atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring woman sues hp for injuries from cable entanglment and injury

What gets old is the notion that it's someone else to blame for your own stupidity. The tort law in the US is in serious need of reform. If you're too stupid to avoid a tripping hazard under your own desk, then you need to have some elementary education in common sense.

The bashing comes from both sides. We have all seen bad work by phone crafts people and IT people. It gets old and needs to stop. Let's face it, the "pride" in doing a job well done has all but been lost. The few people that still care are getting scarce. Maybe we should reverse the trend and encourage both sides to do a better job and stop throwing rocks at the plastic bubble.

Rcaman

As much as I enjoy picking on the lame, the halt, and the Sparky, I agree with Rcaman on this one. This story is less about "workmanlike" technique, and more about the new generation who use lawsuits as an abdication of personal responsibility.

Doing a pi$$ poor installation is one thing that we can all snicker about. However, what happens under a desk, with its tangle of cords, wall warts, plugstrips, feet warmers, etc, is no one's fault other than the owner of the desk. It's not my job, nor is it Sparky's, to dress all the cords, make it all nice and neat, and then be perpetually responsible for the job.

I agree that if you leave the job nice and neat you can't be held forever liable for the job. But we all know this was not the case here. I have never seen even one instance where an IT person performed a job in a neat and workmanlike manner. And if it was installed neatly by someone else, as soon as they touch it it turns to crap.

This woman was an employee and had to use whatever her employer provided. It was not her responsibility (and I doubt that she even had the ability) to clean up the mess under her desk left there by the IT slob. If anything her action should be against her employer also. You are dead wrong if you think someone should take personal responsibility for an injury caused by someone else's negligence, particularly job related.

To those of you who don't like the bashing of IT people: clean up your act if it applies to you and it will stop. Simple.

-Hal

Like Rcaman and Arthur said, there's no one group to blame for shoddy work. From power cords to LV we've all seen the mess under someones desk. Even if you clean it up the next time you're there it's as bad as before.

So to bash one group for these problems is shortsighted at best.

Can we still bash the lawyers who defend these shmucks and the judges who award huge sums of money to these "victims"?

Well, IT is the perpetrator of record here so I'm keeping on topic. A couple of years ago I started a thread over at Holt's electrical forum over most sparkies inability to even wire a phone jack correctly. Yet they are the first to say that they can handle any communications and data work largely because their licensing says they can. That thread ran for 14 pages, one of the longest in the history of the forum. At first there was criticism of my bashing but eventually there was a lot of agreement with "if you are going to take money for a job learn to do it correctly".

So I don't just bash IT people. I'll bash anybody that takes money and doesn't know what they are doing.

-Hal