Posting this because it was entirely avoidable and I would rather someone else not repeat it.
I had an account I was convinced was on the wrong service classification. The consumption profile fit the lower class, the demand fit, the load factor fit. I built the whole comparison, calculated the differential across twenty-four cycles, and had a number I was pleased with.
Then I read the eligibility provisions of the target classification properly and found a clause disqualifying the account on a basis that had nothing to do with load — a characteristic of the premises itself. The account had never been eligible. Three weeks of work, and the tariff had said so on the first page of the schedule.
The lesson is not "read the tariff," because everyone says that and everyone thinks they do. The lesson is about order of operations. I had read the rate provisions, because that is where the money is, and skipped the eligibility and applicability provisions, because they are boring. They are the first thing to read, not the last.
I now check eligibility before I calculate anything at all. If the account cannot be on the target classification, the differential does not matter and I have not spent the time computing it.
The related habit worth building: when a finding looks unusually clean, that is the moment to go looking for the provision that kills it.
I had an account I was convinced was on the wrong service classification. The consumption profile fit the lower class, the demand fit, the load factor fit. I built the whole comparison, calculated the differential across twenty-four cycles, and had a number I was pleased with.
Then I read the eligibility provisions of the target classification properly and found a clause disqualifying the account on a basis that had nothing to do with load — a characteristic of the premises itself. The account had never been eligible. Three weeks of work, and the tariff had said so on the first page of the schedule.
The lesson is not "read the tariff," because everyone says that and everyone thinks they do. The lesson is about order of operations. I had read the rate provisions, because that is where the money is, and skipped the eligibility and applicability provisions, because they are boring. They are the first thing to read, not the last.
I now check eligibility before I calculate anything at all. If the account cannot be on the target classification, the differential does not matter and I have not spent the time computing it.
The related habit worth building: when a finding looks unusually clean, that is the moment to go looking for the provision that kills it.