Phone call on Monday: Our new house is going to be dry walled on Wednesday can you come out on Tuesday and wire all the rooms for speakers?

Or

They just finished dry walling our new home and we want you to come out and install speakers and wiring.

Or

First the 30k quote was too much, then the 15k quote was too much, then the 5k quote was too much. Then he has the balls to ask me why I don't carry $50.00 speakers.

At least I know why I drink.

When trying to explain to a customer why he should have US install his HD satellite system, whole house audio, door-fon, etc, as opposed to the flunkies from Dish Net/SBC because they could save him $5/month.

"Not to discount what you do, but it's all just wires isnt it?"

Yes sir, wires that will be strewn across the FRONT of your house, DIAGONALLY!

"I can get those exact same speakers for $75 from a buddies store and they sound just as good."

Heard this one last week. It is one of my favorite, becasue we all know how we make 500% markups on all of our gear right, infact we just take paper plates and hook them up to thier wives vibrator for speakers.

d cells for the subwoofer right

Had a customer call us after she hit the all off button on her Vantage keypad and the whole neighborhood went dark. She wanted us to come back right away and program the button only to turn off the lights at her house.

Trying not to laugh and telling her that it was a power outage was very difficult to say the least.

I've got five 48" 4 bulb flourescent fixtures(flush ceiling mount) plus a twin tube(surface mount) fixture over my bench in my garage!

Does that mean I have a 5.1 system? ;-)

A Dobly Digital lighting system.....

But.....Is it THX certified?

I like the Bose one but the Vantage one is the best so far.

the more customers like this, the better!
We must be able to control anything!

Guess this answers my questions on Vanatge vs HAI.

Looks like its Vanatge hands down it it can control the whole f****in neighborhood!

"What time tomorrow morning can you be out to set up my system?" (why wait till tomorrow, let me just jump into my time machine and I'll be out yesterday)

"I did most of the connections so it shouldn't take you too long. I'm sure it should take a guy like you only about 30 minutes."

"Do you sell wireless surround speakers?"

"Are you busy?"

"The Cable (or satellite) guy just left and I'm not getting a picture"

"can you beat this price from the internet because I really want to give you the business" (yeah, even the average "non profit" organization works at a 30% margin)

"can you fix the blinking 12:00 on my VCR?" (yes, that's the only reason why we stock black electrical tape)

"do you moonlight?"


over the phone troubleshoots..

Installer: Is the volume turned down?

homeowner: Yes, of course, just tell me what to do next.

Installer: Ok, find "tape 2" and press it......

homeowner: tuner... cd.... tape t... boooommmm.


10:30pm saturday night:

homeowner: We are trying to play a VCR, what button do I push?

Installer: Are you bleeding? Because if you are, you called the wrong number.

Did a retro on "MY" bosses LA house (Crestron, Vantage & Knox).
Had just finished programming and was going over control with the care takers wife.
Had the music going and the whole house lit up.
I told her.
"Now push the large red button that says off and the kitchen will go dark over 5 seconds".
I watched her press the button, the lights dim and then everything goes off. Lights music everything. Oh crap! Boss is standing there, everyone is looking at me, what the hell did I do.
It took me severeal (long) minutes to notice that the whole area was dark.
Happens to us too.

"I am sure it will. I'll be glad to get started. By the way, did you also want it hooked up?"


Well, I truly AM a smartass, and I have told customers that if they call an installer and that installer is not busy, it is because they are not in demand, and that is because they are not any good.




This started for me in 1971. The only difference is that it used to be TAPE MON or TAPE 1.

There are still a few products coming out where rotating the volume control does not cancel MUTE, so occasionally you have that problem with MUTE, too.

This message was edited by Ernie Bornn-Gilman on 06/26/05 13:43 ET.

I was troubleshooting a particularly cantankerous Audio Access system in a New York apartment, and had just solved the last problem. Everything was working. I turned off the system with a press and hold in the living room, went to get the customer to show her it was all fixed, and went to press ON - nothing! Start really losing my mind, because I had already used all the tricks in my magic bag to get this working again. It's the middle of the day, so there weren't any lights on anyway. No real hints that the great North Eastern Blackout of 2003 had just started... Finally figured it out, and realized that we had to pack up all of our tools and lug them down 28 flights of stairs, and try to get out of town with all of the bridges and tunnels closed... Twas a fun day, all around.

The good news was that the system worked when the power came back on...

Was at a friend's house where we had installed a small system including a Dish Network PVR. I asked them how the system was working. Everybody loved it, but his 16 yr old blond daughter. Her main complaint was that no matter what she did, she couldn't fast forward the pvr past Live!