Author Topic: The Cable Guy  (Read 2914 times)

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Lahti35

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on: August 30, 2009, 01:44:05 am
Ok, before everyone starts throwing bricks...i'm the cable guy!

How many of you folks have had a positive dealing with the cable company? I just had another (in a long line) of depressing work days because the company has everybodys work orders messed up.

I work for Charter Cable  in MI and boy oh boy i wonder how they find new customers. The organization seems so flawed at every level. They folks who take your order in the far east usualy make a minor/large mistake and it goes downhill from there. They set you up with a time block for install and your good to go...or so you think!

Enter the cable guy....

My day starts at 6am where i head to the office and get my equipment destined for your homes according to the work orders. Lately a typical day is 4 am jobs (8am-12pm) and 4 pm jobs (1pm -5pm), each usualy taking between 1-2 hours. If we apply some math we find that at the average amount of work for the morning runs from 4-8 hours and the same for evening. Thats 8-16 hours of work for a maximum for 8 scheduled hours.

Once in a blue moon everything goes right but more likely its as follows...

Jane Doe orders cable and internet with "A,B,C" pieces of equipment. I show up an hour late (its a good day as i'm not 2 hours late) with "AFZ" equipment because that indian screwed up the work order. Now my bud has to travel from across town while i try and find something to work on to stay productive. Cable guy #2 shows up and his equipment is bad because the cable company recycles equipment like my buddy does girlfriends....way too often. On the long hard road to functioning reliable installed cable equipment we discover the COD quoted the customer is wrong. Its always $90 instead of $70, $100 instead of $40, $352.67 instead of $30, or my personal favorite: "whats a COD?". Now come on i'm 29 and I know what a COD is. Sometimes they try to pay me in pop cans or straight change. And sometimes i get a niftly little show called "The 7 people who live here trying to scrape up $25 between them".

Finally we're nearing completion and i'm ready to explain how stuff work when out of the blue comes: "What about that other cable outlet in the kitchen we asked for?" Are you talking about the one it would have been nice to know you wanted before i did all the work, cleaned up and put the tools away....that one? Depending on the polite nature of the customer i may run the outlet....or not. Finally, again, its time for customer education. If the technology itself isn't enough to confuse the customer the 25 different types of cable boxes, modems, remote controls, and individual instruction booklets for each sure as hell will. Then its back in the truck and off to the next one, and so on until the route is complete at 6-7pm.

This can be a dangerous job....i'm no pansy or anything but... I've been chewed on by dogs, smashed my fingers in the service boxes at the street often(no keys...have to pry them open), knocked off ladders, whipped by cable caught on the road by passing cars doing 50 by my cones, crawled through turds and whiz, and others factoids to numerous to list.

I get that cable installed though, yes sir feel more reliable than the post office these days. "Whatever it takes" is the offical company motto...no joke.

So between job searching i spend most evenings thumping through the 'hood on my bullet to unwind. Very effective in my case!
« Last Edit: August 30, 2009, 03:28:54 am by Lahti35 »
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Blue Ridge Wheeltor

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Reply #1 on: August 30, 2009, 02:01:20 am
I liked you movie though, Larry.
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REpozer

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Reply #2 on: August 30, 2009, 02:23:48 am
I don't have cable TV.

Course you could trade careers and become a motorcycle mechanic, its much easier,ask Vince.
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Lahti35

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Reply #3 on: August 30, 2009, 03:25:40 am
I don't have cable TV.

Me Too! Not many of us around!
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sqf

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Reply #4 on: August 30, 2009, 07:26:38 am
I love our cable company.  Only thing I notice is our has a 1/2 hour guarantee.  If the appointment is at 1pm and they aren't there by 130 your next 3 months are free.  I have also gotten splitters and line from random cable guys w2ho have been more than willing to hook me up with items.  My brother is a cable installer/salesperson/surround system expert that owns his own company so I can relate somewhat.  The only complaint I have from cable is that my Explorer HDTV DVR boxes last about 14 months before they flip out and have to be replaced.  We are not "I have no cable" type people. We have two DVR's because one wasn't enough.  We have HIS and HERS DVR's. Besides, half the people who say they don't have cable just watch TV online and think it doesn't count LOL.  I love my cable guy, you are appreciated, besides, if I couldn't DVR the Ultimate Fighter on Spike what would I watch while running on the treadmill, or lifting weights, or doing P90X?  Plus I like to watch A&E shows because I get to see myself (vanity and all). 
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The Garbone

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Reply #5 on: August 30, 2009, 12:58:25 pm
Ahhhh,, when I started out with the phone company I did a bit of installation work... That crap is crazy..  Peoples phones not working in the kitchen and you go in and the jack is full of so much roach crap and roaches you gotta wear rubber gloves and end up putting bug strips in the jack to keep em out.  Or another times you get an install and go in the living room and there is cocaine on the table and people laying about passed out... "Oh, don't mind them, just put the jack over there..."   

People are crazy and having to go in their homes is the worst, I feel for you brother..





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Chasfield

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Reply #6 on: August 30, 2009, 02:07:08 pm

Finally we're nearing completion and i'm ready to explain how stuff work when out of the blue comes: "What about that other cable outlet in the kitchen we asked for?" Are you talking about the one it would have been nice to know you wanted before i did all the work, cleaned up and put the tools away....that one? Depending on the polite nature of the customer i may run the outlet....or not.

This sounds a bit like the joy of being a Systems Analyst/Programmer.

Scenario: You're showing a customer the finished working version of his sales order processing software for the first time:

You: "There you go, just as we discussed in the system requirements specification phase of the project , and all ready to run.

Dude: "Hmm, can it print a quarterly summary by supplier, with tax added?"

You:  "Well, not really. You see that function is not in the requirements specification that you signed off".

Dude:  "Well, it's no use to me without that quarterly summary. Oh, and I would need to be able to access the main customer database via the Internet when I am out of town."

You:  "Well, bless me, sir, another small detail you made no reference to when we signed off your requirements. I think that we agreed that it only needed to run over the Accounts Department LAN."

Etc, etc.

I aways thought that Systems Analyst/Programmers should be able to plead insanity (of the victim) should they find themselves punching a customer repeatedly on the nose.
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