Help Wanted - Cable Guy. Req - incompetance and hatred of Satellite

The BBQ Pit
1

it has been my experience throughout the years that cable TV installers have less experience in their field than an 8 year old. Time and time again I can think of appointments with a cable installers where they caused more harm than damage. If it weren’t for needing them to authorize the drop, I would be better off installing my own cable for myself and my friends/family.

When I moved into my apartment two years ago, I already had my television and stereo system set up, with all A/V cables going through my receiver (so that I could change between cable/DVD/PS2 with one button press). I even left the s-video and RCA audio cables out and a spot reserved on the shelf for the cable box. Nope. The installer insisted on putting the box ON TOP of the TV, and using coax to connect it to the TV, despite my objections to his face. And then he wondered why he couldn’t get any audio afterwards (because the TV’s internal speakers were turned off)…after he left, I had to pull it all apart and set it up the way I wanted originally. Now, before I moved in, the house was wired for satellite. The previous renter left the dish on the roof, but I chose not to resubscribe to DirecTV. The cable installer’s answer to making the change - SLICING the line from the roof. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, since I wasn’t planning on using the dish, but now if I ever change my mind, or if a future renter chooses to use it, we’ll have to climb back onto the roof and install a new line.

Fast forward to this weekend. My dad just moved into his new house. The previous owner left a dish on his roof, and my dad intends to use DirecTV, primarily for NFL season pass, but also chose to get cable installed. He let the cable installer do his work, since he had other things to tend to. His house has three HDTV’s in it…they only hooked up ONE of them with a HDTV-compatible box, and STILL plugged it in with coax, so that he couldn’t even receive a true HD signal on the HD channels. Fortunately he still had the component cables leftover from before he moved, which I had to plug in when I was over there yesterday. Oh, and he ALSO sliced the satellite line from the roof, and unlike my apartment building, this is a 3 story house with no fire escape, so it isn’t exactly an easy task climbing up there and running a new line. I am recommending that he demand the cable company pay for the professional re-installation of a new satellite, as well as a new visit to the house to put HD boxes on his other two TV’s. If the installation wasn’t already free, he should have refused to pay for it.

Why the hell can’t these cable guys ever do ANYTHING right? Is the only thing they’re ever taught is “put the box on top of the TV, coax in, coax out, if you see a competitor’s wire, slice it”?

2

Just for balance, when my parents got DirectTV, that installer hacked up his wiring as well. Bastards.

I can understand them doing a 100% basic hookup so that they know their pieces work, though. If they hook it to your receiver, and it doesn’t work right, then they’re stuck doing the troubleshooting.

This is why I want to do all my own wiring.

3

Can I extend this to the yard as well? We got our cables located in our yard last summer - we’re digging out a car pad this year. All of the cables located were running up the sides of the yard - no problem putting a car pad in the middle. Hmm, what is that large grey thing running through our excavation? Gee, kinda looks like a large cable bundle for cable television. It seems to be running directly to the grey cable box stuck on the back of the house.*

If the yard has all other cables running underground at the sides of the yard, please, cable company, feel free to run yours right up the middle, a couple of inches down. (In all fairness, we have now run into a second cable that wasn’t noted by the locators, not just the cable company one. I have no idea whose that is.)

*If anyone has any other ideas what this cable is, I’m all ears.

4

Is this like VOD?

5

Not to bring down your rant, but I would just like to say that when I got my cable installed at my new apartment, the tech was actually very good. When I called to set it up, I was told there were two cable drops. Great, I tyhink, one must be in the bedroom. When I finally moved in (adn the cable was getting instaleld that day) i notced that there was only one line. Huh. Well, when the tech came, he was very nice, and caleld about the second line, and noticed it was going into the attic…the attic that is boarded up that I can’t use. He thought it was dumb I only had obne line, and gave me a free splitter, and 30’ of cable with ends on it so I could drill a hole from the lving room to bedroom if I wanted to and run the cable. And my HDTV box even came with componant cables, and he basically left it for me to install the way i wanted . He checked to make sure the box got a signal, then asked if I wanted him to set it up, I said no thanks, and that was that.

