Just was wondering how often does this happen to my brothers?

What I'm asking is, when you go to do a simple job and what should be easy, snowballs into the above.

I had one yesterday, but I think maybe every 4-5 years would be it for me.

"Stuff" happens, doesn't it. Those days are work schedule busters and then you sometimes have to deal with the customer who says, why did it take so long, or, how come you didn't foresee that. Isn't this what you do for a living? And then of course, we also get those incessant "Oh By The Way, as long as you are here..."

Oh well, as another member says in his signature, "it beats flipping burgers!"

I use to get those from the owner of a previous interconnect I worked for.

It always happenned on a Friday that I would be turning in my paperwork for the day then would come the:

"Oh, I need you to install a system tonight."

Sure the over-time was okay, but after about two years of this they began giving us more warning.

I understand where you're coming from and to add to Dave's comment: "Oh By The Way, as long as you are here..." :bang:

What a topic coincidence. I had a single item on a work ticket today -a simple 1/2 hr job. When I was preparing to leave, I got my OBTW #1. Then before I completed it I got #2 & #3. I did 4 separate jobs and spent half the day there! It was at a Nursing home where the elevators are slower than Seniors at an all you can eat buffet line. So of course, I chose to use the stairs from the basement to the 3 floor way too many times. I can feel it tonight!

IMHO, even worse than "oh by the way" is the 4:00 Friday afternoon call that says "it's been acting up since Monday morning".

Jim

I spent 2 days this weekend (3 hours) sorting out a nightmare that Time Warner Cable left at my customer's house. They had switched to their digital phone service and then it stopped working "Everything worked fine for 2 months then they came and made it worse"
Of course I had a few 'while you are here' items but they were all before I wrote my bill

Yes! Every now and then we get a similar call at 4:00pm on a Friday. For example...

"Our voicemail has been down since yesterday. Our IT guys spent all day trying to fix it and now give up. We need someone asap!".

Well, today was my turn. Residential system install. Preview last month, had multiple runs of quad & 3 pair. Should have been a "P.O.P." so I agreed to do it after supper.

4 1/2 hours later and I only have 3 system phones installed, 3 SLT's and a fax jack. And I ain't finished yet! Have to go back next week to finish straightening out the cabling mess.

Worst part? Missed most of the hockey game tonight...only 7 minutes left in 3rd period of game 6 of the finals! :bang: :bang: :bang:

....or the nursing home.....don't dare sit down or they'll tie me into a chair with a towel, throw a bib on me....and start feeding me stewed turnips.....3 hours in a non-ventilated attic....what a mess.....OBTW....now our kitchen phone doesn't work.....grrrrrrrrrr!!!

3 hours in a non-ventilated attic....what a mess
Ken, I'm so glad that you didn't die up there! I myself spent half a day in an unvented attic just two weeks ago. I was so hot and worn out that I tripped and fell up there. fortunately, I managed to catch myself on the rafters so I didn't break through the ceiling!

My bad job of the week continues. Tuesday I get a call from a consultant wants me to cross connect two lines for a non profit that just moved. Job is 1 hour away then up 4 flights of steps to find the office is locked. Half hour later the maintenance guy shows up I tone out the jacks and head to the dmarc. Its a 100 year old office building and ever wire ever put in was still hanging there and no new lines labeled. After some luck I found the DSL and one of the lines so I connect the live line to their phones and hang a pair connected to the FAX with a note to connect it to line ###-#### and my number if any questions. Yesterday afternoon I get a call from non profit and they say Fairpoint has just labeled the lines can I come connect them ASAP because nothing is working. Now I want to know why tech couldn't connect the pair I left hanging with a note and why did they mess with the line that was working? :read:

I have a theory that for me at least, the degree of problems on a job is in direct proportion to the distance of the job away from the office. The farther away, the more difficult the problems on the job are.

Umm, what's "hockey" ???

Down here, we play the One True Sport: Baseball.

