Power in the wrong hands

You know that news story in which someone finds a never-seen-before painting by a famous dead artist, or unearths an unfinished album by a deceased muso?

Well, I’m here to tell you I’ve discovered a new novel by the famous author Franz Kafka. It’s called Power Company and I’m amajor character in it.

If you don’t know who Kafka was, he was a German-Czech novelist who wrote about complex, illogical bureaucratic delays, hence the expression having a ‘‘Kafakesque’’ experience when you get mucked round by bureaucrats.

In this new novel the plot line goes something like this. A power company customer – let’s call her J – is alerted to the fact that her contract with her old power company is about to end and unfortunately the company is about to put up its charges.

So J decides to shop around and see if she can get a better deal elsewhere.

She is attracted to a relatively new power company, and, to get the deal across the line, the new power company actually condescends to talk to J on the blower rather than negotiate online.

It convinces her to sign with the company, repeatedly assuring her that it will do the whole changeover. She furnishes the firm with the details – that her contract expires at the end of the month and she can’t cross over to the new power company before that date for fear of incurring a substantial termination fee.

It assures her she won’t have to lift a finger (or a tongue) to tell the old power company the unpleasant news that it’s been dumped and you have moved on. Coolio, she thinks.

So imagine J’s horror when she gets a final bill from the old power company with a termination fee. She phones them and, after hours on the phone, listening to specially chosen music designed to snap her mind clean in half, she gets to explains the situation and the termination fee is wiped. J asks if the last bill is the final bill, and is assured that indeed this is the case.

In the meantime, believing that she is with the new power company, she has arranged her major power usage within a certain short period at an offpeak time because this will bring down her bill drastically.

For days she feels virtuous as she showers, uses the washing machine and the dishwasher, the dryer even, and does the vacuuming within the designated time period. This is the life, she thinks, looking forward to her first bill, when hello, hello, hello, another final bill arrives from the old power company.

At the same time, she notices, with the new power company, that there seems to be a problem accessing their app she has downloaded and a message follows that she isn’t connected yet. What?

Having lost the will to live, she gets back on the blower to the old power company and listens to the drill about the following phone call being recorded and used for the purposes of training. When someone finally answers she tells them that the following conversation is being recorded and is being used for the purposes of training.

They titter and say the bill will be altered and the second final bill will be taken back to zero. ‘‘And there will be nomore bills from you?’’ ‘‘Maybe,’’ they reply, saying they will leave a note on the bill. Some day, some time, somebody might read it.

What’s that you say? You too are amajor character in this alleged undiscovered Kafka novel? Thanks for telling me. For the first time, I feel connected.