Father Pavel the head of the monastery at our Tiny Russian Village is working on the issue and is in contact daily with the head of the local electric company. Two men, whom said they are specialists, came yesterday and looked at the situation….they said, “Yup, the pole is dangerous and we cannot even climb it to cut the wires off it!”
Better yet, “Yup it’s broken!”
I just stand there and look around inside my head and wonder about life at that point….for the pole has been bad for many years and the home falling has been rotted more years than that. Yet, you have to smile and thank the experts at their wisdom. For they have all the power (no pun intended) as to whether the pole gets done sooner than later…
So now, since the pole is so bad, cutting wires and doing maintenance is out of the question, now we are in reactive mode, not proactive mode. The electric company has to allocate resources, gather those resources and bring out heavy equipment to replace the pole…
This is that moment that you want to scream, “I have been trying to get you all going for almost two years on this subject!” Yet, that would just make things worse and they would go home and act like that crazy American is well, “That crazy American and what does he know?”
Mornings are crunchy in the Tiny Russian Village and the electric company…
This is another for information, for future issues article at TRV… (Electric Company in Ryazan Area ignoring rotted power pole and falling home.)
So now I wait again to see how and when and at what speed the gears of the electric company turn as they allocate resources to fix what is an issue that should have been fixed many years ago…
Yet the realization is that it has taken a well connected Father Pavel and his interest to help us get this done, to get it to this point. Then as I was thinking about how slow Russians are. Hell, a snail can out run a Russian trying to decide if they want to work or not…
I remembered years ago in America:
I called the electric company to connect my home to electricity in the USA. I had jumped all hoops and mole hills. I installed the entrance pole myself, the power box myself and buried the cable to the home myself and dealt with all the permits and met all the requirements….everything approved and this was no small feat for the home was in ten buck two and getting someone to come out took weeks at a time…
Finally the power company after a month delay, they had to gather resources you know, came out and found that my pole was one foot to far from the main power pole. They only allow resources for so many feet of main cable. No variance and no leeway!
I stood there and watched these guys pack it all up and they said, “Call when you get it correct!”
So, I started all over and had to get all the same inspectors back, move the pole that I installed and no one could explain why the inspectors had different rules and regulations than the electric company….yet I did it….I was lucky for I had left two feet of excess cable for the entrance at the pole, because I was lazy actually and had only to move the entrance pole closer to the main pole. Yet again, my pole was embedded in a huge concrete base that as per inspectors had to be done. So, moving the pole was not a small feat in itself…
I was done finally and the inspectors were happy. The pole was two feet closer, all approved, the power box was approved, the connections approved and everyone got paid again for permits that had already been paid for once…
This time it took only a week for the power company to come out and they strung the wires to my pole….except they said that a new change had come through and the power box I had installed was not up to the new county codes. Rule number blah blah blah and all that…
Yes you got it:
I called the county inspectors and bought a new entrance power box that met the new since I started this year long project codes, paid the permit fees again and installed the box according to regulations again….and less than a week later the power company came out to finish installing the lines, after one last visit by the county inspector…
Four men came to connect the line that was already to go and they sat for four hours after connecting the line, in their truck and sipped whiskey and blasted the local music station as they enjoyed life….they told me that I did a good job and all looks good…
I went to the home and flipped the breakers in the home box and everything worked perfect. I sat on my porch and listened to the music blasting from the electric truck and said to myself, “What doesn’t kill us makes us better!”
I guess that stupidity and laziness is a world wide thing, better yet a human thing and I just have to smile and thank all the people helping me try to get this issue done…
Thanks Sweetpea and Father Pavel of the monastery, for my Russian command of the language is not near good enough to help me get this done…
I have a porch and maybe soon I can sit on it and listen to the Russian electric guys blast music and sip their vodka for a job well done….better yet, maybe I should buy a case of vodka and entice them to “Get Er Done”…
WtR
