An Unscheduled Saturday Stress Test:  Last Saturday was to be a relatively simple day and I was looking forward to getting some work done.  I always have this pipe dream that I’m going to get caught up on things or finally get a chance to actually clean my desk!
 
Shortly after the baptism I had that morning, Deborah, who was working the front desk that day, took a call from DTE.  She listened for a minute and immediately told the caller he had to explain the situation to me.  She quickly tracked me down and transferred the call to my office.  The caller indicated he was making a courtesy call about a scheduled meter shut off.  He indicated a DTE truck would be on the way to shut off the meter in about 45 minutes and that we should begin to disconnect sensitive electronics.  Immediately my blood pressure sky rocketed.  I was quickly trying to process whether this was a prank or real call.  I asked him to identify the service address of the account and he promptly gave me the address to the Parish Center.  The caller ID name said “DTE Gas Field” and listed the correct DTE main customer service number.  The caller had all the key information and so I was now starting to sweat.  It was about 1:00 p.m. and I had an appointment waiting for me so I didn’t really have much time to figure this out.  It sounded like it was a done deal and our power would be off within the hour.  I asked him who I could call to figure this out.  He gave me another number and he hung up.  I called that number a few times but the call kept getting disconnected.  I tried Googling the number but nothing came up right away whether the number was legitimate or not.  How was I going to explain this?  What building would be shut off?  Would it be the Church?  Great!  People would be showing up for church in a matter of hours.  Would it be the PC?  Great!  I would need the generators to keep the phones and servers going.  Would it be the School?  Great!  Things were happening there in anticipation of the start of school.  I remember thinking I really didn’t have time for this.  I thought about calling Dina, our new business manager, but I didn’t want her to question why she agreed to become the business manager for a church that obviously messed up and hadn’t paid their electric bill.  I didn’t think it would be a great way to welcome her to SJA as our new business manager.  So being the typical boss (and brother since my sister is our bookkeeper), I called Jackie after devouring a boatload of Hersey chocolate nuggets that were sitting on the counter (not that I need an excuse to eat chocolate, but stress will do it).  “Have our DTE bills been paid,” I said in my (not so calm) brotherly tone of voice.  “OF COURSE, they’ve been paid,” she quickly fired back at me.  “You just signed the checks last week. Why?  Do you think I didn’t pay them?”  “Well, because DTE is on the way to shut off our power.”  Two of us were now in panic mode.  I normally don’t get too panicky (that’s my perception) and in retrospect I realize now my panic mode fed into Jackie’s panic mode.  Since we buy our electricity from a consolidator to save money (we buy in bulk at a fixed rate for a number of years), I started to wonder if the other company had not paid their DTE bills.  This wasn’t adding up.  I was now trying to call multiple electric companies (gingerly of course dialing their numbers on my phone) trying to sort out this entire mess.  I knew the bills were paid.  I saw the processed DTE check requests (we have 7 DTE accounts) all neatly signed and filed.  Check.  I then found all the check requests for the other electric company (DTE is still involved because we have to pay them a carrier fee).  Check.  What was annoying was that the business side of customer service for both companies isn’t open on Saturdays.  At this point, I was resigned that somewhere our power was going to be turned off and I would just have to deal with it on Monday.  It wasn’t the best solution, but that’s all I could do on a weekend.  Eventually, I decided to call the DTE Security/Fraud Department.  I saw a passing notation on one of the bills that if a customer detected fraud they should call this particular number.  So I did.  Thankfully, a nice lady answered the call.  As I was rambling about my plight without taking a moment to get in a breath between words, she interrupted and told me not to worry.  They were dealing with multiple calls of a similar nature all day.  She assured me it was a hoax.  She said DTE would never call and tell you a truck was on the way.  Customers with scheduled shut offs are only notified by US mail.  I told her that even though I questioned whether it was a hoax or not, I was feeling somewhat duped because the caller knew way too much about us.  She reiterated they were dealing with many similar calls that day and that I shouldn’t be worried.  Suddenly, I realized the stress test was over and I could relax.  Whew!  “Imagine the bulletin article this would have been had the power actually been shut off,” I thought to myself.  Admitting this in a bulletin article was bad enough but I started to realize my dear brother priests would have heard about this through the grapevine and would be calling to razz me even before I finished the 6:00 p.m. mass that night … news travels fast in priestly circles.  Even though the DTE Fraud lady told me not to worry and I felt like the “stress test” was over, I still kept an eye out for a DTE truck!
 
A couple of hours later, the same caller ID showed up on Deborah’s phone.  After she answered in the normal manner, identifying herself and the parish, the caller immediately hung up.  It was a good thing … I didn’t need to consume any more chocolate and I didn’t need to go to confession for saying something very uncharitable to the caller!  Good heavens, what a waste of a few hours.  On the bright side, at least I “passed” the “stress test.”  I’m good for another year!  And, once again, the desk never got touched!
 
Labor Day Mass:  Please remember that the only mass on Labor Day between St. Joan, Star of the Sea and St. Lucy parishes will take place at St. Lucy’s at 9:00 a.m.  Please join us as we pray that the labor we undertake “may bring progress in this life and by [God’s] favor, advance the spread of the Kingdom of Christ (Collect, Mass for the Sanctification of Human Labor).”
 
Enjoy the week.  Know of my prayers.
 
In Christ,
 
gmb
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