Karen had a little lamb
Let’s rewind a bit and introduce our lovely customer, Karen. Karen and her partner Steve own a sheep farm in regional South Australia. Having always wanted to be a farmer, Karen is in her element in the paddocks, taking care of the sheep, hand-rearing baby orphans and giving each of them their own name — they even follow her around the property.
As you can imagine, there’s no shortage of work when it comes to running a farm, and shearing season is when the year-round hard yakka really pays off.
With 3000+ sheep having to be shorn three times per year for their top-quality wool, which is sold at auction and used both here in Australia and overseas (some of it may even end up in the finest fashion houses in Milan), this income is what keeps sheep farmers, like Karen and Steve, in business.
A critical factor come shearing time? You guessed it, electricity.
Getting energy right for our customers
A flustered Karen first reached out to us when a metering issue – due to a mix up with the neighbouring property – threatened to put their whole shearing season in jeopardy. And who should answer that call but our very own superstar, Fred.
Fred set to work wrangling the complex metering issue – working closely with Karen, SA Power Networks and several different members of the Origin team, working tirelessly to ensure the new meters were installed correctly and power was restored to the shed in time for the shearers’ arrival.
An unexpected friendship blossomed
As Karen and Fred worked together over many weeks, Karen grew fond of him and after one exchange even remarked that he should, “call his mum when you hang up and tell her she should be proud of you!” (We believe that’s exactly what Fred did).
With the power back up and running, and the shearers all set to get to work, Karen thought of an unexpected way to say thanks to Fred for all his help…
Serendipitously, Karen had just taken on a handsome new ram and decided to acknowledge Fred’s hard work by naming him after our very own Fred. Karen then sent a lovely thank you note to Fred, along with the good news and CC-d in Fred’s boss. Pretty soon, Fred the Ram was stuff of legend here at Origin.
“It was so great to meet Fred (and Karen and Steve) face-to-face and see firsthand how, quite often, the work we do on the phones at the office makes a huge difference to our customer’s day-to-day lives.”
– Fred, Energy Specialist.
Fred (the person) meets Fred (the ram)
Flash forward to a crisp winter’s day in July this year, where Fred the Origin energy specialist travelled from his hometown in Melbourne to picturesque Langhorne Creek – about 65km northeast of Adelaide. With Karen and Steve opening their home to us, putting on afternoon tea, showing us the ins and outs of wool shearing and, most importantly, introducing the Freds to one another for the very first time!
For Fred the energy specialist, it was love at first sight. For Fred the ram… well, we’ll let you judge that for yourself…
Our team of 400 Energy Specialists work directly with customers like Karen and Steve across the country every day. From billing enquiries to complex metering issues – no two calls are ever the same, but our team are dedicated to helping our customers with all their energy needs. If you want to explore a challenging and fun career in an exciting industry, we’d love to hear from you.
