DAE have to deal with homeowners who "helped" by moving the cable drop?

Went to a job in Phoenix last week and the guy had moved the coax line himself. Wrapped it around a tree branch. Signal was garbage. How do you handle customers who mess with your work before you even get there?

3 comments

3 Comments

robert_ross958d ago

Funny you mention that, it's like a pattern I see everywhere now. People want to help but they don't really know what they're doing. The homeowner probably thought they were saving you a trip or something. Good intentions, terrible execution. I've seen it with cable lines, with water shutoffs, even with people "fixing" a door hinge before I get to a job. You gotta take a deep breath, smile, and explain what happened without making them feel stupid. But yeah, you're right to be frustrated. Most folks just don't get that moving a coax or any wire isn't like moving a lamp cord.

the_mia8d agoTop Commenter

Three times last month alone. Three. @ryan793 I wish it was just "a little fuzzy" in my world. But yeah you pull a coax and suddenly the modem takes a dive, the TV signal splits weird, and now I'm tracing a squirrel nest of interference back to a bad connector you accidentally wiggled loose. Sure it's a five minute fix to someone who knows what to look for. But the homeowner is standing there watching me like I'm a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat when all I did was finger tighten a fitting. It's not brain surgery no. But it's also not a lamp cord. Lamp cords don't have signal loss that picks up noise from the neighbor's microwave.

ryan7938d ago

Moving a coax isn't like moving a lamp cord" - c'mon man, it's really not that deep. It's a wire. You pull it, you put it back. Worst case the signal gets a little fuzzy and you fix it in five minutes. People act like the homeowner ripped out the main power line to the house. If a customer nudging a coax cable is seriously throwing your whole day off, maybe the problem isn't them. I've seen electricians deal with people painting over outlets and they just scrape the paint off and move on. It's a service call, not brain surgery.