My children and I spend a lot of time at my mother’s house. She’s older now and needs assistance often.
Lately, as we’ve driven up to her garage, we’ve noticed an obvious water leak behind her house in the alley. Finally, one homework-and-deadline-free day recently, we decided to investigate the cause of said water.
A couple of rakes and shovels full of ivy later we came to the conclusion there was a definite leak right on my mother’s fence line, but on the alley side. So I called the city.
Even though I knew that I should call 311, I double-checked with the City of Dallas’ website first, just to make sure. Yes. Call 311 if you have a water issue, the site instructs.
Ring, ring. “Welcome to the City of Dallas. Para Espanol, marque el numero dos.” I didn’t hit two but did live through the next three minutes of options and prompts from the automated system.
“If you’d like to speak to a (real) customer service representative, please press “0.”
Finally! I was going to speak to a real person. It was 9:09 a.m. I was more than five minutes into my ordeal but relief was in sight.
“Ring, ring,” I heard in my ear. “Ring, ring, ring. Ring, ring, ring, ring.”
After more than one minute of ringing? “Click.”
No way? I blamed the disconnect on my ancient Droid cell phone and tried again.
“Welcome to the City of Dallas. Para Espanol, marque el numero dos.”
Same song, second verse.
“Ring ring. Ring, ring, ring. Ring, ring, ring, ring. Click.”
I was cursing at this point. Sorry, I know this is a family-friendly, community newspaper, but seriously, had my children not been at school at the time, I would have had to ask them to leave the room.
Third time’s the charm, right?
Wrong.
Here I am trying to report a huge waste of water during a drought in Texas and I can’t get a real person to talk to. Let’s see how well I can do through “social media.” It is now 9:12 a.m. on Monday morning and I will now launch my Facebook account.
9:15 a.m. – Posted on my own Facebook wall, White Rock Lake Weekly’s Facebook page (go “Like” us, by the way!) and the Lakewood Neighborhood Association’s page. Let’s see what happens.
9:35 a.m. – One Facebook reply. Gonna try for a real person again via cell phone. Called 311. Got the same ring, ring, ring – drop scenario.
Oh my, five more Facebook responses, and one of them had already contacted Councilman Sheffie Kadane’s office for me.
Less than 34 minutes later, my water leak report had been made. Nicely done, social media.
And a special, huge thank you to Caroline and Lin, for getting through to the water department when I couldn’t.
Now let’s see how long it takes the City to respond.
“Ding, dong,” the doorbell rang. Wow, in less than one hour from my initial post on Facebook I was facing a Dallas Water Utilities worker on the front porch. He was very kind and explored the leak with me.
Unfortunately, the water turned out to be coming from a hidden broken sprinkler head on my mother’s side of the fence. The worker offered some advice as to what to do and soon left.
Fifteen minutes later, another worker came to the door. Double wow. I had to wonder if Caroline told them I was a member of the press. I hope not.
I’d like to think they would react as quickly to a problem for any other citizen as they had for me. I told the second worker about the first one, shared with him our discovery and he, too, soon left.
The only thing that remained was the question as to why no one had answered 311 in the first place.
I turned to Margaret Wright Rogers, assistant director of the City of Dallas’ Strategic Customer Service department, for an answer.
She explained that the 311 system is having “problems with routing” through AT&T. Fixing the problem is a top agenda item for her department, she added, and they will be concentrating during the next few weeks on finding a remedy.
So, as the Boy Scouts say, “be prepared” if you’re trying to reach the City of Dallas through 311 any time soon.
You may not be able to get through. Maybe there should be a Merit Badge for patience.
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