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[bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic): Getting Action on Wrong Numbers]

------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Thu, 30 Aug 90 11:16:11 -0700 
From:    bostic@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
To:      /dev/null@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Getting Action on Wrong Numbers

"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 through 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.

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