CABL Forum - Re: What Happened to Ethics?

What happened to ethics? Shit like this.

I put in a 3 TV install for dish network a 500 dish kit with a dpp twin a 322 and a 311 grounded to power. I ran new cable to each of the 3 outlets even though I could have used the rg-59 for the back feed on my 322. I pulled double cable through the soffit to the ladder in the attic. I did 3 wall fishes and pulled all of my new lines to the ladder so service calls would be easy i used screw type flex clips on the roof joists to keep the cable off the decking because the customer had a ton of junk in the attic and I didn’t want to take a chance on her moving things around up there and cutting my cable. I took photos of everything and the job was qc'ed the next day because I was a new hire for this retailer. the qc passed i had even installed the pack out stickers and labeled the remotes and programmed the recovery buttons.

4 months later the customer requested an upgrade. My retailer sent out a numb nut, all he had to do was a single wall drop and installs a 322 in place of the 311. 2 diplexers and he would have been done. What does he do? he tells the customer that he had never seen such sloppy work and charged her 100 bucks to do a closet drop.... he drilled a hole in the ceiling of the closet and shot the wire out the wall to the back of the TV. It looked like shit. He also ripped, yes ripped the cable out of the flex clips and cut out every inch of wire he could and took it with him. he probably got 100 foot of wire off of the 3 runs and the double cable feeding through the soffit. he talked shit about me the whole time he was there. 1 week later the customer has a trouble call. I was given the work order.

I thought this was odd because I did the install and didn't know about the upgrade, I couldn't think of anything that could be wrong. When I get there the customer tells me she doesn't want me there because i did such job on the install. I wanted to slap her but I was curious so I said ok let me call the office and have it rescheduled and asked if she would mind showing me what I did wrong so I could learn from my mistake. She reluctantly agreed to show me. I got lucky because her son was home and he had worked as a DirecTV installer for about a year before quitting. She said the installer that did the upgrade had to pull a lot of wire out of the attic to fix my sloppy work. Her son was suspicious and said that didn't sound right to him because he knew from experience that contractors pay for their own wire. I offered to show him the photos I had taken at the time of the install and he agreed to take a look. I fired up my laptop and pulled up the file and showed him the photos. Then we went into the attic and I nearly came unglued. I pointed out how the other installer had pulled the cable out of the clips, you could see the flex clips still in place but busted. He went to his mother and demanded she apologize to me for being rude. He explained to her that the other install had hustled her out of 100 bucks and stolen the cable and very likely used it at another install or upgrade. I replaced the closet drop with a wall fish and did what I could to eliminate potential problems. I didn't replace the cable for the other outlets because it would have cost me more money and time than the trouble call paid. I told my hub manager and showed her the photos nothing was done about it. the customer did apologize to me and called my hub manager to complain nothing was done about that either. I finally pulled the little worm aside at one of our weekly meetings and told him that if he ever did that to one of my customers again I would hang him with rg-6 and beat him with rg-59. I also let him know that I would see that he was charged back for every trouble call I had to do behind him. He quit a week later.

What happened to ethics? You can’t eat them; they don’t pay your insurance, or bills they don’t buy drop materials or tools and generally cost more than they are worth.

But every now and then I am the dumbass who does the right thing and it always cost me money and time.

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Re: What Happened to Ethics?