The Electric Company Is A Spammer

Not in the sense we Imaginary Internet People sometimes are. Oh, no! The electric company sends hard copy spam.

I am "working from home" today, which I have always suspected to be a euphemism for "jerking off on company time with less risk of getting caught."* During my lunch break, I decided to open a couple bills and start the process of fine-tuning next month's budget...and though I've been faithfully paying my bills for many years (I am, after all, 43), I continue to be surprised at the volume of crap that my various creditors send along with the important stuff.

The important stuff being the single page that says how much money I need to mail them this month to keep me from getting nagging phone calls about not paying my bills.**

I thought I might list the extra stuff that came in my bills this month:

- The Phone Company: A bulletin containing "mandated messages from the CPUC"; a flyer for e-billing, which I already do.

- BMW Financial Services: (Ever wonder what swanky stuff comes with a BMW account statement? You're about to find out.) Ads for a 7-series sedan, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund Sweepstakes (donate a BMW to a poor South African child?), the BMW Visa card, a Pink Ribbon watch to benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and BMW "Joy of Driving" racing events (including the Formula One Grand Prix at Monaco); a "Cartips" thingy that tells me to use premium gas, but not 93 octane or higher (and I was going to start gassing up at the airport on 100 octane aviation fuel...); a flyer for e-billing, which I already do.

- My credit card company: An informative flyer entitled "Safeguarding Your Privacy"; an ad for DirecTV.

- My cable company: an ad for Padres tickets at PetCo Park (which I already paid for once, thank you*****). I am not sure why they continue to send me a bill every month, since I enrolled in e-billing.

- The electric company: a flyer about safety that was mandated by California Prop 65; an ad for energy-efficiency rebates; notice of appplication for advanced metering infrastructure (alarming phrase: "...will create rate increases for all customer classes."***); a newsletter describing the new power plants they're building which will save me money.****

I did a Yahoo! search on the words "envelope", "inserts", and "bills", which yielded this helpful advice:

"When the mail comes in, walk straight from the mailbox to the trash; try to throw out as much as possible. With bills, throw away all inserts and the envelope, keeping only the bill and the envelope to send it back in." (courtesy: www.chaostoorder.com)

I am grateful that the Internet can be so helpful.

Having decided that my creditors (who are obviously concerned about keeping me as informed as possible) must be information junkies, I realized today that they might also benefit from the knowledge I have gained by not following ChaosToOrder's advice.

So, beginning this weekend, when I sit down to actually pay all my bills, I will rearrange these handy, envelope-sized morsels of information and send them back out to my creditors, using the conveniently included envelopes.

To the phone company: the flyer for energy-efficiency rebates (perhaps they pass along their savings to me), and the helpful-but-not-needed e-billing flyer from BMW Financial Services (maybe they'll sign up to pay for my car).

To my credit card company: the electric company flyer about advanced metering infrastructure rate increases, so that they'll understand when I skip a month now and then.

To BMW Financial Services: the electric company flyer about new power plants, the phone company's e-billing ad (see? other companies e-bill, too!) and the ad for Padres tickets.

To the cable company: the DirecTV ad, in the hope that they'll get nervous and offer me money-saving deals to stay with cable.

To the electric company (who started this whole mess when I opened their bill): the credit card company flyer on safeguarding privacy; the phone company newsletter containing "mandated messages from the CPUC"; and of course, the BMW ad for the 7-series sedan, because after they hike my rates, they'll be able to afford the new 750Li.

Sure, it'll cost me thirty-seven cents to send all this helpful info to places I already pay through the Wonder Of The Internet, but I'll sleep so well knowing that the person hired by the phone company to open their mail will have a few moments to savor the joy of learning, just as I have today.

This is all such helpful information!

I've never looked forward to paying bills before.


*I have since learned that "working from home" is actually a euphemism for "I'm Not In The Office Today Because I Cannot Get Any Work Done With Your Constant Interruptions." More on this topic later.

**I have learned (much to my disappointment) that the National Do Not Call List does not keep me safe from these kinds of phone calls.

***I am reserving the right to get angry about this later.

****A savings more than offset by the cost of the new metering infrastructure.

*****The park, not the tickets. San Diego city politics is SO MUCH FUN.