But right now, all the Cubbie and White Sox fans know who won the Stanley Cup!

Customer with large compound and house with gate.
Existing gate box works great, Runs on 24v dc and wired line to phone system to ring phone. Line to co port on system and gate quits. Determine that line is cut. Try all other 11 pair!! Nada.
Give owner the bad news. 350 ft and under driveway to run new cable. Old cable acts like it has water in it so I don't want to locate cut and splice.
She say lets get a wireless system, surely there are lots of them. I agree on this and start looking.
No so, all kinds of wireless gate intercoms, just most of them won't ring the system, they work with proprietary intercom boxes or phones.
The main maker of a Radio unit that does this had a recall and wont redeploy till 12/2010.
Phone Aire has one but it's push to talk, yuk.
Finally found one that phantoms over the power line 110v. Took it to site and tested at gate, works great, move transceiver anywhere else on property and no connection, can't find but one meter and can't find the feed for power to gate.
All we need do is connect a capacitor to the 2 breakers to pass the signal, can't find gate power source. Have hired 2 Sparkies with no luck.
All the time I have been looking we have a temp cable across lawn and have to go about once a week to splice because their giant Rottweilers eat them. Owner is stuck on wireless, budget unlimited, but can't find one that does what we want. Any know of unit that will work???

If the original cable is filled (Icky pic) then locate the cut, do a professional job splicing it, and reinstall the original system, and don't look back. Just because a wealthy customer thinks wireless is the way of the future, that should not deter you from providing them the best possible service.

Add up all the running around and futzing with new technology, and compare it to the cost of locating, digging, and splicing the original cable.

Start a new thread on this one and let's see what kind ideas can be engineered!

Man I hate working in attics.

Worst ever was running a bunch of RG6 in an attic of a clubhouse for a new senior housing development. It was the hottest day of the year, upper 90's and very humid.

We went up into the 'oven' and worked very quickly. Afterwards, jumped into the pool fully clothed to cool off...

I don't mind working in attics once I get through those stupid access holes in the ceiling. I need a small child to do my attic work!

very long, read at your own boredom...

Day from hell? Just got mostly done with a two week long project, which consisted of about a week's worth of hell days. To wit:

Day 1 (May 27th, Thursday): A 3.5 hour drive turns into 4.5 due to getting lost in Richmond looking for Graybar. New Murphy's Law: the one time you don't have GPS with you is the time you will need it the most.

Day 2 (May 28th, Friday): Framing is not done despite having 15 framers on site. Cannot hang brackets until framing is done, thus we cannot pull cable. Masonry drilling not done. Sup assures me both will be complete by days' end.

Day 3 (May 29th, Saturday): Materials arrive, most of them. Keystones are on backorder. Framing not done, no framers on site. Rather than sit on my behind for 3 days or turn around and go home, we spent 3 hours gluing and shooting 25 2 x 4s to the concrete deck - backcharge #1.

Day 4 (May 30th, Sunday): Go to pull cable, find that masonry drilling is incomplete. Spent 3 more hours drilling into more $$#@*&^ rebar and heavy wire laid in the mortar joints than I have ever seen - backcharge #2.

Day 6 (May 31st, Tuesday): Owner arrives on site, decides he wants all data boxes at 38" aff instead of 18", and the storage closet on the prints is now a GM's office and a business center. Change orders #1 and #2. and the obligatory OBTW: "You guys are doing the fire alarm system too, right?" Hell no I'm not, and neither is the EC. Better get someone in there quick, since they want to insulate and drywall the ceilings in two days!

Day 9 (June 3rd, Friday): Another change order, owner now wants phone jacks at the desk and nightstand in every room. Would have been nice to get this information BEFORE all firestopping was done. Gave a price, he decides it's not that important. Informed that the lobby is getting some fancy contoured ceiling that isn't on anyone's prints, so we cant do the CCTV or sound in there yet. "Will be done by Monday afternoon".

