I swear that builders time it so that prewires on new construction always fall on the coldest days of the year. I've been out in 10 degree weather to wire a house before. Those bullet heaters help a lot, but you have to make sure everything is masked off.

Being in IT I naturally end up doing some consulting and worked for myself for several years. One thing I learned was there are good customers and there are bad customers. Keep the good and let the bad be someone else's bad customer. Calling odd hours and leaving a profanity laced message immediately categorizes you, and it isn't good.

I'd be likely to ask him, "don't you realize that it's bullsh*t to try to get me to agree to a restriction on the day I quit? That's exactly the kind of uninformed misdirected bullsh*t that's killing me in this place! You don't like my attitude? My attitude is about the only sensible thing around here!

"And no, I don't want your customers anyway, but I'm sure not going to sign anything away when you're firing me! The fact that you think anyone would do that shows how disconnected from reality you are."

This brings another thing to mind. I was in a similar situation where the 'sales' guy simply didn't respond, and sometimes actively talked clients out of work. The client would then call me and tell me they didn't want to talk to the company because they always dealt directly with me, and the company didn't call back anyway. I'd then inform the company that this guy was now my customer since a) he refused to call them and b) I didn't think he should be without a good installation company just because they didn't want to do the job!


This would be an installer who owns his own company. There's still potential trouble, though: he might insist on things being done his own way and that might not make sense to you.

Then there's how you work. I did some contract work for Randy Wilson many years ago, and a salesman told me that one time when Randy wanted to send me out on a job, another installer said, "Ernie? But he's so slow!" Randy reportedly responded, "Yeah, but we never have to send him back to fix his work, do we?"




Laughed out loud.

This. ^^^ I had this *exact* thought for my final 3 years with the last company I worked for. The boss started hiring people who came from all kinds of strange backgrounds, nothing even remotely related to AV or networking or anything technical.

For field people, I realized that he was just looking for billable bodies to send out to jobs. For sales people, he'd put them in the field 'for a couple weeks so they'd get the idea'.

That's when I started to notice that people with no field experience were causing most of the problems. Sales guys especially...good lord those guys are toxic.

That company has had 100% employee turnover in the last 2 years.

Glad I'm out.

LOL...Damn Straight!

The above is the reason I work for myself- I don't like the BS of being told to do things in a way that's stupid because of their desire to cut costs, technically wrong or dealing with idiots who act like gods. The guy who took the full time for the installer test- our results came back and he asked how I did- I told him and he said "Pretty much the same". I seriously doubt it- if he still insisted that I wire the butt kickers parallel after I explained that the amplifier is bridged and the load would make it puke, he sure as hell didn't match my score of 94%, with network being my weak hand at the time.

We were installing Lutron shade wires in the owner's house and one day, this pinhead didn't have a long enough bit to go through the header of the window, so he asked for my drill, which did have a long bit. He grasped with his hand and squeezed the trigger and then had the balls to yell at me for what it did to his hand. The type of bit is in the photo- smart guy, if he grabbed it and spun the motor, eh?

I would be telling him to use it as a new fangled toilet paper...lol!

Our typical client is different now and i rarely have to pull a wire but about 10 years ago our bread and butter was Chicago town houses. It seemed like every prewire was in the middle of winter and i swear every house had no roof or stair case until AFTER i was done wiring it. It was common to have it snowing down on top of me while standing in the master bedroom.

I'm not saying alcohol will solve your problems but I cant remember the last time there was a problem. Just sayin.

I can't speak for the others, but I don't drink and I handle BS a lot better now, than when I did.

Some complaints can be handled in the way of the great philosopher, Homer (Simpson)-

"Just because I'm listening, doesn't mean I care" and when Marge told him that he had done the worst thing ever, he said "Oh, Marge- you've said that so often it's lost all meaning".

Words to live by.

Not going down that road again.
That used to be the cause and the solution to most of my problems.
Now it is a very, very occasional special occasion thing.

Actually, there is NEVER an AV emergency.


You want the fun back? Turn the phone off, or accept no call from anyone other than family outside of your normal work hours.

The clients don't like it and think you sould be their AV servant, just let it be tough shit.

I've had them all. Call them back the next day, or even a few hours later, and they start ranting, I just let them run on, and when they finally stop, I ask "Are you done now?".

It's fun to fire a client ad have them come back begging when they find out no one will put up with certain things.....

After working for the same company for over 15 years they wanted me to sign a non-compete.

I laughed,slid it back across the desk,and went back to work.

I worked there for another 7 years until We decided to move to Oregon!

Well,somebody has to be there!

Supposedly,if it doesn't kill you,it will make you stronger.

You wouldn't have to move very far south to enter the "real world".

Or west for that matter.