Had a customer follow me around with a clipboard yesterday

I was running cat6 through this older house in Springfield and the guy kept writing down every single cable length I measured. He said he wanted to 'audit my footage' and I just laughed, but he was dead serious. Has anyone else dealt with a homeowner who micro-managed every pull?

4 comments

4 Comments

smith.elliot5h ago

You measured each cable length in front of him, right? Cat6 runs have to be measured with the cable straight, not pulled tight, or you end up short. I had a guy once who insisted on rounding every measurement down to the nearest foot. Told me he was saving money on copper. I had to explain that you need a little slack for the termination and service loops, otherwise you're just making extra work for yourself when the connector breaks or you need to reterminate. He still didn't get it, just kept crossing out my numbers.

wren_mitchell44m ago

Heard a similar story from a buddy who worked at a data center, said they had a guy that would measure cables by pulling them as tight as he could and then marking the cut. Ended up with a ton of runsthat were like two inches too short, had to redo the whole rack. I mean, it's basic physics, a straight cable is longer than a pulled one, but some folks just don't get that the slack is part of the usable length. Idk, maybe it's just me, but I'd rather have an extra foot of cable than have to climb back up a ladder to fix a bad crimp.

charlies3719m ago

Did he ever actually run out of cable on a pull because of his math?

logan_wood19m ago

Heard a buddy tell me about this job he did where the homeowner literally followed him around with a tape measure and a stopwatch. Every time he'd run a cable, the guy would measure it twice and write it down, then time how long it took to pull. By the end of the day my friend had all these perfectly recorded lengths but the guy still accused him of wasting materials. Idk, some people just think they know more than the person actually doing the work. Made me glad I don't do residential much anymore.