So today at 2.30 pm the office gets a call from the Neighborhood Energy Center. Tthe city, our local congressman, and Venezula are providing heating oil at a 40% discount. Fantastic. Sign me up. I've heard about this, too. They have a similar program in Boston and New York. I've all excited about it because 40% is a lot of money and Chavez is offering the discount to make El Presidente look bad.
One problem. The delivery has to be on Saturday. Why? On account of the news crew and the congressman being there for the publicity. (It is an election year, after all.) And the person purchasing the oil has to live in the 19144 zipcode.
Okay. Still fantastic.
And they need the name of the person in an hour.
And this is a one time offer. The oil is only available on Saturday. Not after.
Not that really annoyed me. I'm not going to sneeze on discounted oil (and it's a big discount) but one time only? Do they not realize that it's the end of the month and the seniors don't get their social security checks until the 1st of February? No one's got a couple hundred bucks laying around to afford the oil. If it was next Saturday, after people get their checks, then I'd have some people. And if it was a larger service area than one zip code, I'd have a lot of people.
I know Venezuela is offering discounted oil in Boston and New York and from what I can tell it's not just a one time only thing. It seems to be an on-going program. I don't know why when it's comes to our city, it's one day only.
And that's what really makes me mad: the very narrow scope of the program. With all the requirements, it's not really helping anyone. I hope our congresman has someone to trot out in front of the cameras on Saturday, because we sure couldn't find that person.
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