6

I would def. get my proper boxes and have them pay for reinstallation of the satellite.

Then I would bitch until they gave me free cable (they really do give out free cable like stickers at a doctor’s office :))

7

Yep, they’re dumb as plugs all right. During my first experience, the guy looked at my wiring like a chicken watching a card trick. And I have all my wires sleeved, color-coded and marked, fer chrissakes!

The second time I had a guy come in, I set everything up, completely devoid of wires. He came in, did the installation, after which I promptly undid everything and hooked it up “properly”.

8

If it’s okay with you, I’m stealing this line.

9

I’ll balance this with my own cable story, where they went above the call of duty.

When I bought my new house, I arranged to have a cable modem installed. The tech guy showed up, looked things over, and told he’d have to install a tap box on the phone line across the street.

A little later, he comes back, telling me that the neighbor across the street came out and started yelling at him to get off his lawn. I hadn’t met the guy yet. So, I went over and asked what the problem was. The neighbor starts shouting "This (&^(&^* is trampling all over my &^^&&^ bushes!! I spent weeks trying to get them trimmed and he put his &^%&% ladder on top of them and got them all trampled! He (&^(^ up my &^%*&%*&%$ bushes!!!’

The tech guy says 12 feet off the street is public, and he had no other way to position his ladder to get to the phone wire. He didn’t want to put it in the street and in the traffic. The neighbor spouts off some more about his bushes.

By this time, I ask the tech guy if he has a truck with a bucket arm. He says “Yeah, but we’re only supposed to use it in case of emergency.” I tell him I will gladly speak to his supervisor about it. I don’t want to start off bad with my new neighbor.

While the tech guy is talking with his supervisor on the walkie talkie, I talk to my neighbor and try to smooth things over. I notice he’s got a security system sign so I ask him about it. He tells me his house got broken into and he just had the security system installed. He then told me his son had some friends over to play video games. One of them found his son’s house key, stole it, then came back with his homies the next day, unlocked the house, and stole his son’s video game system, computer, and all his games, as well as some money. The police detective on the case still hadn’t contacted him yet, and he was still seething over that.

I went back over to the tech guy and told him, “He’s had a bad week. You were the straw that broke the camel’s back.” The tech guy told me he had been talking with his boss, and that his boss would be there tomorrow with a truck with a bucket arm to install the tap box. And that he was bringing a police escort.

The tech guy then told me he’d have to come back tomorrow evening to complete the job. I said fine, as I could tell he still a little shook up over the incident. We shot the breeze for a little bit, then he started to unload. He told me he’s under constant stress from his job. The pay was good, but the turnover rate was hellacious. All it takes is one costumer complaint, and you’re fired. There’s plenty of people lined up to replace you. He told me he’s had his life threatened when installing cable in rough neighborhoods by drunks and coke snorters.

He got held up the next day, and didn’t make it to my house till 9 pm. He worked by the headlights of his truck to run the coax under my house to my study and stayed till 11. He probably worked 15 hours that day. My hat’s off to him.

10

Actually, yes.
You do know these guys get paid by the job and not the hour right?
And that all they are “required” to do is “put the box on top of the TV, coax in, coax out”.
If every cable installer was required to run everyones cable through their amp, computer, stereo receiver, etc. the way the customer wanted it run they’d be stuck at a customers home trouble shooting the damn thing that the customer set up themselves.
I actually prefer they do their “basic” set-up so I can rearrange and hook it up myself how I want it to be.
As for slicing a satellite wire I would bet that it’s another thing the cable company requires these guys to do. Why would they waste their own time cutting it out of spite? These guys don’t give a crap. They want to slap your wires and box in place and move on to their next job.

