Electricty and Titles

[Snuffles MacGoo]

Hi everyone, I'm way behind but here are my 2 knuts on these topics

elec - I use a lot, I have a smallish one bedroom flat and I use as 
much as a house. I blame this on my dogs who insist on having the 
heater on. In Au the problem is not so much elec. usage as water 
useage. In summer we often  have rationaing that means no watering 
the garden, nightly reports on the water levels in dams, polititions 
exshuting one to have shorter showers or share yours with someone 
else and such. 

on titles, I work for a government complaints agency, We don't have a 
formal policy on how to address ppl but I have noticed that the other 
workers and I usually start with caller's first name, say  "Storm", 
if they get  techy we might move to "Ms (or Mr) Stanford" and if they 
get really  cranky we'll got to "Ma'am/Sir". Ppl who ask to be called 
by their surname (a very small minority of the callers) tend to be 
more diffiult to work with to start with (or elderly but that's fair 
enough). So next time you ring up to complain (at least if you get 
me) you will know how much you are annoying the operator by how they 
call you!

Storm