atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Suggestions???

Unfortunately he is the one to sign the check!

I don't work for idiots. One customer told me to "work closely with my computer guy" and they wound up looking for another telecom guy. True story. They are nothing but trouble.

-Hal

Somehow I got that impression of you Hal,(that you don't take much $hit. Unfortunately for our industry it is getting more and more IT oriented, not much we can do about that.

Agreed, and I was going to say that we both need to learn to work together. But that's hard to do when most of them and their employers have little respect for us and it's that attitude that sticks in my craw.

In your case all it would have taken is for the IT guy to have asked for your input during the planning stages before the floor box was installed. But there is usually a big ego that fuels control and ignorance so that never happens and you have the result.

-Hal

I'm gonna go ahead and chime in here, and I ask that no one take this personally or as an insult. I fully realize that not doing the work you guys do pretty much disqualifies me from being here in the first place. But after 28 years as a programmer, I have to throw myself in the IT category.

So here it is, not that anyone should particularly care. It's the generalization of IT people that bothers me. Hal, you yourself have requested some help setting up your web site, yet it would be insulting, foolish and just wrong for me to reverse the roles of IT professional and Telecom professional, and then apply the comments made about IT people to those in Telecom. But I can promise there are those in IT who might look at your web development work and .... make comments. I'm not singling you out, and I realize there is a big difference between tinkering with something that can only impact one person vs. tinkering/installing something that can affect thousands, or more.

Which leads me to believe that what everyone is really saying is that people who don't know what they are doing shouldn't do it, depending on the scale of the thing (which is what I run through my "interpretation filter" and therefore don't take any of it as an insult).

The real problem (IMO) is that companies can't seem to seperate data from voice, or more to the point, the physical infrastructure required to support both systems from the PC's/servers and the software that runs upon them. After 28 years, I can pretty much assure you that no "IT guy" volunteered to make these messes; someone in management with no clue gave the order.

Also, remember that IT is a very broad field, I could list at least 10 sub categories of IT, and there are probably upwards of 40. Within the programming domain alone, there are at least 15 specialties.

Regardless, the fact that people in IT make the messes you guys have to clean up doesn't make them idiots, in their own field they are more than likely quite good.

Again, no offense meant to anyone.

Respects,
Matt

Matt, I actually have a great deal of respect for what those accomplished in the field of IT can do. I do not hesitate to defer to them when I'm confronted with something in that area that I don't feel I am competant to handle, and that is pretty much everything beyond the basics.

I can only speak from my own experiences, and what I've seen is that on the other side of the coin that professionalism and respect has rarely been reciprocated. I have been subjected to everything from back stabbing and customer stealing to being treated like the hired help. I have become very leery of turning my back on them.

I'm happy with what I do and I'm not interested in being a computer jockey. I'm happy to have somebody else who is qualified handle that part of the job. If only they would stick to what they are qualified to do and not what some job description or employer says they should be doing we would all get along much better.

-Hal

Agreed, and well put.

Respect, courtesy and professionalism are traits that sadly enough seem to no longer be in fashion.

If you saw the 66 blocks and switch/data cabling at my office .... you'd know I'm the first to admit that people should stick to their realm of expertise.... man it's a god awful mess. Not as bad as some pics I've seen here, but far, far worse than what you guys were able to walk me through in my own home install.

I've tried to live by "do it right the first time, or don't do it at all".

Nowadays most people run with "get it done now, even if you don't know what you are doing - just make it 'work'".

Just a lack of respect for people, skills, trades, and most importantly the work to be done all around.

But hey... if we put that aside for a minute... (at least I know it's true in my case).... if it weren't for all the people doing things wrong the first time... both my workload and pay would be much less.

Funny thing is with programming... (and this is true of most all programmers I've ever known, including myself).... they look at their own work 3 to 6 months after doing it and say "what a mess.... what the h*** was I thinking when I did that?

I use the Muxlab baluns for VGA and also for component video w/mono audio (high-def). They work really well. VideoEase 500040 paired with 500042 for VGA and VideoEase 500052 (two of them) for component with mono audio. https://www.svideo.com seems to keep these in stock normally. The nice thing about it is if you have open plenum ceilings, you don't have to get rated super-expensive VGA or component cables - just use plenum rated CAT5E.

I have seen bad work from both sides...phone guys, IT guys, you name it...I had a very clean cabling install put to spaghetti by a customer's IT and phone guy...
I think we took this off topic

Yes we have.

Anybody else have any advice or suggestions for Ed's problem?

-Hal