11

Horseshit.

12

Dante my man, that was simply perfect. Bravo.

13

Then tell me why praytell an installer that gets paid by the job would be intersted in cutting the line to the old satellite dish? You think they’re just asses who love the cable companies they work for and want to stick it to the satellite companies by slicing the lines??
I’d guess it’s in their checklist of responsibilities i.e. disable exsisting service. If slicing the line is the quickest acceptable way to complete that job that’s what they’re going to do.

14

Why isn’t the slicing of a competitor’s cable not considered vandalism? I can see a cable company having some (very few) rights over their own cable, but over another cable that isn’t their’s? Doesn’t seem right to me.

15

It would be. And it’d be actionable. That’s way no cable operator is going order, let alone condone, acts of vandalism. If it’s happening, as Hampshire seems to believe, it is most certainly not by a corporate directive. Rather, I would suspect a rogue supervisor acting entirely on his own terms and “suggesting” to his subordinates that he wouldn’t think unkindly of an employee who “just happened” to cut a few satellite dish conductors during his installs. There’s just no logical reason to think this is happening in an organized fashion at corporate behest; way too risky and zero potential return.

First, prove to me that the installer is indeed paid by the job. I’m a consulting engineer to several cable companies and every one that I’ve worked with has it’s own installers/technicians who are company employees and paid either salary, or by the hour. I know cable companies that maintain hundreds of trucks which do nothing but roll for installs. Second, prove to me that cutting the conductor from the dish was done with deliberate malice; show me that it wasn’t an accident.

16

This first time I read this line I misinterpreted it…at least I think I did :eek:

17

When the cable installer came over to hook up my cable modem at our new house, he had extremely poor english. He insisted that he needed to set up the settings on my computer-- except he didn’t know how to use a mac, all we have in the house. After several go arounds and miscommunications, I finally convinced him that I could set it up myself. He left.

A week later, my cable went out. When I got ahold of comcast, they informed me my account had been canceled. The idiot had gone out to his van, marked on his paperwork that I didn’t want the account anymore, and drove off. Comcast then shut our lines down, deleted our email addresses, and sent out a bill for our “retained cable box”. The had the nerve to insist I now needed to “sign up” again, wait 2 weeks for an installer and pay the $150 instalation fee AGAIN. I pitched a fit, and after several levels of escalation, got a guy to come back out and flip the switch. Amazingly, my lines came on and I was able to hook myself up without needing the jack-off to come in the house. $150 “installation fee” my ass.

18

Having previously worked for a Dish installer, I can tell you that there is some truth to tales of cutting other service wires.

More than once, an instller was called back to a spot because the customer added cable (or the neighbor in the next apartment) and it was found that any “unauthorized” wires were cut as a matter of course. One cable installer even had words with one of our guys because a customer wanted the line run through an existing opening. The cable TV guy maitained that since the wire was routed through the “cable box”, then it was trespassing on cable TV company property!

Another thing: The installers hated when a salesman promised help with the TV hookups, because they were paid for the job, and the job was to provide satellite TV service- hooking up VCRs, extra TVs, HD sets, sound, etc… was extra. You would be surpised the number of times irate customers would call in because they were having a problem with one of these components and wanted US to fix it or “get thei damn dish out of here.”

Our installers weren’t the brightest of people, either. One guy who wan’t there long couldn’t find an appropriate spot on a mobile home to attach the dish- so he dragged a picnic table onto the roof, flipped it over, and attached the dish to the leg. The first good wind got it about 2 days later.

19

also, keep in mind that my cable is Time-Warner, and my dad’s is Cablevision, so this corporate wire-slicing policy isn’t limited to one company. Anyway, he’s been too busy with other household-related things to worry about getting satellite set up (or to even to use his cable, aside from the modem), but I encouraged him to call in a complaint with them.

20

Right. It’s limited to NO company, you obstinate, illiterate jackass.