On Sunday 04 September 2005 08:43, Bill Shaw wrote:
> Of course it's cheaper. On a smaller scale satellite installers do it to
> cable companies and vice versa all the time. They get paid per job so why
> waste an hour+ laying your own cable when you can cut the competitors and
> move on to the next job.
Exactly. They at least behave with no care about anything or anyone. I had a
guy who tried to get away with pulling the cable across the floor in a door
opening! He shows up with sunglasses in my door and is like, Why are you in
my way, kind of attitude. I said sorry but I don't know you and this is my
home, so I like to know who I let in.
What I do now is get their name at the door, then get in good communication
with the guy before I let him do anything. To find out what kind of tech I
got. I explain that I'm a bit picky about my house and I want to be in full
agreement before the job is done, so to avoid any unpleasantness later. I
tell him that I'm a difficult customer with my own ideas, and if that is a
problem it's OK with me if he does not want to do the job. Then based on how
I assess this tech, I may or may not baby sit him through the job.
Usually they realize they are in someone elses home. Someone who cares about
their home. I then offer them something cool to drink and help them move the
furniture and so on.
Interestingly, the first guy above, totally changed his attitude when he saw
my books on Linux and what not. All of a sudden he thought I was a professor
and became sweet as pie. (Apparently they are the only ones who have
books! : )
Rather sad.
You can tell that inspite of being an old and obviously well experienced
business (cable) they are not very well organized. I had an intermittent
problem upstream where some interference would knock out my service on most
weekends for hours at end.
Five techs came out to debug it, and nobody had the results of the previous
techs findings. (The last two were engineers and they told me they only had
something like four engineers to go around.) When I suggested that he would
pass on the information to the office so they could inform the next tech, he
thought that was the handiest thing he ever heard! It would have been the
first thing I'd expect to get before going out, what were the findings so
far... Oh well.
So it's clear that the office is not that concerned about customer problems.
Or they would have been better organized. Which shows up in the commonly poor
attitude of the techs they hire. It's just a numbers game to them and as long
as the numbers look good - never mind.
--Steve Szmidt
"They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
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