Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: georgep@vice.ico.tek.com (George Pell) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Getting Action on Wrong Numbers Message-ID: <11424@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 26 Aug 90 23:47:18 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: George Pell Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 126 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 602, Message 1 of 6 "Sorry, Wrong Number" Margie Boule' {The Sunday Oregonian} Portland, Oregon August 26, 1990 Irnalee Stohrs has had the same phone number since 1959. In fact, Mrs. Stohrs has had the number for so long, she remembers when the first two numbers weren't numbers at all, but the letters "C-H" (short for "CHerry"). These days, Mrs Stohrs' phone number starts with "2-4", but Mrs. Stohrs still finds herself saying "CHerry" once and a while. Old habits, you know. About a decade ago, Irnalee Stohrs realized that her telephone number was just one digit off the number for the Multnoma County juvenile court system. Three or four times a year, someone would call to discuss a son's truancy problem, or to ask Irnalee to connect the parent with a daughter's parole officer. As Irnalee puts it, "I was always very happy to tell them they had the wrong number, and then I'd give them the correct one. I didn't mind." Of course, that was before the state court system printed up a huge batch of official summonses, and put Irnalee Stohrs' telephone number - that's right, her very own, 32-year-old phone number- on the bottom, right under the words "For More Information." Once Irnalee realized the state's mistake, she minded quite a lot. Believe you me. "It started about three months ago," says Irnalee. "The phone started ringing off the hook." Irnalee was fielding calls for the entire county justice system: the Donald E. Long Juvenile Home, the juvenile court itself, and all the coun- selors. Sometimes Irnalee would tell the callers they had the wrong number, and they would insist it was the number printed on the official summons they held in their hands. So Irnalee called the correct number for the county juvenile system, and explained the mistake to the operator. "The lady wouldn't put me throught to anyone else," says Irnalee. "She said 'We'll look into it.'" A week passed, and still the bells rang in Irnalee's living room. Irnalee answered the phone each time it rang, because she never knew whether it would be someone from her church, or someone explaining that a son was relly a good boy at heart and hadn't meant to shoot anybody. The trouble was, even though the operator at the county had said she'd "look into" Irnalee's problem, the calls just weren't letting up. Irnalee kept calling. The county kept promising. The calls kept coming. I think you can see the pattern. By the time Irnalee called me in frustration last week, she'd made a total of five polite calls, and one less polite one. "Last week I said to them 'I think I've been nice long enough,'" says Irnalee, in her sweet little-old-lady voice. She was finally connected to a man named Rob Grantham, whose official title is Court Operations Supervisor. Rob told Irnalee that "only" 4,000 summonses had been printed with her phone number on them, and that the court had no intention of collecting the remaining blank summonses and printing new ones with a corrected number. Rob said that in his department, he was having people cross out Irnalee's number and write in the correct one. But Rob also said that he couldn't vouch for what other departments were doing. Rob told me he was profusely apologetic when he spoke to Irnalee. "I told her I had done everything I possibly could to correct the problem." (Except, of course, recalling the summonses with the screwed-up phone number on them. "Nothing like this has ever happened before," Rob explains. "We have no policy established for something like this.") But why are summonses still going out with Irnalee's number on them? "The criminal justice system is so huge," says Rob "you're dealing with so many people. These things just get lost." Irnalee remembers Rob's apology, but she's still a little upset at his response. "He suggested I change my phone number," says Irnalee. That's right: A state bureaucrat has suggested Irnalee Stohrs actually change the phone number she has had since 1959, because of a state printing error. I'm sure you understand Irnalee's chagrin. The trouble is, the juvenile court system doesn't seem to understand her chagrin. What's the big deal about a few hundred wrong numbers? they seem to be saying to Irnalee. So let's help the county understand what a nuisance it is, always getting someone else's calls. Let's all pick up our phones on Monday morning, and call the correct number for the county juvenile justice system. It's (503) 248-3460. Only when they answer, let's ask for Irnalee Stohrs. And then let's see how fast the justice system prints up a new batch of sumonses. With the right phone number on them. ---------------- [Moderator's Note: Bravo, and thanks for an interesting article. I assume TELECOM Digest readers around the world are invited to join the call-a-thon in progress; that'll add about thirty thousand calls! :) T'would be a pity if the courthouse operator -- the one who got ignorant with Irnalee on her first call -- got trashed out and had to go home with a headache a couple days in a row. I had to practice the very same guerrilla warfare twenty years ago. My telephone number appeared in error on a list of janitors assigned to various apartment buildings here belonging to one real estate company. They flatly ignored my requests to correct their list. I finally started taking tenant complaint calls, and giving smart aleck answers back; i.e. tenant says 'no heat in my apartment', my answer would be to consult my imaginary roster of tenants and reply, "The rent you pay does not entitle you to have heat in the winter." Tenant says 'my toilet is out of order', my answer would be to use the one at the gas station on the corner instead. Finally the realtor got the hint and corrected the list they gave tenants. PAT]