Day 10 (June 4th, Saturday): Core drilling for 3" EMT sleeves still not done by GC, spent 2 hours chiseling out block and brick. Backcharge #3 (did I mention that masonry and core drilling was specifically excluded from our contract?)

Day 11 (June 5th, Sunday): Drywall is not hung in our phone closet yet, despite 6 sheetock guys on site and hack upon hack of 5/8" x 12' drywall stacked in the 1st floor rooms (at least I got them to put it where it didn't cover up our boxes). We hang what we need to get our backboard up. Backcharge #4.

Day 12 (June 6th, Monday): Wall detail change, one side of every wall will now get resilient channel. Half of my boxes are now in danger of getting covered up. They don't want to pay us (or the EC) to renail boxes at the correct depth. Sick of the way this one is going, I tell the supervisor (not the superintendent) that the owner will be responsible for buying all extension rings and any boxes that get covered up. Lobby framing not done. Keystones on the way finally.

Day 14 (June 8th, Wednesday): Big time goof-up: the canopy (not yet built, and not on the original prints I received) is NOT free-standing as we were told, but ties into the face of the building with 9" thick structural steel - right across our wire path. All of that cable, some 7 CCTV, 4 CATV, and about 10 Cat5e/Cat6 has been secured, firestopped, cut to final length and some of it terminated - and it's now destined for the dumpster because it's all too short to saddle around the beams. Cat6 jacks finally arrive at 1pm - they are the toolless type - GAH! :facepalm:.

Day 15 - still haven't resolved who's paying for all that cable to be repulled, we pull back what cable we need to for the steel guys to get their beams into the building. Pending backcharge #5.

By the way, I should also mention that during the 2nd week, this building that was "ready", dryed-in with framing done (ya right!), got not only a new roof but a new roof deck. Something is very wrong when you get rained on in a building that already has cable in it. At least the 2nd floor was well-lit and ventilated for a few days. :rollseyes:

Jack

Jack, thanks for the laugh.....I don't feel so bad now.

Jack, that one rates a 10 in my book. :bow:

Jack, you have WWWAAAAYYYYY more patience than I did doing motels. Our standard contract said Sparky pulled and ID'd the cable. We would be on site within 3 days of notification that the property was ready to be jacked, system installed, and personel would be ON-SITE for training. (Oh yes, The front counter had to be INSTALLED, when we arrived. (That is usually the last item to be installed before the FF&E folks start.) Our contract also stated that when we were held up by the GC or other crafts, the $60/Hr rate kicked in. Ditto anything, provided/installed by others that we had to correct because it did not meet the contract spec. The most common problem was unidentified cables, $60/hour to tone!, and counter not in place when we had nothing else to do but install console and PMS interface, and training. They are offered the opportunity to correct while we watch TV in the motel, OR, we can go 'home' and they can call us back when they are ready. (Drive time $45/hour, plus per diem for another trip. When you are doing a job in Idaho and you are from KS...... You only have to send the chargeback bill one time per customer, esp when your part goes perfectly in spite of the problems caused by others. If they don't pay the bill, the modem sold for RMATS can be a source of encouragement! (And YES, we were GOOD at what we did. Shot down more than 1 PMS rep! )

LH, In my opinion,you could not shoot enough PMS Personell ,To have any affect on those#$@$%^^&(*!!.

Ahh, Motels. Quarantied 6 months late. On building and paying.

To the topic at hand.........

I had another tech call me (from another company) and asked for my help.
He said he was putting in a PRI and wanted my help in programming Target Lines. Sounds straight forward. He will meet me on site in the morning.

After a 2 hr drive I get on site and he gives me a new MICS with an AUTH code for the PRI and new software Cart.

What he did not tell me up-front was the old system was too old for PRI and he wants me to replace the system, do a total system programming, put in the PRI and target lines.
Oh and by the way, he is leaving in 30 min for another job. I have never seen this customer before, don't have a clue how they operate.
Wonderful !!!

Jim, :bang: That's about all there is!