He does, he said he has C4 ;-)

The American Customer Satisfaction Index pegged Time Warner Cable Inc. as the nation's most unloved company in 2014, with its Internet service rated 236th out of 236 companies in customer satisfaction, and its TV service rated 235th. Comcast Corp.'s Xfinity Internet service placed 234th out of 236 and its TV service landed at 232 in the list released in May.

Courtesy of Bob Fernandez

I think it was sarcastic, but I don't think the cable guy should be the only one to blame if it happens. I agree that if you unplug cables you should note where they come from (though I have been on installs made by others where the cables did not have enough loose so that someone could get to them first and see where they are plugged).

And this could be in part due to me working in IT before where proper documentation was critical but all our installs have properly labeled cables at each end (i.e. there is a number so let's assume in the example it is #4 at each end), a wire map at the main location (i.e. a sheet of paper in the equipment rack with three columns, cable label in order/from/to so if we continue with the example I the fourth line could be 4/cable box-optical out/receiver optical in1) and a device map stuck on the under/back side of each device with two columns IO/cable# (on the cable box one of the lines would be optical out/ 4).

We don't do it for the cable guy (or anyone else for that matter) but it takes little time (you need the wiring info and equipment for the install) and it makes troubleshoot and future upgrades super easy since there is no guess work ( especially for whole home installations).

Friend of mine has 7 years with Comcast and I asked him about this. He was talking about the pressure of covering all the calls they piled on, while maintaining quality, while changing every end that wasn't one of theirs. A tech that was behind time wise would leave working connectors on to get to the next call, and get penalized for it.

So there you have it.

You guys are all mad at the retarded guy for being well, retarded.

Just have the customer initia a line in the contract that any and all services calls rated to a "cable guy" are billed t&m at 2x the standard labor rate

And then another line initialed that says they will add you to the cable account for changes and that no cable changes will happen unless scheduled thru you.

That way they have been told 2x and when they don't listen. They pay you 2x t&m. Job security and vacation fund

This seemed totally appropriate:

until I realized I hadn't read the rest of it:


True, well noted, never thought of spending my money to keep from spending more of my money dealing with the problem... but why should I spend my money? I hope you bill the client for that $25 insurance!


I was surprised to see ingress brought up as an issue.  I though the problem was egress, that is, cable signal broadcast out of open splitters or poor connections. The cable company trucks that go around the neighborhood with an antenna, sniffing for cable signals in the air, are looking for leakage. In fact, CLI, Cable Leakage Index, indicates cable signals detectable outside the cable.


This story is as far as I got in this thread.

We're still not finished with a system in downtown Los Angeles. Time Warner needed to supply a signal that would be split to two TVs. The original estimate for delivery was three months, and they're about to miss that.

They don't understand the concept of calling the day before they come out. Once they have you on the phone, they don't understand the concept of calling before they come out next time. Nor the concept of cooperating with us, taking our advice about what is where in the building... it's just maddening.

More next time, probably, when I read the rest of this thread.