Did someone say ‘compensation’?

Compensation? Did someone mention compensation? Hmm, that’s funny. Could have sworn I heard it fleetingly on the news. But then again, I also watched a documentary on Discovery Channel the other week about how mermaids were caught in fishing nets off the coast of Guadeloupe. So I guess you can’t really believe everything you hear on TV…

But if it turns out to be correct, and there really is an offer of compensation for household damages incurred by last Tuesday’s demonstration that time travel really is possible – back to the Stone Age at the simple flip of an Enemalta distribution cable – well, just tell me where to sign up. I’m a human being like everybody else, you know. I’ve got rights, too…

What do you mean, I have to be ‘entitled’ to compensation? Nobody mentioned anything about ‘entitlement’. Only ‘compensation’. And they said ‘all households affected by the blackout’. Well, mine was affected for 12 whole hours… 24, if you add the next day spent without water… or wait, are you trying to suggest that I don’t qualify as a ‘household’, or something?

Ah, but what about damages, I hear you ask. What damage was caused by 12 hours spent without the creature comforts on which so much of our daily life now depends?
Ouch, I hadn’t thought of that. The mere sound of the word ‘compensation’, in connection with a corporation that has dismissed, rejected and rebuffed all notions of ‘corporate liability’ for decades, had momentarily blinded me to the most basic connotations of the word. Yes, you have to have suffered some kind of material loss to be able to claim ‘compensation’ for it… there has to have been some kind of damage.

Damage? Why, of course there was damage! I was halfway through an online poker tournament at the time. So there we were, down to only three players on round two, with half a million chips (of admittedly fake money) in the pot, and I’ve got three jacks and an ace kicker. Only one card left to turn. The only hand that could have beaten me was a flush, and even so I still had an outside chance of a full house. And then, snap! The monitor flickers momentarily and dies, and every car alarm in the entire country goes off at the same time…

A little like life in the air raid shelters in World War Two, come to think of it. Only without the added inconvenience that a 100lb bomb might come crashing through the ceiling at any minute…

What do you mean, none of that is Enemalta’s responsibility? Of course it is. You can’t exactly play online poker if you can’t even get online… Hmm, hang on, wait… I’m just going over the small print of my consumer contract with the Enemalta Corporation (I keep a spare copy in my wallet so I can burn it when the lights go out), and there’s a small proviso that states: “The energy provider cannot be held liable for losses of any amount of imaginary money due to unexpected withdrawal from online poker tournaments, or gaming events of any description, on account of sudden interruption in the transmission of its services. Same goes for all other types of damage arising from sudden withdrawals from all sorts of other sites and online activities, for the same reasons. Fond regards, the Management.”

Damn. I was this close to being able to claim compensation for something for the first time in my whole life. And from Enemalta, too! The same corporation that has a disclaimer that goes: “We, the service provider, are fully responsible for all aspects of energy production and distribution in this country, except in those cases where things f*** up. We trust you understand.”

So of course, it ends up working the other way. I’m the one who pays compensation to Enemalta for the inconvenience of actually having customers (who don’t actually have a choice) to occasionally and intermittently provide with a service. And when you look at it from that perspective… why, suddenly, you realise that Enemalta is really the victim here, and we – its clients – the aggressors. I mean, just look at the plight of those poor sods.

They get to be pestered at all times by an endless stream of irate customers who just… don’t… get it. They don’t understand how utterly annoying it is to actually deal with their complaints over the phone. They can’t seem to comprehend that, just because they pay for a service, it means they also have to be provided with one…

And how nasty of us to persecute those poor people so mercilessly, too. Why, I now feel guilty for having inconvenienced the same corporation all my adult life, with my presumptuous and entirely unreasonable demands to be furnished with an unbroken supply of things like electricity and running water.

How selfish of me, huh? There I was, thinking only of my own concerns – my petty insistence on water, for instance… as though ‘water’ were some kind of indispensable exigency to all life on earth – when I should, of course, have been thinking only of the energy provider’s right to be left in a little peace and quiet.

You will be happy to know, however, that while Enemalta is so unfairly badgered and harassed all the time, things are still set up in such a way that it never has to actually live up to its liabilities as a corporation. This, for instance, is from a 2010 report by the Ombudsman – it gives a pretty clear indication of how Enemalta has traditionally handled compensation claims in the past.

“Complainant is claiming compensation from Enemalta for damages he suffered as a direct result of a power outage last June that seriously damaged the electrical installation in his residence. Enemalta is disclaiming any responsibility for the incident and payment of consequential damages…

“This is one of a number of cases received by this Office claiming compensation from Enemalta for damages sustained as a result of power cuts, mostly to household electrical appliances and electronic equipment…”

So: one of a number of cases, all revolving around the question of whether Enemalta is, in fact, liable to pay compensation for damages caused by its own services. So far, the answer has always been the same: “Enemalta shall not be liable for any damage to person or property or for any cessation of the supply of energy which may be due to unavoidable accident, fair wear and tear or overloading due to unauthorised connection of apparatus, or to the reasonable requirements of the electrical system, or to the defects in any electrical installation not provided by the Corporation” – which is to say, under any circumstance in the known Universe.

But then, suddenly and without warning, the same Enemalta – or at least, the government that owns it – steps out, unannounced and unprompted, and offers compensation to households affected by the latest blackout. Not any of the previous ones, you understand. Nor any of the ones that might happen at any second from now one. Just last Tuesday’s incident. A small token of their genuine concern, etc.

Such generosity. So muchness. And of course, I don’t qualify…

Oh wait: one last chance. What other types of damage might have been caused by temporary loss of electricity last Tuesday? My electric beard trimmer! Look at it! It’s jammed! Urgh, the trauma… Does anyone have any idea what sort of psychological damage having an unevenly clipped beard may cause to people with obsessive compulsive facial hair anxiety disorder? There are studies which show that people with unkempt beards are more prone to psychosomatic flatulence attacks…

Speaking of which… what about psychological damage? Why does it only have to be electrical appliances? I suffer from a little-known condition called ‘tertiaterraphobia’. It’s a fear of regressing to the Third World. Well, you can just imagine how circumstances like last Tuesday’s can prompt anxiety attacks and post-industrial stress disorder among people with my condition…

Nah, that obviously won’t work… so how about… the freezer! Of course! All those mountains of frozen foodstuffs, defrosted and re-frozen, all gone to waste!

Hang on. Do I even have a freezer? I seem to remember that… yep, just as I thought: that second compartment in the big white thing in the kitchen looks like it might be a freezer. There’s a tell-tale aura of ghostly luminescence around its edges. Only thing is I haven’t actually opened it since… ooh, around the fall of the Berlin Wall, I would think… and who knows what unnamed horrors may now be lurking within…?

As expected, it is sealed jam-tight with decades’ worth of vacuum suction power, but nothing a crowbar can’t handle. There. Now wait a minute for the thick pall of dry ice to thin out, and… my goodness, what have we here? Fish fingers, expired in 2004. A packet of sausages, which could just as easily be implements with which to demolish buildings.

Half a loaf of sliced bread, that shatters like glass when picked up. Something that looks like… um… something… in a jar.

All ruined. And ALL ENEMALTA’S FAULT!

And let me guess. I still don’t get any compensation, right? Not even a discount on my next bill? A free voucher from ‘Candles’R’Us’? Nothing at all?

Oh well. At least the lights haven’t gone out this ti…