[conspire] One service visit, three existing services demolished

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Mark Weisler (mark at weisler-saratoga-ca.us):

> During a home remodel thirteen years  ago I was cabling the house with
> CAT-5 and coax and decided to install a communications box out near
> the street so that the box would be the point of demarcation between
> service providers and my home. Thanks to the guy you shave, and
> others, I knew I did not want Comcast or other lowest-bidder,
> out-sourced technicians traipsing around my house drilling holes,
> etc., in a manner most expedient to _their_ interests, not mine. The
> result is that I have an explicit point where I can verify service and
> signal quality and only I or my trusted technicians work on house
> cable/infrastructure. The box handles voice (telephone + RawBandwidth
> DSL) and cable (TV) and is connected to the house via a 2-1/2 inch
> conduit so I can add cables at any time if needed.

Damned fine idea.

By telling Cheryl I would not stand in the way of her choices, and would
not object as long as nothing broke, but that I personally would have
nothing to do with Comcast because Deirdre and I consider them
{ASSERTION OF FACT THAT I'M NOT PREPARED TO DEFEND IN COURT REDACTED}, 
I ended up getting the worst of both worlds:  

1.  I wasn't involved, because I sought zero contact with Comcast.
2.  Cheryl was accountable for oversight, and responsible to me for
    ensuring that my interests weren't hurt, _but_ was unable to
    carry out that role, and unaware of her failure.

So, by the time I first woke up on Friday and immediately diagnosed
AT&T landline outage, all the damage had already been done.  It was all
over but for the stream of contractor bullshit self-justification and
smokescreening.

Needless to say, I will keeping any and all future visiting contractors
on a tighter leash, and holding that leash personally.

Something I heard from Cheryl earlier today that I found interesting:
She said (1) installer Timothy Almacer of O.C. Communications had asked
her no questions about anything, and (2) Almacer had failed to answer a
number of questions she had asked him.

Please note carefully that last point.

I said, 'Wait, you were his customer.  You asked him a series of
questions and he just blew you off?'  'Yes.'  'When he blew you off,
what did you do?'  'I went back to my desk.'

What the actual frak?

Hey, wow, my mind was duly blown.  _She's_ the customer, he blows off
her supervisory questions, and the result is she goes back to playing
computer Sudoku and he gets to do whatever he wants without her even
knowing what he's going to do?

This strikes me as unclear on the meaning of the word 'customer'.  He
was working for her, but she allowed him to treat her like his flunky.
I cannot imagine permitting this.

And in fact I did not:  After I awoke and announced a few minutes later
in the living room that the landline appeared to be suddenly broken, 
Almacer repeatedly told me he wanted me to walk out to the sidewalk to
observe how many feet apart the Comcast and AT&T overhead attachment
points were on opposite sides of the telephone pole.  I considered this
for about half a second and concluded utter irrelevancy, _but_ I did not
waste my time debating this with Almacer or explaining why I wasn't
going to do that -- because I was clear on my not working for this
idiot.  Instead, I said 'I'm busy doing root-cause analysis' and ignored
him.  I later ignored the same inane and irrelevant suggestion from
Almacer's boss Josh F., replying 'If you want to do something useful, 
use your lineman's buttset telephone to verify my finding that there's
no dial tone at the telco demarc point.'  Which he did, him working for
me rather than me the homeowner working for some shlub subcontractor.

Anyway...

If I had been the customer and the contractor ignored my questions, the
next thing out of my mouth would be 'Stop.  This job may not proceed
unless we get some things straight.'  And, if the contractor gave me
significant backtalk or did anything else but stop, I would order
him/her to leave.  Job cancelled.  Done.

Because he's not the boss.  You're the boss.

This supervision, the entire necessary customer-in-charge role, utterly
failed.  I need to make sure the opportunity for that failure never
arises again.

> In other work I do on homes I always tell the contractor that I'll be
> watching the installation and will need to discuss the proposed
> installation with them before proceeding with the work and while
> working. (In other words, I want to know what their plan is.) 

Exactly.  My house, my rules.  If the contractor doesn't like that, the
property line is that-a-way, and kindly don't disturb the habanero
peppers on the way out.

We have top antenna installer AV Solution Pros of Mountain View
scheduled to visit Tuesday to un-do O.C. Communications's sabotage of his
2011 work, which per se would also leave Cheryl with no Comcast cable,
so I'll ask him if he can also do that work competently as it should
have been carried out last Friday.  If he's not OK with that, we have
others who can.