read her directions.
They may end up painting red lines
on somebody else's lane.
But this is efficiency in the new
millennium. We've just spent a
fortune in rural Ontario installing 911
numbers so that in times of emerg-
ency we can talk to an operator in
Ottawa who can then talk to our local
fire department or police and given
them numbers they can understand.
These same 911 addresses will
soon be required on our mail as well,
even though they'll actually make
more work for rural mail carriers.
They'll have to sort the 911 -address-
ed mail into rural routes, which we
currently have in our address.
But this is efficiency in the
homogenized, one -size -fits -all model
for business and government in our
era. Where does the next efficiency
come in? My fear is when managers
discover that if they can have your
911 call answered in Ottawa, they
can just as easily have it answered in
Haiti where people will be happy to
work for $1 a day. I'm going to start
practicing my French.0
Keith Roulston is editor and
publisher of The Rural Voice. He
lives near Blyth, ON.