When The Cable Installer Burns Down Your House
from the fun-fun-fun dept
I once had a DSL installer come to my house and come ridiculously close to electrocuting himself. He tried to plug in the router, and when it didn’t work, he realized that a pin in the connector from the AC adapter (which was still plugged in) was bent, so he jammed a screwdriver in to try to straighten it out. There was a huge spark, and he realized he probably wanted to rethink that plan. Apparently, some broadband installers don’t always realize when they’ve gone too far. Broadband Reports notes that a cable modem installer in Rhode Island set someone’s condo on fire after repeatedly trying to drill through a metal plate. More reasons not to let the broadband installer run free in your home without supervision.
Comments on “When The Cable Installer Burns Down Your House”
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Ouch! That’s pretty bad. My own worst experience was when a DSL installer insisted on deleting all of my photos (I wouldn’t let him). The DSL software installer claimed that my machine did not meet the minimum memory requirements (apparently because it undercounted physical RAM by one mb). The installer concluded that this meant that he needed to free up some disk space despite the fact that the drive had several gigabytes free. So what does he zero in on? 50 mb of my digital photos! “Oh no, the installer needs cherished memories to work!” I imagine he thought. I sent him home and finished the job myself…
Oh, boy...
I’ve got a couple. First, the Comcast installer who insisted that the service would not work if I didn’t let him run his installer CD on my computer. (I eventually had to sign something saying I refused to let him do it. Needless to say, everything worked fine immediately after I configured it.)
Next, there was the Comcast installer who fell through the ceiling at my folks’ place while routing a drop across the room through the attic. Of course, I was forced to ask my dad if he’d let the guys who mow the lawn install new wiring in the house if only they’d offer to do it for free.
(Moral of that one is sometimes you get what you pay for, and just because someone is offering free installation, it doesn’t mean they’re competent to do it.)
I guess I'm lucky
I guess I’m lucky then. All of the Sprint DSL guys that have come out to my house and also to my brother’s house have been extremely competent. Too bad Sprint DSL itself still sucks….
my own horror story
When I first got my cable modem, we were NOT allowed to install the modem and network card ourselves. I didn’t need an outlet or anything, just the modem and card.
So this guy comes over, between 8 and 4pm (showed up at 6pm…not a good sign). Talking about the “complexities of installation” and showing he has VERY little computer knowledge he opens up my P166 (this was a while back) and we run into our first issue…lack of slots (no biggie, I had planned to take out the old modem to make room…but he WOULDN’T LET ME (he HAD to do the installation HIMSELF..rules are rules)…instead he takes out THE VIDEO CARD (I didn’t see this at first because I was on the phone with a client).
He puts the box back together and leaves, tells me all I have to do is boot and install the CD (duh).
Imagine my surprise when the machine gives me the POST error beeps for no video card!