A customer in a tiny attic changed how I see my job

I was running a new drop in this old house in Tacoma, squeezing through a crawl space. The homeowner, an older guy, followed me up and said, 'You know, you're the first person to actually see this place in ten years.' He showed me a model train setup he'd built up there, covered in dust. That stuck with me. It wasn't just about the cable, it was about getting into people's lives for a minute. Ever have a simple install turn into something you remember?

3 comments

3 Comments

olivia6705h ago

Sounds like a waste of time, @stellat46.

shane_bell1h ago

Hot take: That's the job. Longer: I get it. You're just there to swap a router or run a line, and then you're suddenly the audience for a tiny museum of someone's life. It's never about the stuff, it's that they want to show someone. Makes the whole day different when you realize you're not just fixing things, you're meeting people. Those are the calls that keep the grind from feeling pointless.

stellat466h ago

Was it the dust on the train that got you? I had a similar thing fixing a furnace for an elderly lady, and she had all these photo albums out on the table. You're right, it's those little windows into how people actually live that stick with you.