(Long Reading) My Struggle with Electricity and Work (Patreon)

The situation with the electricity. I don’t know if it’s already apparent from my posts, but once again I’m having trouble with the power. Those who have been around a while have likely seen me talk about this before, but I decided to give a summary of the whole situation—since it must seem odd or suspicious to you that I complain about this so much, time and again.

The easiest way to put it is the most obvious one: I live in a Third World country. In the 1990s, a corrupt government privatized all public utility companies, and the electric utility was split into northern and southern divisions and sold to different foreign companies.

Depending on the government in power, the company has either managed to operate reasonably well or has taken the opportunity to charge exorbitant rates while providing terrible service. Current management is garbage; they just pocket the money and let the wealthy do whatever they please. The current owners (much like the previous ones, who were in charge until a year or two ago, I believe) do the bare minimum and invest nothing in improving infrastructure or service. When something breaks, they use duct tape—almost literally—as a stopgap fix until things fail again. On top of that, response times—even for emergencies—can be delayed by up to 48 hours (or longer, especially on weekends).

We’ve been dealing with power surges and burning cables—even utility poles catching fire—since last month; the phase distribution keeps shifting, and the utility company outsources the work to a contractor that barely has the basic materials needed for repairs. Since last month, power lines have caught fire, and the transformer has partially exploded; some phases lose power or suffer from low voltage (others have had appliances ruined by sudden surges). I’ve been left without power while everyone around me has it, or I’ve dealt with low voltage—though, ironically, thanks to my PC, I can manage to work almost normally—and I’ve experienced days on end without electricity. As always, whether it’s winter or summer, they never prepare for the obvious spikes in energy demand caused by heating or cooling. Instead, they just do quick, makeshift fixes that fail again, or another phase goes down; that’s how it’s been all month.

The external bodies responsible for handling these complaints have deteriorated and are barely effective. Neighbors have to go to the main offices to complain just to speed things up, but the repairs remain minimal unless the whole grid blows out completely and the transformer and wiring need total replacement. Right now, I have power—thanks to a street lighting crew (a completely separate entity) coming out to do some work—though I was still dealing with low voltage until last night. However, one phase is still failing, and chances are that when they fix that one, mine will fail instead.

Now, all the neighbors have gathered their complaints, signatures, and neighborhood documentation; together with lawyers, they are organizing a protest and seeking legal recourse to have the situation regularized once and for all.

What will happen? I don't know.

Meanwhile, I have to find a way to keep working and finally catch up on everything—content and commissions—which is what has been holding me back this long.

And I have to try to manage a Patreon while battling against time and a lack of power. while trying to make money to live and not losing followers.